Friday, May 3, 2013

The other woman: Unfaithful Jihadi

In the old days, the American housewife learned of her husband's affairs by spotting lipstick on his shirt collar as she did his laundry.
In the world of modern Jihadi housewives, female DNA on bomb parts serves the same role to alert the wife that the hubbie is mounting another female in addition to mounting terrorist attacks.
Too soon to laugh? Absolutely. I make this comparison not to get a laugh, but to add to the despicable portrait of the older brother, Tamerlan Tsarnaev, that's already been painted by authorities. From the cocky look on Tamerlan's face in his boxing photos; to the way he manipulated and beat his wife to make her conform to his brand of Islam; to his scholarship to one of America's top colleges; and the ease with which he moved around town as if he had no care in the world while looking forward to maiming and killing innocents--I find much to hate him for.
He's like the guy who turns the TV up all the way and screw you if you want it turned down. Or the guy who acts like he's a rapper when he's never been in the inner city black neighborhoods. Or just an amoral, lying, evil, murderous, punk who would ambush a young man who was in his first years as a law enforcement officer. And boast about it. The problem is no matter how brutally you enact revenge or justice on his ilk, it never matches the destruction, sadness, and horror he creates in other people's lives.
So, when we learned that another female may have helped him build the bomb parts (the FBI must first find out if the DNA belongs to a victim) I felt that cheating on his wife fit his pattern perfectly.

I am also going to write this, and I believe I'll get blowback: Tamerlan fits perfectly into the generation of kids his age who just don't understand boundaries, don't understand when they are impinging on the comfort of others, who leave doors open, the TV way up, are oblivious to manners, oblivious to society's small graces. They are gentle sociopaths--not necessarily violent. But much like Tamerlan, many of them just don't seem to care.
I am talking about kids who somehow were raised without compassion. They laugh when an elderly person slips on a sidewalk; they don't respond when you ask them a direct question; they look at you blankly when they're behind a service counter. It's as if they are observing the world from behind sound-proof booths. It's probably an effect brought about by having earphones on all the time, or texting, or what have you. We've all seen couples out on a date, right? They sit at the same table, each reading and texting from an IPhone or similar device but never talking to one another.
I swore I'd never write like Andy Rooney, but I guess I am doing just that.
"Conversation, ever wonder where that went? The art of getting to know one another through the exchanging of full sentences? How about trying to be humorous, or using irony effectively to get a point across?"
Tamerlan is of the age of unconnectedness. Yes, he boxed, but he's a sociopath, a killer, and he's an abuser. His personality and apartness didn't raise any alarm bells in his fellow students. He fit into that generation of the disconnected perfectly. Clearly I'm not saying we have a generation of Tamerlan's out there. But conversation, with anyone, might have kept him from so-called, "self-radicalizing." Like many in his generation, he didn't know how to converse, so he heard no common sense arguments voiced that could balance the deadly Islamic message found on YouTube and Jihadi sites.
I don't know, it's all so perplexing, isn't it? A young man of hate, once again, loosed upon the world in the middle of an attentive, active society. A loner? Not really. Married, with friends who also didn't know boundaries or give a shit about anyone else. He had a little brother, who also had friends who all hung out with the older brother.
What a hoot! That's Tamerlan on the TV. Text him! Bro! Can I have your stuff? Ha Ha Ha. Blew up some people! Dude They're gonna catch you! Ha Ha!

I don't know who to blame. The two brothers, of course. But something's different about these times. They say the center won't hold, to beat a tired and rotting phrase to death. But there just isn't any better way to say it, is there? People betray colleagues for no good reason; those with little training or experience are given weighty titles and everyone tries to use shortcuts that undermine tine-honored, professional standards.
Dedicated to your fellow man? LOL.
The invaluable value system that has held together our community, society and nation in past generations just seems to be flinging apart. LOL.

--John Guerra