The Boston Bombers’ Awful Parents

[DonViejo]

They ignored the warnings, they deny the crime, and they’re slinging false accusations.

By William Saletan|Posted Monday, April 22, 2013, at 7:52 PM

Three years ago, al-Qaida’s magazine, Inspire, published an article titled, “Make a bomb in the kitchen of your Mom.” The article explained how to build a pressure-cooker device like the ones that blew up last week at the Boston marathon. But the recipe left out the most important ingredient. To make a bomb in your mom’s kitchen, the first thing you need is an inattentive mom.

That’s what Tamerlan and Dzhokhar Tsarnaev had. We don’t yet know where or when they made the bombs they’re accused of planting at the marathon. But we do know that their father, Anzor Tsarnaev, and their mother, Zubeidat Tsarnaeva, had plenty of warnings that Tamerlan was becoming dangerous. Tamerlan was a human pressure cooker loaded with zeal, violence, and destructive ideology. His parents, blinded by adoration and excuses, refused to see it.

Most people who met or knew Tamerlan, including family members, say he was a jerk. His dad, however, insists Tamerlan was “kind” and “very nice.” Anzor “lost control over that family quite a time ago,” says his brother Ruslan. In every interview, Anzor claims to know exactly what his kids have been up to, though he hasn’t seen them since he moved back to Dagestan a year ago. He also claims, falsely, that Tamerlan “was never out of my sight” during the young man’s visit to Dagestan last year. According to Anzor, Tamerlan was such a boxing stud that “in the U.S. everyone knows he is a celebrity.” When Anzor left Boston, he asked Tamerlan to keep an eye on Dzhokhar. He thinks the elder brother has been keeping the younger one away from bad influences.

Tamerlan’s mother is just as deluded. She swears Tamerlan and Dzhokhar couldn’t be involved in a bomb plot because “my sons would never keep a secret.” Instead of correcting Tamerlan’s conspiracy theories, she swallowed them. According to one of her spa clients, Zubeidat recently called the 9/11 attacks a U.S. plot to stoke hatred of Muslims. “My son knows all about it,” she allegedly told the client. Zubeidat also says the FBI has been watching her family constantly for years, which the FBI denies. Last year, she was arrested, but apparently never prosecuted, for shoplifting $1,600 worth of clothes.

Anzor and Zubeidat were given several warnings that Tamerlan was headed for trouble. Sometime between 2007 and 2009, Tamerlan and Zubeidat turned to religion. Zubeidat became observant, but Tamerlan became intolerant and hostile. He pushed his strict views on the rest of the family, causing tensions. When his sister married a non-Muslim, Tamerlan didn’t accept the man. Tamerlan’s uncle, Ruslan, perceived a change in his nephew’s personality. Ruslan says a family friend told him in 2009 that a Muslim convert had “brainwashed” Tamerlan.

full article:
http://www.slate.com/articles/news_and_politics/frame_game/2013/04/the_boston_bombers_parents_anzor_tsarnaev_and_zubeidat_tsarnaeva_are_full.html?wpisrc=newsletter_jcr:content

This column is chock-full of links to articles Saletan uses to support his opinion. It's well worth going to the site and reading....that is, if you're interested.

[FarCenter]

1. The mother appears to have turned towards religous nuttery, which is more common among women

Although male religious extremists are more visible, religious fervor is generally higher among women.

e.g. in Latin America a male goes to church four times: baptism, confirmation, marriage, and burial. The active parishoners are women.

[undeterred]

8. Sexist fervor is really high around here.

[FarCenter]

9. It is what the data say

Percent saying religion is very important to them

Men Women
64% 75% Protestant
48 63 Catholic
13 19 Unaffiliated
83 83 Mormon
53 60 Orthodox
27 39 Jewish
66 77 Muslim
31 40 Buddhist
35 60 Hindu

http://religions.pewforum.org/pdf/report2religious-landscape-study-chapter-1.pdf

[undeterred]

10. And do they use the word "nuttery" too?

Or is that your special take on it?

