Terrorist Plots, Hatched by the F.B.I.

[Happy Face 29]

Haven't started one of these for a while.....

 

Seems to be that as there's little threat from any external groups, the CIA/FBI have taken a firm grip on the terrorism plot business inside and out of the US, planning their own schemes which they can then scupper and claim as a great victory in the anti-terror fight, and vindicator of the surveilence state.

 

The news today that the latest underpants bomber was actually a CIA operative is another in a long line highlighted by the New York Times a few weeks back...

 

THE United States has been narrowly saved from lethal terrorist plots in recent years — or so it has seemed. A would-be suicide bomber was intercepted on his way to the Capitol; a scheme to bomb synagogues and shoot Stinger missiles at military aircraft was developed by men in Newburgh, N.Y.; and a fanciful idea to fly explosive-laden model planes into the Pentagon and the Capitol was hatched in Massachusetts.

 

 

But all these dramas were facilitated by the F.B.I., whose undercover agents and informers posed as terrorists offering a dummy missile, fake C-4 explosives, a disarmed suicide vest and rudimentary training. Suspects naïvely played their parts until they were arrested.

 

When an Oregon college student, Mohamed Osman Mohamud, thought of using a car bomb to attack a festive Christmas-tree lighting ceremony in Portland, the F.B.I. provided a van loaded with six 55-gallon drums of “inert material,” harmless blasting caps, a detonator cord and a gallon of diesel fuel to make the van smell flammable. An undercover F.B.I. agent even did the driving, with Mr. Mohamud in the passenger seat. To trigger the bomb the student punched a number into a cellphone and got no boom, only a bust.

 

This is legal, but is it legitimate? Without the F.B.I., would the culprits commit violence on their own? Is cultivating potential terrorists the best use of the manpower designed to find the real ones? Judging by their official answers, the F.B.I. and the Justice Department are sure of themselves — too sure, perhaps.

 

Carefully orchestrated sting operations usually hold up in court. Defendants invariably claim entrapment and almost always lose, because the law requires that they show no predisposition to commit the crime, even when induced by government agents. To underscore their predisposition, many suspects are “warned about the seriousness of their plots and given opportunities to back out,” said Dean Boyd, a Justice Department spokesman. But not always, recorded conversations show. Sometimes they are coaxed to continue.

 

Undercover operations, long practiced by the F.B.I., have become a mainstay of counterterrorism, and they have changed in response to the post-9/11 focus on prevention. “Prior to 9/11 it would be very unusual for the F.B.I. to present a crime opportunity that wasn’t in the scope of the activities that a person was already involved in,” said Mike German of the American Civil Liberties Union, a lawyer and former F.B.I. agent who infiltrated white supremacist groups. An alleged drug dealer would be set up to sell drugs to an undercover agent, an arms trafficker to sell weapons. That still happens routinely, but less so in counterterrorism, and for good reason.

 

“There isn’t a business of terrorism in the United States, thank God,” a former federal prosecutor, David Raskin, explained.

 

“You’re not going to be able to go to a street corner and find somebody who’s already blown something up,” he said. Therefore, the usual goal is not “to find somebody who’s already engaged in terrorism but find somebody who would jump at the opportunity if a real terrorist showed up in town.”

 

And that’s the gray area. Who is susceptible? Anyone who plays along with the agents, apparently. Once the snare is set, law enforcement sees no choice. “Ignoring such threats is not an option,” Mr. Boyd argued, “given the possibility that the suspect could act alone at any time or find someone else willing to help him.”

 

Typically, the stings initially target suspects for pure speech — comments to an informer outside a mosque, angry postings on Web sites, e-mails with radicals overseas — then woo them into relationships with informers, who are often convicted felons working in exchange for leniency, or with F.B.I. agents posing as members of Al Qaeda or other groups.

 

Some targets have previous involvement in more than idle talk: for example, Waad Ramadan Alwan, an Iraqi in Kentucky, whose fingerprints were found on an unexploded roadside bomb near Bayji, Iraq, and Raja Khan of Chicago, who had sent funds to an Al Qaeda leader in Pakistan.

