The Tsarnaev trial

Just for my own information are you sick enough to think that there is a legal defense or even moral defense for the random killings and crippling of hundreds of men women and children that the courts should entertain similar to Zimmerman claims of the right of self defense in his trial?

There is no doubt in my mind that Dzhokhar Tsarnaev will end up just as dead as his brother. Between now and then I plan on listening to what he has to say in his defense, just as I'm willing to listen to what George Zimmerman has to say in his defense. In that regard (public trials) they are both equals. It's called due process under the law and it behooves us to listen and weigh the evidence. He'll be found guilty of the crimes he committed. Zimmerman, on the other hand, will probably be set free to potentially kill again.

Well unlike Zimmerman claims of self defense there is no legal or moral defense to the mass random killings and cripplings such as happen in Boston.

I am happy that you think that we should grant such a mass killer a hearing on his non-legal defense reasons for doing such killings.

To me however to do so is an insulted to the hundreds of his victims and rewarding him for doing those killings by granting him a hearing on his sick minded reasons for those killings.

Kind of like granting such a hearing to KKK members that hung blacks or Ted Bundy in his killing of women and so on.

Since he pled "not guilty", his defense presumably claims he didn't do it. If that's true, there would be nothing to defend.

Tsarnajev is innocent until the United States proves him guilty beyond a reasonable doubt. So I'll start with the doubt, see what evidence the United States comes up with, and decide if it can prove my doubt unreasonable. It's a sound approach; I warmly recommend that every observer of the trial consider it, too.

Thank you, Thomas. I was hoping I'd hear at least one voice of reason weigh in on this thread.

True however I am not on the jury so I have zero moral/ethical duty to disregard what is already public knowledge and only consider what is shown and proven in a court room.

He already had written that he did do this deed on the inside of the boat they found him hiding in and his "reasons" for doing so along with similar statements to law enforcement.

The ladies here had express a wish to hear his reasons from him and for myself I am not a bit interest in rewarding mass killings by granting the killers a platform to explains the reasons/excuses that have zero bearing on the legal matter of guilt or innocent.

If he and or his lawyers claims he is innocents I can only assume that my fellow citizens on a jury will do their duty of making the government proved him guilty beyond a reasonable doubt.

For myself I can see that likelihood of such a defense being put on as zero but we will see in the years that follow.

That part is beyond comprehension. Mature women should take some of those young girls aside and kick their asses.

He deserves a fair trial.

Everyone accused of a crime deserves a fair trial.

I think that is a good way to put it.

I kind of wonder what these teeny-boppers will be like when they are actual adults with responsibilities in their lives - like a mortgage and family (or will they be responsible adults). Will they regret what they did? Still believe it? Be ashamed? Or forget it?

I don't think you can compare the two.

Zimmerman's act whether determined to be criminal or not was not an act of terrorism.

Not that in either situation there shouldn't be a trial - just cannot compare the two situations as they are no where close.

An who had said otherwise here?

There was talk about a trial.

My opinion is that he deserves a fair trial.

I didn't realize there was a rule that one cannot offer an opinion of that sort unless some previously has suggested otherwise.

I apologize.

Stating that he is entitle to a fair trial under the content of this thread to me was implying that others did not feel the same.

Sorry if I was wrong in taking it that way.

Pointing to the My Lai massacre would be a good start, Merry. Or the myriad other massacres that US troops have taken part in. Or, here's a good defense. Reagan's support for the Contras whose actions make Boston look like a tea party.

Or how about the horrendous action of the US in killing half a million Iraqi kids- Albright thought that that was a good deal.

The list is endless. What's that we always hear from USians, something about collateral damage.

Like blowing up an entire wedding party, eh, Bill?

You folks are blind, oh so blind.

" The enormous gap between what US leaders do in the world and what Americans think their leaders are doing is one of the great propaganda accomplishments of the dominant political mythology. "

Michael Parenti, political scientist and author

Just compare what these two brothers have done to just one event - one among thousands/tens of thousands - the My Lai Massacre.

