Two explosions at Boston marathon finish line

[stickdog99]

Terrorists? Mass murderers? Pawns? Patsies?

I'm not sure how much the real story about the perps really matters in this case. Regardless of how purposefully the crimes were conceived, the "strategy of tension" is obviously now in full play.

[FourthBase]

no. take it. find out for yourself if there's anything shady. don't assume. anything that absolutely needs to get out could go anonymously.

anyway, its much easier to get a job if you HAVE a job.

Ha!

You'd want me to sign a confidentiality agreement that would legally bind me never to reveal anything I may ever see in the course of working as a grunt in the office of Ropes & Gray, which might include anything from insider trading to Romney's bank statements to only God or Satan knows what? And then violate that agreement by leaking documents, which would then subject me to the wrath of some of the most powerful people in the country if not world, people who take contracts and oaths very, very, very seriously? All this while constantly suppressing every hour of every business day the urge to vomit, cry, and/or scream because I am a severe acrophobe and working at the top floor of the city's highest most-bullseye-ish building is literally my worst recurring nightmare? No thanks, lol. Too late, thankfully. I couldn't open the door to leave the house that Monday morning. (And what really weighed on my mind was the next Monday, I was mock-writing my will in my head, visualizing my funeral. I shit thee not.) Literally just stood there, in business-casual, backpack on, paralyzed. Until I had passed the point at which I could've made the train in time. Then I called and turned it down, the job at the company R&G hires to do gruntwork. Never, ever, ever been more relieved in my life, than when I hit "End" on my phone. Until the next Monday, happily unemployed, watching television.

[82_28]

A warning that you even as Bostonians can be fucked with. Here's the part I don't care for: "even as Bostonians".

This shit doesn't begin and end psychologically with Boston. It begins and ends with all of us and always has. There is no pride to be taken in any of this, Boston or not. It's still fucking bullshit.

[FourthBase]

A warning that you even as Bostonians can be fucked with. Here's the part I don't care for: "even as Bostonians".

This shit doesn't begin and end psychologically with Boston. It begins and ends with all of us and always has. There is no pride to be taken in any of this, Boston or not. It's still fucking bullshit.

Just for the sake of accuracy, no braggadocio intended...

Actually, no. It did literally begin with Boston. American history, that is. Political resistance.

[justdrew]

no. take it. find out for yourself if there's anything shady. don't assume. anything that absolutely needs to get out could go anonymously.

anyway, its much easier to get a job if you HAVE a job.

Ha!

You'd want me to sign a confidentiality agreement that would legally bind me never to reveal anything I may ever see in the course of working as a grunt in the office of Ropes & Gray, which might include anything from insider trading to Romney's bank statements to only God or Satan knows what? And then violate that agreement by leaking documents, which would then subject me to the wrath of some of the most powerful people in the country if not world, people who take contracts and oaths very, very, very seriously? All this while constantly suppressing every hour of every business day the urge to vomit, cry, and/or scream because I am a severe acrophobe and working at the top floor of the city's highest most-bullseye-ish building is literally my worst recurring nightmare? No thanks, lol. Too late, thankfully. I couldn't open the door to leave the house that Monday morning. (And what really weighed on my mind was the next Monday, I was mock-writing my will in my head, visualizing my funeral. I shit thee not.) Literally just stood there, in business-casual, backpack on, paralyzed. Until I had passed the point at which I could've made the train in time. Then I called and turned it down, the job at the company R&G hires to do gruntwork. Never, ever, ever been more relieved in my life, than when I hit "End" on my phone. Until the next Monday, happily unemployed, watching television.

a confidentiality agreement cant prevent anyone from reporting crimes.

but yeah, I see what you mean, best to follow the instincts in this I guess

[justdrew]

A warning that you even as Bostonians can be fucked with. Here's the part I don't care for: "even as Bostonians".

This shit doesn't begin and end psychologically with Boston. It begins and ends with all of us and always has. There is no pride to be taken in any of this, Boston or not. It's still fucking bullshit.

Just for the sake of accuracy, no braggadocio intended...

Actually, no. It did literally begin with Boston. American history, that is. Political resistance.

well, Boston and the NE generally aren't perfect, where/who is? but they've got a lot more to be proud of than certain other parts of the country (that shall remain nameless) which constantly go on and on and on about their mighty big ol' "pride" (though I'm not quite sure of what exactly it's supposed to be based on).

[compared2what?]

Is it not a bit ironic that April 19 marks the beginning of the Revolutionary War, the Battles of Lexington and Concord? A war for our freedom and liberty. And today, April 19, in the same state, citizens on lockdown in fear of one 19-yr old with a pipe bomb and a gun? An entire city shuts down? Citizens turning over phones and cameras to aid in the capture of this 19-yr old "terrorist."? Extrajudicial punishments? Indefinite detentions? No Miranda rights? No right to a jury trial? No due process?

