<p>Thanks for that, Nrdsb. Not really trained in medical practice :o</p>
<p>Is the younger hat white? As Caucasian as one can be (just look at the map). Is he Muslim? Definitely. Did he commit an act of terrorism? He is suspected in planting a bomb and was shooting at cops, so at least the latter makes him a criminal. So, calling him a white Muslim terrorism suspect is fine by me.</p>
<p>“It was broadcast on the scanner. It was just broadcast on the scanner before I personally started listening to the scanner.”</p>
<p>Gotcha. </p>
<p>But regardless, it’s still my opinion that none of us know enough of what was going on at the scene to draw any conclusion as to why the police didn’t include the street where the boat was in the search area or to assume it was a blunder or bad police work on their part.</p>
<p>Anyone who has spent the last several days in a semi darkened room, hunched over his police scanner, his city map, and his computer, trying to prove how much smarter he is than the people actually investigating this issue needs to back slooooowly away from his theories and take the dog for a long walk.</p>
<p>Doing everything to deny this is an Islamic attack and problem is part of why we’re going to continue having a hard time combating this. Let’s stop being worried about being so PC and start realizing we’re in a one sided religious war of zealots. I notice cnn and msnbc were pretty quick to jump to wondering if it was the tea party or radical right wingers but hesitate to call it what it is. And it’s not just two random brothers deciding one day to wreak havoc on a city. It goes deep and wide. We’d all probably be terrified if we understood how deep this ran, the level of hate against us spewed in mosques in our land, and how many sleeper cells are out in every city. It’s not over now just because those two were killed/caught.</p>
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not every Muslim is a zealot and by calling it “Islamic” it implies that the action is perfectly fine within the religion of Islam, which it is not.</p>
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but the majority of mosques are not fanatical</p>
<p>romanigypsyeyes;</p>
<p>I can’t imagine that anyone thinks all Muslims are terrorists. That would be absurd.</p>
<p>However, these particular brothers are Islamic terrorists. They may or may not be bumbling. They may or may not be home grown. They may or may not be lone wolves. But, they are clearly Islamic terrorists. That’s hardly a big surprise as radical Islamic jihad influence is one recurring common thread in most (but, of course, not all) of the terror bombing around the world for the last 25 or 30 years.</p>
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<p>Really? You REALLY can’t imagine that? Really? </p>
<p>And again, white is just as accurate of a description as Islamic. </p>
<p>I’ll ask you to drop the adjective but I don’t think it would make a difference.</p>
<p>Could well be the taxi did NOT have pipe bomb and innocent backpack was detonated because nothing further was heard about it.</p>
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I couldn’t either once upon a time. 
but they do exist. in suprisingly large numbers. I believe there is a statistic a few years old that said 50% of the people in the UK thought that the majority of Muslims are terrorists. not in my community, thank God</p>
<p>eastcoas:</p>
<p>I’m not sure where you live, but I suspect that the vast majority of people in Boston who were still awake when this stuff went live on TV shortly after midnight on Thursday were awake and glued to their TVs or computers. The TV stations had been live 24/7 marathon bomb coverage all week. If I recall, Thursday night was the first time they went back to regular programming. Then, this stuff all starting hitting the fan with the release of the suspects’ photos at 5 pm and the killing of the MIT policeman at 10:30 and then a massive firefight in Watertown. I was headed to bed when news of the firefight hit and I turned on the TV to find out what the heck was going on.</p>
<p>I flipped on the scanner feeds because bloggers were posting much better info from the scanner than the TV networks had. Virtually the entire story had broken from the police scanners initially.</p>
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<p>Oh, and as far as exercise goes, I admit that I skipped my Friday evening workout because I was tired after getting just a few hours of sleep. But, I got in a solid 90 minute workout yesterday. Thanks for the suggestion, though!</p>
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<p>Here’s my problem with this, though. There is a difference between “terrorists who follow Islam” and “Islamic terrorists.” To me, the designation “Islamic terrorist” properly applies to someone whose violent acts are motivated by a desire to establish his idea of an Islamic order in the world. But it is also possible that someone, even someone who is Muslim and who has been trained by Islamic terrorists, commits a violent act for other reasons.</p>
<p>So while I do not doubt that the suspects here had ties to people who are Islamic terrorists, I do not think that necessarily makes these two suspects Islamic terrorists. And I do think that it causes harm to people who are Muslims to use the term “Islamic terrorists,” and I am not sure what advantage there is in exchange – why “Islamic terrorist” rather than just “terrorist”?</p>
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<p>Not necessarily. There is no monolithic “religion of Islam.” Certainly, the vast, vast majority of Muslims are not terrorists. But a number of Muslims use a particular interpretation of Islam to justify terrorist acts, so I don’t think it is unjustified to label individuals who do so as “Islamic terrorists” or whatnot. </p>
<p>But it’s unclear at this point whether the Brothers Tsarnaev fit that bill. In fact, rarely is Islam itself the direct motive for terror attacks, even if the terrorists happen to be Muslim. If you’ve ever read or listened to any of Osama bin Laden’s declarations, you’ll find that when you look past the superficial rhetoric, the main criticisms being launched are political matters. Colonialism and Zionism and Crusades and the like. Obviously these have quite a bit to do with religion, but it’s not the whole picture.</p>
<p>“I believe there is a statistic a few years old that said 50% of the people in the UK thought that the majority of Muslims are terrorists.”</p>
<p>So because people think that it is true?</p>
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<p>Wow, way to completely miss the point. That is actually the EXACT OPPOSITE of what stressed said.</p>
<p>I think that Romani and Bunsen have a valid point about how the press and public perceive whom is a threat and whom isn’t. The two innocent non-white kids that were watching the race and the unlucky injured fellow (also non-white) whom was just trying to get to safety but was tackled and roughed up…were readily [and too easily] presumed to be perpetrators. Why was that?</p>
<p>Interesteddad, a commentator on TV today said he refrains from the term Islamic Terrorist and instead makes the effort to say ‘jihadist,’ which he feels is more accurate. I don’t want to belabor semantics in this whole nasty business but if the description ‘jihadist’ serves the purpose, it makes sense to me.</p>
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<p>Exactly. In fact, I just heard on a news show that black hat suspect was kicked out of his mosque in Boston for his fanatical rants.</p>
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I don’t believe that this is relevant. You can say that about any religion or philosophy in the world.</p>
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This is exactly my point. saying “Islamic” seems to imply that it is mainly connected with Islam.</p>
<p>perhaps I’m being over sensitive, but I personally don’t like the word being used in this way. at home the word “Islamic” is used to praise something. yet when I was watching CNN the other day they said, “the suspect had Islamic videos in his Internet history.” it makes me flinch. obviously, the implication is that they were radical videos, but, all the same, many don’t realize that, and I’d be more comfortable if they said “radical Islamic videos.”
I feel like if it were a radical Christian, the media would be more careful to include the word radical just to be extra clear, but I could be wrong.</p>
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I hate to be so picky, but “jihadist” is a worse term. jihad is something very beautiful and important in Islam, and what the terrorists do are not jihad</p>
<p>stressed, I think you’re right. You can look at coverage of abortion bombings/attacks for confirmation.</p>