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Today's Poll: Do you think the Boston Marathon bombing was the work of ... ?

By Howard B. Owens
Doug Yeomans

Hmmmm...maybe not!

http://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation/2013/04/16/boston-marathon-ex…

Police, along with FBI and Homeland Security agents, descended on the high-rise Water's Edge apartment, removing brown papers bags, trash bags and a duffel bag among other items.

The official identified the man as a Saudi national. The man, like many at the time of the explosions, was observed running from the scene and sought medical treatment.The law enforcement official has been briefed on the matter but is not authorized to comment publicly on the case.

Apr 16, 2013, 10:01am Permalink
Mark Potwora

I do think it is to soon to say...The big problem is all these so called reporters who want to be the first to report who did it throw out all kinds of second hand views..Then you get those who try to politicize who did it and add nothing to the facts....The only thing we know for sure this was a person or group of cowards...

Apr 16, 2013, 10:04am Permalink
Charlie Mallow

It is much easier to accept that this was done by a crazy lone wolf or a foreign terrorist group. The idea that the extreme language of our current politics could be the cause of a home grown terrorist group would be much more difficult to come to terms with.

Apr 16, 2013, 6:04pm Permalink
Mark Brudz

Charlie while on basic premise I agree, however, the John Birch Society, The Mountain Men, the KKK, the Black Panthers, the SLA and a whole host of other organizations did bombings across the nation long before our current political polarization.

I reject totally the idea that political banter would be anymore or any less behind something like this than anything else.

Nut burgers are nut burgers, religious zealots are religious zealots and the stupid will always be stupid. People have to forget about the Rodney King Why Can't We ALL Get Along Myth, there will always be evil people among us, and bad things will often happen to good people because of it.

Apr 16, 2013, 6:56pm Permalink
Charlie Mallow

Mark, we will see if words have meaning or they are just used to stir the party faithful to political action.The lack of jubilant foreign crowds or claims of responsibility point to a home grown source. Time will tell if self reflection is needed by our political elite.

Apr 16, 2013, 6:59pm Permalink
Mark Brudz

The type of bombs used and the method of delivery point t AL Queda, in fact 18 months ago Inspire magazine suggested plans for exactly that kind of device, and it is the same type of device used in the failed times square bombing according to the FBI this afternoon. It is simply too soon to tell.

The only politicians so far to politicize this was a Democrat congressman and Steny Hoyer, house minority whip, who said outright that sequestration was directly related to the bombing. Just plain stupid to say something like that at this point, but as political rhetoric goes not unexpected, and I have no doubt that some Republican will find a way to point the finger at Obama soon as well. Which would be equally as stupid.

Rhetoric political or otherwise may bring the nuts to the surface, but it doesn't create them. When a guy burned an elementary school down and killed 50 children in the 20's because he lost an election, was that because the rhetoric made him do it, or was he simply a sick, depraved individual? Evil is evil, and evil men are simply evil men.

Apr 16, 2013, 7:11pm Permalink
Mark Brudz

The world is full off nuts Charlie, below is just a partial list of bombings in the US, and you can see the reasoning is all over the board, The common denominator though is a lack of respect for life and difference of opinion.

- May 4, 1886: Haymarket affair—An unknown person or persons at Haymarket Square in Chicago detonates a bomb during a labor rally, the police respond with gunfire killing twelve people.

- 1910 October 1: Los Angeles Times bombing. The Los Angeles Times building in Los Angeles is destroyed by dynamite, killing 21 workers. The bomb was apparently placed due to the paper's opposition to unionization of its employees; the McNamara brothers were found guilty.

- 1915, July 2: Frank Holt (also known as Eric Muenter), a German professor who wanted to stop American support of the Allies in World War I, exploded a bomb in the reception room of the U.S. Senate. The next morning he tried to assassinate J. P. Morgan, Jr. the son of the financier whose company served as Great Britain’s principal U.S. purchasing agent for munitions and other war supplies. Muenter was overpowered by Morgan in Morgan's Long Island home before committing suicide in prison on July 7

- 1916 July 22: The Preparedness Day Bombing kills ten people and injures 40 in San Francisco. The identity of the bombers has never been proven. Radical union leaders were suspected.

- 1917, November 24: A bomb explodes in a Milwaukee police station, killing nine officers and a civilian. Anarchists were suspected

- 1919 1919 United States anarchist bombings

- 1920 Wall Street bombing

- 1927 May 18: The Bath School disaster (bombings) killed 45 people and injured 58. Most of the victims were children in the second to sixth grades (7–12 years of age) attending the Bath Consolidated School. Their deaths constitute the deadliest act of mass murder in a school in U.S. history. The perpetrator was school board member Andrew Kehoe.

