I agree with a lot of what you say here and other than looking at the FBI's actions in this case I don't see any need for any policy changes. I don't quite understand why calling something jihad necessarily changes the equation. It is what it is.

He was found like 3 blocks from where they lost him after he left on foot. It's not like he was getting far, nor did he have much access to more bombs to throw. People leaving the house is exactly how he was found, as well. Living in fear is no way to go about life.

Why? What's the difference between an enemy combatant and really determined psycho?

It's a legal definition that allows him to be questioned (and held) without an attorney. I think there needs to be links to the taliban or al qaeda (or affiliated groups) in order to make that determination. I'm not an attorney and we have plenty ITF that would have a better understanding but this is mine.

In a nutshell, I'd prefer to downplay a factually accurate term in order to offset the ignorant bigotry this incident is fueling.

We already have Chechnya = Czechoslovakia and suspect Sunil Tripathi, who likely isn't even a Muslim. I don't want people imagining the Tsarnaevs being personally trained by bin Laden.

Being trained by the Beslan school jerkoffs is bad enough imo.

I believe the NYT has the official definition.

http://takingnote.blogs.nytimes.com/...v/?ref=opinion

anything new?

Lol, why is it important to question and hold a guy without an attorney in this situation specifically?

Do you think their attorney stands any chance of getting them off on a technicality? They went on a grand theft auto full stars rampage with grenades, car jacking and a shoot out with police and this is just the stuff after setting off two rucksack bombs which can obviously be proven to the degree that their faces were the only ones released to the public as suspects.

Plus I am fairly sure having a link to the taliban or al qaeda is enough evidence on its own to hold and question them for a while were the rest of the evidence not enough.

Plus as stated military tribunals are really really bad at convicting terrorists held as enemy combatants, hence gitmo has only convicted 7 people, and once they have been held in such a status you cannot then easily transfer them to criminal courts for trial because a lot of the evidence will be tainted as their rights were violated.

There is literally no reason for anyone to advocate either of the bombers had both survived should be held as enemy combatants.

http://www.salon.com/2013/04/23/tame...fan/singleton/

The older brother was apparantly an Alex Jones fan.

Is this known? Do you have a link for that? Giving it a quick search I cannot find any such known link between the two other than the speculation they got the instructions for the bombs from the AQ magazine that Al-Awlaki was behind.

There absolutely is a reason to hold the guys as enemy combatants if you believe that questioning someone without as attorney leads to more complete accounting of how these two become radicalized and if they received any help along the way. Obviously this has nothing to due with convicting them or military tribunals it's about determining if other potential attacks could be thwarted.
I am glad the guy wasn't classified as an enemy combatant but if you don't understand the argument you are being obtuse. We have been in a war for 12 years in Afghanistan ostensibly to reduce the potential for a terrorist attacks ffs. If we are willing to lose considerable lives and treasure is it really such a stretch that we might also reduce the legal protections for murderers?

Tamerlan Tsarnaev: Infowars fan.

http://bigstory.ap.org/article/bomb-...erious-radical

Alex Jones to announce shortly that this is all a government/Illuminati setup, obv.

Edit: he's already calling it a conspiracy, hehe.

http://www.buzzfeed.com/rosiegray/al...-boston-bomber

This ain't helping me sell mah water filterz.

Are you are advocating enhanced interrogation like sleep deprivation or even outright torture like waterboarding too?

In for a penny in for a pound.

The benefit is in discovery. I'll let others elaborate.
For this clown and what he'll be tried for there probably isn't any benefit to a tribunal.

Can you elaborate? This would be fruit of the poisonous tree territory that would put at risk a lot of the government's case imo.

I think i agree with your second sentence if you mean that he probably has little if any valuable intelligence. Lou brought up Padilla which was a failure for the bush administration (albeit a procedural one that was never ruled on the merits) but a fair reading of Hamdi and Padilla has to lead anyone to believe that not only would trying to declare this guy an enemy combatant likely be an abject failure but any abuse he's subjected to could substantially poison the eventual federal case.

Noteworthy that as an American citizen he has to be tried in a civilian court so they wouldnt be able to hold him an an enemy combatant then give him a military trial where they can admit any evidence they found through holding him as a combatant for obvious reasons.

What if Alex Jones really did mastermind some kind of weird conspiracy? That would be pretty sick meta IMO.

These Muslims are so damn violent.



http://www.juancole.com/2013/04/terr...religions.html

20th century?

prolly the worst post itt. WW2/1 is super relevant now. can we get a graph for the 21st century? I don't think it will look so good.

Moooooooozlims!
Figure seems low IMO, since casualties from world wars alone are about 100 mil. But maybe he's using a different measure.
no u.

Depends how you categorize Iraq/Afghanistan. I'd wager the Iraq War has killed more people than all Islamic terror aimed at the West.

Oh, so the US gets blamed for being better at killing people than the folks we invaded because something something nine-eleven?

How dare you, sir, how dare you?

*clutches pearls, feints onto nearby feinting couch*