FBI Blows It: Supposed Terror Plot Against NY Synagogues Is Bogus

[kpete]

FBI Blows It: Supposed Terror Plot Against NY Synagogues Is Bogus

By Robert Dreyfuss, The Nation. Posted May 23, 2009.

Turns out it is really the handiwork of a creepy FBI informant. The story strengthens the narrative that the "homeland" is under attack. It's not.

By the now, it's maddeningly familiar. A scary terrorist plot is announced. Then it's revealed that the suspects are a hapless bunch of ne'er-do-wells or run-of-the-mill thugs without the slightest connection to any terrorists at all, never mind to Al Qaeda. Finally, the last piece of the puzzle: the entire plot is revealed to have been cooked up by a scummy government agent-provocateur.

I've seen this movie before.

..............

It gets even more pathetic:

***The only one of the four suspects who appears to have aroused any suspicion was Payen, a Haitian native who attended the Newburgh mosque. Assistant imam Hamid Rashada said his dishevelment and odd behavior disturbed some members, said the assistant imam, Hamid Rashada.

*** When Payen appeared in court, defense attorney Marilyn Reader described him as "intellectually challenged" and on medication for schizophrenia. The Associated Press said that when he was asked if he understood the proceedings, Payen replied: "Sort of."

Despite the pompous statements from Mayor Bloomberg of New York and other politicians, including Representative Peter King, the whole story is bogus. The four losers may have been inclined to violence, and they may have harbored a virulent strain of anti-Semitism. But it seems that the informant whipped up their violent tendencies and their hatred of Jews, cooked up the plot, incited them, arranged their purchase of weapons, and then had them busted. To ensure that it made headlines, the creepy informant claimed to be representing a Pakistani extremist group, Jaish-e Muhammad, a bona fide terrorist organization. He wasn't, of course.

It is disgusting and outrageous that the FBI is sending provocateurs into mosques.

The headlines reinforce the very fear that Dick Cheney is trying to stir up. The story strengthens the narrative that the "homeland" is under attack. It's not. As I've written repeatedly, since 9/11 not a single American has even been punched in the nose by an angry Muslim, as far as I can tell. Plot after plot -- the destruction of the Brooklyn Bridge! bombing the New York Subways! taking down the Sears Tower! bombing the Prudential building in Newark! -- proved to be utter nonsense.

more:
http://www.alternet.org/world/140209/fbi_blows_it%3A_supposed_terror_plot_against_ny_synagogues_is_bogus/

[malaise]

1. Duh

It was deliberate - the timing alone was all I needed to know it was crap.
Don't expect this to receive any coverage on M$Greedia. Indeed expect Rushicans to use the bogus claim as proof of terra, terra, terra!!

[Douglas Carpenter]

2. kick and recommended for the truth !!!!

[rurallib]

3. Wait, the CIA and FBI don't lie!

that is what? 4 terror plots the FBI has cooked up and got some poor fools to take part in. Seems to me that the FBI ought to be put on trial.

[Catshrink]

4. They must be waterboarded!

I just know there's a link to bin Laden. :crazy: Cheney would be salivating over this -- if he was still President.

[L. Coyote]

5. How many agents got paid for a whole year to watch a mental case?

[suffragette]

20. Lead agent has a long, sordid history

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=103x450401


Special Agent Robert Fuller, whose name appears at the top of the federal criminal complaint in the case, had a hand in the FBI's failure to nab two of the 9/11 hijackers, had one of his informants set himself on fire in front of the White House, and was involved in misidentifying a Canadian man as a terrorist leading to his secret arrest and torture -- a case that is now the subject of a major lawsuit.

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


Why the hell is Fuller still in the FBI?

I'm starting to wonder about the linkage between this arrest occurring now and the current discussion of Guantanamo and torture.

This agent seems to have been at the epicenter of some of the worst of all this and now this?

[bushmeister0]

40. One of Cheney's embeds?

[L. Coyote]

53. Or his boss, Bush.

Never under estimate the degree to which they shield the real perps!