- 1933, October 10, A Boeing 247 is destroyed in midflight over Indiana by a nitroglycerin bomb. All seven people aboard are killed. This incident is the first proven case of air sabotage in the history of aviation. The identity of the perpetrator and his rationale for the attack are unknown.

- 1940 4 July: Two New York City policemen killed and two critically wounded examining a bomb they had found at the British Pavilion at the World's Fair

- 1940–1956: George Metesky, the Mad Bomber, placed over 30 bombs in New York City in public places such as Grand Central Station and The Paramount Theatre injuring ten during this period in protest of the high rates of a local electric utility. He also sent many threatening letters to various high profile individuals.

- 1951 Wave of hate related terrorist attacks in Florida. Negros dragged and beaten to death, 11 race related bombings, dynamiting of synagogues and a Jewish School in Miami and explosives found outside of Catholic Churches in Miami

- 1958 October 12: Bombing of the Hebrew Benevolent Congregation Temple of Atlanta, Georgia. The acts were carried out by white racists.

- 1960: The Sunday Bomber sets off a series of bombs in New York City subwaysand ferries during Sundays and Holidays, killing one woman and injuring 51 other commuters.

- 1969 January 1 – 1970 April 15: 8200 Bombings, attempted bombings and bomb threats attributed to "campus disturbances and student unrest

- 1969 February: Secretary at Pomona College severely injured by bomb

- 1969 March: Student critically injured while attempting to bomb a San Francisco State College classroom

- 1969 August 7: Twenty were injured by radical leftist Sam Melville in a bombing of the Marine Midland Building in New York City.

- 1969 August 8: United States Department of Commerce Offices in New York City damaged by bombing

- 1969 September 18: The Federal Building in New York City is bombed by radical leftist Jane Alpert.

- 1969 October 7: Fifth floor of the Armed Forces Induction Center in New York City devastated by explosion attributed to radical leftist Jane Alpert.

- 1969 November 12: A bomb is detonated in the Manhattan Criminal Court building in New York City. Jane Alpert, Sam Melville, and 3 other militant radical leftists are arrested hours later

- The most active perpetrators of terrorism in New York City were Fuerzas Armadas de Liberacion Nacional (FALN), a Puerto Rican separatist group, responsible for 40 NYC attacks in this decade. The Jewish Defense League (JDL), which engaged in attacks against targets it perceived to be anti-Semitic, launched 27 attacks during this period. And, both the Independent Armed Revolutionary Commandos (CRIA), another Puerto Rican separatist group, and Omega 7, an anti-Castro Cuban organization, each were responsible for 16 attacks during this period.

- 1970 May: In reaction to the U.S. invasion of Cambodia, Kent State shootings, and Jackson State killings a Fresno State College computer center is destroyed by a firebomb. While reaction to these three events was massive, most were peaceful

- 1970 August 24: Sterling Hall bombing at the University of Wisconsin–Madison in protest of the Army Mathematics Research Center and the Vietnam War, killing one. Bombers Karleton Armstrong, Dwight Armstrong, David Fine, and Leo Burt claimed the death of physicist Robert Fassnacht was unintentional but acknowledged that they knew the building was occupied when they planted the bomb.

- 1970 November 21: Bombing of the City Hall of Portland, Oregon in an attempt to destroy the state's bronze Liberty Bell replica. The late night explosion destroyed the display foyer, blew out the building doors, damaged the council hall, and blew out windows more than a block away. The night janitor was injured in the blast. The crime remains unsolved, though a number of local anti-war and radical leftist groups of the era remain the primary suspects.

- 1970: Jewish Defense League linked with a bomb explosion outside of Aeroflot's New York City office in protest of treatment of Soviet Jews

- 1971: Jewish Defense League linked to a detonation outside of Soviet cultural offices in Washington, D.C. and rifle fire into the Soviet mission to the United Nations

- 1971 March 1: The radical leftist group Weatherman explode a bomb in the United States Capitol to protest the U.S. invasion of Laos.

- 1973 March 4: A failed terrorist attack by Palestinian group Black September, with car bombings in New York City while Israeli Prime Minister Golda Meir was visiting the city.

- 1974 June 13: The 29th floor of the Gulf Tower in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, was bombed with dynamite at 9:41 pm resulting in no injuries. The radical leftist group Weatherman took credit, but no suspects have ever been identified.

