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Police Capture Second Marathon Bombing Suspect in Watertown, Mass.
Police have captured believed Boston Marathon bomber Dzhokhar Tsarnaev, who was "pinned down" in a boat stored behind a house in Watertown, Massachusetts. You can listen to the live police feed here.
Nothing "paranoid Mulsim conspiracy nut" about the father's response he is still in the denial phase that a parent would be when they learn their child has done something really, really bad.
The "lockdown" of Boston is a bit disturbing. But, rest assured the LAPD would have burned the boat to the ground. Boston PD seems to be a bit more professional and restrained.
Let's remember, folks, that until we see actual evidence and he's tried, that he's a *suspect.* I'm all for the consequences if he is proven to be the perpetrator, but let's not all jump on the finger-pointing-based-conviction bandwagon.
Yeah - cause shooting at cops always proves how innocent you are.
Caught because someone noticed something strange in the backyard and called it in.
Like many other problems, ordinary folks pitching in to help in an appropriate way can sure help to fix things.
Gee I don't know maybe the VIDEOS OF THEM PLANTING THE BOMBS? Or maybe them SHOOTING AND THROWING EXPLOSIVES AT COPS?
Is it safe to go out now?
Of course not. 4chan might decide you're dark skinned and subject you to their full sanction - circling someone who kinda looks like you on a picture. I believe that's called "vigilantism" and we are sorely afraid of it.
Correct me if I'm wrong, but based on the actual information we have (as given by the news media to date), this "monster" may be involved to the degree of anywhere between "mastermind of terrorist bombing operation, detonated the bombs, shot various innocent people in the process" to "forced by actual terrorist brother to hang around him for the time period in question".
I'd like a little more detail (that is, any) as to specific charges and evidence before making such a characterization.
Exactly. Shooting a cop, running, throwing bombs out windows, more shootouts, are all things that innocent people do.
Clearly, calling up the BPD and saying "hey we are the guys in the pictures and we didn't do it! lets talk!" would be crazy
I guess the DOJ is trying to put lipstick on a pig.
Drop him off in Baghdad, where 27 people were blown up yesterday.
Or, maybe, apply the same rules that we've deemed fair for you and me, and not stoop to the level of being torture terrorists ourselves.
Perhaps not innocent, that doesn't mean he is the right guy.
Proper trials are not only there to make sure that innocent people doesn't get punished. If a rapist gets convicted of murder that means that the murderer goes free.
"Beyond reasonable doubt" isn't only there to protect innocents, it also makes sure that cases doesn't get closed until we know that we've got the right guy.
Maybe I am not current and entirely out of line, but with all the locking-down and searching-of-houses happening: what happened to the constitutional rights re: search and seizure? Suspending them for an entire town and effectively rendering it into a war zone with suspended rights to apprehend one guy how killed two people seems a little... ah... third world?
Oh, I guess I didn't get the Slashdot memo...so torture and no due process is now okay?
Just checking: are drone strikes, domestic spying, overzealous prosecution, and all the other things we usually rant about, still bad?
Please help metamoderate.
And it still took them 4 days to find two guys. Imagine trying to solve the murder of an 18 year old gangbanger whose killer is identified as a dark skinned male from 15-25, 5'10" medium build? And nobody in the neighborhood ain't seen shit. Police work is hard.
Iraq wanted us out, so it's their fucking problem now.
You say "Iraq" like it's one thing with a unified want... I think you might be mistaken about that.
Fuck religion, period. Christianity over time has had similar consequences. It's not a surprise that they are literally in the same family is nutty belief systems...
Fuck religion and everything that comes with it: horrific acts world-wide, subjugation of women in everywhere, and persecution of anyone who dares to speak against it.
Fixed that for you.
Unfortunately for your argument this darkskin person they sanctioned in fact had several bombs in their vehicle which they threw at police vehicles.
A lie can run round the world before the truth can get its boots on. Unfortunately, for your argument.