[rhett o rick]

67. Maybe poppy bush but not sonny boy King bush The Idiot. nm

[inna]

106. tyvm for the links; fascinating stuff. nt

[Torn_Scorned_Ignored]

61. Same thing I'd like to know.

[Judi Lynn]

6. Unbearably underhanded, and dirty using poor people who have no idea they are being set up,

offering them money to draw them in, then providing them with a scheme, then arresting them for "plotting."

It IS so familiar, isn't it? Sad to have learned last week or so that the THIRD ATTEMPT to try a similar case in Miami finally succeeded, AFTER the judge replaced a juror who flat-out refused to knuckle under and render a "guilty" opinion with a substitute juror who would.

The government's first TWO cases against a similar group in Miami fell flat when they simply couldn't get the conviction they wanted. And, guess what, THAT group had some Haitian men in it, as well.

It makes the whole country look cheap and dirty when things like this can happen here.

[rocktivity]

7. Perfect. Just like before, the suspects can claim

that the informant was the lynchpin and put them up to it.

The good news is, they've been under surveillance for a year, so technically, this happened on Bush's watch--again.

x(
rocktivity

[KharmaTrain]

8. Is There Really Any "War On Terror"

Most definitely the corporate media is stuck in a 9/11 mindset. Nearly 8 years later and they're still happy to spread the fear and pump up a "war" that was never one in the first place. I'm more concerned about the terrorist groups hidden in the hills of Idaho or wingnut weekend warriors all jazzed up by Glenn Dreck. While the rushpublicans love to use the brown-skinned boggieman, bring up their own terorists and that's not fair.

[Raksha]

24. The "War on Terror" is the same thing it always was - a marketing gimmick.

[jeanpalmer]

91. designed

to shift attention away from the fact they were caught flat footed and asleep on 9-11. Going after the perpetrators wasn't enough, all except a few planners were dead. Only a war would keep the people from asking the important questions.

[Douglas Carpenter]

9. this is the kind of story that needs to go viral on the Internet - since the msm is NOT going to

-at least with out being pushed!!

PLEASE KICK AND RECOMMEND!!!

[bjobotts]

69. Just to justify an illegal war and invasion for profits.Now tell me, how much harder

[bjobotts]

71. after all of this, how much harder is it to believe that 9/11 was an inside job.

[bjobotts]

72. estimated $13 trillion profit, political power and a surveillance state from 9/11.

[bjobotts]

75. One look at Cheney who told fighters to stand down it was an exercise, tells me he's guilty

[bjobotts]

78. Deer in the headlights look reading "My Pet Goat" confirms it. No one big enough to call them on it.

[bjobotts]

79. "Run for your lives the terorists are coming" Screamed the most popwerful nation on earth

[Gman]

10. I've been waiting for this story

it stunk from the beginning just like the one in Florida. I'm not surprised.

[liberalmuse]

11. This story smelled from the get go.

What scares me is they were under survelliance for a YEAR. Jesus, how inept are our intelligence agencies? The timing is certainly interesting. I'd fire every single idiot involved in this investigation. What an embarrassing disgrace.

[geckosfeet]

62. It sure did. Set em up and knock em down. That's not police work.

It's (borderline) entrapment.

[JohnyCanuck]

12. As soon as I heard about this,

I figured it was another setup of witless patsies by the Feds. But then again, I said more or less the same thing about 9/11.

[suffragette]

13. Why was Payen imprisoned rather than being in a mental hospital after his earlier crime?

From TPM:
http://tpmmuckraker.talkingpointsmemo.com/2009/05/the_newburgh_four_--_and_the_goverment_mole_who_be.php?ref=m1

Laguerre Payen, 27
- Maybe the most pathetic of a pathetic bunch, Payen was unemployed and took medication for schizophrenia. A law enforcement source said that on Wednesday night, Payen "was off his meds - needing to be particularly crazy to do the deed." He was hospitalized after the arrest.
- His lawyer said he is "intellectually challenged" and has "a very low borderline" IQ.
- A cousin said his mother is also mentally ill, and his father is dead. She said doesn't think Payen knows how to read.
- A recent visitor to his apartment said it contained bottles of urine, and raw chicken on the stovetop. Elsewhere it was described as a "filthy crack den."
- He had previously served 15 months for assault, after driving around the Orthodox-Jew-heavy town Monsey, firing a BB gun out of the window. He struck two teens, and also snatched two purses.
- He was supposed to be deported back to Haiti, but an immigration judge stayed the sentence, because he was judged insane.