A sad day, indeed.

The "no Miranda rights" part is sad. But that was the same old normal we already had, not anything new.

He was one teenager with a proven disposition for blowing people up indiscriminately in crowded public places, without regard to whether they stood for something he opposed or were only eight years old.

That wasn't martial law. There wouldn't have been any FBI if it had been. It was shelter in place, Which is, by definition, short-lived and reserved for emergencies that represent a threat to the public.

They apprehended the suspects five days after the crime without hurting any bystanders, or adding a single civilian to the body count, or (afaik) impinging on anyone's legal rights beyond the status quo ante.

You never know. But that's not going to prompt a national outcry for more protection, harsher laws, or greater restrictions of liberty, in all likelihood. And it's not like that's what happens, inevitably, every single time something like this happens. (Oklahoma City.) So I'm not sure I really get why your thoughts are so firmly headed in that direction.

[stillrobertpaulsen]

Chechen Terrorists and the Neocons
April 19, 2013
The revelation that the family of the two suspects in the Boston Marathon bombings was from Chechnya prompted new speculation about the attack as Islamic terrorism. Less discussed was the history of U.S. neocons supporting Chechen terrorists as a strategy to weaken Russia, as ex-FBI agent Coleen Rowley recalls.


By Coleen Rowley

I almost choked on my coffee listening to neoconservative Rudy Giuliani pompously claim on national TV that he was surprised about any Chechens being responsible for the Boston Marathon bombings because he’s never seen any indication that Chechen extremists harbored animosity toward the U.S.; Guiliani thought they were only focused on Russia.

Giuliani knows full well how the Chechen “terrorists” proved useful to the U.S. in keeping pressure on the Russians, much as the Afghan mujahedeen were used in the anti-Soviet war in Afghanistan from 1980 to 1989. In fact, many neocons signed up as Chechnya’s “friends,” including former CIA Director James Woolsey.


Former New York Mayor Rudy Giuliani.
For instance, see this 2004 article in the UK Guardian, entitled, “The Chechens’ American friends: The Washington neocons’ commitment to the war on terror evaporates in Chechnya, whose cause they have made their own.”

Author John Laughland wrote: “the leading group which pleads the Chechen cause is the American Committee for Peace in Chechnya (ACPC). The list of the self-styled ‘distinguished Americans’ who are its members is a roll call of the most prominent neoconservatives who so enthusiastically support the ‘war on terror.’

“They include Richard Perle, the notorious Pentagon adviser; Elliott Abrams of Iran-Contra fame; Kenneth Adelman, the former US ambassador to the UN who egged on the invasion of Iraq by predicting it would be ‘a cakewalk’; Midge Decter, biographer of Donald Rumsfeld and a director of the rightwing Heritage Foundation; Frank Gaffney of the militarist Centre for Security Policy; Bruce Jackson, former US military intelligence officer and one-time vice-president of Lockheed Martin, now president of the US Committee on Nato; Michael Ledeen of the American Enterprise Institute, a former admirer of Italian fascism and now a leading proponent of regime change in Iran; and R. James Woolsey, the former CIA director who is one of the leading cheerleaders behind George Bush’s plans to re-model the Muslim world along pro-US lines.”

The ACPC later sanitized “Chechnya” to “Caucasus” so it’s rebranded itself as the “American Committee for Peace in the Caucasus.”

Of course, Giuliani also just happens to be one of several neocons and corrupt politicians who took hundreds of thousands of dollars from MEK sources when that Iranian group was listed by the U.S. State Department as a Foreign Terrorist Organization (FTO). The money paid for these American politicians to lobby (illegally under the Patriot Act) U.S. officials to get MEK off the FTO list.

Down the Rabbit Hole

Alice in Wonderland is an understatement if you understand the full reality of what’s going on. But if you can handle going down the rabbit hole even further, check out prominent former New York Times journalist (and author of The Commission book) Phil Shenon’s discovery of the incredible “Terrible Missed Chance” a couple of years ago.

Shenon’s discovery involved key information that the FBI and the entire “intelligence” community mishandled and covered up, not only before 9/11 but for a decade afterward. And it also related to the exact point of my 2002 “whistleblower memo” that led to the post 9/11 DOJ-Inspector General investigation about FBI failures and also partially helped launch the 9/11 Commission investigation.

But still the full truth did not come out, even after Shenon’s blockbuster discovery in 2011 of the April 2001 memo linking the main Chechen leader Ibn al Khattab to Osama bin Laden. The buried April 2001 memo had been addressed to FBI Director Louis Freeh (another illegal recipient of MEK money, by the way!) and also to eight of the FBI’s top counter-terrorism officials.

