The Boston explosions were organized by Chechens?? This is one possibility no one ever imagined. And the tragic irony of Chechens now turning against the US is too striking.
This is the most bizarre development of all. Chechen terrorism is really horrifying (for obvious reasons). We are all in deep shit if Chechens have moved their operation to this continent.
Clarissa's Blog 
Hey Clarissa! I have might have a different interpretation of this bizarre story, but there’s so much information coming in.
I don’t think it was necessarily because of their Islamic or Chechen heritage. It seems to me like these boys had a lot going for them and I even read one of the brother’s Twitter page. One of them also said that he didn’t have too many American friends. What do you think of that?
They also attended very reputable schools in the US.
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The Chechens are people who have been collectively traumatized by their history in a way that few nations have. Like with all terrorists, religion and politics are nothing but an excuse.
So you are right, Islam is not important here. Besides, for the Chechens any Islam is a very very recent acquisition.
As for their schools, the eagerness with which US and UK sell seats in their best schools to criminals and children of criminals is astounding. Back at Yale I met children of Russian gangsters, real hard-core criminals. The children were dumber than doorknobs but Yale welcomed them all in because of how impossibly rich their criminal families were. What a disgrace!
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Too early to call it ‘Chechen terrorism’ I think. We don’t know yet if the brothers acted alone or were trained by someone else.
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I don’t think it really matters a whole lot. Chechen terrorism is the terrorism of deeply traumatized people who are enacting their historic trauma in this way. They can be connected to others or act on their own, but the reason is always the same: the 300-year-long tragedy of the Chechen people.
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For once, we are on the same page.
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Robbing a 7/11 doesn’t exactly sound like something someone part of a larger org would need to do. And the bombs themselves were very low-tech. My guess for now would be that the two acted by themselves.
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This is precisely what Chechen terrorism is like. It is not about being part of something, like Al Qaeda. It is a very very different kind of terrorism which is why I’m saying that it’s terrifying. With large terrorist organizations, you can hope to destroy their leadership and shatter the organization. With Chechen terrorism, killing the leaders changes nothing. Dudaev is dead, Khattab is dead, Basayev is dead. What did any of it change? Absolutely nothing.
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Wait–what happened?
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The people who organized the Boston Marathon bombings turned out to be 2 young men from Chechnya.
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I still don’t think it’s right to call this Chechen terrorism. Like when Adam Lanza shot those little kids in Newtown, nobody called it american terrorism, or white terrorism, or whatever. It was quickly written off as the act of a deranged psychopath. Same with Columbine. Why can’t we have the same standard here? Why is it necessary to label this crime with their ethnicity or nationality? Remember, we still don’t know anything about their motives.
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Because there is a cultural historical reality here that should be finally recognized. I find these American attempts to dismiss everybody’s heritage and pretend that nothing other than American experience exists to be very frustrating.
Young men from Chechnya are SO not “the same” as overfed, bored losers from Columbine who have watched too many stupid Hollywood movies. We are not all the same. We are entitled to our own histories and don’t need to be judged by American standards and compared to American realities.
The rest of the world, by the way, refers to Columbine and Lanza as “typically American school shootings.”
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Absolutely true. We are not all Americans, or Western types. We don’t all have the same feelings, attitudes or cultural backgrounds. It seems to be heretical to proclaim this, even though it is a basic fact of common sense.
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“The rest of the world, by the way, refers to Columbine and Lanza as “typically American school shootings.”
Fuck, you’re so right. Great point.
I just fear that labeling their acts in the context of their nationality is going to drive xenophobia even higher. As an immigrant this affects me directly. Already you have republicans, using this incident as an excuse for killing immigration reform, shut the borders, etc. etc.
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// As an immigrant
Can I ask, from which country and ethnicity?
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You don’t need my permission to ask. I don’t comfortable sharing any personal information with you, though. You seriously creep me out.
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OK. My guess is that while I am naturally pro-Israel biased since I live there, you are naturally very pro-Arab-world biased because you immigrated to US from an Islamic country. Iran, f.e. isn’t Arab, but is Islamic. That’s why you are the only person, whom I seem to utterly “creep out”.
Just wanted to note that I am not the only biased person here.
It’s kind of funny you find me so frightening, since in Israeli politics I am not right, but center, even slightly center-left.
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Yes. 😦 😦
This is exactly the kind of texts Russian neo-Nazis are publishing right now: http://nomina-obscura.livejournal.com/1255950.html
I don’t think that any kind of fear is an excuse for this.
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Btw, notice all the women in those twitter links. Who knew both men and women are capable of extreme hate?
But I thought women are supposed to be sweet, nurturing creatures. Different hormones, less aggressive, blah blah blah.
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Goes to show how much that myth is worth.
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‘.. you are naturally very pro-Arab-world biased because you immigrated to US from an Islamic country…That’s why you are the only person, whom I seem to utterly “creep out”.’
Thoughtful analysis. Creepy AND stupid. Well done, you.
‘It’s kind of funny you find me so frightening..’
It’s kind of funny how you exchanged ‘creepy’ with ‘frightening’. Big time ego-protection going on there I’d imagine. ‘Oh, he probably just finds me intimidating, he must not be used to dealing with strong, aggressive women like me. Yeah, that must be it. ROAR!’
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I just want to remind everybody that the most aggressive, scary woman around here is me. I will not tolerate competition. 🙂 🙂
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