Chechen Terrorists and the Neocons

The revelation that the family of the two suspects in the Boston Marathon bombings was from Chechnya prompted new speculation about the attack as Islamic terrorism. Less discussed was the history of U.S. neocons supporting Chechen terrorists as a strategy to weaken Russia, as ex-FBI agent Coleen Rowley recalls.

By Coleen Rowley

I almost choked on my coffee listening to neoconservative Rudy Giuliani pompously claim on national TV that he was surprised about any Chechens being responsible for the Boston Marathon bombings because he’s never seen any indication that Chechen extremists harbored animosity toward the U.S.; Guiliani thought they were only focused on Russia.

Giuliani knows full well how the Chechen “terrorists” proved useful to the U.S. in keeping pressure on the Russians, much as the Afghan mujahedeen were used in the anti-Soviet war in Afghanistan from 1980 to 1989. In fact, many neocons signed up as Chechnya’s “friends,” including former CIA Director James Woolsey.

Former New York Mayor Rudy Giuliani.

For instance, see this 2004 article in the UK Guardian, entitled, “The Chechens’ American friends: The Washington neocons’ commitment to the war on terror evaporates in Chechnya, whose cause they have made their own.”

Author John Laughland wrote: “the leading group which pleads the Chechen cause is the American Committee for Peace in Chechnya (ACPC). The list of the self-styled ‘distinguished Americans’ who are its members is a roll call of the most prominent neoconservatives who so enthusiastically support the ‘war on terror.’

“They include Richard Perle, the notorious Pentagon adviser; Elliott Abrams of Iran-Contra fame; Kenneth Adelman, the former US ambassador to the UN who egged on the invasion of Iraq by predicting it would be ‘a cakewalk’; Midge Decter, biographer of Donald Rumsfeld and a director of the rightwing Heritage Foundation; Frank Gaffney of the militarist Centre for Security Policy; Bruce Jackson, former US military intelligence officer and one-time vice-president of Lockheed Martin, now president of the US Committee on Nato; Michael Ledeen of the American Enterprise Institute, a former admirer of Italian fascism and now a leading proponent of regime change in Iran; and R. James Woolsey, the former CIA director who is one of the leading cheerleaders behind George Bush’s plans to re-model the Muslim world along pro-US lines.”

The ACPC later sanitized “Chechnya” to “Caucasus” so it’s rebranded itself as the “American Committee for Peace in the Caucasus.”

Of course, Giuliani also just happens to be one of several neocons and corrupt politicians who took hundreds of thousands of dollars from MEK sources when that Iranian group was listed by the U.S. State Department as a Foreign Terrorist Organization (FTO). The money paid for these American politicians to lobby (illegally under the Patriot Act) U.S. officials to get MEK off the FTO list.

Down the Rabbit Hole

Alice in Wonderland is an understatement if you understand the full reality of what’s going on. But if you can handle going down the rabbit hole even further, check out prominent former New York Times journalist (and author of The Commission book) Phil Shenon’s discovery of the incredible “Terrible Missed Chance” a couple of years ago.

Shenon’s discovery involved key information that the FBI and the entire “intelligence” community mishandled and covered up, not only before 9/11 but for a decade afterward. And it also related to the exact point of my 2002 “whistleblower memo” that led to the post 9/11 DOJ-Inspector General investigation about FBI failures and also partially helped launch the 9/11 Commission investigation.

But still the full truth did not come out, even after Shenon’s blockbuster discovery in 2011 of the April 2001 memo linking the main Chechen leader Ibn al Khattab to Osama bin Laden. The buried April 2001 memo had been addressed to FBI Director Louis Freeh (another illegal recipient of MEK money, by the way!) and also to eight of the FBI’s top counter-terrorism officials.

Similar memos must have been widely shared with all U.S. intelligence in April 2001. Within days of terrorist suspect Zaccarias Moussaoui’s arrest in Minnesota on Aug. 16, 2001, French intelligence confirmed that Moussaoui had been fighting under and recruiting for Ibn al-Khattab, raising concerns about Moussaoui’s flight training.

