There is truth in Justin's statement, and of course it's quote-mined.

There is a need for justice, but going forward, it wouldn't hurt to look at why people do things like this and see if there are injustices we can correct that foster extremism that we will have to deal with down the road.

Or, let's just fry the bastards and assume they are evil incarnate and did this for no reason and America is great. That is, after all, what Jesus would do.

Agreed - but I would put it more strongly....

Not only "it wouldn't hurt to look at why people do things like this" - it would be a very good idea.......

This thought also comes to mind........

I'm all for anything - as long as the prosecutors start with Obama, Bush,and Blair.

innocent until proven guilty

a-men

a-woman

whatever feelings, thoughts, ideas MC jae may have are his responsibility and no one else's. same thing with barack.  trudeau.  yer mama

(like the rainbows, MC jae -- too much macho dick-waving posturing in politics as it is...i also like how even some canadians are trying to pull the american politics 'trudeau is WEAK and womanly' card...silly putzes...)

Hi MC jae,

Based on the minimal quote you have copied and pasted that cannot be determined.  And of course, after several days of beating up on Trudeau for his comments (which were at most poorly timed) it seems he had a better grasp on the motivations.

Of course we will have to wait to see what Tsarnaev has to say for himself to be certain.

You know just a few days ago you were certain that this was a huge security failure and were advocating for everyone involved to lose their jobs.  Had we simply fired everyone at that moment many who were responsible for the apprehension of Tsarnaev would have been on the unemployment line.

Of course you wanted an inquiry but you, by your comments had already proven that you knew what the outcome of any inquiry should be.  You didn't appear to be all that concerned with grace then so why so hard on Mr. Harper?

It seems to be more measured.  Of course the full weight of justice doesn't promise that there will be any mercy taken into consideration.  It simply means that Mr. Tsarnaev can expect to be leaned on quite heavily and a country that uses torture to get intelligence on enemies (none of which ever amounts to anything useful as a recent report shows) means that vengeance may make more of an appearance than does justice.

Mr. Tsarnaev was taken alive.  What is done with him next will tell a tale all of its own.

Grace and peace to you.

John

They're just a couple of punks (or were a couple of punks). The survivor needs a good kick in the ass. If the survivor is some sort of wanna be Muslim extremist then it' it's ironic he's gone to a Jewish hospital for his injuries After all of this it might have been easier to kill the animal at the scene

cool, how ever did you get to actually be a top secret fed gov't agency?  how do you get around?  who cleans you?   how do you reproduce? have you already gone through asbestos abatement?  :3

Cut and paste? Er... I'm not the one who created the graphic. I was just stating my reaction to it.

I don't remember claiming that it was a "huge security failure." I would say that it was a fairly major one.I certainly didn't/don't advocate that everyone on security that day lose their jobs. At the same time, I maintain that there does seem to have been a security failure, and that any and all who failed should join the unemployment line. Since the suspects were caught on video camera, surely some vigilant security officer should have been able to catch them in real life.

Rev John, I call for an inquiry, and advocate that all who slipped up in their security duties be let go. That is all. An inquiry may find that no one erred -- so be it. I would be delighted to hear that all served well.

Rich blessings.

For clarity, here is what MC jae wrote on the other thread:

When I read that, I thought that you were advocating that all of the security, including the volunteers, failed at their task and should, therefore, lose their jobs.

Hi MC jae,

Hence the term cut and paste.  You cut the material from somewhere and pasted it here.  Nothing about that makes you the creator of the material.  

And if you had been paying attention you would also note that all of the security footage of the bomb drop was of the second bomb so dropped.  Other cell phone footage places the younger Tsarnaev brother around a corner of the building perhaps 50 ft away from the second bomb as it goes off.

By your reasoning then Security should have noticed the abandoned backpack, determined that it was a bomb and cleared upwards of 100 people from the blast radius in less than 40 seconds (which is me being generous since the younger Tsarnaev was in good physical condition and ran away from the pack when he made the drop.  40 seconds to run 50ft is not sprinting by any stretch.

All of the film that the FBI used to identify the bombers was not taken by one secuity camera on a department store across the street.  The FBI probably had upwards of 100 videos taken by cell phones to wade through and it is the camera across the road which captures the younger Tsarnaev making the drop.  It was other cell phone video and other secuity footage that  captures both brothers together and that was working backward from the department store footage and combing submitted video from cell-phones over the span of several hours 24 hours later.

And you think that security should have been able to do it moving forward from before the bombs were dropped in real time.

Doubful.  I suspect you would be outraged.  You have already telegraphed your conclusion that security failed to do what they were supposed to do.

Grace and peace to you.

