Not literally of course, as the 19 year old terrorist suspect has a throat injury and may never speak again. However, he has now taken pen to paper and provided some answers.
One thing he states is that he and his now late brother, Tamerlan Tsarnaev worked alone, not with al Qaeda or any other terrorist cell. While some conservative members have been quick to declare categorically that this can't be so, this is what authorities believe as well-prior to his statement.
"Boston bombing suspect Dzhokhar Tsarnaev told investigators in writing Monday that neither he nor his older brother were in touch with any overseas terror groups, according to NBC's Pete Williams. Two U.S. officials, speaking on the condition of anonymity, backed Williams' report that the suspects were not involved with any Islamic terrorist groups."
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/04/22/boston-suspect-denies-terrorist-groups_n_3135523.html
This is also in line with what the Boston police believe as well as Boston Mayor Tom Menino. However, investigators do believe that religion was a motivating factor.
"Tsarnaev and brother Tamerlan Tsarnaev, who was killed in a shootout with police, were motivated by religion, according to U.S. officials. Investigators have also been looking into Tamerlan Tsarnaev's time spent in Russia. The older brother was known to have travelled to two predominantly Muslim Russian provices, Dagestan and Chechnya. Authorities were examining whether Tsarnaev may have been influenced by the region's militant population, who have railed against Russian security forces for years."
Authorities believe that the brothers got the bomb components within Boston but the guns were from elsewhere-however, it's not clear if "elsewhere" means outside of Boston or outside of the state.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/plum-line/wp/2013/04/22/happy-hour-roundup-90/
Dzhokhar has now been read his Miranda rights. We should certainly be grateful that the "enemy combatant" argument has been put to bed and, again, I wonder if a President Romney would have listened to chicken hawks like Lindsay Graham. Would he have flouted his part on this?
http://diaryofarepublicanhater.blogspot.com/2013/04/dzhokhar-tsarnaev-charged-in-hospital.html
Andrew Rosenthal makes the crucial argument that the enemy combatant argument is incoherent and only being made because the suspects are Muslim. After all, where were the calls for Timothy McVeigh to be treated as an enemy combatant-who had killed many more American citizens?
"The federal government managed to hunt down, arrest, charge, try, convict and execute Timothy McVeigh without junking due process."
http://takingnote.blogs.nytimes.com/2013/04/22/whats-the-difference-between-mcveigh-and-tsarnaev/?ref=opinion
All of these comparative acts of domestic terrorism actually killed more people than these two suspects. Graham hasn't been shy about using language that has talked about them as two Muslims who hate that our society is based in Christianity. He is using the rhetoric of we're in a world war and he's defining the enemy as radical Islam.
"The sooner we realize that we're at a war with radical Islam and come up with systems to defend ourselves, the better off we'll be," Graham said.
http://thehill.com/video/senate/295263-graham-misspelled-name-helped-bombing-suspects-russia-trip-go-unnoticed#ixzz2RCzCX2Rt
The psychology of these two young men is so hard to figure out. There seems to have been pure schizophrenia, certainly in the case of the younger Dzhokhar who went back to school after and talked about how terrible the attack was with people there.
He was very largely Amercanized. That Chechen President wasn't wholly wrong in pointing out that the two boys-particularly the younger-had grown up here. The reasonable assumption being made is that he was influenced by his older brother. However, even Tamerlan was, if less, wholly Americanized, perhaps more American than culturally Muslim. On his trip to Russia that has gotten a lot of attention he had trouble fitting in with Muslims at a mosque he attended.
"The elder suspect in the Boston bombings regularly attended a mosque and spent time learning to read the Quran, but he struggled to fit in during a trip to his ancestral homeland in southern Russia last year, his aunt said."
One thing he states is that he and his now late brother, Tamerlan Tsarnaev worked alone, not with al Qaeda or any other terrorist cell. While some conservative members have been quick to declare categorically that this can't be so, this is what authorities believe as well-prior to his statement.