Yet FBI Headquarters officials balked at allowing a search of his laptop and other property, still refusing to recognize that: 1) the Chechen separatists were themselves a “terrorist group” for purposes of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act’s (FISA) legal requirement of acting “on behalf of a foreign power” and 2) that Moussaoui’s link to Ibn al Khattab inherently then linked him to bin Laden’s well-recognized Al Qaeda group for purposes of FISA (the point in my memo).

This all occurred during the same time that CIA Director George Tenet and other counter-terrorism officials, and don’t forget that Tenet was apprised of the information about Moussaoui’s arrest around Aug. 24, 2001, told us their “hair was on fire” over the prospect of a major terrorist attack and “the system was blinking red.”

The post 9/11 investigations launched as a result of my 2002 “whistleblower memo” did conclude that a major mistake, which could have prevented or reduced 9/11, was the lack of recognition of al Khattab’s Chechen fighters as a “terrorist group” for purposes of FISA.

As far as I know, the several top FBI officials, who were the named recipients of the April 2001 intelligence memo entitled “Bin Laden/Ibn Khattab Threat Reporting” establishing how the two leaders were “heavily entwined,” brushed it off by mostly denying they had read the April 2001 memo (which explains why the memo had to be covered up as they attempted to cover up other embarrassing info).

There are other theories, of course, as to why U.S. officials could not understand or grasp this “terrorist link.” These involve the U.S.’s constant operating of “friendly terrorists,” perhaps even al Khattab himself (and/or those around him), on and off, opportunistically, for periods of time to go against “enemy” nations, i.e., the Soviet Union, and regimes we don’t’ like.

Shifting Lines

But officials can get confused when their former covert “assets” turn into enemies themselves. That’s what has happened with al-Qaeda-linked jihadists in Libya and Syria, fighters who the U.S. government favored in their efforts to topple the Qaddafi and Assad regimes, respectively. These extremists are prone to turn against their American arms suppliers and handlers once the common enemy is defeated.

The same MO exists with the U.S. and Israel currently collaborating with the Iranian MEK terrorists who have committed assassinations inside Iran. The U.S. government has recently shifted the MEK terrorists from the ranks of “bad” to “good” terrorists as part of a broader campaign to undermine the Iranian government. For details, see “Our (New) Terrorists, the MEK: Have We Seen This Movie Before?”

Giuliani and his ilk engage, behind the scenes, in all these insidious operations but then blithely turn to the cameras to spew their hypocritical propaganda fueling the counterproductive “war on terror” for public consumption, when that serves their interests. Maybe this explains Giuliani’s amazement (or feigned ignorance) on Friday morning after the discovery that the family of the alleged Boston Marathon bombers was from Chechnya.

My observations are not meant to be a direct comment about the motivations of the two Boston bombing suspects whose thinking remains unclear. It’s still very premature and counterproductive to speculate on their motives.

But the lies and disinformation that go into the confusing and ever-morphing notion of “terrorism” result from the U.S. Military Industrial Complex (and its little brother, the “National Security Surveillance Complex”) and their need to control the mainstream media’s framing of the story.

So, a simplistic narrative/myth is put forth to sustain U.S. wars. From time to time, those details need to be reworked and some of the facts “forgotten” to maintain the storyline about bad terrorists “who hate the U.S.” when, in reality, the U.S. Government may have nurtured the same forces as “freedom fighters” against various “enemies.”

The bottom line is to never forget that “a poor man’s war is terrorism while a rich man’s terrorism is war” and sometimes those lines cross for the purposes of big-power politics. War and terrorism seem to work in sync that way.

Coleen Rowley is a retired FBI agent and former chief division counsel in Minneapolis. She’s now a dedicated peace and justice activist and board member of the Women Against Military Madness.

49 comments for “Chechen Terrorists and the Neocons

  1. Luther Bliss
    April 24, 2013 at 06:05

    Not too often that you get a writer who responds in the blog comment section. I have long been a fan of Sibel Edmonds’ bluntness on intelligence matters and I’m now extending that same respect to Coleen Rowley.

