<p>No slack form me either. I know several very deserving refugee families who did everything they could to get off public assistance ASAP and think highly of their second homeland. This woman’s behavior and her attitude towards the country that was trying to help them is beyond offensive. One’s love for her children should not equal automatic approval/defense of their actions.</p>
<p>It’s important to keep things in perspective. We live in a highly imperfect world in which rumor runs rampant and people act irrationally. Try watching clips of Arabic or Farsi language TV about the bombings or pretty much anything having to do with the US. You can learn, for example, that the bombers couldn’t have been from outside the US (which of course they weren’t but never mind) because, well, this: “Why would anyone in the U.S. need to resort to nails and pressure cookers to make a bomb? You can find any type of weapon there and simply buy it. Why did they say ‘primitive’? I don’t have time to read you the quotation. They said that the bomb was ‘primitive,’ in order to direct the blame at one of us in the Third World.” In the same speech, you learn that industrialized nations set off the earthquake in Iran to prevent, well, this, “The industrialized countries have the capacity to make bombs that impact the Earth’s crust and core, causing earthquakes …This earthquake had two goals: first, to [prevent] the Russians from officially handing over the Bushehr nuclear plant to Iran within a month’s time. The West does not want this to happen.”</p>
<p>This stuff puts our nutcases like Alex Jones in perspective. They’re nothing special. Well, Glenn Beck is because his graphics are so cool.</p>
<p>I was watching a Tony Bourdain show about Kurdistan and he talks about how he tunes out when people offer up these weird US conspiracy theories, that they’re so rampant he can’t even bother with them anymore.</p>
<p>I cut the mother zero slack…she spawned these killers</p>
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<p>great…I wonder if we will ever find out if the phones that detonated the bombs were freebies of our lovely government</p>
<p>For all you second-guessers out there, two fascinating articles in the Boston Globe today:</p>
<p>First, the story of the shootout in Watertown, from the cops who were there. After reading this I’m not at all surprised little brother got away - there were only about a half-dozen cops there and they were occupied with cuffing older brother and trying desperately to save the life of Officer Donahue, who’d had his femoral artery severed by a bullet and was in cardiac arrest, bleeding out into the street. [Valor</a>, devotion brought Watertown drama to end - Metro - The Boston Globe](<a href=“http://www.bostonglobe.com/metro/2013/04/25/valor-devotion-brought-watertown-drama-end/XSFt1NfwswPTxgdQx81LJM/story.html]Valor”>http://www.bostonglobe.com/metro/2013/04/25/valor-devotion-brought-watertown-drama-end/XSFt1NfwswPTxgdQx81LJM/story.html)</p>
<p>And second, an interview with the carjacking victim. [Carjack</a> victim recounts his harrowing night - Metro - The Boston Globe](<a href=“http://www.bostonglobe.com/metro/2013/04/25/carjack-victim-recounts-his-harrowing-night/FX6CAnypP1NbrMuPFb6zTM/story.html]Carjack”>http://www.bostonglobe.com/metro/2013/04/25/carjack-victim-recounts-his-harrowing-night/FX6CAnypP1NbrMuPFb6zTM/story.html)</p>
<p>Does anybody remember the old phrase, “There, but for the grace of God, go I?” I guess it’s too old-fashioned.</p>
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<p>If you mean to say that we could all find ourselves in the place of this mother, I say no. And given the blessedly low percentage of mothers whose children blow up innocent people in this country, I would say the vast majority of us will never, even without the grace of God, find ourselves in her situation.</p>
<p>And I cut her no slack whatsoever. The more she talks, the more blame she seems to earn.</p>
<p>Ordinarily, my heart hurts a lot for the parents of those whose children go wrong. Sometimes there just is no telling what happened. In this case, I have my suspicions about them. Some things just don’t add up to me. </p>
<p>I had said in another thread that I was good friends with someone whose mother became mentally ill here in the US. The jarring reality vs expectations and change of her status upon moving here was more than she could bear. And this was a family that had made a successful transition here, in that they were self sufficient. A lot of bitterness and hate for this country was spewed,</p>
<p>My mother is not from here, and she did not do well here, moving as an adult. It did make for dysfunction in our family.</p>
