I debated whether or not to start YET ANOTHER Tsarnaev thread, when Brother #2 still lies in hospital apparently unable to communicate—-and we still don’t actually know all that much, or even whether there is much more to know. And, you know, there was quite a bit of other death and destruction in the USA around the same time, not to mention, um, the world. But the Tsarnaevs have jihad privilege, so we’ll keep on discussing them for some time now, I guess.

It sounds to me—-again, at this still-early date—-like there actually isn’t that much “why” here TO know, and that this is basically the equivalent of a school or office shooting with Chechen-separatist flavourings, rather than a plot by an organized network of clear-thinking ideologues having a specific political theory in mind.

But who knows?

However, those of us who advocate for asking “why” have stood accused by some of our commenters for not being fully even-handed with the question. Well, duh, I mean, this blog has leanings.

But fine. Let’s ignore all the other death that occurred that week, and focus on the “why” that contains the Uncomfortable Truths that politically correct progressives are too AFRAID to face, yup yup. Let’s discuss ALL the things.

So what exactly do we stand accused of being unwilling to face? Well, let’s start with the words that begin with “I” and “M”. Immigrant, Islam, Muslims. As Dr.Dawg alluded, these things get jihad-privileged up to the top of the factors list whenever people with Muslimy backgrounds do anything wrong, whereas other identities, lacking jihad-privilege, are never quite so negatively centered. But, again, fine.

If we accept the demand and agree that these issues are on the table, how exactly…is this supposed into influence the necessary discussion of “why”?

Keep in mind that a central goal of actual organized Muslim extremist movements is the drawing and reinforcing of a firm line between a reified Muslim World and a world of infidels. One of the intended outworkings of the WTC attack was specifically to incite the West to treat The Muslim World in se as a threat, and in particular to make traffic between Muslims countries and the West more difficult. Muslim immigrant communities were, in a sense, a target of Al-Qaida, because their relatively successful economic integration in much of Western life has prevented the drawing of a strict boundary.

Thus, if the Tsarnaev brothers are ultimately nothing more than a pair of disaffected young men with complicated life histories, centering/jihad-privileging their Muslim backgrounds hands to extremist groups (both ones in The Muslim World and in/of The West) a weapon for free.

So yeah, we can discuss ALL the things. It’s just not clear that it helps the discussion “why”. What appears to be lefty multiculti one-sidedness may actually be the voice of wisdom. Well, this is Dawg’s Blawg. Of course it is.

EDITED TO ADD: David Sirota’s most recent Salon post also seems relevant here.