If Payen was "judged insane", why was he sent to prison rather than a mental institution in the first place. It seems to me that regular medication, therapy and literacy training could have helped lead this guy to a different path.

Speaking of leading, more is coming out about the informant, including the allegation that he had earlier become an informant to keep from being deported.
http://www.blueridgenow.com/article/20090523/ZNYT02/905233010/1144/NEWS?Title=Informer-x2019-s-Role-in-Bombing-Plot

To avoid being deported, he agreed to assist the government — first taking part in a sting aimed at the driver’s license scheme, and later in a heroin trafficking case.


This reeks.

[bottomtheweaver]

14. The funny thing is, the arrest came the day AFTER the senate vote

on closing Gitmo, which makes me think the FBI got behind schedule. The whole psy-op would have worked much more seamlessly if they'd managed to roll it out the day before, thus giving Dem senators the cover they needed. As it, the ones who voted against the Gitmo closure funds exposed themselves as bankrolled stooges or worse.

[Overseas]

31. But they had the Pentagon release another phony "# who returned to the battlefield" statistic

on the day of the vote, so that did the trick.

[tiny elvis]

41. I don't think so

Exposed to you. Vindicated as wise and prescient to commercial news.

[breadandwine]

109. The timing is too close to be coincidence.

This is all about creating politically hysteria.

[Douglas Carpenter]

15. link to original article on the Nation

http://www.thenation.com/blogs/dreyfuss/437864/yet_another_bogus_terror_plot

[L. Coyote]

56. DoJ remains a Bush Junta political tool, it seems. Time to clean house, I'd say.

Police are not supposed to be political agents.

[ContinentalOp]

113. This is one thing I don't understand about Obama.

Why keep a single Bush era person on board at any level of the government? This is under the radar, behind the scenes stuff that the general public wouldn't even notice. Just sack the lot of them.

[donco6]

16. And even so, these guys will disappear forever.

It's all just pathetic.

[Gregorian]

17. I thought it was phony. Who would target military planes?

It made no sense whatsoever.

But, I bought into it once they were arrested. And so did the world.


So can we extrapolate? Was this Bush's program of (fill in the blank because I can't think of something intelligent to put here)? I want to blame Bush, I will not lie.

[benEzra]

117. That was my thought when I first heard it. Military aircraft have countermeasures. (n/t)

[pacalo]

18. I watched the snippets of Cheney's speech on "Countdown" last night & he used the word "homeland"

in place of "the United States". What's next -- "dar homeland"?

I admire Obama for his efforts to mend the broken, divided political atmosphere in Washington, but Cheney is making it clear with his counter efforts that he's not a team player. Obama should be wary of all those holdbacks from the last (mis)administration.

Someone on "Countdown" last night said that Spain is building a strong case.

[EFerrari]

19. The FBI is pathetic.

[suffragette]

25. More to it than that

See this:http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=389&topic_id=5707715&mesg_id=5708412

[L. Coyote]

57. Any year now, they should respond to my offer of evidence of election fraud.

Unless, of course, they like that sort of crime!!!

[EFerrari]

59. FBI: Fraud, Bureaucracy, Instigation.

[Raksha]

21. Cheney was probably behind that creepy FBI informant/provacateur.

Re >>The headlines reinforce the very fear that Dick Cheney is trying to stir up. The story strengthens the narrative that the "homeland" is under attack. It's not.<<

The timing of the hyped-up "bust" is pretty suspicious too.

[DeSwiss]

22. K&R!!!

- Fucking feebees.....

[rcrush]

23. You know I think this happends a lot more than they let on.

I think a lot of these homegrown 'terror plots' possible ALL OF THEM are set up like this. Maybe not as stupidly as this one but I think most of this shit they try to scare us with is staged bullshit.

