FBI lured dimwits into terror plot

[jakeXT]

Source: THE SUNDAY TIMES

The arrest of petty crooks over a plan to target Jews has put the use of sting operations under fire

...

The operation was acclaimed by New York officials for its success in averting what David Paterson, the state governor, described as “a heinous crime”.

Yet not every New Yorker was impressed by the latest in a long line of purported anti-terrorist triumphs that have supposedly averted tragedy in New York, Chicago, Toronto and several other North American cities since

“This whole operation was a foolish waste of time and money,” claimed Terence Kindlon, a defence lawyer who represented the last terror suspect to be tried in New York state. “It is almost as if the FBI cooked up the plot and found four idiots to install as defendants.”

Kindlon’s complaints were echoed by other legal experts who have repeatedly questioned the FBI’s reliance on undercover informants – known as confidential witnesses (CWs) – who lure gullible radicals into far-fetched plots that are then foiled by the agents monitoring them.

...

Read more: http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/world/us_and_americas/article6350389.ece

---

The usual modus operandi ... nothing new under the sun

[izquierdista]

1. A heinous crime?

Are you kidding? Even a blind man could.....err...I guess not.

[Born Free]

22. even if "set up" claims were true, it could possibly help prevent future attacks

When radicals learn about being "set up" they have even more to worry about, they need to question the loyalty of their group even more, have to always be afraid they may actually be part of a set up. When they look for materials they never know if it is a sting operation trap. I don't like sting operations, most times it seems to me to be more like illegal entrapment, but they do seem to be effective, or else we would not see so many people getting caught for other crimes such as child prostitution etc.

[liberalmike27]

41. This is about Setting up people

It's more like entrapment, than anything. You add an instigator to a group of dissatisfied people, that wouldn't likely ever really do more than sit around and smoke pot. He gets the group all riled up, and pretends he can get explosives, and gets them to do a crime, a crime that would have never happened if the instigator was never in the group. He provides fake explosives, and they bust the people.

This also serves the purpose of fear-mongering, and trying to once again scare people, who unaware of the odds and the fact the attack was fake, never would have happened anyway, and if it was real, it would have been stopped.

Really, FBI, how about watching them, and stopping the attack, if it happens, not provide equipment, and materials, to make the attack happen, so you can fake-arrest folks, and scare our public.

[scarletwoman]

44. No, this bust is completely irrelevent. The only bust that would be relevent would be a bust

of weapons traffickers.

"When they look for materials they never know if it is a sting operation trap."

The key question here is whether there are actually any "materials" available. How would someone commit an act of terrorism if they have no access to the material -- weapons/explosives?

If the FBI had busted actual weapons/explosives SUPPLIERS, your point would make sense. But busting some dumbfucks after the FBI itself supplies them with phony explosives? Completely pointless except for someone's political gain.

Your hypothetical "radicals" can't do shit without access to a source for black market weaponry. If there are actual sources for such out there, this bust did absolutely nothing to neutralize those sources.

sw

[bushmeister0]

48. Umm . . . not so much.

If there are any terrorist cells out there, it wouldn't take too long for the radicals to figure out who the mole in the group was. This CW wasn't too subtle.

From the article:

"Concern about the FBI’s tactics heightened after Salahuddin Mustafa Muhammad, imam at the Masjid al-Ikhlas mosque in Newburgh, revealed that when Hussain first came to the mosque and started talking about jihad (holy war) – apparently to identify radical elements for his FBI handlers – several members immediately concluded that he must be a government agent.

This is like the guy who looks totally out of place at your local pub sitting down next to you and asking where he can "purchase some cocaine."

Somehow, the idea of the FBI enlisting the services of some fraudster (trying to avoid deportation) in an effort to prevent the next 9/11 doesn't exactly fill me with a great sense of personal security.

I mean, it took over 100 of NYPD's finest to net four dumbasses? Imagine how many child prostitution rings they could have broken up if they weren't so busy posing for photo-ops.

[CJCRANE]

65. Sting operations are morally acceptable

(though not legally in my mind) if the suspects had previously engaged in similar activities. But there's no evidence here that's the case.