    I dare anyone to read the works of serious ‘deep politics’ researchers like Peter Dale Scott, Sibel Edmonds, Robert Parry, Kevin Fenton and then look at the background of the suspects [i.e members of an anti-Russia emigre community with ties to narco/organized crime & NATO-supported terrorist organization who were “counseled”/recruited by the FBI(CIA?) and traveled in & out of the USA without notice due to a “spelling error”] and not see re-occurring patterns with the previous two terrorist attacks on the WTC and other such ‘deep events’.

    The rapidly solidifying narrative of the attacks being the work of “two lone nuts” does not strike me as the complete story – and until the American media and legal system operates in a more transparent manner I will maintain this skepticism.

  2. Thomas
    April 22, 2013 at 01:03

    Its still not clear the two suspects in the Boston Bombings were (a)Chechens or (b) if they were that they were trying to prosecute the Chechen cause,as
    everything I have seen suggests that as apparently misfit young Muslims they were influenced by radical jihadist Islamic leaders and propaganda

    If that is so I can’t see how Colleen Rowley’s thesis can be sustained that the bombers’ actions were a form of blow back for US support of Chechens rebelling against Russian rule or why Chechens would attack the US rather than Russian targets

  3. Coleen Rowley
    April 21, 2013 at 15:08

    Michael Munk (www.michaelmunk.com)just furnished the following astute comment:

  4. Coleen Rowley
    April 21, 2013 at 15:04

    Michael Munk, http://www.michaelmunk.com just made the following astute comment:

  5. Coleen Rowley
    April 21, 2013 at 08:49

    I wrote this so fast yesterday and it’s not exactly polished. For instance I almost always put “terrorists” in quotes because it’s a term that doesn’t have a real definition or fixed meaning but is just used to manipulate people by pressing their emotional buttons (fear, hate, greed, false pride and blind loyalty). But yes, we HAVE seen this movie before! Our corrupt politicians and neocon-controlled national security-foreign policy connivers just keep running the same “Charlie Wilson War” script: “they might be terrorists but they are our terrorists!” Charlie Wilson’s War was hardly worth seeing the first time as you’ll recall it ended on a (falsely) high note without showing the blowback of 9-11. But only a few astute analysts and movie reviewers criticized that big omission.

    The opportunistic neocons used Iraqi ex-pat con-artist Ahmed Chalabi to gin up their war on Iraq and were SO surprised to discover him later turning on and spying on them. Years later we get Hillary feigning surprise—almost identical to Guiliani’s!— how could it be that our Libyan rebel “friends” whom we armed for our own “regime change” purposes turned against us and killed our Ambassador?! What a surprise! In fact we have seen this movie so many times now that we all should be prepared for the same ending with Syria and Iran. It doesn’t take much “intelligence” to predict it will also not end well with arming the “Syrian Al-Qaeda linked rebels” or the MEK groups we are using to commit assassinations in Iran. Former “foreign terrorist organization” MEK just opened an office a block from the White House, celebrated by half of Washington’s neocons, politicians and “security officials” (all with their pockets full of MEK money). Can you spell OPPORTUNISM?! http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/in-the-loop/post/once-banned-iran-exile-group-opens-office-two-blocks-from-white-house/2013/04/11/c421c6c2-a2b4-11e2-82bc-511538ae90a4_blog.html

    You don’t have to observe US foreign policy—and its constant, reckless efforts to achieve “full spectrum dominance”—very long to realize that it’s based on constantly flip flopping between two modes: “whack a mole” military force on the “bad terrorists” and “enemy of my enemy is my friend” arming and opportunistic exploiting of “our good terrorists.” You’d think the public would get tired of the same plot and walk out, wouldn’t ya?!