John

My belief is that there is no foolproof way to keep every citizen safe every minute of every day.  Nor can we afford to try doing that mpossible thing.

somegal, please note that I said, "Those responsible for the loss of lives should at the very least lose their jobs." By saying that, I was speaking only of those members of the security staff who did not adequately peform their duty. I certainly do not think that each and every security team member so failed.

During the IRA bombings in England, every British citizen took responsibility for reporting any suspicious packages.  From what was posted above, it seems the people who were standing there when the bomb was dropped off might have noticed the person who dropped the back pack ran away,  During the IRA bombings, citizens would have immediately warned everyone else that there might be a bomb about to go off and to  flatten themselves to the ground immediately.  They were the only ones who had time to take any action.

When those IRA bombs went off the government/police/army/terror fighting forces etc didn't make it into a major ongoing news event for endless hours and days either.  The entire country didn't disintegrate into trauma victims - they 'carried on' doing their jobs, raising their children, walking their dogs, going to school and work. 

The situation in Boston was a horrible tragedy - but normal life just seems to contain tragedies of many types along with joys. 

It was a marathon. There would be backpacks everywhere, carried by support crew (mostly family of the athletes), filled with clothes, drinks, nutrition bars, etc. Go to any endurance sporting event and see the number of backpacks laying around.

Saying that people should have noticed a lone, suspicious-looking backpack at a marathon is like saying people should have noticed a lone, suspicious-looking tree in a forest.

Hummm... I'm thinking that a backpack with a few odd nutrition bars in it would look somewhat different than a backpack with, you know, a pressure cooker sitting in it.

Hi MC jae,

If all that was in a backpack was a few nutrition bars then yes, it would appear different than a backpack with a pressure cooker in it.  Videotape of the bombers carrying their bags through the crowd shows nothing more than two individuals among tens and hundreds with bags slung over their shoulder.  No pot lids or handles are sticking out so what is in the bags is not obvious.

At a marathon what could anyone expect to find in a backpack, a couple litres of water, a change of clothing, perhaps a towel to dry off with after a shower.  A jacket perhaps?

Of course, now that we know what is in the bags we cannot help but look at the bags and know what is in them.  Prior to being told that there were bombs in the bag the bags look no different than all of the bookbags and backpacks every kid from the local schools carry as they pass my place.  

A stuffed backpack looks like a stuffed backpack and because most of us have stuffed backpacks when we see a stuffed backpack we imagine that it is filled with the kinds of things we would stuff in a backpack.

They looked like university students maybe they have books and gymnclothes in those bags.  They aren't far from any number of colleges and though I believe classes were suspended for the Marathon the colleges and libraries were still open for students studying.  Not sure of the academic calendar for American Colleges, here in Ontario a number of universities are holding exams.

Some kids pack heavy for things like that.

Grace and peace to you.

John

Not sure that motive is as important as behavior in this instance.

It's a pity Justin didn't get his father's brains.

http://www.sunnewsnetwork.ca/sunnews/straighttalk/archives/2013/04/20130...

Hi buford12,

Yeah, why would we want to avoid a repetition of this instance.

Admittedly there is no guarantee that such repetition could be avoided and yet, we would never know if it could be if we didn't examine the possibility.

Four dead and dozens of others seriously injured.  Is that acceptable?

Understanding the motive doesn't make those responsible any less responsible.  Understanding the motive may possibly point us to changes that we could make that forestall or even postpone indefinitely another attack.

Or is knowing the motive as useless as wearing seatbelts in a speeding vehicle?

Grace and peace to you.

John

Why Does Evil Make Liberals Stupid?

I could load up a dozen backpacks with clothes to keep muscles warm after the race, towels, water, food, and rain jackets, and one with a pressure cooker, and you'd never guess the pressure cooker backpack on the first try.

You simply have no clue what you're talking about. Have you even been to a marathon or any other large endurance event? I go to a few 8 and 24 hour mountain bike races every year. There are backpacks and soft coolers everywhere. Plus, the spectator area is public and undefined, unlike a stadium where you can control access.

If someone carrying a bomb is determined to blow it up outside in a crowd, it's almost impossible to stop them from trying. You need to stop them at the planning stage.

If only there was a good, all-powerful deity who could stop such acts from happening... But there isn't. 

How did I know that Mely would find an article blaming this on Muslims. So predictable.

You realize the bombers are/were Muslims, don't you?  The older brother  had been radicalized at least since 2011, and recently spent 6 months in Chechnya, probably taking terrorism training.  

http://www.cnn.com/2013/04/21/us/tamerlan-tsarnaev-timeline/index.html?hpt=hp_t2

Terrorists from Chechnya are extremely brutal--Beslan school massacre and all that.  It recently has been revealed that many of the Beslan school girls were raped before being murdered.     

That's funny, I wasn't aware there'd been a trial yet.

Hi Mely,

I don't know that it does.