Also these operations will only become a deterrent if the MSM highlights the fact that rich "terrorist" facilitators are usually gov't agents, but that aspect is usually downplayed.

[Canuckistanian]

2. Patsies. Why did the FBI do this?

I suspect ulterior motives here.

Coupled with FBI Director Mueller's "warnings" about the "danger" of housing Gitmo detainees, and I suspect a focused effort here to discredit Obama.

And yes, I've got the BIG tinfoil Stetson on for this one.

[bsd13]

6. How about this one for size

It's being done under orders from Obama (or someone very close to him) so he can get out of his campaign promises related to Gitmo.

[Canuckistanian]

8. I don't have THAT much tinfoil

I only got the regular size roll.

[bsd13]

11. Glad you got the tongue in cheek

after I posted that I began to wonder if it might not be taken the way I intended.

[Canuckistanian]

13. Haha, Welcome to DU

I think you'll be a valuable addition to our little swamp.

:toast:
:hi:

[havocmom]

9. How 'bout this: Same agent who blew busting 9-11 terrorists before 9-11

Same agent who got an informant to set himself on fire in front of the White House.

Same agent who got a 14 year old injured kid (blind in one eye) to ID Canadian Mahar Arar as someone he saw in Afghanistan.

http://blogs.villagevoice.com/runninscared/archives/2009/05/the_fbi_agent_w.php

Fuller was involved in the earlier Canadian case as the man who interrogated a wounded Afghani teenager named Omar Khadr. (We've written extensively about Khadr's bizarre case here.) Under Fuller's interrogation, Khadr dubiously identified a Canadian citizen named Maher Arar as someone he had seen in Afghanistan. Arar was then shipped to Syria where he was imprisoned and tortured for a year. It's now been proven that Arar could not have been in Afghanistan when Khadr, under intense pressure from Fuller, said he saw him there.

In January, Fuller took the witness stand in Khadr's trial at Guantanamo Bay. He testified that during the interrogation at Bagram Air Base in Afghanistan, Khadr identified Arar from a photo and said he had seen him in Afghanistan.

Under cross examination, though, Fuller disclosed that Khadr didn't actually identify Arar. Instead, he first said Arar "looked familiar," and then "in time" he felt he recognized the man in the photo, according to Fuller's testimony.

Read up on Special Agent Fuller. Amazingly, always there doing what cheney would probably want done: missing bringing in 9-11 plotters before 9-11; using interrogation to get an injured 14 year old to change story and ID someone who WAS NOT in Afghanistan as being in Afghanistan; and now, pulling 'terrorist' patsies out of almost thin air just as cheney is on the defensive and running around shouting 'terra terra terra' just like old times when he and the bush needed to divert attention.

"...orders from Obama (or someone very close to him) ..." my ass! More like by way of one of cheney's embedded flunkies.

Welcome to DU.

[Baby Snooks]

16. I'll probably be sent to Guantanamo for saying this....

I had to deal with the FBI back in 2001 in a stalking situation and suffice it to say that they are really not the brightest light bulbs. Some of them in fact are missing their filament.

[AlbertCat]

17. running around shouting 'terra terra terra' just like old times

or maybe Tora Tora Tora!

[DerekJ]

53. OMG. Thanks for that post. N/T

[LostinVA]

12. Oh for the everlasting love of Jeebus

:eyes:

I think you should start an OP in GDP saying this, so you can be put out of your misery.

[colorado thinker]

15. He forgot the sarcasm smilie nt

[ElsewheresDaughter]

34. ummm WRONG this sting operation was in the works for a year...it was under Bush* watch it happened

[Tempest]

36. Not even based on reality

This was going on during Bush's administration as well.

The Liberty case is a perfect example.

[Buzz Clik]

39. Do you read/watch/listen to the news? Ever?

Your post is just a tiny bit divorced from reality.

[LakeSamish706]

3. Any chance Cheney was involved in cooking this up? n/t

[havocmom]

10. Three words: Special Agent Fuller

Check him out. He must be favored by someone high up to still be employed.