    • Coleen Rowley
      April 21, 2013 at 15:11

      From Michael Munk: “The Boston bombings should force us to take a deeper look into how the US labels and relates to groups or people who “use violence against civilians for political purposes” — the definition of “terrorism” consistently expressed almost in chorus by the Clinton, Bush and Obama regimes when they go to war against it.

      In fact, if the “terrorists” kill civilians (often the mantra is: “their own people”) as part of a campaign against governments or entities which resist US hegemony, the US regards them has having legitimate grievances and gives them support ranging from a positive press (the Uighurs of China),an invitation to the White House (Dalai Lama), and framing them as another country’s “internal problem”(Chechens and other Russian minorities). At the other extreme, if they seem to have a chance at regime change of a weaker government, the US enthusiastically endorses their cause and backs them with varying intensities of raw military force (Kosovo, Afghanistan, Libya, Iran and Syria). The Lesser Evil just doubled his support for the Syrian “armed opposition,” which every day kills more civilians—often with the same weapons—than the Boston bombers.

      In short,“terrorism” OK as long as the civilians are killed for political objectives endorsed by the US. In an earlier terminology, “Our freedom fighters are your terrorists” and vice versa.

      It’s not yet clear what the motives of the Boston bombers were but their family’s Chechen origin (their father received asylum in the US based on his activities in that region’s separatist wars, but reports differ on which side he was on) suggest we review the US response to those wars.

      And the consistent position of the Clinton, Bush and Obama regimes has been to label the separatist wars an “internal Russian problem” and urge the government to negotiate a political settlement. (see Jennifer Epstein, Presidents all avoided talking about Chechnya http://www.politico.com/story/2013/04/obama-bush-clinton-all-avoided-talking-chechnya-90327.html#ixzz2QyKyVHo3). During these years, the regional separatists who were originally secular, have become more militant Muslims and have joined Jihadist groups fighting in Bosnia, Afghanistan, Iraq, Libya and most recently in Syria.

      The US regimes refused to label the separatist fighters as “terrorists” except for a small group identified with Al-Qaeda. Russian president Putin called out the US for dividing terrorists between “ours” (those who directly threaten the US) and “theirs” (who—perhaps until now—did not attack the US). In the wake of Boston, his spokesman pointedly reminded Obama that “Back at the time when we had a war raging in the Caucasus, Putin repeatedly said that the terrorists shouldn’t be divided into ‘ours’ and ‘theirs,’ they mustn’t be played with, differentiated into categories,” In fact, when the older Tsarneva brother requested a Russian visa last year, that country warned the US to investigate his possible link to what they– but not the US– consider to be “terrorists.” The FBI found no threat but DHS delayed his application for US citizenship. He returned to the US on his permanent resident “Green Card.”

  6. SovereignMary
    April 21, 2013 at 07:41

    The last sentence is oh so profoundly and sadly an absolute truism….”The bottom line is to never forget that “a poor man’s war is terrorism while a rich man’s terrorism is war” – and sometimes those lines cross for the purposes of big-power politics. War and terrorism seem to work in sync that way.”

  7. Paul Curtis
    April 21, 2013 at 02:34

    Here is a definition and history of psychopaths:

    http://www.realityisfree.com/sociopth.html

    The webpage is linked by a law professor’s website and has had visitors from around the world for many years. There are many supporting examples and references.

    • Nessi
      April 21, 2013 at 22:26

      Why is this person (Rehmat) allowed to continue posting these hate-sounding, antisemitic comments? I’m not Jewish but I happened to know many Jewish people that hate Zionism and don’t fit the distorted description of Rehmat. Please learn to distinguish between those in power setting detrimental policies that are anti-everything and anti-everybody, except those in power, and those forced to live and deal with the effects of those policies.

    • Paul G.
      April 22, 2013 at 03:12

      Thank you Dr. Goebbels, didn’t know you were still around, I thought you had shot your wife and then yourself May 1945 in Berlin.

  8. rblevy
    April 20, 2013 at 22:10

    The Tsarnaev’s certainly were not mistreated as immigrants in the U.S. They took advantage of the educational and social institutions there and were apparently successful in their endeavors. So why did they turn? Possibly because they became more devout Muslims over time and as a result learned to hate the country that took them in.

