Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Explosions near Boston Marathon finish line

wcvb.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

211–220 of 622 posts

Re: Explosions near Boston Marathon finish line

#211

Post by fosap »

pekk wrote: post #158
UnoriginalGuy wrote: post #18

North Korea, Al Qaeda, racists, or something else? I honestly think anyone could claim responsibility but given the high explosives and the seemingly professional nature of the attack I'm guessing either NK, AQ, or a false-flag to start a war on the Korean peninsula. edit: Nice downvotes? We cannot speculate who?

North Korea hasn't ever done anything like this so it's truly out of line to begin speculating that it's a "false-flag to start a war on the Korean peninsula" - way to blame the victim

North Korea does lot of evil and insane stuff and I'm quite a fan of conspiracy theories, but this just make no sense.

What is a terrorist attack? Cynically speaking a huge PR coup. A terrorist attack without a confession and a statement makes only sense if it is clear who was it and why they did it. Since the last thing is not given I'm expecting something like this anytime soon. Before there a narrative has formed. But what should NK "promote"?

But for NK this makes no sense. It would be suicide of the hole state. A false flag makes little sense since this is just too absurd to believe.

Re: Explosions near Boston Marathon finish line

#212

Post by mathattack »

noonespecial wrote: post #138

The worst part for me (and I really am feeling bad about this) is that I should be concerned about the victims right now, but I can't stop thinking about what freedoms I'll be losing as a result of this.

When 9/11 hit my first thought was, "Travel is really going to suck now." When the Bali bombing hit, I thought, "I've been to that bar, holy sh*t!" This time around I'm thinking, "I know some people who were running."

Reaction to issues is tied to how much you can personally relate to the victims. It's also why 2 people dying in a stream in your neighborhood seems so much more relevant than 100,000 people dying in an earthquake halfway around the world.

Re: Explosions near Boston Marathon finish line

#214

Post by scarmig »

youngerdryas wrote: post #152
scarmig wrote: post #126

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The aim of the WTC attack was to make a very symbolic action: the goal was to destroy three symbols of American power, its military, economic, and political might, though the last ended up physically unscathed. Obviously a huge number of deaths associated with it, but the symbolism was key. You knew exactly where the attackers stood--American power is evil--once you heard a description of the attacks. This, in contra…

>You knew exactly where the attackers stood--American power is evil Who gives a fuck where they stand they will all be hunted down and killed. For all you know this bombing was because they don't believe women should run in marathons.

It certainly does matter. Not in terms of whether they're evil or not--they most assuredly are--but how we interpret their actions is very much going to be determined by who they are and what their goals are. If 9/11 had been committed by anti-abortionists or ecoterrorists, we would have had a very different situation on our hands than we did in our reality.

Re: Explosions near Boston Marathon finish line

#215

Post by pekk »

Udo wrote: post #153
pinaceae wrote: post #70

Earlier quoted context omitted.

well, this is indeed a tricky subject. 1., we don't know if it is terrorism (well, is a loner like breivik a terrorist or "just" running amok?) 2., it might not be over yet. mumbai took 60hours. 3., lots of people nowadays have someone there , a friend, an aquaintance. maybe just an online friend or simple source of joy but yeah, terror spreads through news.

Used to be that a terrorist was defined as someone who likes to further their agenda by means of spreading terror. Explosions, destruction, loss of life - that's all completely incidental to the actual terror. A person running amok, in contrast, may be a terrorist (and people like Breivik certainly fit the bill in some aspects) but their main goal is committing mass murder, usually culminating in suicide. A convincin…

Breivik was someone pursuing a political agenda by means of spreading terror.

Re: Explosions near Boston Marathon finish line

#216

Post by potatolicious »

no2empire wrote: post #179
stevenameyer wrote: post #48

It's horrific to see this happen. I hope that people make it out of this ok, and they get to bottom of who did this. Seeing these kinds of senseless attacks on the innocent is just disgusting.

Drones are flying over Afghanistan and Pakistan right now, atatcking innocent families. A Zionist invasion of Palestine in the 1940s is pushing into Gaza, the West Bank, southwest Syria, and innocent Palestinians are being killed daily - with US backing. The US is doing this all over the world, or enabling it. It's a laugh to see the people who invaded Iraq and tortured prisoners in Abu Ghraib getting on their high h…

I'm still waiting for the part that justifies mass murder.

Re: Explosions near Boston Marathon finish line

#217

Post by yread »

smacktoward wrote: post #31
UnoriginalGuy wrote: post #18

North Korea, Al Qaeda, racists, or something else? I honestly think anyone could claim responsibility but given the high explosives and the seemingly professional nature of the attack I'm guessing either NK, AQ, or a false-flag to start a war on the Korean peninsula. edit: Nice downvotes? We cannot speculate who?

It is waaaaay too early to be speculating who's behind it. Nobody knows any details, early reports from the scene of a terrible event like this are frequently confused and contradictory. Speculation at this moment is just firing shots in the dark.

Perhaps they will soon conveniently find a passport

Re: Explosions near Boston Marathon finish line

#218

Post by mrtron »

UnoriginalGuy wrote: post #187
ConceitedCode wrote: post #166

Earlier quoted context omitted.

At least I could take nail clippers on an airplane in 1999.

You still can today. That is a myth. http://www.seatguru.com/articles/tsa_prohibited_items.php

I have had nail clippers removed from my bag by the TSA recently.

Re: Explosions near Boston Marathon finish line

#219

Post by diminoten »

noonespecial wrote: post #138

The worst part for me (and I really am feeling bad about this) is that I should be concerned about the victims right now, but I can't stop thinking about what freedoms I'll be losing as a result of this.

I'm not worried about me as much as I'm worried about the poor citizens of the country these people are from, if it's a foreign group.

Re: Explosions near Boston Marathon finish line

#220

Post by CleanedStar »

krcz wrote: post #189

Do you think IRA (or one of its forks like Real IRA, Continuity IRA or one IRA extremist supporter) might have been involved? Today US supreme court has ruled to give tapes containing testimony to Irish police: http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk/2013/apr/15/ira-tapes-police-su... .

This idea is completely inane. The Volunteers declared war against the England that was on their soil in 1916, that they would shift suddenly to a war against the U.S. is ridiculous. Also, purposefully killing civilians gathered en masse without warning is more along the lines of British Army terrorism (Bloody Sunday, Amritsar), not the Irish volunteers who give warnings and tend to attack military targets, back when they did so.

Also, the ruling came somewhat unexpectedly, a few hours before this happened. That's a short space of time to set up a bombing of a marathon. This bombing was obviously planned for days, if not weeks in advance.

Post reply on HN