Of course, if we want to deal with lazy stereotype we could easily ask the question, "Why does being conservative make people evil?"

Sadly there will always be stupid and evil people in the world.  If the dividing line between liberal and conservative meant that I had to choose between being stupid or being evil I'd more easily side with stupid as I find nothing about evil attractive or compelling.

What about you Mely?  If the world was divided that easily, that starkly what would you align yourself with?  Would you willingly choose to be stupid or would you condone evil and contribute to more of it being present in the world?

Happily the dividing line isn't that clear and while there are some who play into stereotype and reinforce it that tends to be a conscious choice and not a default.  There are places in the world to live other than the gutter of stereotypes which seek to reduce all individuals to simplistic characatures rather than the complex creatures they have become.

So I don't believe liberals are of necessity stupid nor that conservatives are of necessity evil.  I accept that there are stupid liberals (as many proportionately as there are stupid conservatives) and that there are evil conservatives (as many proportionately as there are evil liberals).

Now what?

Grace and peace to you.

John

Hi Mely,

I realize that such has been reported.  I did not realize such had been proven.

The older brother neither drank nor smoked.  That could easily make him Baptist or Muslim.  We'd have to see if he danced to be more easily distinguish between the two.

The younger brother apparently partied as hard as any of his classmates which doesn't preclude his identifying with Islam.  Of course not all of his classmates were Islamic and most talked to are quite shocked about his behaviour.

So it has been rumoured.  Of course the investigation at the time didn't cause any flags to be raised and as he represented the United States in international amateur boxing competitions it would seem that the country did not mind his wearing their flag.

There will be more investigating and there may be more answers.  Until then there will be speculation, some of it will turn out to be accurate and the rest of it will turn out to be rumour and lie.

I would think a proclivity to brutality would be prerequisite to a terrorist lifestyle.  I think all of us would be shocked if on some terrorist dating site we were finding out that they all liked kittens, moonlight and walks on the beach as opposed to napalm, IEDs and the blood-curdling death screams of their enemies.

Which is too bad.  I would really like to see anti-terrorist forces match brains with a guerilla army that used comfy pillows and hugs as their primary weapons.

How do you stop a bad guy armed with love?  By sending a good guy armed with love out to stop him.  At least we would if the logic of the NRA holds true.

Grace and peace to you.

John

Just wondering.....if they dont read the Miranda rights to this young man, is he still entitled to a lawyer?

Answering my own question, LOL!

http://www.slate.com/articles/news_and_politics/jurisprudence/2013/04/dz...

Hi waterfall,

That is a good question.  The Miranda warning does not grant individuals special rights it reminds individuals of the rights that they have according to the law so, the right to attorney is still present and by law all suspects (particularly when those suspects are American citizens) should have to waive that right before any interrogation can proceed.

It may be that when the Miranda warning is not implemented that material the accused provides cannot be used against them.  At least I would expect a competent lawyer to lift that up in defence of a client.  I suspect that one of the reasons Tsarnaev was not Mirandized was because they are hoping to get information that will allow authorities to prosecute searches against others (the thinking being that if the two were assisted or instructed by others it is those bigger fish that are the real prize).

The latest news this morning (that I have heard) is that while Tsarnaev has a neck injury which renders him speechless he is co-operating with officers who are interrogating him.  What they learn we may never know.

Grace and peace to you.

John

I've been thinking about this. It seems to me that there have been extreme measures taken to prevent "the unthinkable". For instance I remember reading that in the United States they have/are currently using some kind of aircraft to fly over city grids with some kind of sensors that will map out complete city's that will determine if there are "dirty bomb's" present'  They are using some kind of heat sensors. If there are any "changes" to what they have "mapped" out, they will become suspicious. We can also look at how many security cameras are now present in most cities, which is why we have some footage from them as well as the picture evidence from civilians. Since 9/11, we have become painfully aware that commercial planes can now be used as weapons, box cutters are dangerous, and even shoes can contain explosiives. And now we know that "pressure cookers" in backpacks are on the list. It seems that despite our increased "savvy" with computerized interventions and extensive defence systems such as ABM's, we and the United States can be terrorized by the most unsophisticated devices. We tend to perceive evil coming at us in the form we are creating ourselves and we are caught caught off guard when the "terrorist" uses a method that is "beneath us". The terror then becomes the realization that we may be defenseless against someone who is determined to hurt us.

Increasing our vigilance to the point of a police state or declaring the War Measures Act, is not a country I want to live in, but at the same time, if it were my family being hurt I would probably change my mind. My objectiveness and rational would be lost within my despair. Much the same as the people of the United States are currently suffering from the effect of "shock" and disbelief that this sort of thing continues to happen.