Those guys were never held to account. And the My Lai Massacre was a daily, weekly event.

I think that the best defense is to show the incredible hypocrisy of the USA.

Precisely, Bill. And yet from the genocidal actions of the US government against Native Americans to Iraq and Afghanistan, the continued terrorism against Cuba, the ongoing daily terrorist activities of the CIA in many countries around the world, the list of "mass random murders" by the US is full to the brim.

How can so many people be so ignorant?

This hypocrisy is, once again, stunning!. Do you figure that all the US mass murderers that came home from Vietnam have been shunned by American women?

Google "Images for depleted uranium children iraq".

Boston was nothing compared to what the US has done in Iraq, Linkat.

Really, how can a body be so blind? How can so many bodies be so blind?

http://www.globalresearch.ca/the-responsibility-of-the-us-in-contaminating-iraq-with-depleted-uranium/15966

The Responsibility of the US in Contaminating Iraq with Depleted Uranium

By Prof Souad N. Al-Azzawi
Global Research, November 08, 2009

The following text was presented to the Kuala Lumpur International Conference to Criminalise War, Putra World Trade Centre, 28-31 October 2009.

For two decades, the administrations of the United States of America and the United Kingdom have been waging continuous wars on Iraq to occupy this oil rich country.

The armed forces of those two countries attacked civilians with different kinds of conventional, non-conventional, and banned weapons such as cluster bombs ammunitions, napalm bombs, white phosphorous weapons and depleted Uranium weapons.

Depleted Uranium (DU) is a radioactive and chemically toxic heavy metal. If ingested, inhaled, or it enters the human body through wounds or skin, it remains there for decades.

Within the human body the (DU) particles would be a continuous source for emitting alpha particles. With its toxic effects, published research & epidemiological studies have proved that it causes serious health damages to the human body. Some of the damage to the human body is to lymph tissue, kidneys, developing fetuses, neurological system, the bones, lung fibrosis, and an increase in the risk of many types of cancer and malignancies.

Hundreds of tons of (DU) expenditure have been fired & exploded on Iraqi highly populated areas like Basrah, Baghdad, Nasriya, Dewania, Samawa, and other cities.

Exploration programs and site measurements by Iraqi and non-Iraqi researchers all proved the existence of (DU) related contamination over most Iraqi territories.

Iraq’s Minister of Environment admitted in July 23, 2007 in Cairo that “at least 350 sites in Iraq are contaminated with (DU)”. She added that the nation is facing a tremendous number of cancer cases and called for the international community to help Iraq cope with this problem.

A few years after exposure to (DU) contamination, multifold increase of malignancies, congenital malformations, miscarriages, children leukemia, and sterility cases have been registered in suburb areas of Basrah and other surrounding areas. Similar problems appeared in Falluja, where illegal weapons were also used intensively in the 2004 attack of occupation forces on the city. More than two million of the Iraqi population died since 1991 because of the synergic multiple impact of using (DU) weapons, economical sanctions, and the destruction of the health care systems.

The economical sanction that were also imposed by USA and UK administrations deprived the children and people of Iraq their rights in food, potable water, health care, sanitation and other life supporting necessities.

The USA and UK administrations have subjected the whole nation of Iraq for two decades to torture and slow death through the intentional use of radioactive weapons and the sanctions. The continuous and intentional use of radioactive weapons is a crime against humanity due to its undifferentiating harmful health effects on civilians in contaminated areas tens of years to come after the military engagements. The existence of (DU) radioactive contamination in the surrounding environment is a continuous source of exposure to low level radiation. This exposure can be considered as a systematic attack on Iraqi civilians in an armed conflict, according to Article 4 of the official regulations and Article 7 of the ICC.

And Frank Apisa et al sit silent on Guantanamo, all the US illegal renditions, the illegal drone strikes, the worldwide network of torture sites, the stuff we don't even know of yet because US government isn't of the people, by the people, for the people. It's sheep dogs herding the sheeple wherever they are needed.

But the great editorial writer, Frank Apisa, won't be reading this. He's off in some distant paddock chewing his cud.