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    VagabondellaCollier Meyerson
    3/01/15 2:51pm

    My understanding, limited as it may be, is that this young girl would not have detonated the bomb herself no matter what, so the fact that she didn't is not probative. Someone else would have been in charge of the actual detonation.

    Of course, very very few of these young women are acting out of conviction. They are terrorized, threatened with the murder of their entire families, etc. and coerced into serving as suicide bombers. They are as much victims as the people they kill.

    They are not like the Black Widows (Chechnya) or other groups like the Tamil Tigers (Sri Lanka) where women routinely act as suicide bombers.

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      Collier MeyersonVagabondella
      3/01/15 2:56pm

      I read a report that said a similar thing (that the bomb would have been detonated remotely) but that they were unsure of that fact. So, I don't think anyone actually knows the answer to that question.

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      Stephan ZielinskiVagabondella
      3/01/15 2:57pm

      Building on that: the safer high explosives can be set on fire without detonating. (Soldiers in Vietnam used to use C4 as a cooking fuel.)

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    story645Collier Meyerson
    3/01/15 2:55pm

    I dunno. My head is being all surprised 'cause Nigeria has the largest economy in Africa and is pretty stable politically and I tend to think of this sort of stuff being the staple of poor, ignorant, frightened masses, but then I think about how the US isn't far off in paranoid xenophobic attacks.

    But man, poor poor kid. Even if she had been planning a terrorist attack, this is still horrifying and heartbreaking and completely undeserved. Like cops and the justice system and stuff exist for a reason, and yes, I'm know they're just as problematic as the cops in the US, but I doubt it would have been worse than what happened to this girl.

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      benjaminalloverstory645
      3/01/15 3:03pm

      Nigeria has the largest economy in Africa and is pretty stable politically and I tend to think of this sort of stuff being the staple of poor, ignorant, frightened masses

      But it's too big. The oil industry is 98% of the economy now. 98%! How can that possibly be a good thing? Many people believe that it is destroying the economy and country. From wikipedia:

      Prior to its official amalgamation into the Colony and Protectorate of Nigeria by the military forces of the British Empire in 1914, the territory of Nigeria was a loose collection of autonomous states, villages, and ethnic communities. Many of these established themselves as pillars of art, trade, and politics in West Africa as late as the 19th century; four of these cultural entities, the Hausa-Fulani,theIgbo (sometimes spelled Ibo), the Yoruba and the Efik grew extremely prominent in the region before the arrival of foreigners, dictated British colonial policies, and dominate national politics in Nigeria to this day.

      In other words, foreigners have caused a great deal of upheaval, conflict, exploitation, theft, and chaos. The Boko Haram didn't develop in a vacuum.

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      Surfboard2121story645
      3/01/15 3:13pm

      Stable politically-ish. We were meant to have an election last month but it has been postponed by 6 weeks. Everyone is tired of PDP and it looks like it was going to be a landslide for the opposition party. The current PDP government don't want to let go of power and it looks like they are determined to win by any means possible (aka election fraud). I literally think they have postponed it to give them more time to stuff ballot boxes.

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    RedWillDanaherCollier Meyerson
    3/01/15 2:54pm

    Frightening a community to the point that they do the murdering themselves is pretty much the ideal outcome of a successful terror campaign.

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      Surfboard2121Collier Meyerson
      3/01/15 3:08pm

      Even if the girl had been "planning" a terrorist attack she is still likely a victim of brainwashing, coercion or blackmail. Very sad although I also empathise with the mob, people in that region of Nigeria have been pushed to their absolute breaking point - I mean she had 2 bottles strapped to her body and refused to be searched, clearly she was planning something. It sounds to me like she was to get there safely with the bottles and then the detonating element of the bomb was to be added by someone or something at the market.

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        crawledoutoftheseaSurfboard2121
        3/01/15 4:10pm

        This is definitely possible, but the problem with mob violence is how quickly it can spiral out of control and how difficult it can be to be sure about anything afterwards. For example, can we, at this point, be definitively sure she had bottles strapped to her body? Or did someone in the crowd (which was already frightened and worked up enough to have physically overpowered and searched a young girl) think that they saw a bottle and shout it out loud enough for everyone else to completely lose their shit? Dd someone just add the bit about the bottles retrospectively? It seems like all we really have at this point is witness statements, and crowds of nervous and suspicious people don't always make accurate sources.

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      aranxa1Collier Meyerson
      3/01/15 2:56pm

      Oh humanity. WTF.

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