They were SO incompetent. Here, have a sampling of dumb things they did:

1. Wear a backwards hat and no sunglasses. Unlike his older brother, Dzhokhar made little effort to prevent cameras from capturing his face, making him easier to identify when the FBI released security camera photos on Thursday. Indeed, classmates at University of Massachusetts–Dartmouth did see him in the photos, but dismissed the similarity because it seemed so far-fetched.
2. Not react to the explosions. For three days, investigators pored over all available photos and surveillance videos of the blast area searching for abnormal reactions. The complaint filed in federal court on Monday specifically cites Dzhokhar's reaction to the first explosion as a giveaway; per the complaint, he glanced in the direction of the first blast only briefly.
3. Leave the car in the shop. The Wall Street Journal reported that Dzhokhar stopped by an auto-body shop in Watertown on Tuesday to pick up the Mercedes he'd brought in for repairs.
4. Stay in Boston. The second bomb exploded at 2:49 p.m. last Monday. Dzhokhar and Tamerlan carjacked a Mercedes at 10:39 p.m.* on Thursday. What did they do in the interim three days? Go to the gym, check in on their busted car, and, in Dzhokhar's case, go to a party on the UMass–Dartmouth campus. During the three-day window in which their involvement was unknown, they made no attempt to flee.
5. Kill an MIT police officer. Why did the brothers shoot 26-year-old Sean Collier? The murder at 10:30 p.m. on Thursday set in motion the events that would ultimately lead to their capture.
6. Run out of cash. When Dzhokhar carjacked a Mercedes on Thursday night, he and his brother had one thing in mind: Get cash, and fast. They emptied $800 from an ATM using their victim's PIN number, before they reached the account limit. Holding up a stranger for money suggests a woeful lack of planning on their part (they hadn't budgeted) that helped alert them to the authorities.
7. Not understand how ATMs work. After reaching the daily withdrawal limit at one ATM, the Tsarnaevs, apparently not realizing that the machines are part of an interconnected system, decided to try their luck at two different machines. The quest to find a working ATM was how they ended up, coincidentally, at a 7/11 in Cambridge around the same time it was the scene of an armed robbery, and were spotted on the store security camera.
8. Confess to the hostage. According to the complaint, when Dzhokhar got into the Mercedes, he immediately told the driver, "Did you hear about the Boston explosion? I did that." That meant their cover would be immediately blown if the driver escaped. Which brings us to…
9. Stop for snacks. The Los Angeles Times reported that the hostage escaped after the brothers stopped at a gas station on Memorial Drive to buy snacks.
10. Keep the hostage's phone. The Tsarnaevs continued on without their hostage—but they did have his phone, which allowed police to track their location via GPS.
11. Bring a BB gun. The weapons used by the two suspects, according to police: a pressure-cooker bomb, seven IEDs, an M4 carbine, two handguns, and a BB gun. Why a BB gun?

More in the full article:

http://www.motherjones.com/mojo/2013/04/eleven-most-mystifying-things-tsarnaev-brothers-did

Doesn't all this suggest they received no formal terrorist training?

Yes, and it also suggests they were not well funded.

Either these were some punks who had no good plan...

Or they are a decoy meant to distract everyone while something else is going on.

By the way, we now know they killed the MIT cop to get his gun.

These are among the world's most incompetent criminals.

How does a social 19 year old decide to kill people? He went to a UMass party after the crime!

Does PandaWhale have permission to republish a copyrighted Mother Jones article?

According to PandaWhale's terms of service, "You agree that any User Content that you post does not and will not violate third-party rights of any kind, including without limitation any Intellectual Property Rights (as defined below) or rights of privacy."  Well, on the MotherJones website, it says, "Copyright ©2013 Mother Jones and the Foundation for National Progress. All Rights Reserved."  So that has me wondering.

as for #1 goes...he IS 19.. I'm sure his brother told him several times to look less recognizable.. lol

For PandaWhale skeptic I have three thoughts.

1. Source link at top of page is a link back to the full article on the MoJo site.

2. PandaWhale is not a publisher, so there's no republishing. It's a quote.

3. Quoted text is in a BLOCKQUOTE, cited for purposes of discussion.

And yes, I think the 19 year old regrets not making himself look less recognizable.

He says he committed this heinous act to register his unhappiness with U.S. intervention in Muslim countries.

I wish he had considered nonviolent protest. His violence just makes things worse.

The problem is the Islamic world does not have a non-violent example in their prophet. 

Muslim theology does have a pacifism movement: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pacifism_in_Islam

While it's obviously better to jump thru hoops to justify pacifism than it is to jump thru hoops to justify war, when it's time to examine a faith at it's most fundamental level, you inevitably look at the example of the person who proffered it. How many men did Budda have under his command?  Which cities did Jesus destroy? How many women and children did Guru Nanak sell into slavery? How many tribes did the Bab order to convert or die?  Did God destroy Sodom at Abraham's request?  How many slaves did Joseph Smith own?

OOOO... Adam.... you have a hater!

I have many haters. This one had the courage to ask about fair use as it applies to Web transclusion.