- 1974 Summer: "Alphabet Bomber" Muharem Kurbegovich bombs the Pan Am Terminal at Los Angeles International Airport killing three and injuring eight. He also fire bombed the houses of a judge and two police commissioners as well as one of the commissioner’s cars. He burned down two Marina Del Rey apartment buildings and threatened Los Angeles with a gas attack. His bomb defused at the Greyhound Bus station was the most powerful the LAPD bomb squad had handled up until that time. His personal vendetta against a judge and the commissioners grew into demands for an end to immigration and naturalization laws, as well as any laws about sex

- 1975 December 29: The LaGuardia Airport Christmas Bomb kills 11 and injures 75. The bombing remains unsolved.

- 1976 September 11: Croatian terrorists hijack a TWA airliner diverting it to Gander, Newfoundland and Labrador, and then Paris demanding a manifesto be printed. One police officer was killed and three injured during an attempt to defuse a bomb that contained their communiques in a New York City train station locker. Zvonko Bušić who served 32 years in prison for the attack was released and returned to Croatia to a heroes welcome in July 2008.

- 1976 September 21: Orlando Letelier, a former member of the Chilean government, was killed by a car bomb in Washington, D.C. along with his assistant Ronni Moffitt. The killing was carried out by members of the Chilean DINA.

- 1980 June 3: Bombing of the Statue of Liberty. At 7:30 pm, a time delayed explosive device detonated in the Statue of Liberty's Story Room. Detonated after business hours, the bomb did not injure anyone, but caused $18,000 in damage, destroying many of the exhibits. The room was sealed off and left unrepaired until the Statue of Liberty restoration project that began years later. FBI investigators believed the perpetrators were Croatian terrorists seeking independence for Croatia from Yugoslavia, (possibly members of the Ustaše) though no arrests were made.

- 1983 November 7: U.S. Senate bombing. The Armed Resistance Unit, a militant leftist group, bombs the United States Capitol in response to the U.S. invasion of Grenada.

- 1984 Rajneeshee bioterror attack: In what is believed to be the first incident of bioterrorism in the United States the Rajneesh movement spreads salmonella in salad bars at 10 restaurants in The Dalles, Oregon, to influence a local election which backfired as suspicious residents came out in droves to prevent the election of Rajneeshee candidates.. Health officials say that 751 people were sickened and more than 40 hospitalized. All but one of the establishments attacked went out of business. Investigators believed that similar attacks had previously been carried out in Salem, Portland and other cities in Oregon

- 1985 October 11: Alex Odeh, a prominent Arab-American, was killed by a bomb in his office in Santa Ana, California. The case is unsolved, but it is thought the Jewish Defense League was responsible.

- 1985 December 11: computer rental store owner, Hugh Scrutton, is the first fatality of the Unabomber's neo-luddite campaign.

- 1989 March 1: 1989 firebombing of the Riverdale Press. The Riverdale Press, a weekly newspaper in the Bronx, New York, is firebombed one week after publishing an editorial defending author Salman Rushdie's right to publish The Satanic Verses, which questioned the founding story of Islam.

- 1993 February 26: First World Trade Center bombing killed six and injured 1,000. The attack was carried out by radical Islamist Ramzi Yousef, a member of Al Qaeda.

- 1994 December 10: Advertising executive, Thomas J. Mosser, is killed after opening a mail package from the Unabomber, being the second fatality of the mailbomb campaign.

- 1995 April 19: Oklahoma City bombing: A truck bomb shattered the Alfred P. Murrah Federal Building in downtown Oklahoma City, killing 168 people-including children playing in the building's day care center. Right-wing terrorists Timothy McVeigh and Terry Nichols were convicted in the bombing.

- 1995 April 24: Timber industry lobbyist, Gilbert P. Murray, is the third and final fatal victim of the Unabomber's mailbomb campaign.

- 1996 July 27: Centennial Olympic Park bombing by Eric Robert Rudolph occurred in Atlanta, Georgia, during the Atlanta Olympics. One person was killed and 111 injured. In a statement released in 2005 Rudolph said the motive was to protest abortion and the "global socialist" Olympic Movement.

- 2000 October 13, Firebombing of Temple Beth El (Syracuse)

- 2000: 2000 New York terror attack Three young men of Arab descent hurled crude Molotov cocktails at a synagogue in The Bronx, New York to "strike a blow in the Middle East conflict between Israel and Palestine".

