When somebody tells you, “Sure! I can get you all the explosives you need! What do you want to blow up?” you’re talking to a fed. And he’s talking to an idiot.
According to the ABC story,
…terrorists have tried time and again to make New York City their killing field. We’re up to 15 plots and counting since 9/11…
And I notice that they all seem to go the same way. Some clueless, benighted oaf, usually a kid or group of kids, starts talking big about jihad or something. He/they don’t know a bomb from a bowling ball. Suddenly he/they meet this very helpful stranger who says he can come up with everything they need to make a big pile of rubble. Arrests and headlines ensue. The only winners are the heroic forces of law and order.
It’s a very familiar pattern and it makes me wonder: Who’s making the suggestions here? How dangerous was “Quazi Mohammad Rezwanul Ahsan Nafis” before he met his helpful fed? Cointelpro comes to mind. Very familiar.
“How dangerous was “Quazi Mohammad Rezwanul Ahsan Nafis” before he met his helpful fed?”
Probably about as dangerous as the “Times Square Bomber [sic]” who — despite alleged bomb-training — didn’t know that you can’t use just any ol’ lawn ‘n garden fertilizer. Or that propane has to be mixed with oxygen if you expect it to explode.
And yet… the Feebs and cops will call all these “credible” and “major” terrorist threats, and pat themselves on the backs.
Very familiar…and how Dickensian. “Quasi” Mohammad indeed.
And wouldn’t you know it, there just so happens to be an election on, with an incumbent in need of some last-minute help, and a thugocracy whose most recent trophy shots are starting to show their age. Some pretty spectacular timing, eh wot? (“Well, actually, no, Kev…things like this actually seem to happen all the time before elections.”)
I’ve no doubt–no doubt whatever–that the Feds cultivate their…business pipeline carefully.
On one hand, we should perhaps be encouraged that there is a repeatable need for such stage props, for the Feds to line up like circus seals and outwit in front of the camera at just the right moment, to the canned applause of the studio audience. It is the classically iconic sales pitch of the protection racket (which every government in the history of man is, by definition, a working example of), and its current transparency and frequency should be clarion indicators that the racket understands perfectly that its legitimacy could be lost in a moment. Should that not at some level be an encouraging observation?
I sure hope so. Because it sure is annoying to have to deal with a fresh new crop of bloodlust every time one of this stupid show’s episodes airs.
I’m discouraged that their little skits keep working. I’d hope that after a while more folks would notice that, “Hey, we haven’t had a real politically motivated terrorist attack that wasn’t an FBI-orchestrated “sting” in…. um… well… years.”
But they keep falling for it. Back to the Times Square Bomber example: I recall the idiot (a commenter at Balko’s The Agitator, no less) who declared that “Wouldn’t you feel stupid if his bomb had worked?” No, I would have been amazed at the usurpation of basic physical laws that allowed nonexplosive materials to explode. And when Schumer proposed banning anonymous prepaid cell phones, using the TSB has an example of why it needed to happen, damned few folks noticed that… they hadn’t needed to track an anonymous prepaid phone to find the guy. But Schumer had his supporters.
Why shouldn’t the feds stick to the same old lame old routine? It keeps working. And they do keep finding wanna-be terrorists stupid enough to fall for it, too.
I’m ready for the cats to evolve thumbs and replace us.
Good thing the FBI knows how to hand out fake bombs to their terrorists. If this had been the BATFE we’d be looking at a smoking hole in the ground.
I can’t agree with the anti-FBI sentiment expressed here. Are they “idiot, clueless, benighted oafs”? Maybe, but all of them intended to kill people simply because they were American. You need to come out from behinf your paranoia of the government long enough to realize there are real threats out there. As far as the FBI using stings like this; how would you do it? If you have some better ideas then join the FBI and do a better job.