[Just-plain-Kathy]

20. That's what I thought. ...n/t

[gkhouston]

55. No, his luring Bush into Iraq was a separate, unrelated dimwit-luring incident. n/t

[Cass]

4. Omg, what a headline!

This is very similar to the case in Miami a few years back, is it not? Same kind of thing - they lured some guys into thinking about doing some bad acts but they had no way to carry it out, turned out it was mainly just talk.

[gkhouston]

56. This is like a LOT of them. They find the real-life equivalent of people who would

"go into the basement" in horror films and then sucker them into saying dumbass things. :eyes:

[The abyss]

5. Gee I wonder.......

were these guys supposed to be “THRUSH” or perhaps “SMERSH”? Were they in radio communication with a mountain fortress deep in the wilds of Afghanistan? Or was a US government shill leading them?

I know we have created an entire generation of people that will hate use forever by our (US) policies of invasion and occupation (kind of like how the Polish, Norwegian, Danish, French, etc, felt about the Germans around 1940. Back in those days we called those people the “Resistance”.

We have here “cartoon bad-guys”

JakeXT, thanks for the post!

[rocktivity]

7. Informant who ensnared Bronx terror suspects avoided by nearly everyone else at Newburgh mosque

...Driving a silver Hummer or black Mercedes-Benz, Shahed (Malik) Hussain arrived at the Masjid al-Ikhlas mosque Friday mornings and stayed for hours...trying to chat up those who seemed to be down on their luck. He offered meals, jobs and advice on how to get rich...He was...(t)oo friendly. And that's what made everyone nervous..."We would go to the person after he talked to them, and tell them to stay away," (a) worshiper...said...
More

You're welcome.

:headbang:
rocktivity

[unblock]

14. one of the MAIN deterrents of these acts is the difficulty getting things like c4 & stinger missiles

this is in a different league from prostitution sting operations. it's not a terrible leap to say that if the john hadn't propositioned the cop, they would easily have propositioned a real hooker, because hookers don't make a living by being hard to find.

c4 and stinger missiles, on the other hand, are not sold on street corners, and so if part of the sting is making the c4 and stinger missiles easily available, they're enticing people down a path they would not likely have gone otherwise -- the lack of availability of such weaponry would have put a quick end to any such scheming.

from the sounds of it, this case is even worse, as it sounds like there was some goading involved. again, though, the mere supply of hard-to-find weapons to my mind makes it an ill-conceived sting operation to begin with, goading aside.

[bobshin]

18. They did this to besmirch the City of Newburgh

It's an FBI conspiracy.

But at least, thanks to Jon Stewart (who the Newburgh airport is named in honor of ; ), Americans now know where this great city is.

Come and visit. It's a small-town melting pot full of interesting people who rival Water's Baltimore characters.

(Brought to you by the City of Newburgh's homegrown PR project.)

[The Croquist]

25. I'm sorry but...

It's one thing to call it a sting when you talk about something but these guys acted.

Undercover Informant: I hate Jews.
Dimwit: Yeah. Me too.

Undercover Informant: I know lets blow up a couple of synagogues!
Dimwit: Count me in.

Undercover Informant: Here's the C4 lets go do it.
Dimwit: Uh, I was just shitting you man. I ain't gonna really do it.

If they then came in and arrested the "dimwit" I would call it a setup but that didn't happen. Instead they planted them. It changes when you plant what you think are actual explosives. That's attempted murder.

The article relies heavily on Terence Kindlon but he had previously represented the last terror suspect to be tried in New York state. That doesn't mean that he is wrong but it does mean that he may not be completely objective.

[frogcycle]

28. bullshit

There are probably tens of thousands - maybe even hundreds of thousands - of dimwits who could be lured into actually acting out such a fantasy. Gullible idiots enamored of gaining their 15 minutes of fame.

Trolling for some of them to get a feather in ones cap for catching them is not law enforcement. It is not ridding the world of potential terrorists.

