Things go boom

[The Good Reverend Roger]

The lawyers argued that Phillipos was questioned without a lawyer and made himself available to federal authorities at all times. The charge of lying has ruined what was a bright future, they said.

"This case is about a frightened and confused 19-year-old who was subjected to intense questioning and interrogation, without the benefit of counsel, and in the context of one of the worst attacks against the nation," the lawyers wrote.

http://usnews.nbcnews.com/_news/2013/05/06/18084257-frightened-tsarnaev-friend-can-be-released-with-conditions-prosecutors-say?lite

AMERRRRRICA, AMERRRRRRRRRICA!
\

[Cain]

High Value Interrogation Group again?

They're really pushing hard for some Islamist radical conspiracy.

[The Good Reverend Roger]

High Value Interrogation Group again?

They're really pushing hard for some Islamist radical conspiracy.

Yep.

And this extra-judicial nonsense is becoming normal.

No counsel.

No Miranda Warning.

Held as long as we fucking feel like holding you, habeus corpus be damned.

Interrogate without counsel until the person contradicts themselves, then bust them for lying.  Then send them home with an ankle bracelet.  Because even if the person wasn't a threat, being badgered into contradicting yourself constitutes felony obstruction.  IE, we just generated a crime where there wasn't one before.

[The Good Reverend Roger]

Meanwhile, in Minnesota:

http://usnews.nbcnews.com/_news/2013/05/06/18087039-officials-minnesota-man-arrested-on-suspicion-of-plotting-terror-attack?lite

Buford?  Someone named their kid BUFORD?  I'd be a terrorist, too.   

[Anna Mae Bollocks]

Meanwhile, in Minnesota:

http://usnews.nbcnews.com/_news/2013/05/06/18087039-officials-minnesota-man-arrested-on-suspicion-of-plotting-terror-attack?lite

Buford?  Someone named their kid BUFORD?  I'd be a terrorist, too.   

THAT AIN'T FUNNY
               /
<-----BUFORD

[tyrannosaurus vex]

Meanwhile, in Minnesota:

http://usnews.nbcnews.com/_news/2013/05/06/18087039-officials-minnesota-man-arrested-on-suspicion-of-plotting-terror-attack?lite

Buford?  Someone named their kid BUFORD?  I'd be a terrorist, too.   

I had a great uncle named Buford. He was married to my great aunt, Fannie. They lived somewhere in Tennessee. Buford's hands were all gnarly with arthritis brought on by directly handling various objects made of uranium during his time in the military at a base that did some of the grunt work for the Manhattan Project.

So, yeah, actually I guess the name Buford indicates a high likelihood of building bombs.

[Cain]

NSFWCorp:

For now, I want to start with one of the biggest "What The Fuck?!" in the bombing story, a detail so far completely overlooked: Dzhokhar Tsarnaev's high school project "mentor," Brian Glyn Williams. Brian Glyn Williams happens to work for the CIA, on Islamic suicide bombers, Chechnya, and jihadi terrorism. Williams is also an associate professor of history at the University of Massachusetts-Dartmouth, the university where 19-year-old Dzhokhar Tsarnaev was enrolled, and where he spent many of his last free hours between the Boston Marathon bombing on April 15, and his arrest on April 19.

For now, let's go back to the story of Dzhokhar Tsarnaev's high school mentor-slash-CIA employee, professor Brian Glyn Williams — why was he initially so worried that he might have "contributed" to Dzhokhar Tsarnaev's radicalization?

Two years ago, when Dzhokhar was a high school student at Cambridge Rindge and Latin School, his teacher introduced him to professor Williams, who helped mentor Dzhokhar through his big project he was working on about Chechnya — specifically, about Chechnya's fight against Russia for its independence, and the horrific tragedies and attempted genocides that the Chechens have suffered.

This is exactly the sort of material that has tended to radicalize Chechens into a jihadi mindset — which you could argue is justifiable, except when you consider the CIA man, and the neocons and imperialists who've championed that same tragedy, and that same cause. In that case, you have to ask why Chechen anger, pain, and radicalization were harvested and encouraged by the same people who exterminate Islamic separatists fighting for their right to self-determination everywhere else, starting with Israel's occupied territories

Professor Williams is also known as a leading expert on the Saudi Chechen rebel leader/terrorist, Khattab, the most obvious link between Chechen rebels and Al Qaeda. But because Khattab also confined most of his killing to Russians, civilians and military alike, Professor Williams' expert opinion on Khattab was that he wasn't a terrorist.