The "darkskin", as you like to put it - the one whose picture appeared in Rupert Murdoch's newspaper - is the innocent one. People rushed to judgement.
The guys who were throwing bombs and firing off guns right and left were pasty-pale people.
CBS reported that few years back Russians warned FBI about older brother being radicalized. So FBI asked him, he said "nope", they said "ok" and let him go. And they totally forgot about it - he wasn't on the list of suspects... That's "cooperation" alright...
Maybe you would have been happier about 60 years ago in a time when they could lock you away because your neighbor said you might be a communist. The world was a much safer place back then with all those commies being locked away without a trial.
Does a non-anonymous European work better? Here's one.
The US have a great history of meddling with something, noticing that they bit of more than they could chew, then run away from the problem and leave others to pick up the debris. Actually amazing that you didn't fuck up after WW2, that was pretty much the last time when you decided to stick with it and take responsibility.
Yes, Saddam sure wasn't a nice guy (ok, he was a buddy back when he attacked Iran that decided to turn from buddy to Teh Evil practically over night and all those shiny F14s you sent there were now in the hands of those Islamists, but when he dared to attack someone other than what you wanted him to, he turned from buddy to Teh Evil over night). But at least the effin' country was STABLE. It was near impossible for some Islamist to establish a base of power there. Now, you managed to make it easy for them.
Good intentions being the pavement to the road to hell, ever heard that one? Guess it would be adapted as the US foreign policy motto.
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
You think so? The US administration has by now gotten close enough to totalitarian that they would probably do the same everywhere. Next time with even less of a reason.
Most ACs are not even worth the keystrokes to insult them. Be generically insulted by this and ignored otherwise.
We've had enough of this ignoring the Constitution lately. Why don't we try using it for a change.
I think everyone involved did their best. The Russian gov isn't exactly trustworthy either, and without real evidence of prior harm from Tsarnaev it was Russia's word against his. Plus we would've screamed "thoughtcrime arrest!" if we heard the FBI just up and jailed the guy before he actually conspired to do things.
In any case, the younger's last-stand spot gives "going overboard" a different meaning...
You can hold down the "B" button for continuous firing.
You have seen them? Where could I get a view of them? All I have seen is a few videos of some guys with backpacks running about that were presented to me by the cops, telling me "this is the guys we're looking for". About the shooting and throwing explosives at cops, again, do you have a source? All I have is cops telling me he shot at them and threw explosives.
Audi alteram partem, anyone?
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
TV stations made mistakes in the past and people got to watch a guy blow his head off with a shotgun. They don't do "live" anymore. There's always a few minutes delay so they can cut in time.
A fool throws a stone into a well and a thousand sages can not remove it.
Americans hold the people of every other country to be responsible for their politicians. Why shouldn't America be held to the same standard?
I'm guessing that wasn't on their radar screen...
We do have history of mucking about in things we should have kept our hands off of. Two of your points seem to be lacking in historical depth.
1. We do try to clean up the messes we make. Our ~10 year wars are often a smidgen of fighting and quite a lot of country building.
2. Saddam was keeping the peace the way Darth Vader would, by simply crushing every bit of opposition. And yes, when generations of people are raised to vote only with bullets it's a mess when the Iron Grip disappears. They aren't all ready to join hands and form an new Galactic Senate. And yes, for a time it will be an easier place to be a terrorist. But as for the "good intentions paving the road" bit, no. Ask a Kurd if they thought things were better under Saddam. Better still, go back in time and ask the millions of people he had tortured, starved or otherwise killed.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Human_rights_in_Saddam_Hussein's_Iraq
He was a monster, who needed to be put down. That we made more of a mess than necessary in the process is arguable, that those people were better off with him in place is not.
"Not a nice guy" is what you say about your sister's boyfriend who yells at her and treats her badly. Saddam was a sadistic tyranical purveyor of genocide.