[The Croquist]

32. Boy do I hope you are wrong about that

I know there are lot of idiots out there (and possibly one in front of my computer) but I don't think there are that many willing to do something like this. Keep in mind that none, were what I would call "stellar citizens".

David Williams "told a parole board that prison was a wake-up call after his conviction on drug and weapons charges — drugs he said he sold because he was making only $150 a week in his job."

Onta Williams and James Cromitie "served prison sentences for drug convictions "

Laguerre Payen "did time for attempted assault — in 2002, he and others fired a BB gun out an SUV window, hitting two people in the head. He snatched purses from two women later the same day, said state Division of Parole spokeswoman Heather Groll."

Personally I think that they should legalize drugs but the point I'm trying to make is that these guys have lousy track records.

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20090522/ap_on_re_us/us_temple_plot

[bushmeister0]

47. Good point. Gullible idiots abound. Bush got tens of millions of dimwits to yell U-S-A!!

all the way to Baghdad. Of course, he did have M$N and Faux helping out.

[mdmc]

38. kick

?

[Douglas Carpenter]

19. good to see the British press going with this. How about the American msm?

The will ONLY IF PUSHED!!!

THIS STORY NEEDS TO GO VIRAL ON THE INTERNET!!!

PLEASE KICK AND RECOMMEND!!!

[Vidar]

21. J Edgar Hoover would be proud. Not a good thing.

[Christa]

23. K & R and a question

Did you guys notice how often we read news like this in "foreign" newspapers? They are always one or more steps ahead of local online news.

[Hubert Flottz]

24. The Dimwits leading the Dimwits...

I wonder how they were able to catch these Dimwits without their computers that thieves stole from them? I wonder how they have time to play games when the persons or person who almost shut down the US postal system with anthrax is still out there somewhere laughing at them. I wonder why they couldn't do a thing to stop 9/11?

[TomClash]

26. Most of the facts were in the NYT Friday

It was pretty detailed and illustrated what a ridiculous waste of time and money this "plot" was. But the FBI will get the pat on the back and the dollars in the pocket, won't it?

[Douglas Carpenter]

27. another kick for a VERY important story -- PLEASE KICK AND RECOMMEND!!!!

[Snazzy]

29. post dimwit arrest photo op--your $$ at work eh

Mayor Bloomberg, Police Commissioner Kelly and Governor Paterson (center) honor more than 100 law enforcement personnel who had a hand in foiling the plot to bomb synagogues in the Bronx.

[JohnyCanuck]

40. The only ones missing from that photo-op are Batman and Robin. n/t

[ronnie624]

57. Bwahahahaha!

:spray:

[leveymg]

30. Every second terraist is a double-agent, and that was true for 9/11 and 7/7, as well.

:eyes:

[CJCRANE]

60. The moral of the story is (for these dimwits and other potential dimwits):

if a rich, seemingly untouchable "terrorist" approaches you and offers you money, fame etc. run like hell as he is probably working for the gov't (or a gov't).

Pursue your grievances through politics or protests instead. Domestic terrorism is always a win for the neocons, no one else.

[leveymg]

66. Yes, indeed

[nradisic]

31. I knew it from the minute I heard...

The minute I heard this story and saw Bloomberg at a press conference, I knew it was a set up. Bloomberg is running for his third term as mayor and needed some PR. What a joke...

[juno jones]

33. k&r

May this go viral.

[lovuian]

35. Another example of the FBI taking orders from Cheney

lets get a terrorist group to scare the NYers

and were paying off it

FBI agents should be fired

[bottomtheweaver]

37. Yep, nothing new under the sun.

And that includes 911.

[No Elephants]

42. In related news, you can often hire an ex-con to commit a crime. But, is thatt

terrorism, or is it simply a criminal willing to commit a crime for money?

I leave that to you, dear, dear reader.

[Democracyinkind]

43. This SO reminds me of 1993.

But we never really acknowledged that canard either, right?
"finish the job" indeed.

[buckrogers1965]

45. The whole thing stinks and stinks badly.

I don't mind the government watching groups like this. But when the government informant is organizing the group, directing the operations and supplying money and weapons then something seriously fishy is happening. The government found a few idiots and set them up.

