Boston Bombing: Who Did It?

Whenever an atrocity occurs, like the bombing of the Boston Marathon yesterday, the left immediately blames it on the "far right" or on budget cuts, or something equally self-serving.  The right immediately suspects Muslim terrorists.  I am in the latter category, of course.

Nevertheless, nothing is definite without evidence and facts, and we should try to withhold judgment until we have some.  John Douglas, the FBI profiler whose books have recently caught my attention, talks about erroneous investigations and convictions.  These are generally caused by jumping to conclusions, developing a theory, and selectively looking for facts to fit that theory.  Douglas says that in any crime, you must step back, view the whole picture, and determine what is known and what is not known.  You first examine the facts and the evidence and formulate a theory based on those.

What we now know is this:
1.  Person or persons unknown planted makeshift bombs made from pressure cookers at the finish line of the Boston Marathon, and timed those bombs to explode when and where the crowd would be thickest.  This appears a deliberate attempt to kill and injure as many people as possible.

2. Recent events in the past decade have shown Muslim terrorists planting bombs (in London and Madrid) with the intention of killing or wounding civilians.  Such crimes seem to have no purpose other than murder for the sake of murder, or in the case of radical Muslims, for the sake of their violent ideology.  Douglas calls this type of crime a "group cause" crime, carried out for ideological or political reasons.  The Islamic reason is merely to follow the command of their prophet, i.e. to kill infidels and unbelievers.  It is a well-established fact, based on 14 centuries of experience, that Islam is a religion of mass murder that intends to spread itself through terror.

3.  A recent Al Qaeda magazine described how Muslim terrorists could make bombs out of pressure cookers, filled with shrapnel and a flammable liquid.  The article advised:

“The pressurized cooker is the most effective method,” the article said. “Glue shrapnel to the inside of the pressurized cooker then fill the cooker with inflammable material.” A small light bulb can be used as a detonator, it said.

“Place the device in a crowded area,” the article said. “Camouflage the device with something that would not hinder the shrapnel such as cardboard.”

It would appear a reasonable theory that the world's most violent and hateful religion has probably carried out yet another crime against humanity.  However, I will withhold conclusive judgment until more facts are in.  There is always the possibility that the crime was perpetrated by some extremist like Timothy McVeigh or some lunatic like Ted Kaczynski.  However, the odds are in favor of a Muslim perpetrator.