Readers may have noticed that I don't go in for the whole speculation game very much. I'd prefer to let the big stories sort themselves out, as the fact become known, before laying out my own grand theories about causes and ideological complicity. I'll tell you, though, since the photos of the suspects were released on Tuesday, along with the information of the crude
pressure-cooker bomb that was used in the slaughter, I was certain that the suspects would turn out to be home-grown terrorists influenced by Islamic militants in the Middle East, with most likely affiliations to the global al Qaeda network. And that seems to be the case. As more information comes to light, it's becoming increasingly clear that the Tsarnaev brothers were driven to hatred of Americans through Islamic doctrines calling for jihad warfare against unbelievers.
From this morning's Wall Street Journal, "
Boston Attack Renews Fears About Homegrown Terrorism: Threat Evolves From Complex International Plots to Small-Scale Attacks by Individuals Within U.S." According to the story, much remains unknown, although here's some key details:
The brothers spent 10 years in the U.S. during a formative period of their lives, exhibiting normal behavior for first-generation immigrants, said Mitchell Silber, a former intelligence official in the New York Police Department. "The question is, what catalyzed the change? Was it Chechen nationalism? Did it start with Chechen nationalism and somehow migrate to a pan-Islamist jihad cause?"
A YouTube page that appeared to belong to the elder Mr. Tsarnaev featured multiple jihadi videos that he had endorsed in the past six months. One video features the preaching of Abd al-Hamid al-Juhani, who was an assistant to an al Qaeda scholar in Chechnya, and another features Feiz Mohammad, an extremist Salafi Lebanese preacher based in Australia. Four months ago, he also "liked" a well-produced video featuring the black flags of Khorasan, a significant jihadist theme.
Mr. Silber, now with the investigative firm K2 Intelligence, said the Boston bombings show that the terrorist threat persisted even in the wake of the death of Osama bin Laden. "This more pedestrian, bare-bones terrorism is out there, and it's going to be very difficult to detect."
And further:
A wild card in the bombing is the possible role of the Chechen separatist cause, which flared after the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991 only to be crushed by the Kremlin. Olga Oliker, an international security specialist at the Rand Corp. think tank, said that the Chechen separatist leadership has become radicalized and more recently formed an umbrella radical group, the Caucuses Emirate, which was designated by the U.S. as a terrorist organization in 2011.
The leadership, however, tends not to direct overseas operations. Ms. Oliker said it is more likely the two brothers were sympathizers who decided to take action in the U.S.
Bruce Hoffman, director of the Center for Security Studies at Georgetown University, said Chechen influence in the global jihad shouldn't be discounted. He noted two recent rounds of arrests in Europe that involved Chechens allegedly carrying out plots at the direction of al Qaeda.
Certainly more on the elder Tsarnaev's ties to Chechnya will be unraveled, although his radicalization spiked after he returned from his recent trip to the homeland. Robert Spencer has more on that, "
Boston Marathon jihad murderers may have trained in Chechen Islamic school."
Either way, enough is known now. The Tsarnaevs were jihad terrorists, plain and simple. There is no denying it, although such efforts at denial are shamelessly underway by Islamic jihad's apologists on the anti-American left. See Atlas Shrugs, for example, "
ELSPETH REEVE AT ATLANTIC WIRE CARRIES WATER FOR SLAUGHTERERS: 'THE U.S. ANTI-MUSLIM CROWD IS QUITE PLEASED WITH ITSELF'."
And here's the sickening spin from far-left extremist Paul Waldman, at the American Prospect, "
Substituting Identity for Motivation":
Let's be honest and admit that everyone had a hope about who the Boston bomber would out to be. Conservatives hoped it would be some swarthy Middle Easterner, which would validate their belief that the existential threat from Islam is ongoing and that their preferred policies are the best way to deal with that threat. Liberals hoped it would be a Timothy McVeigh-like character, some radical right-winger or white supremacist, which would perhaps make us all think more broadly about terrorism and what the threats really are. The truth turned out to be … well, we don't really know yet. Assuming these two brothers are indeed the bombers, they're literally Caucasian, but they're also Muslim. Most importantly, as of yet we know absolutely nothing about what motivated them. Nothing. Keep that in mind.
That is so much bullshit it boggles the mind.
"Assuming these brothers are the bombers"?
Right. The entire country is horribly torn over making any assumptions about these two.
And what's this about "we know
absolutely nothing about them"? Is it even possible to issue a more bald-faced lie?
Of course not. But it's not just the marquee America-hating leftists at the American Prospect. All across the mainstream media today we have the shameful spectacle of the press moaning about how officials are "struggling" to determine the motives of the bombers. Here's the banner headline right now at the New York Times, "
Bomb Investigation Shifts to a New Mystery: Motive." And this just in at the Chicago Tribune, "
Boston Marathon bombing investigation turns to motive." And at the Los Angeles Times, "
Search for motive in Boston attack begins." Here's Reuters, "
Boston Marathon bombing investigation turns to motive."
And on and on...
It's disgusting.
I'll have more on the left's complicity in Islam's jihad against America.
Meanwhile, David Horowitz provides some
moral clarity:
Watching the news about the Boston bombing and the Muslim fanatics who perpetrated the deed, I cannot help reflect on all the nasty attacks that liberals and progressives and Muslim activists have conducted against conservatives who have attempted to warn Americans that their enemies are religious fanatics driven by an apocalyptic hatred of us because we are Jews, Christians, atheists, democrats – in a word, infidels.
It has been said by Nancy Pelosi, George Soros and other Democrats that George Bush created the terrorists by attempting to enforce a UN Security council resolution and take down one of the monsters of the 20th Century in Iraq. It has been said by the late Susan Sontag and other progressive intellectuals that the heinous attacks of 9/11 were the result of American policies. The Center for American Progress and university administrators have relentlessly defamed as Islamphobes and bigots those of us who have had the temerity to talk about the Islamic roots of Islamic terror. If only we ignored the Islamic beliefs behind the terrorism and made nice to all Muslims indiscriminately, the terrorists wouldn’t hate us.
Boston has exposed this as the Big Lie and fatuous delusion that it has always been. The Boston killers were treated better in America than all but an elite among Americans born here who love their country. They were given scholarships, they were admitted to the most exclusive prep schools, they lived in a Cambridge environment where critics of Islamic terror were regarded as Islamophobes and they as a minority deserving special consideration and concern. And yet they hated us. They hated America and ordinary Americans like the victims of their mayhem, and enlisted in the army of our mortal enemies. They hated us because they were fanatical believers in the idea that Mohammed had desired them to kill infidels and purify the earth for Allah. This is the face of our enemy and the sooner the delusional liberals among us wake up to this fact, the safer all of us will be.
