Things go boom

[Cain]

Also just to say, "brainwashing" as commonly understood and practiced by, for example, cults, seems wholly absent from this case and terrorism in general.  There are occasional exceptions, like Patty Hearst (maybe), but statistically speaking...

Ethnic terrorism was something of a specialist area for a former professor of mine, and what he believed was that you had to get someone to strongly identify with the ethnic identity in question, show them being persecuted and treated cruelly, and then build up a "warrior counter-narrative", about how historically one's people were independent and brave fighters, who didnt take shit from anyone. 

Chechen history is very amenable to this kind of portrayal.  The Chechens did resist the Mongol invasions - successfully, unlike the Russians to the north.  The Chechens also fought a long and drawn out guerrilla war to avoid being absorbed into the Russian Empire - less successfully, though done well enough to earn the emnity of the Russian leadership for a very long time indeed.  You then contrast that to the modern day situation of Chechnya and, well...

[Mesozoic Mister Nigel]

My understanding is that it's very much based on reforming a person's identity and also about gradually isolating them from people outside of the terrorist cell, which is in fact pretty much classically cultlike and also has a lot in common with abusive relationships.

[Cain]

My understanding is that it's very much based on reforming a person's identity and also about gradually isolating them from people outside of the terrorist cell, which is in fact pretty much classically cultlike and also has a lot in common with abusive relationships.

Yes.  However, the evidence for its use by terrorist cells is, well, virtually nonexistant.

I am quoting Marc Sageman here.  He is a CIA consultant, but then, who isn't?  He's also a forensic psychiatrist with a background of working in Afghanistan.  He says:

"The brainwashing thesis is a value-judgement about an ideology couched in a pseudo-scientific argument. [...]  From a scientific perspective, five decades of research has failed to provide any empirical support for the thesis.  Second, the biographical accounts of those explaining their embrace of the ideology fail to describe any coercive techniques leading to their final acceptance of the ideology."

[Mesozoic Mister Nigel]

My understanding is that it's very much based on reforming a person's identity and also about gradually isolating them from people outside of the terrorist cell, which is in fact pretty much classically cultlike and also has a lot in common with abusive relationships.

Yes.  However, the evidence for its use by terrorist cells is, well, virtually nonexistant.

I am quoting Marc Sageman here.  He is a CIA consultant, but then, who isn't?  He's also a forensic psychiatrist with a background of working in Afghanistan.  He says:

"The brainwashing thesis is a value-judgement about an ideology couched in a pseudo-scientific argument. [...]  From a scientific perspective, five decades of research has failed to provide any empirical support for the thesis.  Second, the biographical accounts of those explaining their embrace of the ideology fail to describe any coercive techniques leading to their final acceptance of the ideology."

One of the problems with the term "brainwashing" is that it isn't very well defined.

[Cain]

Very true.

However, in Sageman's case, there are alternative explanations which fit the known data better than brainwashing in almost all cases - namely, ideological affiliation, social affiliation, kinship and the infamous "bunch of guys" effect.

[Mesozoic Mister Nigel]

Very true.

However, in Sageman's case, there are alternative explanations which fit the known data better than brainwashing in almost all cases - namely, ideological affiliation, social affiliation, kinship and the infamous "bunch of guys" effect.

Right, it's called the power of the group.

What's interesting is that the power of the group so closely mimics a dynamic that is selectively called "brainwashing" that it could be (and has been) argued that we call it "brainwashing" only when it applies to certain things, like fringe religions. Churches, clubs, fraternities (especially fraternities!) workplaces, Alcoholics Anonymous, cliques, and other social groups also have the power of the group, but they don't typically drink the Flav-R-Aid so the term "brainwashing" doesn't get applied to them.

Whether terrorist groups are cult-like really just depends on the definitions you're using, and how badly you want to defend a thesis. Are they fraternity-like? Some would say yes. And some would say that fraternities are cult-like.