- 2001 September 11: September 11, 2001 attacks carried out by Al-Qaeda. The attacks killed nearly 3,000 civilians, and were carried out by Islamic fundamentalists using hijacked commercial airplanes to damage the Twin Towers of the World Trade Center, ultimately destroying both 110-story skyscrapers. The Pentagon near Washington, D.C., was also severely damaged. Building 7 of the World Trade Center was also destroyed in the attack. A fourth plane crashed in Pennsylvania before it could reach its target.

- May 2002 Mailbox Pipe Bomber: Lucas John Helder rigged pipe bombs in private mailboxes to explode when the boxes were opened. He injured 6 people in Nebraska, Colorado, Texas, Illinois, and Iowa. His motivation was to garner media attention so that he could spread a message denouncing government control over daily lives and the illegality of marijuana, as well as promote astral projection.

- 2007 October 26: A pair of improvised explosive devices were thrown at the Mexican Consulate in New York City. The fake grenades were filled with black powder, and detonated by fuses, causing very minor damage. Police were investigating the connection between this and a similar attack against the British Consulate in New York in 2005

- 2008 March 6: A homemade bomb damaged a Recruiting Office in Times Square

- 2008 May 4: Multiple pipe bombs exploded at 1:40 am at the Edward J. Schwartz United States Courthouse in San Diego causing "considerable damage" to the entrance and lobby and sending shrapnel two blocks away, but causing no injuries. The F.B.I. is investigating links between this attack and an April 25 explosion at the FedEx building also in San Diego.

- 2008 August 2, August 3 University of California-Santa Cruz molecular biologist David Feldheim's home was firebombed. A car belonging to another researcher from that university was destroyed by a firebomb in what is presumed to be related. FBI is investigating incidents as domestic terrorism related to animal rights groups

- 2009 May 25: 17-year old Kyle Shaw sets off a crude explosive device at a Starbucks at East 92nd Street on the Upper East Side of Manhattan, shattering windows and destroyed a bench at the coffee shop. There were no injuries. The attack was a "bizarre tribute" of the movie Fight Club, in an attempt to emulate "Project Mayhem", a series of assaults on corporate America portrayed in the film. Shaw took a plea agreement and was sentenced to 3.5 years in prison in November 2010

- 2011 January 6: Three packages detonate in the mail rooms of two Maryland state government buildings, causing minor injuries to the fingers of two government workers

- 2013 April 15: Boston Marathon bombings: Two bombs detonated within seconds of each other near the finish line of the Boston Marathon. Another suspected device was intentionally exploded in Copley Square. 3 dead and 183 injured.

Apr 16, 2013, 10:48pm Permalink
RICHARD L. HALE

No foreign terrorist.....bombs would have been bigger.

Another Tim McVeigh.....very possible.

Pure speculation right now.

(Let's not forget that little Korean *rick, with the bad haircut)

Apr 16, 2013, 11:07pm Permalink
Howard B. Owens

I think if it was an organized terror group, especially AQ, we'd already be watching a video of some leader about why they did it.

That's just my speculation at this point.

Apr 16, 2013, 11:12pm Permalink
Mark Brudz

Well the Pakistani Taliban who claimed responsibility for the failed times square bombing just issued a statement that read;

"It wasn't us, we had nothing to do with it!"

(CNN) -- The Pakistani Taliban denied any involvement in a double bombing at the Boston Marathon that killed at least three people, spokesman Ihsanullah Ihsan said Wednesday.

"Wherever we find Americans we will kill them, but we don't have any connection with the Boston Explosions," Ihsan said.

The Pakistani Taliban claimed responsibility for the Times Square bombing in 2010.

Apr 16, 2013, 11:29pm Permalink
tom hunt

The use of smokeless black powder suggests to me that this was the handy work of a domestic hate group. These people are use to handling this explosive with their muskets and black powder rifles. It is crude and less powerful than military grade C4 or Semitex with is favored by the US military.

Apr 17, 2013, 5:19am Permalink
Raymond Richardson

Let's not forget the bombing of the federal building in Oklahoma City was thought, initially, to have been carried out by foreign terrorists, but was later determined to be the work of Americans.

Just saying!

Apr 17, 2013, 8:58am Permalink
Mark Brudz

By the same token, when Congresswomen Gabbey Gifford was shot in Arizona, the initial reports were that it was political and done by right wing fanatics and blamed on political vitriol , turned out to be just a plain nut case.

Initial reports are meaningless, and speculation is simply that speculation. Sooner or later there is going to be a very high profile arrest, then we will know.

With the amount of residual evidence left i.e. that the pressure cookers used to contain the explosive were found largely intact, they will know who soon if they don't have a good idea already.

Apr 17, 2013, 10:27am Permalink

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