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1 of 2 Mass. Bomb Suspects Dead; Suburbs Shut Down

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First As Tragedy, Then As Farce4/19/2013 8:10:00 am PDT

re: #30 Dr Lizardo

Personally, I would like to know was this just a Leopold and Lobe sort of thing, a thrill-kill, or was this some kind of half-baked attempt at “jihad”?

If the latter, I want to know where they radicalized and by whom.

I kinda wonder the same thing:

Richard Engel on MSNBC was saying just a moment ago that “intelligence officials” are talking about the Tsarnaeva brothers in the context of the Islamic Jihad Union, which is described by Engel — and, presumably, his sources — as “an al Qaeda affiliated organization.” At least, Engel says, his sources are starting to “look in that direction.” I have no doubt that the latter is true. On a morning like this one, it’s the job of intelligence officials to look in many directions. But, for the moment, and from a distance, I will tell you what this looks as much to me as it does to anything else.

It looks like Columbine.

It may be Columbine with a thin overlay of politics. It may be Columbine with Jihadist YouTube videos instead of rambling diaries. It may be Columbine extended over a greater geographical area. But, for the moment, it looks like a couple of young people who went completely off the twig and decided to kill a lot of people. I’m wary of speculating that they simply came under the spell of some YouTube mullah. I also am wary of believing the staggering amount of information dandelion fluff floating through the air from within various intelligence communities. (CNN just reported the speculations of a “senior official” in Kyrgyzstan about the passports of the two brothers.) Right now, all I’m willing to say is that a couple of deadly misfits went on a crime spree for reasons, likely, known only to them. Right now, it’s not an act of war. Right now, it’s a multiple murder.