 

But others seem ambivalent, incompetent and adrift, like hapless wannabes looking for a cause that the informer or undercover agent skillfully helps them find. Take the Stinger missile defendant James Cromitie, a low-level drug dealer with a criminal record that included no violence or hate crime, despite his rants against Jews. “He was searching for answers within his Islamic faith,” said his lawyer, Clinton W. Calhoun III, who has appealed his conviction. “And this informant, I think, twisted that search in a really pretty awful way, sort of misdirected Cromitie in his search and turned him towards violence.”

 

THE informer, Shahed Hussain, had been charged with fraud, but avoided prison and deportation by working undercover in another investigation. He was being paid by the F.B.I. to pose as a wealthy Pakistani with ties to Jaish-e-Mohammed, a terrorist group that Mr. Cromitie apparently had never heard of before they met by chance in the parking lot of a mosque.

 

“Brother, did you ever try to do anything for the cause of Islam?” Mr. Hussain asked at one point.

 

“O.K., brother,” Mr. Cromitie replied warily, “where you going with this, brother?”

 

Two days later, the informer told him, “Allah has more work for you to do,” and added, “Revelation is going to come in your dreams that you have to do this thing, O.K.?” About 15 minutes later, Mr. Hussain proposed the idea of using missiles, saying he could get them in a container from China. Mr. Cromitie laughed.

 

Reading hundreds of pages of transcripts of the recorded conversations is like looking at the inkblots of a Rorschach test. Patterns of willingness and hesitation overlap and merge. “I don’t want anyone to get hurt,” Mr. Cromitie said, and then explained that he meant women and children. “I don’t care if it’s a whole synagogue of men.” It took 11 months of meandering discussion and a promise of $250,000 to lead him, with three co-conspirators he recruited, to plant fake bombs at two Riverdale synagogues.

 

“Only the government could have made a ‘terrorist’ out of Mr. Cromitie, whose buffoonery is positively Shakespearean in its scope,” said Judge Colleen McMahon, sentencing him to 25 years. She branded it a “fantasy terror operation” but called his attempt “beyond despicable” and rejected his claim of entrapment.

 

The judge’s statement was unusual, but Mr. Cromitie’s characteristics were not. His incompetence and ambivalence could be found among other aspiring terrorists whose grandiose plans were nurtured by law enforcement. They included men who wanted to attack fuel lines at Kennedy International Airport; destroy the Sears Tower (now Willis Tower) in Chicago; carry out a suicide bombing near Tampa Bay, Fla., and bomb subways in New York and Washington. Of the 22 most frightening plans for attacks since 9/11 on American soil, 14 were developed in sting operations.

 

Another New York City subway plot, which recently went to trial, needed no help from government. Nor did a bombing attempt in Times Square, the abortive underwear bombing in a jetliner over Detroit, a planned attack on Fort Dix, N.J., and several smaller efforts. Some threats are real, others less so. In terrorism, it’s not easy to tell the difference.

 

http://www.nytimes.c...&pagewanted=all

 

Valid counter-terrorism or dodgy propaganda generation?

[ewerk 30669]

I did find the publicity surrounding the latest goings on in Yemem very strange. Another announcement to reinforce the fear of terrorism and ensure that there's no cut in the government funding for the CIA, CTU etc.

[Kitman 2207]

Must've been a comedy moment when the Oregon fella tried to detonate the useless van bomb. No doubt he screamed Allah Akbar etc shortly before, only for there to be an awkward silence afterwards punctuated by repeated clicks as he angrily pushed the detonator

[Gemmill 44995]

Sounds like Four Lions.

[Happy Face 29]

I did find the publicity surrounding the latest goings on in Yemem very strange. Another announcement to reinforce the fear of terrorism and ensure that there's no cut in the government funding for the CIA, CTU etc.

 

It's funny to watch Obama run on his tough on terrorism, drone dropping, US children killing, Osama shooting record...when that's exactly the opposite of what he ran on when Bush was in power.

 

Funnier still to see Dems cheer him on when they hammered Bush for far less.

[Happy Face 29]

Sounds like Four Lions.

 

 

"When do i get to rubber-dinghy rapids?"

[Gemmill 44995]

HF, do you listen to The Bugle podcast?

[Gemmill 44995]

 

 

"When do i get to rubber-dinghy rapids?"

 

I fucking loved that film.