Ames article also ties in the information I have previously gathered in this thread, on the background of the uncle and the geopolitical situation in Chechnya - and the 9/11 link to Chechen terrorism.

[Cain]

[Anna Mae Bollocks]

You still called it. Fuck a tumbleweed.

[Eater of Clowns]

What kind of influence are they claiming Williams had on Dzhokar?  As as CIA employee his position is much more likely to be a consultant one, as a leading authority on the region, than, say the kind of operative who would intentionally radicalize.  I say this as a resident of the area and, well, unless the CIA is dumping resources into every swampy wasteland campus in the country in hopes of finding the right kid to push over the edge, that link doesn't look all that strong.

[LMNO]

Honestly, I have no idea WHAT to make of all this.

Was he radicalized by pure information from a teacher? Was he radicalized as a honey trap with CIA ties? Did some Muslim guru radicalize him?

What part did the kid play in all this? Was he simply brainwashed, or did he follow a path of misguided-but-twistedly-logical steps to get where he went?

I have no ability to get my head around this.

[Telarus]

I'm with LMNO here on this, too. Thanks for forwarding that Cain.

[Mesozoic Mister Nigel]

NSFWCorp:

For now, I want to start with one of the biggest "What The Fuck?!" in the bombing story, a detail so far completely overlooked: Dzhokhar Tsarnaev's high school project "mentor," Brian Glyn Williams. Brian Glyn Williams happens to work for the CIA, on Islamic suicide bombers, Chechnya, and jihadi terrorism. Williams is also an associate professor of history at the University of Massachusetts-Dartmouth, the university where 19-year-old Dzhokhar Tsarnaev was enrolled, and where he spent many of his last free hours between the Boston Marathon bombing on April 15, and his arrest on April 19.

For now, let's go back to the story of Dzhokhar Tsarnaev's high school mentor-slash-CIA employee, professor Brian Glyn Williams — why was he initially so worried that he might have "contributed" to Dzhokhar Tsarnaev's radicalization?

Two years ago, when Dzhokhar was a high school student at Cambridge Rindge and Latin School, his teacher introduced him to professor Williams, who helped mentor Dzhokhar through his big project he was working on about Chechnya — specifically, about Chechnya's fight against Russia for its independence, and the horrific tragedies and attempted genocides that the Chechens have suffered.

This is exactly the sort of material that has tended to radicalize Chechens into a jihadi mindset — which you could argue is justifiable, except when you consider the CIA man, and the neocons and imperialists who've championed that same tragedy, and that same cause. In that case, you have to ask why Chechen anger, pain, and radicalization were harvested and encouraged by the same people who exterminate Islamic separatists fighting for their right to self-determination everywhere else, starting with Israel's occupied territories

Professor Williams is also known as a leading expert on the Saudi Chechen rebel leader/terrorist, Khattab, the most obvious link between Chechen rebels and Al Qaeda. But because Khattab also confined most of his killing to Russians, civilians and military alike, Professor Williams' expert opinion on Khattab was that he wasn't a terrorist.

Ames article also ties in the information I have previously gathered in this thread, on the background of the uncle and the geopolitical situation in Chechnya - and the 9/11 link to Chechen terrorism.

This just all sounds so dirty it makes me want to back away slowly. US agency involvement in domestic terrorism seems to be a link too strong to deny, and too fucking hot for media to touch.

[Cain]

What kind of influence are they claiming Williams had on Dzhokar?  As as CIA employee his position is much more likely to be a consultant one, as a leading authority on the region, than, say the kind of operative who would intentionally radicalize.  I say this as a resident of the area and, well, unless the CIA is dumping resources into every swampy wasteland campus in the country in hopes of finding the right kid to push over the edge, that link doesn't look all that strong.

Two years ago, when Dzhokhar was a high school student at Cambridge Rindge and Latin School, his teacher introduced him to professor Williams, who helped mentor Dzhokhar through his big project he was working on about Chechnya — specifically, about Chechnya's fight against Russia for its independence, and the horrific tragedies and attempted genocides that the Chechens have suffered.

This is exactly the sort of material that has tended to radicalize Chechens into a jihadi mindset — which you could argue is justifiable, except when you consider the CIA man, and the neocons and imperialists who've championed that same tragedy, and that same cause. In that case, you have to ask why Chechen anger, pain, and radicalization were harvested and encouraged by the same people who exterminate Islamic separatists fighting for their right to self-determination everywhere else, starting with Israel's occupied territories.