[rjwin]

27. a long long time ago, in a place not far from you...

Frank Church of Idaho, the chairman of the committee, revealed in April, 1976 that William O'Neal, Hampton's bodyguard, was a FBI agent-provocateur who, days before the raid, had delivered an apartment floor-plan to the Bureau with an "X" marking Hampton's bed. Ballistic evidence showed that most bullets during the raid were aimed at Hampton's bedroom.

[LiberalLovinLug]

63. Makes you wonder how many "plots" are being encouraged at this very moment

:crazy:

[Hatalles]

26. Same thing happened with the "Miami 5"

A lot of brouhaha and a lot of fearmongering, and a whole lotta' nothing.

[bertman]

28. The REALLY SCARY PART is that 90% of those who hear about this or see it on corporate

media outlets will NEVER get the news that this was a government scam to make us more fearful. Even if it's proved to be a set-up it will only get a two-sentence mention on one night's news roundup.

The Ministry of Propaganda is working overtime to keep the BushCo policies in full effect.

Recommend.

[femrap]

74. Exactly!!!

It's a long weekend and by Tuesday, the story will be loooooooooong gone.

Pisses me off....totally manufactured waste of time to make people afraid. The only thing I'm afraid of are those angry, rednecks who listen to Limpballs. And the Banksters, of course.

Shit, maybe I'll open a little jail and tell the Prez that I'll take the Gitmo folks for a while. Why are people scared of them coming to our Federal Prisons?

Americans and their Senators are just dumb as dirt.

[Wednesdays]

29. K&R

:kick:

[blindpig]

30. Entrapment is an abomination.

Police agencies of all sorts use it for a vast array of 'crimes'. It should be illegal.

Another fine bit of fallout from the totalitarian War on Drugs.

[L. Coyote]

70. Especially when targeting diagnosed mental illness patients!

Not to say it isn't abhorrent generally.

[Overseas]

32. K&R -- to highlight yet another Orwellian technique-- preventive instigation

They re-branded brutal tactics from the ancient past--

Preventive war (a.k.a. military aggression);

Preventive detention (a.k.a. imprison everyone you can sweep up by any means you deem necessary);

Enhanced Interrogation Techniques (a.k.a. torture);

so we can now re-brand another classic technique, the use of agents provocateurs, as

Preventive Instigation

[sixmile]

33. Kicked because entrapment is wrong

The arrests do not make us safer.

[shadowknows69]

34. Any apologies forthcoming from people who gang jumped me when I suggested this

Are hereby under consideration of acceptance.

[rocktivity]

36. I feared it

simply because it's happened at least twice before, and it sounded too goo to be true.

:headbang:
rocktivity

[rocktivity]

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

Source: New York Daily News.com

The informant who ensnared the four Bronx terror suspects was the guy nearly everyone else at their Newburgh mosque had the common sense to avoid. 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 friendly. Too 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," worshiper Shafeeq Abdulwaly, 39, said. "He would ask what you thought about what's going on in Pakistan and Afghanistan...Then, I guess he'd talk about jihad and fighting."

Imam Salahuddin Muhammad said he believes Hussain lured Cromitie and his co-defendants - David Williams, Onta Williams and LaGuerre Payen - into a plot they couldn't have carried out on their own. "None of these men had money for this," Muhammad said. "Who paid for this? The informant. The informant was buying these (explosives). The informant is the one who drove these guys around."

Onta Williams' uncle, Richard Williams, said he never thought much of Hussain, whom he recently saw smoking marijuana on his nephew's front porch...


:headbang:
rocktivity

[CoffeeCat]

37. Remember those goofballs they found...

...who were wearing workout clothes who were hanging out in some warehouse. They were total clowns. Yet,
they were supposedly the masterminds behind some bloodthirsty terrorist plot to destroy the world.

I think these guys were in Florida. When the Feds marched out these nerdewells, who clearly weren't terrorists--it
was clear that they had contrived a terrorist plot and these characters were supposed to be their culprits.

Clearly, they were not terrorists.

