25 thoughts on “So… What Now?

  1. We need to exploit him for intelligence advantage first using interrogation techniques that do not repeat DO NOT constitute torture.Report

  2. Do we know why he did it? Maybe it’s because he’s one of those religious nut teabaggers who hates the government. We need to fight against this dangerous ideology tooth and claw and even against the people who enable these terrorists by giving them the aid and comfort of public demonstrations implicitly calling for this violence!

    If, however, he is not a teabagger, we need to explain how Islam is not, in fact, the problem and these people are outliers who betray the (really, quite moderate) beliefs of millions and millions and millions of people and tar them with these extremist actions.Report

        1. @Jaybird,

          Sadly you sound like Mayor Bloomberg who was speculating the bomber was mad about Obamacare. I guess it is not politically correct to acknowledge that the bomber is Muslim.Report

    1. @Jaybird, Isn’t this just a bit of false-equivalence between fringe anti-government groups and all of Islam? Is there something inherently wrong with saying that anti-government extremists that preach violence should be condemned, regardless and independently of their religious bent?

      If a sizable number of people blamed all of Christianity for George Tiller’s murder, for example, I’d be more sympathetic to your point. But this just seems like preemptive self-victimization.Report

        1. I guess it’s subjective, though I’m quite convinced that there are extremist groups within the tea-party movement that should be marginalized. My point though, is that saying “one anti-government protester is violent therefore we should be wary of all anti-government protesters” is quite a ways off from saying “one anti-American Islamist is violent therefore we should be wary of all Muslims”.

          Once reprisals against Muslims for terrorism are down to the level of those against Christians for tea-bagging, then we can probably shelve the “religion of peace” signs for the Gadsden flag.Report

          1. @trizzlor, one again, I am reminded of the essays written following the Tiller shooting and the Fort Hood shooting.

            The best way to tell if someone was likely to write a “well, you have to understand” essay about the one was whether they were breathing fire about the other.Report

    2. @Jaybird, I don’t think His Magnificence permits usage of the term “terrorist.” I will be required to report any further use of that word…which is a non-word. Thank you.Report

  3. Off with his head! Anything less than an execution by 5PM today is un-American. We don’t need to know anything more. The very suggestion is proof that you’re soft on terror.Report

      1. @Jaybird,

        As a colleague of mine just said, “his idea of a bomb is like what I’d come up with if you gave me fifty bucks and said I couldn’t use the Internet.”

        But still… we can’t afford a pre-9/11 mindset. Off with his head! Because terrorism!Report

        1. @Jason Kuznicki, did you read what Thoreau said on Henley’s site?

          http://highclearing.com/index.php/archives/2010/05/02/11094

          It appears that the terrorists we’re facing at home these days are basically the Generation Veal of terrorists. “Yeah, Osama, I, like, forgot to read the bomb manual. And then I left some supplies at home. Can I, like, get some funding for another attempt? No? That’s, like so unfair. I mean, I tried and everything. Don’t I get credit for that? Not even partial credit?”Report

  4. What upsets me is the way the media kind of hosed the investigation. Law enforcement was hoping to keep an eye on the guy for a bit to see what they could find out and the media blabbed some stuff so he booked.

    I suspect though, due to the crappy nature of the bomb that he might be more of a ‘lone gunman’ than part of an organized terror network.

    BTW Megan McArdle had a great post yesterday on the cost-benefit behind terrorism.Report

  5. Apparently this guy had bomb making training in Waziristan. That’s quite some training. You have to wonder if the CIA is running fake Jihadi training camps for these numb-nuts. If they’re not, they should.Report

      1. “Brilliant work, detective. How did you catch him so quickly?”

        “We got his name and address off his application for an OSH card.”Report

  6. Is Janet going to go on TV and tell everyone that the system worked though the FBI lost him an he got on the plane?Report

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