Millions long for immortality who do not know what to do with themselves on a rainy Sunday afternoon. -- Susan Ertz
Considering my family was stuck in some Soviet-occupied area for quite a while after the war and you didn't lift a finger to change anything about that, well, thank you. Apologies if it doesn't really sound too sincere.
When comparing Communism and Capitalism, I gotta say, the difference ain't that great, though. Does it matter whether you can't buy anything 'cause it's not available or whether you cannot afford it? Does it matter whether you can't go anywhere because you must not leave or because you cannot afford to leave? Does it matter whether you have no choice of your leader because there is no choice or because there isn't any real difference between them? The main difference was that at least you could speak your mind, but we're working on reverting that.
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
Yeah, because Europe is so freaking great... in my experience, every western country is more or less the same plus or minus some particular group of assholes. You gain some things and lose some things depending on where you go, but there is no country that is really doing that awesome right now.
We saved your whiny euro asses and all we get back is your bitching and moaning, and this right after we suffered a lunatic bomb attack.
Clean up, you say? You know why Africa and Middle East is the mess it still is today? Spectacular achievement of you dumbass Euro clowns. Go clean THAT up, dumbass.
Fuck systemd. Fuck Redhat. Fuck Soylent, too. Wait, scratch the last one.
Did I say "you deserve it"? Far from it. Nobody "deserves" being bombed. That includes people outside the US, too, though.
How long does it take to bury 4 Americans? Longer than it takes to bury 110,000 Iraqi?
Ok, I guess I shouldn't compare. Every single person dying pointlessly from violence is one too many, but it kinda puzzles me how the death of four Americans causes more global mourning and distress than the death of thousands somewhere else. What makes Americans more "valuable" and their violent deaths more noteworthy than pointlessly killed Iraqis, Somalis or, hell, anyone else?
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
Sorry, but in every way that counts, your country has stopped being "great" a long time ago.
So, would you prefer your change in Dollars, or (non-German) Euros?
Would you prefer your NATO liberators arrive in F-14s or Yugos?
Would you prefer your judge US Republican or French (I won't even bother comparing against any Sharia country)?
Would you prefer your fries supersized, or rationed?
Would you prefer your burger Angus or Clydesdale?
Take your pick. The US has its flaws, and I rarely defend it, but the rest of the world looks like it has gone to hell even faster than we have.
Yes. Yes it does matter, on all those fronts. You might as well ask "does it matter if you can't leave your apartment because you've got agoraphobia or because you are Jaycee Lee Dugard and some twisted bastard is keeping you in the shed out back." Either way, you can't leave, so what difference does it make?
And you are much more likely to be in the "can't afford it" category living under communism, so it isn't like that's an either/or situation anyway.
I do agree with your punchline though... freedoms have to be protected continuously, or you lose them.
There is literally not a single part of Christianity that is violent.
Jesus beat the shit out of the moneychangers in the temple.
But really, you've fallen victim to the "no true scotsman" fallacy. Anyone who commits violence in the name of christianity isn't a christian. In my experience, the people who are willing to apply that standard to christianity aren't willing to apply that standard to any other religions.
When information is power, privacy is freedom.
As a red blooded American let me say, FUCK YOU.
You're an ass. What we did in WWII we did for ourselves. Don't you think for a fucking minute that the "Europeans" owe us a god damned thing because the American sacrifice in WWI and WWII barely pays them back for the French support during the revolutionary war. Millions of French starved and the country went bankrupt because they supported our revolution, again for purely self interested reasons, just like our own reasons during WWII.
Don't get me wrong, the asshole you're replying to is just as big of an ass. Almost every single problem area or hot spot with atrocities going on in the world today is almost directly at the feet of European meddling. From India, Pakistan and Afghanistan having bullshit borders drawn by some British general, to the creation of Israel to the havoc colonialism has wrecked on Africa. Almost every single problem in the "old" world can be traced to bullshit Europeans caused.