When I see stuff like this and we see quite obviously, that they're making shit up--it really, really causes me to
wonder about everything terror related, including 9/11.

I also wonder just how far they'll go in the future. They're about as desperate as they can get right now.

[MrScorpio]

38. The FBI never dropped COINTEPRO

This shit never ends

[FraDon]

52. Exactly ! • The script for tyranny is ancient, AND continuing

... because it works SO well for the despot class.

[MrScorpio]

55. The key component being that the informants are always agent provocatuers

And the FBI banks on the short memories of the people, which gives them carte blanche to repeat their own crimes

[ContinentalOp]

114. Short memories?

Hell, most people have never even heard of cointelpro. And if you mention it, well then you must be some kind of wild eyed conspiracy theorist right?

[RaleighNCDUer]

94. And no different than the tactics used by the Tsar's secret police

a hundred years ago. I remember reading about the 1905 revolution, the leader of one cell who was actually a secret policeman was embarassed to find out that four out of five members were ALSO secret policemen, each unknown to the others.

I'm just waiting for it.

[Alcibiades]

39. A bunch of patsies

They need to be tried publicly and put on the stand so we can see how credible they are as terrorists. I doubt they would pass muster as Muslims, much less Muslim terrorists.

It's pretty disgusting that the FBI is putting people up to planting explosives outside synagogues.

[NYCGirl]

42. Not according to the NY papers:

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/05/22/nyregion/22plot.html?em

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/05/23/nyregion/23informant.html?em

http://www.nydailynews.com/ny_local/bronx/2009/05/23/2009-05-23_riverdale_rabbi_dont_blame_islam_for_terror_plot_to_bomb_synagogues.html

[rcrush]

43. Wow. And they blame the internet for killing the newspaper.

When actually nothing but morons work at the New York Times.

[NYCGirl]

48. If the choice is between The Nation and the NY Times, I'm going with the

Pulitzer winner.

Edit: Excuse me, I meant to say "The Nation"

[bottomtheweaver]

44. Google operation Mockingbird.

Yes, the NYT is a venerable institution, but it's also a CIA asset, and I heard the Daily News reporter on BBC radio reading straight from the script, so the NY papers are useless when it comes to covert ops.

[L. Coyote]

73. NT Times wouldl be profitable if it wasn't a Bush propaganda tool that

covered up illegal spying before the 2004 election.

Justice is wielded by the economics of lying and deceiving your customers!!!

[NYCGirl]

105. LOL! DU comedy at its best! NT

[Parker CA]

45. I thought it was odd what Obama didn't make any statement about this. It really was a 12 hour story

before it got squashed. Now we know why. Thanks for continuing to show what's really going on, Kpete!

[MrScorpio]

58. These things are normally independent from the White House

It's part of the permanent fear mongering apparatus, which is deeply ensconced in the DOJ's bureaucracy

[yodoobo]

83. That doesn't sound quite right

I have a hard time believing that the White house would have no knowledge of a front page news terror investigation done at the Federal level.

I could believe that Bush would not be clued in, or didn't read the memos, but those clowns are outa here.

No. I think this was a legitimate operation and is credit to Obama.

[RaleighNCDUer]

97. It was a cointel pro operation which Obama knew nothing about.

Why would the president be bothered with on of probably a thousand investigations going on at any given time? Particularly when every single one comes to nothing? You thing it is really the president's job to worry about every Pakistani who flew home for the holidays in the past year? And do you think they are NOT being investigated?

They had NOTHING on these guys except what they put in their hands themselves. You really think the FBI goes into a presidential briefing saying - "we are illegally infiltrating mosques to set up numbskulls."

What the FUCK?

[yodoobo]

112. He wouldn't be bothered by one of thousands

But a nationally prominent terror case about a bombing in New York City? Holy Balls he should be pissed as hell if he wasn't briefed.

I have enough faith in Obama to not believe he's running around clueless like Bush was.

As for your question, the answer is obviously no.

He would NEVER tell his reports to illegally infiltrate a Mosque. He would however direct his reports to stop the bombing of a Mosque on American soil...as we would expect him to.