"Boston bombing suspect Dzhokhar Tsarnaev told investigators in writing Monday that neither he nor his older brother were in touch with any overseas terror groups, according to NBC's Pete Williams. Two U.S. officials, speaking on the condition of anonymity, backed Williams' report that the suspects were not involved with any Islamic terrorist groups."
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/04/22/boston-suspect-denies-terrorist-groups_n_3135523.html
This is also in line with what the Boston police believe as well as Boston Mayor Tom Menino. However, investigators do believe that religion was a motivating factor.
"Tsarnaev and brother Tamerlan Tsarnaev, who was killed in a shootout with police, were motivated by religion, according to U.S. officials. Investigators have also been looking into Tamerlan Tsarnaev's time spent in Russia. The older brother was known to have travelled to two predominantly Muslim Russian provices, Dagestan and Chechnya. Authorities were examining whether Tsarnaev may have been influenced by the region's militant population, who have railed against Russian security forces for years."
Authorities believe that the brothers got the bomb components within Boston but the guns were from elsewhere-however, it's not clear if "elsewhere" means outside of Boston or outside of the state.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/plum-line/wp/2013/04/22/happy-hour-roundup-90/
Dzhokhar has now been read his Miranda rights. We should certainly be grateful that the "enemy combatant" argument has been put to bed and, again, I wonder if a President Romney would have listened to chicken hawks like Lindsay Graham. Would he have flouted his part on this?
http://diaryofarepublicanhater.blogspot.com/2013/04/dzhokhar-tsarnaev-charged-in-hospital.html
Andrew Rosenthal makes the crucial argument that the enemy combatant argument is incoherent and only being made because the suspects are Muslim. After all, where were the calls for Timothy McVeigh to be treated as an enemy combatant-who had killed many more American citizens?
"The federal government managed to hunt down, arrest, charge, try, convict and execute Timothy McVeigh without junking due process."
"When Jared Lee Loughner attempted to assassinate Rep. Gabrielle Giffords, and shot dead a federal judge and a 9-year-old, grandstanding lawmakers did not demand that he be taken into military custody. Nor did they make that demand when James Holmes was arrested for killing 12 people and wounding 70 others at an Aurora, Colo., movie theater."
"But now Senator Lindsey Graham is calling for Dzhokhar Tsarnaev to be classified as an enemy combatant and “held and questioned under the law of war,” without a lawyer."
http://takingnote.blogs.nytimes.com/2013/04/22/whats-the-difference-between-mcveigh-and-tsarnaev/?ref=opinion
All of these comparative acts of domestic terrorism actually killed more people than these two suspects. Graham hasn't been shy about using language that has talked about them as two Muslims who hate that our society is based in Christianity. He is using the rhetoric of we're in a world war and he's defining the enemy as radical Islam.
"The sooner we realize that we're at a war with radical Islam and come up with systems to defend ourselves, the better off we'll be," Graham said.
http://thehill.com/video/senate/295263-graham-misspelled-name-helped-bombing-suspects-russia-trip-go-unnoticed#ixzz2RCzCX2Rt
The psychology of these two young men is so hard to figure out. There seems to have been pure schizophrenia, certainly in the case of the younger Dzhokhar who went back to school after and talked about how terrible the attack was with people there.
He was very largely Amercanized. That Chechen President wasn't wholly wrong in pointing out that the two boys-particularly the younger-had grown up here. The reasonable assumption being made is that he was influenced by his older brother. However, even Tamerlan was, if less, wholly Americanized, perhaps more American than culturally Muslim. On his trip to Russia that has gotten a lot of attention he had trouble fitting in with Muslims at a mosque he attended.
"The elder suspect in the Boston bombings regularly attended a mosque and spent time learning to read the Quran, but he struggled to fit in during a trip to his ancestral homeland in southern Russia last year, his aunt said."
Tamerlan Tsarnaev seemed more American than Chechen and "did not fit into the Muslim life" in Russia's Caucasus, Patimat Suleimanova told The Associated Press. She said when Tsarnaev arrived in January 2012, he wore a winter hat with a little pompom, something no local man would wear, and "we made him take it off."
What we might have here is the phenomenon of someone being tragically torn between two worlds and not wholly fitting into either.
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