  9. Sage on the Hudson
    April 20, 2013 at 16:50

    You keep using the acronym “MEK,” and telling us how much money it’s been contributing to these corrupt neocons and politicians, Colleen, without telling what it’s an acronym FOR.

    Well?

    • Don Bacon
      April 20, 2013 at 22:27

      The People’s Mujahedeen of Iran (MEK) — go figure

    • HotFlash
      April 20, 2013 at 23:04

      Ah, the disingeneous Sage. May I refer you to Wikipedia? http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/People%27s_Mujahedin_of_Iran

      • Paul G.
        April 21, 2013 at 03:52

        Wow, even Wikepedia is Jewish, do you think they screen out non-Jewish contributors?
        In the world according to Rehmat Jews are involved in everything bad, seems to be quite universal. With that tidbit I have had a revelation; Jews are the uber mench, the supermen the Nazis were trying to create in their culture, how ironic. I guess, according to a logical progression from the illogical and inaccurate, that the Germans were just jealous.
        To the point, differentiate between Jews and Zionists; that latter is a subset and they weren’t particularly liked by other Jews during WWII.

    • Coleen Rowley
      April 21, 2013 at 00:32

      Sorry, it’s in the link ‘Our (New) Terrorists’ the MEK: Have We Seen This Movie Before? : http://www.huffingtonpost.com/coleen-rowley/our-new-terrorists-the-me_b_1917362.html

  10. Alan Weberman
    April 20, 2013 at 15:01

    After Zacarias Moussaoui’s detainment, and after French intelligence sources confirmed Moussaoui’s connection to A-Q, Washington FBI lawyers repeatedly declined requests from Minneapolis agents to seek a special warrant under the FISA authorizing a search of Moussaoui’s laptop computer, that was later found to contain a letter from Yazid Sufaat, and the name of A-Q paymaster Ramzi bin al-Shibh. The 26-page Electronic Communication from the Minneapolis Division had information that an FBI agent working today would have concluded was sufficient to obtain a FISA warrant. The application should have gone forward to the Justice Department and the FISA court. The reason it did not was that the office was not given any evidence that Moussaoui was acting on behalf of a foreign power, a requirement of the law, as the FBI had little faith in its French counterpart.

    This was what FBI agent Coleen Rowley, complained to Congress about. She charged that her supervisory agent, Michael Maltbie, a CIA agent on temporary assignment with the FBI, and his boss, David Frasca, tried to make the application not viable, by playing down information obtained from French intelligence sources about Moussaoui’s links to foreign terrorist organizations.

  11. bobzz
    April 20, 2013 at 13:52

    All of these ‘terrorist’ atrocities, and they are that, stem from America’s insane foreign policy. I wish for a presidental candidate who would run on the slogan, ‘restoring sanity,’ and level with the American people on our foreign policy blunders. Level with us on ‘why they hate us so much.’ I know; it will never happen.

    • Jay Warren Clark
      April 20, 2013 at 14:53

      It did, Ron Paul–but look what his own party did to him. He was the only candidate that could unite rational men from both sides and they crucified him as a candidate! We must conclude from this that the most unreasonable thing to conclude is that Reason has anything to do with American politics today. Things are run by psychopaths–and the American public is too stupid to see it. Watch now as our civil rights topple like dominoes–as the citizens of Boston cheer. JWC

  12. John
    April 20, 2013 at 12:34

    In light of this article and link to Sibel Edmond’s writings, someone should follow up this opinion piece found on Reuters

    http://blogs.reuters.com/great-debate/2013/04/19/when-linking-boston-to-chechnya-exercise-caution/

    Editor’s note: This is a memo originally published by Eurasia Group, a political risk firm. It is being reprinted with permission.
    And just who is Eurasia Group?

    • John
      April 20, 2013 at 17:13

      Co-author David Gordon of the cited article is Head of Research at Eurasia Group and former Director of Policy Planning at the US Department of State.