[get the red out]

46. This happened in Florida a few years ago too!

I recalled it and found a link to a story about that group:

http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/nationworld/2009213418_terror13.html

[Lydia Leftcoast]

47. Yes, and the guys who were going to blow up airliners flying out of the UK

turned out to not even have passports. (You can NOT board an international flight without a passport. You will be stopped at the check-in desk. That is true in both the U.S. and the U.K.)

Yes, the goofballs whose alleged "plot" is the reason we have to carry our toothpaste and moisturizer in 3-oz. containers in a ziplock bag were nowhere NEAR carrying it out.

[democracy1st]

49. K & R

[RagAss]

50. Cheney owns this country...we need to find out how.

[madeline_con]

101. Here's a start. He's been in politics a long time...

Seymour Hersh: 'Cheney Still Secretly Influencing Policy'

GROSS: Are you saying that you think Vice President Cheney is still having a chilling effect on people who might otherwise be coming forward and revealing things to you about what happened in the Bush administration?

HERSH: I’ll make it worse. I think he’s put people left. He’s put people back. They call it a stay behind. It’s sort of an intelligence term of art. When you leave a country and, you know, you’ve driven out the, you know, you’ve lost the war. You leave people behind. It’s a stay behind that you can continue to contacts with, to do sabotage, whatever you want to do. Cheney’s left a stay behind. He’s got people in a lot of agencies that still tell him what’s going on. Particularly in defense, obviously. Also in the NSA, there’s still people that talk to him. He still knows what’s going on. Can he still control policy up to a point? Probably up to a point, a minor point. But he’s still there. He’s still a presence. And again, because of the problems this administration’s having filling jobs, a lot of people who served in the Bush Cheney government, particularly even in the White House people on most sophisticated staffs are still there. You simply can’t get rid of everybody, you may not even want to. Some are professional people. But Cheney is, I would never call it admiration, but, you know, formidable, yeah, this guy. This guy is the real McCoy.

http://theneweditor.com/index.php?/archives/9418-Seymour-Hersh-Cheney-Still-Secretly-Influencing-Policy.html

Dick's bio here:

http://www.biography.com/articles/DickCheney-9246063

[ContinentalOp]

115. Damn, I really have to disagree with Hersh there.

I'd rather hire some wacko off the streets or a bunch of part time high school students than keep on even ONE Bush era fucker.

[Torn_Scorned_Ignored]

51. I knew this the morning it appeared in the Wall St. Journal

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB124287400693842147.html


I saved the article, go ahead and read it. The article, if a person has any intelligence at all, could gather from the reporting of what and how this went down that it was pure setup. Coincidently a speech about National Security was scheduled by our president that very day.

Pure bullshit.

Did you hear Obama has been talking with Bush regularly? Must be a part of his chess game, we're all pawns.

[DerekJ]

54. Can someone actually list all the threats since 9/11 that turned out to be credible?!

[L. Coyote]

76. No one has, right?

[DerekJ]

90. Nope, still waiting.

N/T

[puebloknot]

60. "...provocateurs into mosques." Circa 1975, the FBI was sending agents ...

...provacateur into Unitarian Churches. They were busy keeping the Homeland safe, even back then!

[TheCowsCameHome]

64. What about their squeegees? Will they get them back?

[sofa king]

65. Wow. Didn't see that coming.

I guess I should have guessed, but frankly I thought those days were over.

[LostinVA]

66. Just like that "terrorist" group in Florida a few years ago

[debunkthelies]

68. Next Chapter...Pre-cogs

Laying in a vat of water dreaming of the future crimes, welcome to the Minority Report.:crazy: :rofl: :rofl: :rofl:

Our Country is getting more lunatic every day.:yoiks:

[pnwmom]

77. On the other hand, if the 9/11 hijackers had been caught at the Boston airport

with their boxcutters, we might have laughed at their hapless attempt.

But since the government never ordered a higher alert at the airports, they were allowed on the flight, despite at least one security guard's concerns.

Sometimes the difference between hapless and highly successful is just a matter of luck.