[Mesozoic Mister Nigel]

But I do concede your point that they are not generally overtly coercive.

[Cain]

Yeah, I tend to have problems with definitions without coercion being involved, because, although it does sound potentially interesting, I think you obscure more than you reveal by calling such disparate behaviours brainwashing.  I prefer lots of little tiny distinctions to overarching theoretical approaches, and that seems to be leading towards the latter.

Anyway.

It seems possible the Tsarnaev's may not have made their bombs at their Cambridge apartment, as has been claimed.  See this:

Jim Duggan, 51, has been haunted since his close encounter with brothers Tamerlan and Dzhokhar Tsarnaev, thinking maybe he could have unwittingly thwarted the killer plot if he had just driven away.

He told the Daily News on Thursday that the brothers flagged him down April 14 outside a rapid-transit station in the Boston suburb of Malden.

"I tried to put their backpacks into the trunk, but they wouldn't let me touch them," Duggan said.

He drove the men to Cambridge, letting them out near Kendall Square — close to where they lived.

Duggan said the brothers gave him a $2 tip on a $38 fare. As he started to drive away, the the older brother, Tamerlan, 26, began pounding on his car and yelling at him to get his attention.

The taxi driver said he immediately stopped and popped the trunk. Before the brothers could stop him, he removed one of the backpacks, which he now suspects held a homemade pressure-cooker bomb used in the attack.

"I said to them, 'That's the most packed backpack I ever picked up,'" said Duggan, guessing the bag weighed about 20 pounds.

This could mean they had a bomb-making facility elsewhere, or it could mean there was another bombmaker.

There is a mystery drone that has been flying over Quincy, MA, since about 10 days after the Boston bombings.  Related to the bombings?  Maybe.  The FAA apparently knows, but isn't telling anyone.

And the investigators are now trying to see if either of the brothers are linked to some strange murders in 2011.  I suspect not, as it sounds gang/organised crime related.  But then, 9/11 has a lot more to do with drugs that it initially seemed, and Uncle Ruslan is claimed to have links with a Chechen organised crime boss...as well as elements in Kazakhstan that straddle the line between Mafia and statesmen.  Maybe Hopsicker will dig something up, he's very good when it comes to the drugs investigation angle.

[Golden Applesauce]

I liked conspiracy theories better when they were less plausible and poorly researched. Can we go back to the ones about aliens who want to help us? That one was comforting.

(I have nothing of value to add, but this is really interesting. And fishy.)

[LMNO]

This is creepy as fuck, which is probably why my brain insists on avoiding this thread. So I'm trying to read it as hard as possible, which is creeping me out. The fact that there's no direct narrative adds a shitload of credibility, to me at least.

[Cain]

Welcome to just another day in my life.

At the moment, I'm leaning towards a "blowback" scenario here, like 9/11 was in part.  A bunch of wannabe Cold Warriors and classic Russophobes associated with the CIA wanted to continue running the "games"* they'd been playing in the late 90s.  Maybe with official sanction, maybe without.  Maybe covert orders to destabilize Russia are in effect, but this was an additional, off the books project.  They look at radicalizing Chechens in the US, but instead of them getting ethno-nationalistic, they get global jihadist.  By all accounts, Tamerlan was considered a try-hard by the groups he met in Dagestan.  Maybe he was spurned by them to some degree.  He decides to show them all by attacking the USA - a reflex reaction for global jihadist types.

But I may be wrong.

*Three Days of the Condor is, as always, essential viewing:

Turner: Do we have plans to invade the Middle East?
Higgins: Are you crazy?
Turner: Am I?
Higgins: Look, Turner...
Turner: Do we have plans?
Higgins: No. Absolutely not. We have games. That's all. We play games. What if? How many men? What would it take? Is there a cheaper way to destabilize a regime? That's what we're paid to do.
Turner: So Atwood just took the games too seriously. He was really going to do it, wasn't he?
Higgins: A renegade operation. Atwood knew 54/12 would never authorize it, not with the heat on the company.
Turner: What if there hadn't been any heat? Suppose I hadn't stumbled on their plan?
Higgins: Different ballgame. Fact is, there was nothing wrong with the plan. Oh, the plan was all right, the plan would've worked.