Sure the US has it's problems and Bush's meddling and in particular the Iraq war deserve the ridicule they often receive. But no nation in this world has clean hands with regards world relations. Even those Scandinavian countries that have done the least meddling deserve blame for standing silent while their European neighbors raped half the worlds populace.
Americans and Europeans have both fucked up at various times. Rather than confrontational bullshit about claiming one is better than the other why don't we focus on what we both agree on instead of letting our minor (and they are very minor) fucking differences dominate the conversation. We can both help each other be better but not if you jackasses keep pretending one of us is better than the other because it ain't fucking true.
Love that.
Blame the US for removing dictatorship. Blame the US for not removing a dictatorship.
Here's a clue, fella. Decent people think removing a dictator is a good thing, but don't bitch at people who won't do it for them.
Iraq never invited us "in". We created the "fucking problem" in the first place. They had excellent reason to want us out. Occupation is never a long term solution.
What makes Americans more "valuable" and their violent deaths more noteworthy than pointlessly killed Iraqis, Somalis or, hell, anyone else?
At what point in your TV watching habits did you come to this conclusion? You do understand that news agencies and massive corporate news sites based out of the US will report more about US related news regardless of what version of their website/tv programs you're watching. So I'll take it that whatever country you're in they don't report as much about iraqi deaths? Have you considered that maybe a death related to terrorism in the most powerfull country on this planet might have repercussions accross the globe in terms of that nation's forieng policy? It has nothing to do with what individuals are more important. It has everything to do with what country is preceived as a leading power in the world. All of Iraq could be destroyed and the world will keep moving along. If all of Europe or all of the US was destroyed what do you think would happen to the rest of the world? I hate to rain on your, "the US is evil because we think we're better than everyone else" parade....but there are simple realities in this world. Decisions made by those in power impact everyone. A death in the US impacts the reasons why those in power in the US make decisions more than a death in Iraq would for obvious "der" level reasons.
So try and not to hate us so much...3 deaths are not more important than any other 3 deaths. The difference is 3 deaths in a powerfull country impact the entire world. If you hate that then I guess we could let some other country make all our decisions for a while...or better yet just do away with our own goverment and let the UN rule us just so you feel better. The only solution to your discomfort is to destroy America and redistribute the power and wealth to the rest of the planet. (HI NSA!). Where guess what, some other country will find a way to get more power and more wealth than the rest and you'll have to hate them next. Welcome to humanity...how the fuck long did it take you to figure this out?
Decent people think overthrowing a democratically elected, pro-west government, installing a ruthless dictator and training his hit squads to murder his opponents purely because he's easier to control than a freely elected government is NOT a good thing. Too bad the US did exactly that back in 1953. How were those mental fucking midgets to know that it would turn the country against the US, who they'd then end up kicking the hell out so they could establish a religious theocracy that views westerners as evil, and fund what we in the west consider terrorist groups. I mean hell, that would have taken all of a couple brain cells to have that amount of foresight.
...and now you want a pat on the back for removing the second dictator we empowered. There's not enough derogatory obscenities to adequately qualify what should be the response to that.
Then again, if we empower some other ruthless dictator who hates the new religious theocracy that kicked our asses out after we fucked over their country, we can have him fight a proxy war. Too bad if he's a ruthless dictator killing people (just like the first one we empowered), he's our dictator.. again. Oh wait, he decides he doesn't need us anymore. Now you say we have to go kick his ass out, and we do it because we're "good" people.
Bull fucking shit.
Here's a clue, Rudy. They don't hate us because of our freedoms, they hate us because we've fucked them over every fucking chance we've gotten, and we're generally big fucking pricks. You want to blame someone.. blame the stupid motherfuckers who put those fucking dictators into power in the first place. Oh yeh, that's us in the US, isn't it.