[hayu_lol]

80. The FBI has always had plenty of manpower...

according to academic sources, 1 in 3 members of the SDS were FBI agents.

Just prior to...and following 9-11, Ashcroft had a mob of FBI trying to catch hookers in New Orleans.

Both items require some careful thought.

[RaleighNCDUer]

99. Bullshit.

That group included a number of people who actually were on terrorist watch lists; they were carrying real weapons; they had clearly defined plans, detailed in materials that were found in their abandoned vehicle in the parking lot -

I don't believe for a minute that the government's story of 9/11 is true, but it was a plot that was substantially different from ANY of these nonsense plots - there was no FBI informant (unlike ALL these plots) who offered to purchase weapons or provided bogus weapons (like ALL these plots) to sorry assholes who would consider tying their shoes in the morning to be the start of a good day (like ALL these plots). Unlike 9/11, the perps in every one of these plots are dregs - ex cons, low intelligence, mental problems, addictions; if even half the 9/11 plotters were who we were told they were, they were competent, intelligent, and at least run-of-the-mill successful persons - no losers in the bunch.

Hapless is as hapless does.

[pnwmom]

102. How do you know there was no FBI informant who helped move the plot along?

Since we never had a real investigation, there's no way to know how easy it would have been to stop the attacks.

This was not some high-powered plot: this was a bunch of guys who took 4 jetliners and killed thousands of people armed only with BOX-CUTTERS!

As it was, yes, we had some of these guys on watch lists -- but we let them on the planes anyway. So the only people more hapless than the plotters were the government people who failed to stop them.

[RaleighNCDUer]

104. No, it was not a "high powered plot" - it was the antithesis of such,

also unlike these so-called plots, which depended on outsiders getting them guns and missiles and explosives, which NONE of the are capable of handing in the first place.

9/11 is different in that 1) it was simple, though highly coordinated - taking all 4 planes in a near-simultaneous action so that no one team would blow it for the other three; 2) it did not require 'special' items - no explosives, not so much as a grenade; 3) it was a suicide mission - whether all of them knew that is unknown, but at least the leaders, the pilots, knew they were not going to walk away from it.

There is NO correlation between 9/11 and ANY of the FBI terror plots we've seen since.

And how do I know there was no FBI informant involved in 9/11? BECAUSE THEY ALL DIED. The people the FBI use as informants are weak-willed fuck ups who can be blackmailed into doing what the FBI wants - they don't have the moral fortitude for suicide missions.

[pnwmom]

110. We know that all 19 died, but we don't know

if they had helpers who are still alive.

[bluedeminredstate]

81. Be afraid!

Only the the government can protect you!!!

I won't be holding my breath waiting for David Gregory, George Stef and Bob Schieffer to cover this latest twist in the story tomorrow morning. I expect panel discussions packed with republicans on how this terror plot shows how absolutely right Dick Cheney is in all matters of national security and how Obama should pay attention.
Then I will have to scream at my TV and be pissed off all morning.

Better yet, I think I'll skip all the Sunday shows.

:grr:

[yodoobo]

82. I don't think Obama would do that to us.

If this supposition is true, then that means that Obama doesn't have control over the (Federal) FBI - or he does have control over the FBI and he is condoning the FBI roundup of innocent people under fake "terrorist" charges.

Neither of those sounds plausible. That's the sort of thing that would happen under Bushism and I don't believe for a second that Obama is continuing with that.

Therefor, I'm satisfied that these are wannabee terrorist who tried and failed. Indeed this is yet another credit to Obama and his team.

[MrScorpio]

89. On one hand, Obama is ultimately responsible for anything happening in his bureacracy

But the fact is, is that these type operations are part of the long standing FBI culture.

The FBI has been doing this for decades, sending in criminal agent provocateurs, usually against left leaning political organizations.

There's a book called THE COINTELPRO PAPERS which details the history behind the FBI's actions.

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

These things happen no matter who's in the White House

[RaleighNCDUer]

100. Bullshit.

The 'investigation' was started under Bush, and I'm sure that Obama has better things to do than concern himself with the minutia of every ongoing FBI investigation.