<p>But there was never, ever, talk about hurting anyone, doing anything illegal, causing harm, in my family or in my friends. The tension was with the mothers wanting to go back home, which both did, mine and hers, in time. But they did not leave the rancor this mother seemed have left. And neither mother left until the children were well on their feet. The suspects’ mother seemed to have just ditched the two of them, and seem to be a rather disreputable sort while here. I don’t get a good sense about her at all. I’m surprised neither parent rushed over here with one son dead, the other seriously injured and in so much trouble, and only 19 years old, and two girls who must be undergoing agonizing emotions and fears. Something isn’t right here.</p>
<p>And, Hunt, I do think that a lot when I read about horrible things that young adults and children do that just cut out my heart, and give me a chill. Mental illness, snapping, suicides, drugs, accidents,…yes. But, there is just something so cold blooded here, and not just the case of someone snapping but a long time process that I feel was abetted by the parents. </p>
<p>I do have some hurt for the suspect that is in the prison hospital now. Though I believe that he does need to go through the full consequences of his actions, I truly feel this young man was at a low spot in his life and somehow got swept along with these radical ideas that his much admired older brother had, and that were also supported in some ways by his parents. I think with parents gone, failing i school, no anchor to anything but his brother who had gone terrorist, the young man fell into an abyss. All speculation on my part. But that’ s how I feel.</p>
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<p>I agree with you completely, Hunt. Just imagine if all of a sudden you heard that your children in another country perpetrated a terrorist attack and now one was dead and the other injured. How could you possibly believe it to be true? Of course you’d think - this is insane, there must be a mistake, they were framed, etc. I’m not “defending” the mother but the things she is saying - what else do you expect her to say? Of course she’s stunned.</p>
<p>On a lighter note, President Obama just said at the White House Correspondents’ Dinner that he appreciates CNN looking at things from all sides, on the chance that they’ll get one right.</p>
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<p>I get all that. But this lady has gone further, slandering victims by saying they are involved in a “hoax” in which paint was used to simulate blood, the whole thing never happened, etc. After watching a segment on a mother and daughter who were injured in the blast (mother now has two stubs for legs, daughter nearly bled out from a femoral artery tear) and all they will have to go through to heal, I’m disgusted with the mother’s accusations. Denial is one thing, this goes way, way beyond that. I was understanding to a point, but now, no.</p>
<p>Based on some of the mother’s comments it appears she was an accomplice. I would like to see her suffer that same fate as her first son.</p>
<p>She is saying some really nutty things but no more nutty than other people in this country. If we condemn her for saying those things, then we must condemn whackos like Alex Jones too.</p>
<p>^^^^^Fine by me.</p>
<p>Was she ever added to the terrorist database as the CIA requested 1&1/2 years ago?</p>
<p>I agree with cptofthehouse. Usually when I hear terrible things about young people, suicide, mental illness, drug addiction, even drug dealing, I do think, There but for the grace of God… All those things are, unfortunately, within the normal range of human behavior. I have no trouble understanding why they happen to good people, as they do with great frequency.</p>
<p>I am unable to understand how anyone can put a bomb next to an 8-year-old and detonate it. Or shoot a policeman at point-blank range for no reason. And there were two of them.</p>
<p>My two sons are incapable of such things. They are both very kind and compassionate. One, as a child, would never kill bugs or allow them to be killed by other children. The only altercations he had where when he was trying to stop a child from stepping on a bug. The other is a vegetarian out of concern for animal rights. </p>
<p>I am not claiming credit for the fact that my children are good people. Our lives are free from the horrible stresses suffered by families like this one. They spent some years as refugees, I believe, before coming to the US, where they were very poor. But most people under these conditions do not become cold-blooded mass murderers. What made these two young men turn out the way they did? Genes? Something their parents did or didn’t do? Other influences? A combination? I’m baffled.</p>
<p>Does anyone understand this? Experts? Has anyone explained this kind of behavior?</p>
<p>Hitler was a vegetarian.
To be human is to be a paradox.</p>
<p>^true. Hitler also loved children and dogs, and they loved him back</p>
<p>Good point, emeralkity4! </p>
<p>I hadn’t known that about Hitler, and I just looked it up. Lots of conflicting information about whether he really was a vegetarian and, if he was, the reason for it. Some sources say that he thought it was better for humans not to eat meat. But there seems to be quite a bit of evidence that he loved animals.</p>