The group did what the FBI informant told them to do. The FBI informant supplied them with plans, money, weapons and explosives. Want to know who the mastermind behind this group was? Is was the handler of the informant that works at the FBI.

If planting these fake explosives is a crime, isn't supplying the "weapons" also a crime?

[The Croquist]

46. Supplying fake explosives is not a crime if you know that they are fake.

Supplying fake explosives is a crime if you think that they are real.

[CJCRANE]

49. Sometimes they supply real explosives and then switch them at the last minute

as per what was *supposed* to happen (but didn't) with the '93 WTC attack.

[The Croquist]

62. Got anything to back that up?

I've never heard that "theory"

[jakeXT]

63. from wiki/nyt

FBI involvement

In the course of the trial it was revealed that the FBI had an informant, a former Egyptian army officer named Emad Salem. Salem claims to have informed the FBI of the plot to bomb the towers as early as February 6, 1992. Salem's role as informant allowed the FBI to quickly pinpoint the conspirators out of hundreds of possible suspects.

Salem, initially believing that this was to be a sting operation, claimed that the FBI's original plan was for Salem to supply the conspirators with a harmless powder instead of actual explosive to build their bomb, but that the FBI chose to use him for other purposes instead. He secretly recorded hundreds of hours of telephone conversations with his FBI handlers.<24>

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/World_Trade_Center_bombing#FBI_involvement



Jacqueline Adams reporting Dan Rather and CBS about '93 World Trade Center Bombing "Gross governmental misconduct"
http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-3851846450205719467




The below is a transcript from part of one of the recordings Emad A. Salem made of a telephone conversation he had with one of his FBI handlers, FBI Special Agent John Anticev
...

Salem: Okay. Alright. I don't think it was. If that's what you think guys, fine, but I don't think that because we was start already building the bomb which is went off in the World Trade Center. It was built by supervising supervision from the Bureau and the D.A. and we was all informed about it and we know that the bomb start to be built. By who? By your confidential informant. What a wonderful, great case!

...
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Emad_Salem

[CJCRANE]

64. NYT: Tapes Depict Proposal to Thwart Bomb Used in Trade Center Blast

"Published: Thursday, October 28, 1993

Law-enforcement officials were told that terrorists were building a bomb that was eventually used to blow up the World Trade Center, and they planned to thwart the plotters by secretly substituting harmless powder for the explosives, an informer said after the blast.

The informer was to have helped the plotters build the bomb and supply the fake powder, but the plan was called off by an F.B.I. supervisor who had other ideas about how the informer, Emad A. Salem, should be used, the informer said."

http://www.nytimes.com/1993/10/28/nyregion/tapes-depict-proposal-to-thwart-bomb-used-in-trade-center-blast.html

[greyghost]

50. May this go viral! n/t

[slackmaster]

51. Taking dimwits out of circulation can only be good for America

They are terrified of a black President.

[DerekJ]

52. "It is almost as if the FBI cooked up the plot" .."almost as if" ???!!!

They DID cook it.

[LiberalFighter]

54. I think they should expand the dimwits to the FBI that cooked up this scheme.

[okieinpain]

58. huh, how do you get lured into planting bombs and wanting to

shoot down airplanes with missles. that's not like someone giving you a bag of money, and putting you in a room with a naked chick or something.

[CJCRANE]

59. One guy was offered a liver transplant for his sick brother...

still not excusable and they are still dimwits but it just shows you how the far the agent provocateur was willing to go.

Usually in law the guy who hires the hitman is also culpable (the hitman wouldn't be committing the crime unless he was hired).

[yellowwood]

61. David Gregory Complicit with Gingrich

On "Meet the Stress" Sunday, David Gregory let Newt Gingrich get away with this statement in defense of keeping Guantanamo open:

I can't imagine--given the fact, for example, that we just picked up four terrorists in New York who had been converted in prison, I can't imagine--the director of the FBI has said don't put these terrorists in prisons because there'll be an active threat to convert other people.

Gregory didn't even try to elaborate on the bigger story about the so-called plot.