Foreign or Domestic:

[Robert Gray]

The ideal would be this horror (like so many others in the world) would never have happened in the first place. All we have is conjecture, of course, but if I had to choose between evils, the lesser of three evils, my hopes would be like this:

Least of Evils (Foreign Attack):
This is by far my hope because this is the kind of thing we can wrap our minds around. It is horrible but it is far better to believe this than think Americans murdered and maimed Americans, civilians no less.

Lesser Evil (Lone Wolf Lunatic):
If it was an American, awful as that would be, my next hope would be that it was one isolated nutjob. This too we can wrap our mind around. He/she is crazy and we can attribute this kind of evil to mental defect or the person being an extremist but a statistical abberation.

Homegrown Evil (Domestic Group):
This is the thing I fear the most, that there is a group of people behind this attack and they are homegrown extremists. We can't lay it off on outsiders. We can't lay it off on brain tumors or statistical abberation. This would be a group of people who talked, planned, and made the cold-blooded choice to murder and maim innocent people to send a message or just sow chaos.

[fushingfeef]

When I first heard the news, my initial gut reaction was that it was caused by a domestic person or persons, not necessarily a whole group but perhaps someone with a whacked-out political agenda trying to make a point. This doesn't seem to be a suicide bomber either, which makes me think it's more likely to be domestic. But, since my initial reaction, I now think it could be anyone and I'm just going to keep an open mind and wait and see what information comes in, like everyone else. The pressure-cooker bomb is apparently quite common in many countries around the world, although now anyone can get that information and use it.

[Lily Sawyer]

This doesn't seem to be a suicide bomber either, which makes me think it's more likely to be domestic.

That's another reason I think it's an American Freaky McFreak.

I read last night that the media, in all its sensationalist, greedy scoop-grabbing tactics, jumped the gun with this: http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/...ce-of-caution/
John King is a respected journalist and I doubt he'd have reported something from a questionable source, but I also have to admit that I'm not surprised that profiling has now entered the picture. It was only a matter of time before a law enforcement official or a journalist took that plunge.
And, of course Jon Stewart roasted CNN until it was leather: http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/...t-skewers-cnn/

*sigh*

[Out of Order]

[exzel]

Personally, at the current time I’d rather not speculate on the culprits being foreign terrorists or domestic born forms of radicals coming from the far right, leftist groups, religious fundamentalists, black nationalists, some lone wolf, or a result of gun control failures. I will not criticize the president’s handling of the matter, and hope we will be given the guidance and resources needed to bring those responsible to swift justice. I will give authorities the time to do a proper investigation before forming an opinion and will instead, for now, just pray for the victims and their families.

[Robert Gray]

It looks like it was indeed foreign nationals. That is at least some peace of mind, that Americans didn't do this to Americans. It will be interesting to find out the motive (once they verify it was these two). This could be an isolated splinter cell simply lashing out, or it could be a new strategy wherein the point of the terror is to create chaos. In other words, the point isn't to make a statement but simply to disrupt and attack. Credit is never taken. The world just keeps getting stranger.

[Out of Order]

Going to take some time to sort this out, but some media outlets are saying that suspect #2 has been living in the US since 2000/2001, attended a Boston High School and even received scholarships. Not sure at this point what ties he has back to his apparent birthplace near Chechnya..

[FlakeNoir]

It's been mentioned that suspects 1 & 2 are brothers.

[Out of Order]

It's been mentioned that suspect 1 & 2 are brothers.

Yes, it appears so. The older one is dead from either blowing himself up or being shot by the police.

[Todash]

It looks like it was indeed foreign nationals. That is at least some peace of mind, that Americans didn't do this to Americans. It will be interesting to find out the motive (once they verify it was these two). This could be an isolated splinter cell simply lashing out, or it could be a new strategy wherein the point of the terror is to create chaos. In other words, the point isn't to make a statement but simply to disrupt and attack. Credit is never taken. The world just keeps getting stranger.

Maybe ... but I don't know if you can call someone a "foreign national" who has lived in the US since age 8. Sounds like it might be more complicated than just a simple "Chechen rebels/terrorists" scenario.