Boston

Yeah, let's carry on with our own petty bickering. Rap just reflected everything I despise about RWED. JMHO.

As to the question of Obama and the word "terrorism":

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On Monday evening, in his first statement on the explosions, Mr. Obama didn’t call the attack “terror” or “terrorism;” he called it a “tragedy,” sparking criticism from some conservatives that he was underplaying the meaning of what had happened. Yet right after the president’s remarks, a White House official told reporters that the administration was treating the attack as terrorism.

By Tuesday morning, when Obama made his second public statement, he acknowledged that he had no answers – who carried out the attack, why they did it, whether it was the act of a terrorist organization, foreign or domestic, or the act of a “malevolent individual.”

“Clearly we're at the beginning of our investigation,” he said. “It will take time to follow every lead and determine what happened. But we will find out. We will find whoever harmed our citizens, and we will bring them to justice.”

Since news of the explosions broke Monday afternoon, Obama has blended speed with caution and a tone of resolve as he has sought to reassure the nation. He spoke in the briefing room a little over three hours after the attacks, not because he had answers but to convey that his administration and all levels of law enforcement were on the case.

The president’s initial hesitance to call the attack terror or terrorism was “classic Obama,” says Martin Medhurst, an expert on political rhetoric at Baylor University in Waco, Texas.

“It tells us he’s a cautious speaker,” says Mr. Medhurst. “But we’ve known that about Obama for a long time. It didn’t surprise me that he wouldn’t immediately call it terror.”

The history books are full of examples where government officials and the media have not exercised caution in putting out preliminary – and ultimately false – information about who might have perpetrated an attack on Americans. When a federal building was bombed in Oklahoma City in 1995, initial suspicion focused on a Jordanian-American man, who was arrested and interrogated. Soon it became clear the attack was a case of domestic terrorism.

A year later, during the Summer Olympics in Atlanta, a bomb was set off in a park, killing two people. A security guard on the scene named Richard Jewell became the prime FBI suspect in the case, and was hounded by the media. Mr. Jewell was eventually exonerated, after investigators determined that the perpetrator was domestic terrorist Eric Rudolph. http://www.csmonitor.com/USA/DC-Decoder/2013/0416/Obama-and-terrorism-
why-he-hesitated-to-use-that-word?nav=87-frontpage-entryNineItem

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Just "For what it's worth".

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Originally posted by SIGNYM:

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The bombings resulted in at least 10 amputations and left doctors picking ball bearings out of victims in the emergency room, a terrorism expert briefed on the investigation said.

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Important if true. This shows a serious intent to kill and maim, and some knowledge of how to do it.

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I don't think it nescesarily implies great knowledge - just that they've seen a movie or two.




Excuse me while I soak in all these sweet, sweet conservative tears.

"We will never have the elite, smart people on our side." -- Rick "Frothy" Santorum

"Goram it kid, let's frak this thing and go home! Engage!"

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Just been getting this in on numerous websites:

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The two bombs that ripped through the crowds at the Boston Marathon, killing three people and wounding more than 170, were fashioned out of pressure cookers and packed with shards of metal, nails and ball bearings, a person briefed on the investigation said Tuesday.

A person who spoke on the condition of anonymity because the investigation was still going on said that the explosives were put in 6-liter pressure cookers, placed in black duffel bags and left on the ground. They were packed with shrapnel to inflict maximum carnage, the person said.

The person said law enforcement officials have some of the bomb components but do not yet know what was used to set off the explosives.

A doctor treating the wounded appeared to corroborate the person's account, saying one of the victims was maimed by what looked like ball bearings or BBs. Doctors also said they removed a host of sharp objects from the victims, including nails that were sticking out of one little girl's body.
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Similar pressure-cooker explosives have been used in Afghanistan, India, Nepal and Pakistan, according to a July 2010 joint FBI and Homeland Security intelligence report. Also, one of the three devices used in the May 2010 Times Square attempted bombing was a pressure cooker, the intelligence report said.

"Placed carefully, such devices provide little or no indication of an impending attack," the report said.

The Pakistani Taliban, which claimed responsibility for the 2010 attempt in Times Square, has denied any role in the Boston Marathon attack.
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Richard Barrett, the former U.N. coordinator for an al-Qaida and Taliban monitoring team who has also worked for British intelligence, said the relatively small size of the devices in Boston and the timing of the blasts suggest a domestic attack rather than an al-Qaida-inspired one. http://abclocal.go.com/kgo/story?section=news/sports&id=9066719&am
p;rss=rss-abcnewsLocal-kgo-article-9066719

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That's a new one I've never heard of before...?

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Originally posted by SIGNYM:
HERO- I think the timing and venue of the bombing was more than coincidental. If you simply want to injure large numbers of people, any sports event or holiday which brings people together in large numbers- New Year's Eve, for example- would be as effective. Either this is an anti-tax person or someone who really wants to muddy the waters. But what point is there to an act of terrorism if you mask your objective? The whole point of terrorism is to make people DO SOMETHING en masse, to drive them in a direction. If the objective isn't clear, all you have is a mob of people mentally milling around- yanno, like a stampede in an enclosed space.

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I'm not saying that it wasn't an anti-govt or anti-tax bomber. I'm saying that the target does not conform with the traditional attacks made by those types of people. The usually target either specific people or govt buildings.

I think the attack is consistant with attacks made by Islamic terrorists. These attacks have been attempted recently and failed at home but are very common abroad. Attacks on mass transit, market places, etc have all been executed in recent years with great frequency in many countries including Britain.

Islamic terrorism is an obvious suspect group, but as I noted earlier there is a remarkable similarity to the Olympic Park bombing. That bombing was neither anti-tax nor anti-govt, but was anti-abortion. It was also the work of one man who had a history of other bombings.

There is also a possibilty that there was no political motive and this is just a mass killing like the recent shootings. Mass killings using explosives would also also target events and groups rather then locations and people.

If I had to rate the likely motives I'd rate them in the following manner:

1. Islamic terror
2. Mass Killing
3. Anti-gay marriage and/or abortion (that State is a leader on both those issues, but I'd bet gay marriage ahead of abortion).
4. Anti-tax/govt
5. Anarchist
6. Racial/ethnic
7. Just plain murder or suicide
8. Accident
9. Disgruntled 2nd place finisher
10. Bill Cosby (not the man, but if you play his records backwards it says 'blow up the race', I note for the record that later on it says 'I love pudding')

Let me know if you think I missed one.

It could be a combination in which case we're looking for a Muslim with terrorist ties who hates gay marriage and abortion, did not file his taxes, believes the WTO is evil, want's to kill Bill Cosby (because he is black), but whose bomb blew up at the wrong time, and who finished a close 2nd place.

H

Hero...must be right on all of this. ALL of the rest of us are wrong. Chrisisall, 2012

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Niki ,
I responded as an AMERICAN who is sick of seeing politicians speak in empty, cowardly PC nonsense. That it was Obama? Not the issue.

Fathom the hypocrisy of a government that requires every citizen to prove they are insured... but not everyone must prove they are a citizen

Resident USA Freedom Fundie

" AU, that was great, LOL!! " - Chrisisall

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