      Well,well,well

      • Luther Bliss
        April 24, 2013 at 06:26

        Before being appointed Director of Policy Planning, Gordon served as the Director of CIA’s Office of Transnational Issues.

        Of course, it has been hard to tell the State Dept. and the CIA apart for the last couple decades….

  13. Greg Driscoll
    April 20, 2013 at 10:31

    Killing or injuring innocent people, especially children, is beyond the pale, atrocious; but here we have a President using the memory of a murdered 8 year old Boston boy’s call for peace to evoke rhetorical outrage, when he himself has the deaths of so many innocent children and adults on his own hands in Pakistan and Afghanistan. And no one in that cathedral stood up and walked out that I know of. “To us it is a matter of surprise and astonishment, that men with the word ‘peace, peace’ continually on their lips, should be so fond of living under, and supporting a government and at the same time calling it ‘happy’, which is never better pleased than when at war–…We conceive it a disgrace to this State to harbour or wink at such palpable hypocrisy.” ~ Tom Paine, quoting a pamphlet in his American Crisis III.

  14. David G
    April 20, 2013 at 08:20

    I think Coleen Rowley is off-base in thinking Giuliani knows any of this—that his ignorance is “feigned”. There is no reason to think these actual facts are among the two or three deluded slogans that constitute his knowledge of foreign affairs, and that he is paid large sums to regurgitate.

    Other than the foregoing, a highly informative and pertinent read.

  15. F. G. Sandford
    April 20, 2013 at 05:34

    Rudy looks like a loaf of Mortadella with a set of dentures inserted at the appropriate level. I think it’s particularly telling that they drag his know-nothing incompetent persona out every time they need a sympathetic terrorism “expert”. He qualifies by the same criteria that Captain Smith of Titanic fame could be put forward as an expert on maritime disasters or John McCain of USS Forrestal fame could be held up as an expert on plane crashes. The hypocrisy is mind-boggling, but the U.S. public laps it up just the same.

  16. Paul G.
    April 20, 2013 at 04:44

    Very fortunate that younger brother is captured alive, so he can talk. Might as well, as his future is very much less than bright.
    Hypothesis: His friends description of him as a leader, nice guy naturalized citizen doesn’t fit with someone who would blow up a crowd of innocent race watchers and murder a police officer, who was not any paying attention to them. But it does fit the concept of a placating younger sibling easily manipulated into something awful by a respected older brother who probably was a semi-father figure. There is a reason the military likes 19 year olds; they are putty easy to form with the right training. It Should be interesting to find out about older brothers connections. It was just reported that the FBI had been on to him for awhile, but would not admit to anything incriminating.

  17. Per Fagereng
    April 20, 2013 at 01:09

    I believe Boris Berezovsky is dead. Didn’t he kill himself recently?

    • Paul G.
      April 20, 2013 at 04:33

      Good point unless rehmat believes in ghosts comming back from the dead to haunt. Yes Boris, the backer of the disastrous and drunken Yeltsin is quite dead.

    • D. Snow
      April 20, 2013 at 04:55

      Yes, you are correct. Boris Berezovsky died on March 23. 2013. Unsure if he committed suicide or not.

      http://www.businessinsider.com/how-boris-berezovsky-lost-his-fortune-2013-3

  18. LD
    April 19, 2013 at 22:09

    I’m always reminded of the image of “The Sphinx” whenever discussing “War on Terrorism.” In other words, The Sphinx is STILL in tact in this piece, meaning that “we must never admit that the call is coming from inside the house, at all costs.”

    Please read this piece by another FBI Whistleblower, Sibel Edmonds, called “USA: The Creator & Sustainer of Chechen Terrorism.” In it, she describes the US actors working with these “groups,” ie leftover structural remnants of CIA/NATO “Operation Gladio” during the Cold War in Europe.

    http://www.boilingfrogspost.com/2013/04/19/usa-the-creator-sustainer-of-chechen-terrorism/#more-19602

  19. Marshalldoc
    April 19, 2013 at 21:38

    Let’s see here… U.S. NeoCons support Islamic extremists’ anger at USSR for occupying Afghanistan as means to ‘stick it to’ the USSR. Descendents of those same Islamic extremists fly airplanes into U.S. buildings after U.S. leaves them in lurch & offends their religious sensibilities.