In the first hours after Dzhokhar's arrest, Professor Williams went to great lengths to downplay his relationship with the teenaged jihadi, even as he worried about his influence on him. The high school class assignment on which Dzhokhar worked with Williams asked each student at the ethnically-diverse and well-regarded Cambridge public school to research their own ethnic identity. As reported the day after Dzhokhar's arrest in the Standard-Times [bold mine],

    Dzhokhar Tsarnaev, whose family fled the horrors of the Russian occupation, was about to learn about some harrowing things he escaped from at a very young age.

    Williams, whose classes [at U. Mass-Dartmouth] on the War on Terror are routinely packed, obliged by exchanging emails with the then-17-year-old student.

    There was a lot to read about. Especially since the Russians retook the tiny separatist republic, there are stories of mass killings, death camps, mass graves, torture, destruction.

    There were retaliatory strikes inside Russia, including a hostage drama in a Moscow theater. Russia in the end sent 100,000 troops to surround Chechnya to keep it under their thumb.

    As Williams put it, an ancient civilization was being wiped away. As many as one-fifth of the Chechen population of less than a million died in those years.

What stands out here is that Williams taught Tsarnaev a version of events that, while perhaps true or truer than other versions, is nevertheless highly debatable and most likely exaggerated. The number of Chechens killed in the two wars with post-Soviet Russia, while huge, are thought by many human rights activists and scholars to be far lower than the 200,000-250,000 figure cited by neocons who support Chechen separatism — somewhere between 50,000 and 100,000 total casualties (including Russian and Chechen soldiers) which is a horrible enough figure in such a small population, and a morbid business.

Oddly enough, professor Williams claimed he never met Dzhokhar in person, despite mentoring him through his Chechnya project and communicating with him on numerous occasions via email when he was in high school... and despite the fact that Dzhokhar enrolled in professor Williams' university, U. Mass- Dartmouth, after graduating from high school. One would think that Dzhokhar would be interested in meeting the Chechnya history professor who helped him so much on his high school project — but apparently, we're told that wasn't the case. It certainly seems remarkable that Dzhokhar never once dropped in on professor Williams' office or class. Williams would only go so far as to say that Dzhokhar was never "formally" a student of his —U Mass-Dartmouth has so far refused to release Dzhokhar's academic records, leaving us in the dark for now.

Just a month before the Boston Marathon bombings, a profile on professor Williams detailed his work for the CIA as an expert in identifying Islamic suicide bombers. According to the profile,

His work has taken him to London to consult with Scotland Yard and to Afghanistan to work for the Central Intelligence Agency. Williams was tasked with helping law enforcement and intelligence agencies understand the motivations and behaviors of suicide bombers. He is of the mind that while Islam is a subtext for much of the violence and terrorism in the region, it's not the sole explanation. His findings about suicide bombings in Afghanistan were informed by his understanding of tribal identities as much as fervor for the Jihadist movement. He came to these conclusions after being sent to Afghanistan by the CIA to perform firsthand research on these types of attacks.

In 2011, Professor Williams was asked to appear at the Ottawa terrorism trial of Mohamed Harkat. The crux of the trial came down to whether or not Chechen jihadists and Khattab qualified as terrorists or not. Professor Williams flew in from Boston to assure the Canadian judge that they weren't terrorists, for the simple reason that they killed Russians, not Westerners. Killing Russians is legimitate; killing Westerners or Israelis is terrorism.

So, you have someone who taught Dzhokhar a particular version of events in Chechnya, who is an expert in radicalism for the CIA, who was at the college Dzhokhar went to, and who believes that Chechen terrorism is "legitimate" political violence.

All I'm going to say is that this sounds a hell of a lot more like a mentor than "Misha", the amazing red-haired Armenian Muslim Exorcist.

[Cain]

Honestly, I have no idea WHAT to make of all this.

Was he radicalized by pure information from a teacher? Was he radicalized as a honey trap with CIA ties? Did some Muslim guru radicalize him?

What part did the kid play in all this? Was he simply brainwashed, or did he follow a path of misguided-but-twistedly-logical steps to get where he went?

I have no ability to get my head around this.

Well, not so pure information, as you can see from the quotes in my above post.

The belief of the American establishment is summed by Ames (correctly) that Chechens do not engage in terrorism, they are plucky insurgents fighting an imperialist power.  This is different to Palestinians because fuck you, that's why.  Also different to Palestianians because of the geopolitical context I described earlier - oil and gas pipeline routes out of Central Asia, the "Balkanization" of Russia etc.

It is also believed that Chechens only engage in terrorism against Russia.  The Chechen community in the USA is not especially large, so why not radicalize them?  What possible blowback could result?