Talk about "Speculation". Clint Van Zant, on MSNBC, speculates every time he opens his mouth.

[Lint Head]

The younger brother was a follower? On and on. Etc, etc. Until this dude is caught and spills the beans know one really knows anything Clint! The younger brother could have been the leader telling his older brother, who would rather wrestle than politic, what to do.
Does 'Of Mice and Men' ring a bell? Now that's some speculating on my part and I'm not former FBI. Clint speaks as if he knows exactly what they were thinking. He has been wrong before.

[bbernardini]

1. Every time I see Clint...

...I think of this post I made a while back. He looks like one of the cast members from "Not Necessarily The News".

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=105x6432207

[Lint Head]

3. Ha! That's funny. I used to like that show.

[Hoyt]

2. Van Zant's comments are always so obvious. Why have him on if he can't add anything to story?

[BeyondGeography]

4. The terra experts are so thrilled

What a great week for their careers.

[MADem]

5. He's paid to speculate.

And I tend to agree with him that the kid was a follower.

Everyone says the kid was "nice." "A good kid." "No trouble." "Sweet." His friends from high school are in shock. Their parents are in shock.

The older brother, OTOH, has a wife who was taken away in the police car with her child, and she got patted down quite assertively in her full-bore chador before she got put in the cop car. The older brother also had plenty to say about his beliefs, about how women are supposed to behave, how he eschews alcohol and has no American friends, in that photo essay that is making the rounds (about exchanging boxing for a passport). Unfortunately the photographer has taken the thing down (guess he wants to get paid like everyone else) but remnants remain: http://www.ibtimes.com/boston-bombing-suspect-tamerlan-tsarnaev-will-box-passport-1203989

I have to go with Clint on this bit of speculation.

[BootinUp]

7. He was even nice after the bombing

"Stay safe people!"

Yeah right Dzhokhar, thanks for the warning!

[MADem]

10. Unless he negotiates a surrender, he's a dead man walking.

He's the one who needs to worry about staying safe.

I hope his sister-in-law (the police took her in this morning) can shed some light on the WHY of all this bullshit.

[BootinUp]

6. You think he will let himself be taken alive?

I don't know if we will ever get the chance to question him.

[bushisanidiot]

8. MSNBC is leaping to lots of conclusions

Lots of attempts to tie them to al quada, yet they fail to mention that neither al quada or any other terrorist organization has taken credit. They could have been hired by ANYBODY who wanted to cause destruction.. And yes, even an american right wing extremist group who tend not to ake credit for their work.

[MADem]

11. There is a "branch" of AQ in Chechnya.

AQ is not an "organization," even though people were in the habit of regarding Osama bin Ladin as the "Pope" of AQ. AQ is more like ANONYMOUS, a bunch of individuals in small groups who get together to do their thing. They say they all gather under one umbrella, but no one is holding the umbrella handle, necessarily. No one pays dues or can get kicked out of the AQ Club...

There is a movement in Chechnya (and elsewhere, all the way down to Iran and Afghanistan) that is radically Islamist called the Black Banners of Khurasan (black is an Islamic color, along w/green, gold)--to simplify it down to a couple of sentences, they are a bunch of fundies, and they--and other radicals in other parts of the world--believe that an apocalyptic branch of radical Islamists from the general region that includes Chechnya will light off the shit that ends the world.

http://www.motherjones.com/mojo/2013/04/boston-bombing-suspect-posted-video-al-qaeda-prophecy-youtube


"This is a major hadith (reported saying of the prophet Muhammad) that jihadis use; it is essentially an end-time prophecy," says Aaron Zelin, a fellow at the Washington Institute for Near East Policy. "This is definitely important in Al Qaeda's ideology." In The Black Banners, the book by former FBI agent Ali Soufan that is named after this prophecy, Soufan describes it this way:

Khurasan is a term for a historical region spanning northeastern and eastern Iran and parts of Turkmenistan, Uzbekistan, Tajikistan, Afghanistan, and northwestern Pakistan. Because of the hadith, jihadists believe that this is the region from which they will inflict a major defeat against their enemies—in the Islamic version of Armageddon.

I think they're on the right track, here. Based on the neighbor's comments about the older brother's behavior and the appearance of his wife, there's reason to tack in this direction.

[global1]

9. I Was Wondering If Anyone Keeps Tabs On His Prognostications And Rates His Accuracy?...

It would be interesting to know if he is 5% accurate, 75% accurate or 99% accurate. My guess his accuracy is on the low side.