[ProudToBeBlueInRhody]

13. The joke is they are praying for the awful men in their life....

....who are gambling, drinking, screwing around, and fighting....

[FarCenter]

19. Doesn't work though, does it...

[sinkingfeeling]

2. No thanks, I'll pass on anything written by William Saletan.

[onehandle]

3. Just a different flavor of McVeigh/Columbine/Rudolph. nt

[Epiphany4z]

4. The kid...was 26

my son lives 4 hrs away at 26...at 19 he lived 4 hrs away at college. The Parents may or may not have been the greatest but both these guys where adults living on their own really not all that unusual.

[RobinA]

6. Really...

The parents of every 26 year old jerk are supposed to notify the FBI? Not to mention the fact that you can't judge this family and their parenting by the same standards we have here in the relatively peaceful, first-world US. These kids seem to have spent their formative years trekking between countries in eastern Europe trying to avoid living in a war zone, the family is all over the place, they just didn't have the same concerns as we do here. Parenting seems to have been the least of anybody's problems in this scenario. Are we blaming Mohammed Atta's mother?

[Arkansas Granny]

5. I know dozens of families where the parents are completely blind to and in denial of any

wrongdoing their children might do. It's not uncommon for parents to ignore warning signs of dangerous activities. That doesn't mean that this type of parental behavior will always lead to disastrous events.

[HooptieWagon]

7. Every parent thinks their child is an innocent angel...

...even when they have a 9 page rap-sheet. And every parent will defend their child, even against over-whelming evidence. That's just a fact of life. Stories seem to indicate the parents weren't the best, but without being fully aware of the whole family situation and knowing them personally, who can say for sure? Somethimes, despite great parents, teachers, etc ; children grow up to be monsters.

[flamingdem]

11. Even when they call them right before attacking a squadron of policemen

with an explosive vest?

[HooptieWagon]

12. Yep. A youth here killed a cop a few days after killing 2 peep earlier.

His mother told reporters he couldn't have done it because " he's a good boy". The youth had a criminal record going back 10 years. Grand theft, drugs, assault and battery, etc. He was a thug who should have been jailed long ago. Parental denial is pretty powerful.

[ProudToBeBlueInRhody]

15. I saw a story a few weeks back....

....where a kid beat his neighbor....robbed the house....went back to kill the neighbor....beat him near to death....threw him in a trunk....the guy escaped as the kid was coming back to set him on fire....

The woman who answered the door at the family house (not his mother) said he was a good kid.

[Cha]

14. Good comprehensive article, DV..

thanks.

Not good for parents to be blinded by the so called "brilliance" of their kids. Freaking fundamentalists. "I'm right and everyone else is shit". "you can't sell turkeys on Thanksgiving in Cambridge because I'm a big asshole fundamentalist."

[DonViejo]

16. Thanks, Cha. I thought so too....

I'm not a big fan of Saletan but I thought he did good work on this column; I suppose it helps that I agree with his assessment of Mom and Dad's parenting skills.

[Cha]

18. Yeah, luckily I read the article not really know who

the author is. There were a lot of real examples of stating his case like you stated.

[Yo_Mama]

17. I don't think you can blame the parents

The older one was 26 - his parents clearly had no control over him. The younger one was 19, but living away from home.

There was no earlier evidence of trouble with the younger boy when he lived at home, so my guess is that his home life was pretty decent.

The fact that the parents are so shocked and spouting conspiracy theory makes me believe that there was no tinge of radical philosophy from the home that went into this.

Something had been niggling at my mind as more came out about this, and I woke up this morning having remembered. This case reminds me of the Dartmouth College murders. The two in that case had this idea worked up about becoming spree robber/killers and then they would use the proceeds to build a brand new life for themselves in Australia.
http://www.people.com/people/archive/article/0,,20136817,00.html

[4_TN_TITANS]

20. That was a good read.

" Police your family. Police your congregation. Police your community. If you don’t, the rest of us will do it for you."

So very true.