    U.S. NeoCons support Islamic extremists’ anger at Russia for continuing the deny Chechnya’s independence as means of ‘sticking it to Putin’. Children of those same Islamic extremists set of bombs at Boston Marathon as U.S. shows more affection for Putin than Chechnya.

    Do the words “Blow Back” resonate?

    • Coleen Rowley
      April 20, 2013 at 08:08

      Yes, we HAVE seen this same movie before! http://www.huffingtonpost.com/coleen-rowley/our-new-terrorists-the-me_b_1917362.html Actually many times. And we know how it ends. Yet the Guilianis and Woolseys act as if it’s a surprise ending. Our reckless US quest for “full spectrum dominance” half relies on knee-jerk “whack a mole” military force and half upon “enemy of my enemy is my friend” opportunistic schemes operating “good terrorists” to destabilize regimes who oppose our will. Here’s the latest re the terrorist group MEK’s celebrated opening of new office near the White House with the help of all these former national security, military and corrupt politicians of both parties: http://english.farsnews.com/newstext.php?nn=9107162590

  20. Per Fagereng
    April 19, 2013 at 18:47

    1. The Chechens deserve their independence.
    2. The US and the Neo-Cons can play politics but that doesn’t change Point 1.
    3. “Terrorism” is becoming a useless concept. Almost everybody does it.
    4. Denial of rights often leads to “terrorism.” Kashmir is a good example.

  21. Bill Chapman
    April 19, 2013 at 17:53

    I mistyped. The brothers were born in Kyrgyzstan according to the interview transcript with their father, published on the NYTimes online this afternoon. http://thelede.blogs.nytimes.com/2013/04/19/updates-on-aftermath-of-boston-marathon-explosions-2/?src=twt&twt=thelede#new-york-times-interview-with-suspects-father

    • ToivoS
      April 19, 2013 at 20:12

      The family looks like refugees from the Chechen war. Patriotism to their former land can burn brightly in such families.

    • Phoenix Woman
      April 20, 2013 at 17:27

      The younger brother was named after Dzhokhar Dudayev, the first Chechen president and the Chechen version of George Washington.

      http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dzhokhar_Dudayev

  22. Bill Chapman
    April 19, 2013 at 17:47

    I heard the brothers’ aunt interviewed on NPR this morning. She stated quite clearly that the brothers were born in Kazakhstan. There family had left Chechnya long before their birth. So while they may be of Chechen heritage, they apparently have never been in Chechnya.

  23. Colleen
    April 19, 2013 at 17:22

    “I almost choked on my coffee ”

    Felt the same way this morning when R. James Woolsey said on CNBC “Chechens don’t hate us, they hate Russians because Russia occupies their country.”

    Tweeted it here — https://twitter.com/ColleenWinthrop

    • Peter Loeb
      April 20, 2013 at 05:25

      BOSTON LYNCHING —- The vultures of the media and government have made this
      into a public lynching. “Innocent until proven guilty” has evaporated in favor
      of jubilant expression of revenge (renamed today “justice”).The public demanded and got a Muslim connection. No further connection is required .
      There is no discussion of the reasons for Muslim hate of America. Whether
      guilty or not, “suspect # 2” who was not murdered to satisfy the crowd has no
      defence against the so-called “justice” of mob demands for blood (bolstered
      by the President). A National Public Radio station —after having reported
      a robbery with complete details as being associated—cited a spokesperson
      from the American Heritage Institute “an expert on Muslim violence” with no
      somment as to its origin and point of view. The statement by Khameneh of Iran condemning the bombing as well as American violence was , of course, never mentioned. I listened to Beethoven on another station to get rid of this
      lynch-spirited drone.