[Cain]

Also, speaking of acts of public violence, there has been a shooting at a Mother's Day parade in New Orleans.

Police Supt Ronal Serpas told reporters that three or four people required surgery but no deaths are reported.

The victims included a 10-year-old girl who suffered a minor wound, he added.

It is unclear what sparked the shooting, which happened in the city's 7th Ward on Sunday afternoon. Police say two or three suspects were seen fleeing the area.

Police said that, as well as the 12 people with gunshot wounds, one person was injured in the ensuing commotion.

The incident happened at about 14:00 (19:00 GMT) at the intersection of Frenchmen and Villere streets.

Supt Serpas said about 200 people were in the area at the time.

"It appears that these two or three people, just for a reason unknown to us, started shooting at, towards, or in the crowd," he said.

"It was over in just a couple of seconds."

The shooting happened at what is known as a second-line parade - a loose procession in which people dance down the street often following a brass band.

[P3nT4gR4m]

On a side not, Cain, am I right in thinking that the difference between "terrorist" and "freedom fighter" lies solely in the politics of the person using the word, or is there some other distinguishing factor beyond "radicals we like" and "radicals we don't like"?

[LMNO]

Welcome to just another day in my life.

At the moment, I'm leaning towards a "blowback" scenario here, like 9/11 was in part.  A bunch of wannabe Cold Warriors and classic Russophobes associated with the CIA wanted to continue running the "games"* they'd been playing in the late 90s.  Maybe with official sanction, maybe without.  Maybe covert orders to destabilize Russia are in effect, but this was an additional, off the books project.  They look at radicalizing Chechens in the US, but instead of them getting ethno-nationalistic, they get global jihadist.  By all accounts, Tamerlan was considered a try-hard by the groups he met in Dagestan.  Maybe he was spurned by them to some degree.  He decides to show them all by attacking the USA - a reflex reaction for global jihadist types.

But I may be wrong.

*Three Days of the Condor is, as always, essential viewing:

Turner: Do we have plans to invade the Middle East?
Higgins: Are you crazy?
Turner: Am I?
Higgins: Look, Turner...
Turner: Do we have plans?
Higgins: No. Absolutely not. We have games. That's all. We play games. What if? How many men? What would it take? Is there a cheaper way to destabilize a regime? That's what we're paid to do.
Turner: So Atwood just took the games too seriously. He was really going to do it, wasn't he?
Higgins: A renegade operation. Atwood knew 54/12 would never authorize it, not with the heat on the company.
Turner: What if there hadn't been any heat? Suppose I hadn't stumbled on their plan?
Higgins: Different ballgame. Fact is, there was nothing wrong with the plan. Oh, the plan was all right, the plan would've worked.

I'm also getting that feeling -- then again, my main source of actual information about the bombings is in this thread, so it may be your persuasive arguments.

[Eater of Clowns]

I spent the day at UMass Dartmouth's Undergraduate Commencement yesterday.  Predictably, the overall theme of every speaker, with the chancellor getting a special mention for her hard-on of the topic, was the "recent difficulties" on campus.  Every attendee was given a UMass Dartmouth Strong pin as we entered, with examples as to what this means including the public safety dispatcher who recognized Dzhokar as a student.

The only speaker who I can't recall even mentioning all of it was the student speaker.  It's almost like the students, who spent the the last several years working hard to achieve this milestone, wanted the occasion to be a celebratory recognition of the class rather than a half-assed message of defiant posturing based on the last month of their time there.

The topic of the day and major concern for the event was less of security than of weather.  So, at least on this one local level, the bombers have had less of an effect on everyday life than a minor passing rainstorm.

Oh, and everyone I talked to that knows Brian Williams says he's a really nice guy.