Understanding the Jihad Brothers: Tamerlan Tsarnaev’s Unicorn blood and Dzhokhar Tsarnaev’s beer pong
THE Tsarnaev are not the Jihad Bothers, as the Sun dubs them. They were no comedy act. So. Wht do we know about them. The best quotes from those who met them are here.
Tamerlan Tsarnaev is dead. The one quote that seems worth repeating ad finitim in all media outlets is his telling a photographer:
“I don’t have a single American friend. I don’t understand them.”
And:
In April 2012 Tamerlan was clearly watching radical Islamist content on the internet. His YouTube channel includes several posts by Sheikh Feiz Mohammed, an Australian ex-boxer, now resident in Lebanon. One rant by Mohammed includes a denunciation of Harry Potter films as promoting “paganism, evil, magic and the drinking of unicorn blood”.
Say ‘no’ to Unicorn blood.
Dzhokhar Tsarnaev will be harder to understand. He’s alive. We’ll hear from him later. What we do know is that he tweeted under the handle@J_tsar—. What do his tweet reveals, if anything at all?
March 14, 2012 — a decade in america already, I want out
August 16, 2012 — The value of human life ain’t shit nowadays that’s #tragic
August 22, 2012 — I am the best beer pong player in Cambridge. I am the #truth
September 1, 2012 — Idk why it’s hard for many of you to accept that 9/11 was an inside job. I mean I guess fuck the facts y’all are some real #patriots #gethip
December 24, 2012 — Brothers at the mosque either think I’m a convert or that I’m from Algeria or Syria, just the other day a guy asked me how I came to Islam
January 15, 2013 — I don’t argue with fools who say islam is terrorism it’s not worth a thing, let an idiot remain an idiot
March 13, 2013 — Never try to fork a mini tomato while wearing a white shirt, it will explode
April 10, 2013 — Gain knowledge, get women, acquire currency #livestrong
And after the bombing:
April 15, 2013 — Ain’t no love in the heart of the city, stay safe people
April 15, 2013 — There are people that know the truth but stay silent & there are people that speak the truth but we don’t hear them cuz they’re the minority
April 16, 2013 — I’m a stress free kind of guy
David Remnick puts the brothers into context:
The Tsarnaev family had been battered by history before—by empire and the strife of displacement, by exile and emigration. Asylum in a bright new land proved little comfort. When Anzor fell sick, a few years ago, he resolved to return to the Caucasus; he could not imagine dying in America. He had travelled halfway around the world from the harrowed land of his ancestors, but something had drawn him back. The American dream wasn’t for everyone. What they could not anticipate was the abysmal fate of their sons, lives destroyed in a terror of their own making. The digital era allows no asylum from extremism, let alone from the toxic combination of high-minded zealotry and the curdled disappointments of young men. A decade in America already, I want out.
Tsarnaevs’ father, Anzor Tsarnaev is an ethnic Chechen who lived Kyrgyzstan before, emigrating o the Boston area with his wife, two daughters, and two sons. The NYT reports on words with him:
Q: Did he want to be an American citizen?
A. He wanted to, of course. Why not?
Q. But it didn’t work out, right?
A. Because with his girlfriend, there was a scandal. He hit her lightly. He was locked up for half an hour. There was jealousy there. He paid $250, that was it, he went home. Because of that — in America you can’t touch a woman, they wouldn’t give him citizenship.
A. Because of that they didn’t give him citizenship?
Q. He had gone through the interview, that was it. But they said, he said, they will check the federal authorities, when they check me they will give it. He would have been granted it, he passed the interview. Now we have a new system where they check young people. Because he is a Muslim, I think, and a Chechen, too.
Was that his driving motive for bloody murder?
“They didn’t practice tradecraft,” said one official, a veteran counterterrorism investigator who has been briefed on the case. “Listen, I just don’t understand how anybody could do something like that and basically go home and expect that they wouldn’t get caught.”
Another official pointed to one obvious flaw in their operational strategy. “They apparently didn’t have a plan to escape,” the official said.
Indeed. They were the the suicide bombers who missed the first seminar.
Posted: 20th, April 2013 | In: Reviews Comment | TrackBack | Permalink