He had nothing to do with this. If he HAD known that the FBI was illegally infiltrating mosques with agent provacteurs, he'd have pulled the plug.

[yodoobo]

111. Thats saying that he has no control

over the FBI.

If the FBI is still running under Bush's orders, then that is a serious problem.

No I don't think so. I have faith that Obama has things under control.

[RaleighNCDUer]

116. So you want to blame Obama for this incredible fuckup -

because that is what this is. It is a first rate fuckup.

Do you have any idea what the president REALLY does?

Look at it.

The 9/11 memo - "Bin Laden determined to strike within the US" - talking about a known terrorist who ordered the two embassy bombings and the Cole bombing.

How would this read? "Questionable criminal informant trying to trick assholes into incriminating themselves so he can get a break in his own prosecutions."

Can you imagine THAT as part of the president's daily briefing?

Get real.

[yodoobo]

119. Hardly. I want to thank him

For getting this country straightened out. For being the best President of my lifetime.

Look, we don't know the details of this terror case yet. There is an incredible amount of spin going on here and I'm shocked at how much negatively here AT DU is being directed at his administration.

But I do know that he is doing a hell of a job and he has done far more to stop terrorism than Bush did.

We know that Bush didn't read the memos. For DU to assume that Obama doesn't as well blows my mind.

Nonetheless, if there is a screwup and I've haven't seen any evidence of that yet (other than message board rantings), I know that its not Obamas fault.

[MrScorpio]

120. The point being is that there's no "there" there

The whole point of this waste of time is make the sheeple think that the FBI is on the job.

Create a threat where one didn't exist and eliminate it.

It's a pure police state action.


Also, holding President Obama to blame or to credit for this bullshit is moot.

The FBI bureaucracy does this shit independent of White House direction.

There are more than a few of us around here who are trying to get this point through to you.

[MasonJar]

84. Panetta has hi hands full bringing any substance to this crew.

[KoKo]

85. k&R...

[firehorse]

86. I live in NYC, my BS alarm went off.

We watched this unravel on the NY1 local news, and I had no proof, but thought something was hinky about it. The guys they caught were petty thiefs but my BS alarm had the feeling that the FBI was out fishing for some easy targets to frame for a PR stunt. And then the timing with Cheney's lies about terrorists at the same time.

Why didn't they go after some angry guys with pointy hats to frame as domestic terrorists instead? And then it pissed me off. Why NYC again? Living here, I'm more afraid of our own government than I am local petty theifs.

[DerekJ]

87. Still no answer. Any real and credible threats since 9/11?

[KoKo]

88. Kick...it's hard to keep up with all this...but thanks for keeping it going...

I'm in and outta here...trying to keep up.

:kick:

[jeanpalmer]

92. Meanwhile, the Mexican border is wide open

Any real terrorist could walk right across in plain daylight, there's nothing stoping them. The reason why there have been no terrorist attacks is because the terrorists killed themselves on 9-11.

[Amonester]

93. K & R

Of course the rw-owned m$m propaganda machines won't issue a sigh about it, or do they?

[Muttocracy]

95. Damn. When I heard the story, I was thinking it might fall apart due to entrapment

but I didn't think it would be this absurd.

[waiting for hope]

96. Kinda funny this all happened right before

Obama and Cheney both spoke nationally .. humm, if you think about it, who is really running the FBI, CIA and NSA?

[gkhouston]

103. And they don't find out it's a pile o' flaming dog shit until everyone's busy with a 3-day weekend.

Boy, this seems familiar.

[madeline_con]

98. Dick Cheney is probably behind this. n/t

[Rex]

107. Well they need to keep people reminded that 9/11 was Saddam

in a rocketship built out of botox.

[Piewhacket]

108. I figured it was a BS "informant" case, but ...

usually the FBI at least independently verifies the basic evidence
of a crime. To operate solely on the evidence of an informant
is to invite a catastrophe!

So if these guys are released, the FBI needs a hiding
and some heads rolling.

[spanone]

118. don't tell newt gingrich, he pointed to this several times on MTP