      • Jay Warren Clark
        April 20, 2013 at 14:42

        Here were my comments this morning:
        When I was a thick headed 17 year old farm boy and they captured Lee Harvey Oswald I said to myself, “They better take care of him because I want to know what he has to say.” Last night when a suspect in the bombing was filled with bullet holes and (somehow [so far] miraculously escaping death) captured, the sophisticated citizens of Boston came into the streets by the thousands and cheered. It looks like the entire city believes everything they see on television and reacts according to the cues given to them by police and media talking heads–if the people of Boston are indicative of the mental alacrity of the rest of the country we are certainly doomed; the psychopaths have free reign (and they now know it!) and clearly, as they say, “the end is near.”
        Fasten your seat belts friends because the doomsday train has left the station, is speeding up, and your civil rights are the ticket they are after. And with a citizenry made op of morons like this there is nothing to stop them. Sad, pathetic, stupid? Yes, but there you have it. JWC

        • CambridgeKnitter
          April 20, 2013 at 23:18

          My sense of how people around here were feeling was happiness that the suspect was captured and alive because we also want to know why. It is not at all clear when he was “filled with bullet holes” (although there was one comment from a neighbor that said the boat was full of bullet holes), considering that there was a trail of blood leading to the boat. Reporters on the scene were unsure as to whether the sounds they heard were gunfire or flash-bang grenades. I did not see widespread bloodlust, although I didn’t look at the Herald, just the Globe, Cambridge Day and the Cambridge Chronicle. People who expressed sympathy for everybody involved were not vilified. I think you are reading your own fears into this situation, and I sincerely hope that the people of Boston are who I think we are and not who you think we are.

        • Stephan Alan Sonn
          April 22, 2013 at 12:34

          I was 21 and in college. His capture seemed too quick and his killer too timely.

          I do not want to face the future of our children so fatalistically however strongly I accept the premise of demise. I am a liberal but what passes for liberal today is so intellectually inbred that I consider myself a dogma survivor.

          • colinj
            April 29, 2013 at 11:17

            Yup. Count me among the recent escapees from liberal dogma ensconced in msm narratives, perpetually outraged at all the wrong people in a never-ending futile tit-for-tat with hateful teabaggers. I still have the same values, but now i understand what the real problem is. Ironically, I’m not perpetually outraged anymore. The whole L vs R paradigm only serves to distract and divide, benifitting the global elites behind all the mayhem.

      • K Mark Hammer
        April 21, 2013 at 20:02

        Very Well Stated

    • Paul Sullivan
      April 20, 2013 at 11:20

      Bravo.I felt exactly the same .You expressed it .

    • Christopher
      April 20, 2013 at 15:14

      Great, now a do an expose on the relationship between Soviet Russia and Israel and explain to us, not only why the United States is so strangely aligned with a country which divides its people by way of a massive wall and separate bus lines, but why they need their police on the scene, in Boston.

      “The easiest way to gain control of the population is to carry out acts of terror.”

      The public “will clamour for such laws if the personal security is threatened.”
      Joseph Stalin

    • Paul G.
      April 21, 2013 at 03:58

      I have a question for Colleen. Could there be any evidence of a purposeful desire at the top of the FBI not to follow the Mideasterner/flight training link in order to allow it to go forth, the “inside job theory” of 9/11? As opposed to mere bungling, overwork or ego.

    • Cliff Webb
      April 28, 2013 at 13:42

      Great article. I have been yelling at folks to quit getting so hung up on Israel for a while now. Darrel Issa, Dianne Feinstein and Tony Blair are all lobbyists for Kazakhstan’s president for life and former head of the Soviet communist party, Nursultan Nazarbayev. I just read somewhere that the Boston bomber’s father was a prosecutor for the Jewish ‘soviet union’.
      The caucuses are why the neocons didn’t want Obama’s ‘troop surge’ in Afghanistan. They had just got their Holocaust Inc heroin farm in full swing, flooding Moscow with smack while using the proceeds to fund ‘chechen’ terrorism….

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