Similar memos must have been widely shared with all U.S. intelligence in April 2001. Within days of terrorist suspect Zaccarias Moussaoui’s arrest in Minnesota on Aug. 16, 2001, French intelligence confirmed that Moussaoui had been fighting under and recruiting for Ibn al-Khattab, raising concerns about Moussaoui’s flight training.

Yet FBI Headquarters officials balked at allowing a search of his laptop and other property, still refusing to recognize that: 1) the Chechen separatists were themselves a “terrorist group” for purposes of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act’s (FISA) legal requirement of acting “on behalf of a foreign power” and 2) that Moussaoui’s link to Ibn al Khattab inherently then linked him to bin Laden’s well-recognized Al Qaeda group for purposes of FISA (the point in my memo).

This all occurred during the same time that CIA Director George Tenet and other counter-terrorism officials — and don’t forget that Tenet was apprised of the information about Moussaoui’s arrest around Aug. 24, 2001 — told us their “hair was on fire” over the prospect of a major terrorist attack and “the system was blinking red.”

The post 9/11 investigations launched as a result of my 2002 “whistleblower memo” did conclude that a major mistake, which could have prevented or reduced 9/11, was the lack of recognition of al Khattab’s Chechen fighters as a “terrorist group” for purposes of FISA.

As far as I know, the several top FBI officials, who were the named recipients of the April 2001 intelligence memo entitled “Bin Laden/Ibn Khattab Threat Reporting” establishing how the two leaders were “heavily entwined,” brushed it off by mostly denying they had read the April 2001 memo (which explains why the memo had to be covered up as they attempted to cover up other embarrassing info).

There are other theories, of course, as to why U.S. officials could not understand or grasp this “terrorist link.” These involve the U.S.’s constant operating of “friendly terrorists,” perhaps even al Khattab himself (and/or those around him), on and off, opportunistically, for periods of time to go against “enemy” nations, i.e., the Soviet Union, and regimes we don’t’ like.

Shifting Lines

But officials can get confused when their former covert “assets” turn into enemies themselves. That’s what has happened with al-Qaeda-linked jihadists in Libya and Syria, fighters who the U.S. government favored in their efforts to topple the Qaddafi and Assad regimes, respectively. These extremists are prone to turn against their American arms suppliers and handlers once the common enemy is defeated.

The same MO exists with the U.S. and Israel currently collaborating with the Iranian MEK terrorists who have committed assassinations inside Iran. The U.S. government has recently shifted the MEK terrorists from the ranks of “bad” to “good” terrorists as part of a broader campaign to undermine the Iranian government. For details, see “Our (New) Terrorists, the MEK: Have We Seen This Movie Before?”

Giuliani and his ilk engage, behind the scenes, in all these insidious operations but then blithely turn to the cameras to spew their hypocritical propaganda fueling the counterproductive “war on terror” for public consumption, when that serves their interests. Maybe this explains Giuliani’s amazement (or feigned ignorance) on Friday morning after the discovery that the family of the alleged Boston Marathon bombers was from Chechnya.

My observations are not meant to be a direct comment about the motivations of the two Boston bombing suspects whose thinking remains unclear. It’s still very premature and counterproductive to speculate on their motives.

But the lies and disinformation that go into the confusing and ever-morphing notion of “terrorism” result from the U.S. Military Industrial Complex (and its little brother, the “National Security Surveillance Complex”) and their need to control the mainstream media’s framing of the story.

So, a simplistic narrative/myth is put forth to sustain U.S. wars. From time to time, those details need to be reworked and some of the facts “forgotten” to maintain the storyline about bad terrorists “who hate the U.S.” when, in reality, the U.S. Government may have nurtured the same forces as “freedom fighters” against various “enemies.”

The bottom line is to never forget that “a poor man’s war is terrorism while a rich man’s terrorism is war” – and sometimes those lines cross for the purposes of big-power politics. War and terrorism seem to work in sync that way.

Ah, seemslikeadream, feels like old times again! You saw my Sibel Edmonds and you raised me with Coleen Rowley! I kept looking over what was said about NGOs like ATC and AACC being used as sub-contractors to bankroll Gladio B ops thinking, "Isn't there a Chechen version of this?" Of course, the ACPC! And what a Mickey Mouse Club roll call! Perle! Abrams! Decter! Woolsey! And the darkest Gladio operative of them all, "Universal Fascist" Michael Ledeen.

I swear, this is starting to smell like the first WTC bombing, complete with FBI "control" of the bombers. Nice to have some genuine FBI Americans like Edmonds and Rowley providing perspective.

