Conservatives agree Boston suspects can't be tried in military tribunal...

From Think Progress...

On Friday, while the manhunt for suspected Boston bomber Dzhokhar Tsarnaev continued, Senator Lindsey Graham (R-SC) published aseries of tweets suggesting that he wanted to revive the George W. Bush-era debates about whether terrorism suspects can be denied many constitutional rights and tried by a military tribunal. In a statement Graham released yesterday with Sen. John McCain (R-AZ), Sen. Kelly Ayotte (R-NH) and Rep. Pete King (R-NY), however, the four conservatives acknowledge that shunting Tsarnaev into a military commission is not a lawful opinion. Tsarnaev is an American, and federal law does not permit U.S. citizens to be tried under the military commissions system.

On CNN this morning, Graham articulated what now appears to be the conservative position on how Tsarnaev should be treated:

GRAHAM: This man, in my view, should be designated as a potential enemy combatant and we should be allowed to question him for intelligence gathering purposes to find out about future attacks and terrorist organizations that may exist that he has knowledge of, and that evidence cannot be used against him in trial. That evidence is used to protect us as a nation. Any time we question him about his guilt or innocence, he’s entitled to his Miranda rights and a lawyer, but we have the right under our law — I’ve been a military lawyer for 30 years — to gather intelligence from enemy combatants. And a citizen can be an enemy combatant.

He is not eligible for military commission trial. I wrote the military commission in 2009. He cannot go to military commission.

Click here to watch the segment...

Ruslan Tsarni's Remarkable Statement...

Ruslan Tsarni is the uncle of both Dzhokhar Tsarnaev and his now deceased brother Tamerlan Tsarnaev, the two men who are suspected of planting two bombs near the finish line of the Boston Marathon last Monday afternoon. Mr. Tasrni addressed the media this afternoon, before his nephew Dzhokhar was captured after a dramatic manhunt. 

His comments are an alluring mix of shame, personal responsibility and compassion. Tsarni makes no excuses for either of his nephews other than to suggest that someone "radicalized them." He speaks passionately of his feelings about the boys, their actions, the effects of those actions on the Chechnyan race, the United States and the victims of Monday's bombings. 

Watch his remarks in full here:


No excuses, no finger pointing at America for anything. I found it to be very powerful and attractive in its bluntness. His attitudes revealed profound and impressive levels of shame in his nephew's actions and the repercussions that followed as well as his love of the United States. His willingness to assume some level of responsibility for the actions of others, albeit in a sensibly indirect way, were striking:

“Those who suffered, we’re sharing with them, with their grief—and ready just to meet with them, and ready just to bend in front of them, to kneel in front of them, seeking their forgiveness. … In the name of the family, that’s what I say.”

Well said, Mr. Tsarni...

Good thoughts for Boston...

Don't have enough info yet to write much of value just yet, so we're just going to use a musical form to pass on some good vibes for those effected by today's bombings...

Hang in there, Boston...