[Happy Face 29]

HF, do you listen to The Bugle podcast?

 

No but I like John Oliver so I'll have to give it a go.

 

Cheers for the heads up.

[Christmas Tree 4729]

Spare me the bleeding-heart bullshit! Do you know what I'd do if I was in power again? I'd have two queues at airports: one for flights where we'd done no background checks, infringed on no one's civil bloody liberties, used no intelligence gained by torture. And on the other flight we'd do everything we possibly could to make it perfectly safe. And then we'd see which plane the Happy Faces of this world would put their bloody kids on!

 

The Ghost http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1139328/

[Gemmill 44995]

It's quality, definitely give it a go. He's class on it. They're on about "the deathiversary of the Tora Bora Law Ignorer Osama Bin Laden" on this week's one which is what reminded me.

[Happy Face 29]

Spare me the bleeding-heart bullshit! Do you know what I'd do if I was in power again? I'd have two queues at airports: one for flights where we'd done no background checks, infringed on no one's civil bloody liberties, used no intelligence gained by torture. And on the other flight we'd do everything we possibly could to make it perfectly safe. And then we'd see which plane the Happy Faces of this world would put their bloody kids on!

 

The Ghost http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1139328/

 

Not a workable solution. No use at all to the people on the ground when the plane comes down on top of them.

[Happy Face 29]

It's quality, definitely give it a go. He's class on it. They're on about "the deathiversary of the Tora Bora Law Ignorer Osama Bin Laden" on this week's one which is what reminded me.

 

Might replace the Real Time with Bill Maher podcast on my rotation if it's that good. That's been utter gash this year. Nothing but Republican primaries shite.

[Park Life 71]

'Underwear bomber' was working for the CIA

Bomber involved in plot to attack US-bound jet was working as an informer with Saudi intelligence and the CIA, it has emerged

 

Paul Harris and Ed Pilkington in New York

The Guardian, Wednesday 9 May 2012

 

Yemeni soldiers search a car

'Underwear bomber' involved in a plot to attack jet was in fact working as an undercover informer with the CIA, it has emerged. Photograph: Yahya Arhab/EPA

A would-be "underwear bomber" involved in a plot to attack a US-based jet was in fact working as an undercover informer with Saudi intelligence and the CIA, it has emerged.

The revelation is the latest twist in an increasingly bizarre story about the disruption of an apparent attempt by al-Qaida to strike at a high-profile American target using a sophisticated device hidden in the clothing of an attacker.

The plot, which the White House said on Monday had involved the seizing of an underwear bomb by authorities in the Middle East sometime in the last 10 days, had caused alarm throughout the US.

It has also been linked to a suspected US drone strike in Yemen where two Yemeni members of al-Qaida were killed by a missile attack on their car on Sunday, one of them a senior militant, Fahd Mohammed Ahmed al-Quso.

But the news that the individual at the heart of the bomb plot was in fact an informer for US intelligence is likely to raise just as many questions as it answers.

Citing US and Yemeni officials, Associated Press reported that the unnamed informant was working under cover for the Saudis and the CIA when he was given the bomb, which was of a new non-metallic type aimed at getting past airport security.

The informant then turned the device over to his handlers and has left Yemen, the officials told the news agency. The LA Times, which first broke the news that the plot had been a "sting operation", said that the bomb plan had also provided the intelligence leads that allowed the strike on Quso."

 

 

They do it all themselves innit. War is peace etc....[/yawn]

Edited May 9, 2012 by Park Life

[Monkeys Fist 42482]

Must've been a comedy moment when the Oregon fella tried to detonate the useless van bomb. No doubt he screamed Allah Akbar etc shortly before, only for there to be an awkward silence afterwards punctuated by repeated clicks as he angrily pushed the detonator

D'you think they rigged the van with a big one of these?

[Park Life 71]

The real comedy is here:

 

"Goddamit Kyle shoooot!!!"

 

[Park Life 71]

"Haroon Aswat – the man British Police believe was behind the London bombings – was working for MI6, it has been confirmed by leading U.S. and French intelligence asset/agents."

 

They do it all themselves.

[Monkeys Fist 42482]

Fuck me gently.