[stickdog99]

As long as the only casualty is the Constitution, I say we all need to give a hearty round of the applause to the police state!

[Nordic]

Wow. Full blown retard on this thread.

I feel like i'm back in high school.

"this is MY city! Mine! It's better than your city!"

And

"we staff our own government".

Am I really reading this kind of juvenile pap at RI?

Sure let's throw away the 4th amendment because we're scared.

Pussies, every ladt one of you fucking cowards who feels that way.

What a sickening few days it's been. Not because of the bombings which were sickening in their own way, but because of americans acting like a bunch of hypocritical high schoolers and bloodthirsty gullible lynch mobs. And why would anyone with half a brain be proud of their own provincialism?

Astounding. One little bombing, something our country dishes out every fucking day of the week -- only hell, lets face it, had we perpetuated this attack in, say, a wedding party in Afghanistan nobody would have given the slightest fuck at all.

America -- they can dish it out but they sure can't take it.

MY city! MINE!

[justdrew]

[compared2what?]

As long as the only casualty is the Constitution, I say we all need to give a hearty round of the applause to the police state!

But the Constitution wasn't and hasn't been affected by it, one way or the other. It's exactly where, how and what it was on April 14.

It's not a police state unless the police are running it in some way that goes beyond doing police work. And I wasn't applauding them. I was pointing out that there's no reason to expect an imminent expansion of the crackdown on liberties.

Corporate profits usually have to be at risk before that happens. For one thing. Markets were barely affected by this.

[compared2what?]

Sure let's throw away the 4th amendment because we're scared.

What part of the fourth amendment got newly thrown away? Or is in danger of being?

Pussies, every ladt one of you fucking cowards who feels that way.

What way? I don't have any political objections to people voluntarily allowing cops into their houses when they reasonably believe it's in their interests. Do you?

One little bombing, something our country dishes out every fucking day of the week -- only hell, lets face it, had we perpetuated this attack in, say, a wedding party in Afghanistan nobody would have given the slightest fuck at all.

America -- they can dish it out but they sure can't take it.

I agree with you on that one.

[Nordic]

As long as the only casualty is the Constitution, I say we all need to give a hearty round of the applause to the police state!

Exactly.


http://m.local10.com/news/Watertown-man ... index.html

PEMBROKE PARK, Fla. -
A man living in Watertown, Mass., described having police officers search his apartment as they looked for one of the Boston Marathon bombing suspects.

"It started around midnight last night with hearing gun shots and explosions," Jim Bonasoro told Local 10's Christina Vazquez. "It's sort of one of those things where you see it on TV and then all of a sudden you hear it outside. It's totally crazy."

Bonasoro said when he and his fiancé woke up Friday morning, their neighborhood looked like a war zone.

"There's police, state police, military everywhere. There's a Black Hawk helicopter in the sky," he said.

The neighborhood was locked down as authorities searched for Dzhokar Tsarnaev, who escaped an overnight shootout in Watertown with police that left his brother Tamerlan Tsarnaev -- the other man wanted in the bombings -- dead.

"I was hoping we had enough food and there was enough beer in the fridge," said Bonasoro.

Bonasoro said two state police officers donning full tactical gear later searched his home.

"I went to my back door where they were coming up the steps. They had entered through the basement, through the side door, which was actually unlocked," he said. "They had their guns drawn, asked if anyone else was home. I opened the door, they made me put up my hands, asked me a couple of questions, cleared the house, and just moved on. They were professional but it did scare me and my fiancé."

My stepdaughtet was caught in one of these a few nights ago. The police locked down an entire neighborhood quite close to us where she was visiting a friend. She was stuck there all night. We could not reach her and she was not allowed to leave the building she was in. If she had tried to leave who knows what would have happened? There were cops and SWAT all around her, looking for one particular jewelry store thief who hadn't even hurt anyone. But that's ok because the LAPD are above the law and have our safety as their priority, right? Who cares about the Constitution when those shining knights in blue are protecting uf from evildoers?

And its especially ok because lets face it -- LA is just a little bit better than your shitty city!

[stefano]

7-Eleven robbery not related to Boston bombing suspects

Margaret Chabris, the director of corporate communication at 7- Eleven, says the surveillance video of the crime was not taken at a 7-Eleven and that the suspect that did rob the 7-Eleven does not look like Tamerlan or Dzhokhar Tsarnaev.

"The suspect in the photos for that particular 7-Eleven robbery looks nothing like the suspects," Chabris says. "The police or someone made a mistake. Someone was confused."

The suspects were at the 7-Eleven around the time of the robbery but they did not rob the store said, State Police Superintendent Timothy Alban at an evening press conference on Friday.