Gene Healy: Boston Bombing Suspects Are Losers, Not Enemy Combatants

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Credit: FBI

When asked by reporters last week about what motivated his nephews Tamerlan and Dzhokhar Tsarnaev to bomb the Boston Marathon, Ruslan Tsarni replied "being losers, [full of] hatred to those who were able to settle themselves." Now contrast Uncle Reslan's pithy dismissal with the current Republican craze for declaring America a "battlefield" and demanding that Dzhokhar Tsarnaev, a naturalized American citizen, be held as an "enemy combatant." As Gene Healy explains, that proposal, issued by Sens. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.), John McCain (R-Ariz.), and Rep. Peter King (R-N.Y.), among others, is illegal, unnecessary, and unwise.