I have to conclude that even if all our "ducks were in a row" and checks were put in place in every place we could ever imagine, there will always be someone that will have a better imagination to try and defeat our security. Our only true and proven defense to evil is love. And it's the hardest thing to do.

Revjohn, "what they learn we may never know".

True, but then again, even what they may be "learning" is coming from a young man that is suffering from trauma, pain, fear, and bullet wounds to the throat. Not sure how accurate that information is going to be at this moment.

Um...i dont think there are any Baptists in Chechnya, though there might be a handful of Russian Orthodox. You people are funny.

Mely, what do you think should happen to this man that has been captured?

From the Wallstreet Joural.

Make No Mistake: It was Jihad.

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB1000142412788732487420457843659221091004...

Hi Mely,

My apologies then.  I wasn't aware that it was the nationality so much as the religion that you were identifying as the problem.

My point, of course being that the indicators of the older brothers faithful piety (not smoking, nor drinking) are not radically different than the baptist approach to drinking and smoking.

Laughter is the best medicine.

Grace and peace to you.

John

I think Justin Trudeau did not call for mercy without justice but for compassionate justice.

Someone said "Too bad Justin is not as smart as his father."

I'd prefer a compassionate teacher over a supersmart lawyer.

There is a massive difference between justice and revenge that the word "closure" too often overlooks.

In this case, we should not forget that there is a mentally ill, shot-up 19 year-old kid lying in a hospital bed, surrounded by people who want to see him dead. Justice? Revenge? Compassion? If it was your son, brother, grandchild or lover lying in that bed?

What broke him in the first place? What breaks any young person… why does it happen, whether it's a suicidal teenager in a northen Ontario native community, a high school student in London Ontario who goes of to die in Algeria or rot in a Mauritanian prison. What about the young Canadians shooting and being shot in gang clashes in Toronto. Since 2001, youth crime has been in modest decline in Canada.

But something wrong is still happening to many young Canadians (and Americans).

Neuroscientist Greg Nordhoff is looking into the causes of teen suicide in Canada.

He sees possible physiological causes. And he identifies a recurring characteristic:  “The healthy person always takes the future for granted,” Dr. Northoff says, but those who are suicidal can’t see the end of the tunnel. “They just see a dark hole, that’s what many patients describe.”

Is the "dark hole" what also confronted Tamerlan and Dzhoktar Tsaenaev? Should we not try to find the cause, the source and the remedy to the "black hole"?

@mike Patterson
I find if very offensive that you are attempting to put Native teens who committ suicide ( only physically harming themselves) in the same category as the murderous, psychotic monsters who casually dropped a bomb at the feet of an eight year old boy and then sauntered off grinning, allowing the bomb to kill and maim innocent people.

To run the country? I can only pray that a majority don't agree with you.

Whatever the justice system decides. No doubt some people here would like to declare him an innocent child soldier and bring him to Canada. At least that is the impression I get.

Then you're being deliberately obtuse.

Mely: you don't really see that there is something similarly worrying about youth mental illness, regardless of how it's expressed? Really? Or do you thing suicide is virtuous and terrorism is evil? That's quite a leap in dualistic thinking.

Do you see no humanity in the soul of your "murderous, psychotic monster"?

Mental illness is a socially marginalised form of intense suffering… it should bother us in a particularly keen way when it is suffered by children and young people with so much to potentially offer their communities and the World.

"Where does it come from/" remains a perfectly valid question. And compassion is the place from which that question must be assked.

A supersmart lawayer wouldn't be that bad. What we have, though, is a guy whose history has been: oil company mail room, a little time working on the oil company's computers, political assistant, politician, lobbyist. Oh - and he's the economist who's never actually worked as an economist.

Why don't you spew this touchy-feely cr*p at the people who got their legs blown off last week.  

Compassion and intelligent questioning is 'touchy-feely crap'?

The people who were injured during the bomb blasts may or may not be feeling vindictive right now.  I daresay many of htem are well aware that violence towards the young man involved won't help or slove anything.

Are you assuming that the victims themselves to be incapable of compassion Mely? Must they be told to dwell in hatred in order to feel whole again? Doesn't this kind of thinking ensure a life sentence for both the victims and the murderers?

Justice must be done, but as we learned in another thread, mercy should accompany it.

There are many victims of violence who spew "touchy feely crap" toward the perpetrators of violence after the fact. As a matter of fact, some would say that Jesus was the master of "touchy feely crap." As in, "Father, forgive them, for they do not know what they are doing."

I just prefer "touchy-feely" to "spitey-hatey" , Mely…  

Well, that's democracy for you :3

(and i guess this is how the Americanization of Canada is going to play out--to protect ourselves against terrorism, Canada will adopt the American politics of male-centered virility and strength, which America has had to adopt because it has been forced to deal with so many different countries that aren't really copacetic with free living that also do this...interesting seeing evolution in action...)