That vid is awful

[Park Life 71]

Lady Gaga is the new madonna. [/wink]

 

 

They do it all themselves.

Edited May 9, 2012 by Park Life

[Park Life 71]

Fuck me gently.

That vid is awful

 

Yeah but everyone got free chewing gum.

 

 

Kony 2000 "Mind bomb mix"

 

Edited May 9, 2012 by Park Life

[Happy Face 29]

The Wikileaks video Parky posted should be ingrained on the public conscience....like the Zapruder footage, the tiananmen square protester or the Phan Thi Kim Phuc photo.

[Park Life 71]

"The FBI is investigating a possible financial link between the Saudi royal family and the 11 September hijackers, in an inquiry that the Bush administration has attempted to keep secret for political reasons, it was reported yesterday.

The investigation was triggered by the discovery of money transfers from a US account under the name of Princess Haifa al-Faisal, wife of the Saudi ambassador to Washington, to two Saudi students in California who in turn gave financial assistance to two of the hijackers soon after they arrived in the US. "

 

 

http://www.guardian....P=ILCNETTXT3487

 

 

Edited May 9, 2012 by Park Life

[Happy Face 29]

Last year, the FBI subjected 19-year-old Somali-American Mohamed Osman Mohamud to months of encouragement, support and money and convinced him to detonate a bomb at a crowded Christmas event in Portland, Oregon, only to arrest him at the last moment and then issue a Press Release boasting of its success.

 

In late 2009, the FBI persuaded and enabled Hosam Maher Husein Smadi, a 19-year old Jordanian citizen, to place a fake bomb at a Dallas skyscraper and separately convinced Farooque Ahmed, a 34-year-old naturalized American citizen born in Pakistan, to bomb the Washington Metro.

 

Then, the FBI yet again saved us all from its own Terrorist plot by arresting 26-year-old American citizen Rezwan Ferdaus after having spent months providing him with the plans and materials to attack the Pentagon, American troops in Iraq, and possibly the Capitol Building using “remote-controlled” model airplanes carrying explosives.

 

None of these cases entail the FBI’s learning of an actual plot and then infiltrating it to stop it. They all involve the FBI’s purposely seeking out Muslims (typically young and impressionable ones) whom they think harbor animosity toward the U.S. and who therefore can be induced to launch an attack despite having never taken even a single step toward doing so before the FBI targeted them.

[Park Life 71]

The Frankfurt Institute of Social Research was set up in 1923. Its aim was to deal more adequately than the existent academic bodies with the changes in national life since round 1880, with what was seen as a crisis in culture. The changes were based in the rapid growth of German capitalism and the new world‑role of Germany. Marxism played an important part in the views of the leading thinkers of the Institute, but they always kept it to some extent at arm's length. By the early 1930s the Institute dropped any direct relation to working‑class movements and concentrated on matters of culture and social authority. Among its leading members were Theodor W. Adorno, Max Horkheimer, Herbert Marcuse and the economist F. Pollock. Others were connected with it for a while, e.g. Erich Fromm. When the Nazis came to power the leaders moved to France, then to the United States. After the war Adorno and Horkheimer returned to Europe and tried to carry on with their critique of German society: Adorno turned more and more to aesthetic issues.

Strong influences on him were Nietzsche, Simmel and Lukacs, and Marx (in some selected points). Nietzsche influenced him far more fundamentally than he did Bloch. Again it was the concept of Becoming, Werden, that had the deep effect. All previous philosophers were seen as falsifying their views of life by refusing to recognise that it was always in a state of continuous and dynamic process or change, and that to make any absolute or definite statements or analyses of it was to arrest it and to impose a judgment or value from outside. Adorno took over from Nietzsche the position that because of the systematic falsification of reality that had been carried on there was need for a Transvaluation of All Values. It was necessary to realise all the while that the apparent fixity of the world and of values was derived from ignoring or distorting the dynamic essence of reality, 'that restlessness, that inward shudder, which Hegel called Becoming.' Philosophic systems must be rejected on the grounds that 'the totality of the world is not appropriate to our forms of consciousness.' The will‑to‑power constituted the world and our modes of thought at all times. [1]"

 

 

Theodor Adorno

 

Edited May 9, 2012 by Park Life

[Park Life 71]

Gary Numan