Scott Atran might be right: "When we devote such massive societal attention to a few homegrown terrorists, we may not ultimately be doing ourselves any favors." And, of all places, in Daegu, South Korea, Boston P.D.'s decision to crowd-source its investigations, to apprehend the Tsarnaev brothers might have inspired two losers, to set a bomb in a cram school.
At 7:07 a.m. yesterday, an explosion went off on the third floor of a nine-story building in Suseong District, Daegu, starting a fire. Two arsonists had gotten access to the floor and hurled glass bottles filled with flammable liquids.
A janitor alerted local police, who dispatched officers to the scene. They suspected terrorists because the target of the attack was the American Cultural Center, located on the third floor of the building.
The intention was indeed to strike against America. Unfortunately for the terrorists, they ended up torching a private, Korean-owned English academy.
“We were so relieved to find out later that the academy just used the name American Center,” said a police officer at the Suseong Police Precinct.
Relieved? You mean, because the purported target was anything American, and not cram schools in general? How disgruntled most South Koreans must be about education! I wouldn't breathe a sigh of relief just yet. But, from the stills of the CCTV footage released, either these two losers were just as oblivious of the camera as the Tsarnaev brothers, or they were copycatting. The white hat and the bags, although quite ordinary, evoke the Tsarnaev's white and black hats. And, why a team of two?