Fascism: An authoritarian and nationalistic right-wing system of government and social organization. See also: NAZI's
Please ... the US had lots of European help in the screw-ups since WWII. Vietnam, for example, happened because the French wanted to take it back as a colony after the war -- that's what turned Ho Chi Minh against the West. The US's problem there was not telling the French in the 50's to get out. The elected government of Iran was overthrown by the US in the 50's at the behest of Britain and their oil company there (not to excuse the US's actions there, but our mistake was not telling the Brits to screw off at the time [or is it, 'bugger off'?]). More recently, it took the US to put an end to the active fighting in Bosnia in the 90's -- as I recall, the Dutch troops there just stood around while the Bosnian Muslims got massacred in Srebrenica before the US got involved. Those are just the major events I can think of right off. Wasn't there documented French cheating on the UN sanctions against Iraq under Saddam? I'm sure a lot more of the US mistakes around the world can be traced to cleaning up messes the Europeans started -- the whole screwed up map of the Middle East in the 20th century can be traced to European meddling there before and after WWII.
Psychopaths like the Tsarnaev brothers, the Columbine killers, the 9/11 terrorists, the Koch brothers, etc. are either total predators like Tamerlan or Eric, with a bizarre interest in family hierarchy, a fascination with determining who is and isn't related to you, a desire for stirring religious hatred, and no altruism, empathy, or moral center to be found; they can also have only one allele like Dzhohar ("Johar", whatever), who was maybe an asshole with a superiority complex, but was also quiet about it. He was easygoing enough to form relationships with individuals in both allelic subpopulations, normal and psycho. They'll hang out with you and your other unsuspecting friends, smoke weed with you once a week just like normal Americans, etc. etc., but they'll also carry pressure cookers full of nails into dense crowds of strangers for you if they feel strongly related to you somehow.
The uncle, Ruslan Tsarni, looks like he's carrying normal alleles at this locus. He announced to a mob of reporters that he thought his older nephew was up to no good. He said that his nephew Jahar was a loser for doing what he did, announced he should turn himself in, and ask for forgiveness from the wider population of Boston. He said the brothers "brought shame on their family and upon the entire Chechen ethnicity." It might run in his family, but I don't think the uncle is as interested in seeing people run into trouble just for not being related to him.
Hopefully we decide not to waste another decade. This is not the time to go off fuming about how everyone in Chechnya is carrying this psychotic gene. Everybody there would be dead. Comfort with inhibiting the reproduction of people unrelated to you runs in families all around the world. It occurs in legislatures everywhere. It preserves itself by making you cause problems for people who don't have it. But it has to self-regulate in any wider human population, Chechnya or Boston or wherever, or it goes extinct along with the rest of the genome in the region.
Hopefully we won't see this as an excuse to waste another decade with more political 9/11-style bullshit against one particular religion or another. This was in the end a story of two bungling religious-minded psychotics, with a "mastermind", a "pushover with no conscience", and a shared comfort with mass-murdering a dense unrelated-looking crowd in a city far from home.
While I agree with your sentiment I have a slightly different take. As you suggest there really isn't 'paying each other back' in international relations, but the US is a good ally to have, with capable armed forces and I will acknowledge that it is only because of US support that Western Europe did not end up if not occupied by the Soviets then certainly strongly within the Soviet sphere of influence. For that I am thankful to the US and the citizens who paid to keep us safe.
That said US foreign policy is generally speaking a disaster, and not just under Bush. Not because it is too interventionist, I don't subscribe to the Berkely school of 'everything the US ever does abroad is always wrong'. It is a disaster because they pretend to be engaged in realpolitik when they really aren't, or at least are doing it very wrong. Realpolitik in the US seems to mean propping us corporate interests and right wing governments at the expense of democracy and social freedoms. Every once in a while this works (South Korea for instance) because reasonable economic conditions result in an expanding middle class who then demand democracy and social freedoms. But usually what you get is some asshole dictator whose corrupt government squanders any and all gains from having economic freedom. At the same time the US gets the reputation of propping up yet another dictator or of trying to overthrow a nominal democracy.
Venezuela is a good example of the failures of this pollice. Chavez was an idiot and an arsehole. If the US hadn't made him seem under siege he would have been out of office by now. His policies were stupid and Venezuela, while not exactly a paragon of democracy, was democratic enough that it almost certainly would have replaced him. But the US had to strengthen his hand by supporting a coup that was never going to work.
Now this is not to say your point about Europe basically fucking up the entire world isn't a fair cop. Heck I'm British, the TV new could basically be renamed 'a list of places Britain fucked up in some way' and it wouldn't be misleading. And if it wasn't us it was the Belgians or the French or the Spanish or in a few cases the Germans. But while this is a fair cop the scale at which Europe is fucking up right now is generally speaking smaller, partly because we just don't have the resources to fuck up on a grand scale any more.
That said it isn't always easy, and sometimes people are going to accuse you of fucking up even when you do the right thing. Take Libya for instance. The US was instrumental in giving Libya a chance for freedom. In my opinion the US did the right thing there. They prevented what would have been termed 'the rape of Bengahzi' for a start. Even if we end up with a Jihadi state or some fascist dictator I still think the US did the right thing because international politics isn't easy. Same with the early stages of Vietnam before it became obvious the government in the South wasn't going to get it's act together and that the North would win.
When the US fights for economic and social freedom it is a force for good in the world, and it is doing the right thing, even if it doesn't succeed. The problem is that often the US isn't fighting for these things, especially when the CIA is involved. Often the US is fighting not for justice, freedom and democracy, but for corporate interests or out of fear of the latest bogeyman.
Basically what I'm saying is the US need to have more confidence in its ideals.
He was referring to the perception that Americans are viewed as more important than the rest of the world. The above stories are tragedies and you are correct they are very good reasons to hate America. They however were in war torn countries (by lovely us) and were not intentional. That does not absolve us of any wrong doing by any means.
There is however a very real difference between killing civilians in a war torn area and killing civilians intentionally and targeting them. If you don't know what that difference is then you need to have your head examined. It's horrible, and it all could have been avoided if the government in charge of that country apprehended the terrorists that attacked our nation. Iraq is another very long discussion.
I don't excuse the things my nation has done, but there are at times logically no other choice. I'm completely against both wars. There may have been other ways to get done what we needed to have done. However those actions would have also been completely illegal in the eyes of most nations. What is so shocking is somehow every nation has turned into an innocent child incapable of any evil wrong doing in the face of the US recent actions. The US is involved in the middle east for a ton of reasons from oil to WWII to the rise and fall of communism. They didn't get through the last century without both Europe's and the US's involvement and it's going to be another 100 years before we stop caring about the middle east. You don't like it? If you want to do something that might improve the area try local government reform (please note that doesn't mean completely destroy your country)...because they are the ones taking bribes from large corporations and they are the ones that allow their civilians to live the way they do under fear of some big bad outside force that somehow is responsible for everything that goes wrong on this planet.
Don't forget why those people are dying, and accept the fact that when you're not in charge of the entire fucking planet there is a chance you might piss off the wrong people. The funny thing is...the US isn't pissing off the wrong people. If China or the EU or even Russia spoke up and took a real stand we'd have to back down and exit immediately. They do not want terrorists to be able to strike them and hide in other countries just like they don't want anyone else with nukes either. Can you imagine how quickly this entire planet would go up in smoke the second Iran has ICBM and nukes capable of reaching the US? It would drastically alter our foreign policy in the middle east and suddenly one nation out of all of them will become the leading voice....guess what happens to the rest of the nations without nukes without the US, EU, China, and Russia protecting them?
You don't get to look at one horrible act and get to claim moral superiority. The middle east has been on the brink of destruction for a lot of reasons that have nothing to do with outside forces. The level of internal hate inside each of these nations is unbelievable. Not even the nations are unified under one rule. Countless time the US has been blamed for their instability. Did you ever consider what the area would look like without us? The common conception is some utopian peace free from all hate and mistrust. There are countless examples in the history of this planet on areas like the middle east in which a powerful outside force does not exist. It's not pretty.