Well, Windy, a lot of folks have put a lot of thought into how to do it better. Rather than recap everything here (and blowing Joel’s storage and bandwidth limits by several million percent), I’ll start you out by referring you to Bruce Schneier’s blog: http://www.schneier.com/blog/
Search on “security theater”. A lot of hits will refer to those loveable sex offenders and thieves at TSA, but you’ll find quite a lot on the uses of _intel_. As you start following links, you’ll discover many old predictions that the FBI’s sting process will waste resources on wanna-bes who lack the will or resources to actually do anything, while missing lone wolves who do things like open fire with simple hand guns at gatherings (now, where have I heard of something like that…).
Ah, but what would _I_ know about security, law enforcement, military intel, and that sort of thing…
Windy… most of us are very much aware of the “real threats.” Almost all of them have badges, guns and fancy digs in government offices… The “FBI” has been a farce from the beginning, and their only purpose is to protect the government, not the rest of us.
There will always be those who wish to harm others. The only rational way to deal with them is to be prepared as individuals to defend ourselves, our families and communities.
If you wish to hire a bunch of overpaid, unaccountable thugs to defend you and yours, that’s your affair and good luck. I have no need of them, and do not wish to be robbed to pay for them.
Bear: I think you missed the point. “Let me refer you to Wikipedia, the encyclopedia and the dictionary to distract you from my inability to answer the question.” The government certainly does many things wrong. But in this specific instance they saved many lives. You seem to imply they could have done it better or maybe with cleaner hands after taking out the trash. How!!?? Don’t refer me to someplace else if you have no ideas then say so or say nothing.
Mama: I am not part of the group you fear but I don’t agree with your fears. I am happy that there are dedicated people willing to work late hours and at night 24 hours a day to protect us all. I love and respect the law enforcement, fire department, military, coast guard, doctors and nurses. Are there some who are bad people? Sure, just as some in your community of friends and nieghbors are bad people, but I would never paint you all with that broad brush by calling them all thugs.
I think this guy really intended to do some damage and if the reports hold true the FBI this time at least did good. The people who want to set off these bombs are America hating scum and it is almost impossible to catch them with their hands in the cookie jar. Our system of justice demands a high level of proof to convict so the only way to get that kind of evidence without actually letting them kill dozens of people is to provide them with the phony bombs. If that process offends your delicate sensibilities I’m sorry but it’s either that or let them blow shit up and punish them later.
Windy, I think you’re missing the point. None of these plots were plots until the feds got involved and made them so!
This guy, the Miami 6, all the rest of them, they were just blathering and blustering. How many times have you heard someone say “I could kill so and so for doing that”? Have you ever reported it to the police? No? Because you didn’t take it seriously?
The folks busted in these stings are no different, except that fedguys heard them say it, them groomed them along the rest of the way. Remember the old saying “the fed is the one who pushes for violence”? They find someone with some discontent then stoke their fires. And none of these so called plots could ever come off. None, not a single one, had even a remote chance of ever obtaining any of the explosives they would have needed, without the assisstance of the feds.
Naw, this has nothing to do with feds doing a good job any more than honoring a firefighter for putting out a blaze he started. It’s just another case of the feds creating a criminal so the can bust him in the headlines.
Windbag, nice little dig at the cross-ref. However, unlike that font of all accurate wisdom called Wikipedia, Schneier happens to be an acknowledged expert on security. But if you find Wikipedia a good reference, you probably never researched much of anything in your life, and simply don’t know how. No wonder you want me to tell you exactly what; that’s what you’re used to the feds doing for you. Ghu forbid you should actually study and learn something for yourself. That might be… hard.
What could the feds have done better?
1. If they discovered credible evidence that the clown wanted to commit an act of terrorism, bust him then and there. Planning a crime is a crime in today’s thought police world. No need to waste months and lots of money setting up a sting.
2. Of course, if they couldn’t even find the level of evidence that allowed the feds to get a terrorism conviction for someone who once did webmastering for a group later declared terrorists (so much for that “high level of proof” you believe the system requires)… Well, no wonder they needed sting to manufacture a little credible evidence.
3. How many lives did the feds really save here? They found a punk with so little (not even high school level) knowledge of explosive that he couldn’t build a Type I Internet Pipe Bomb, much less recognize that the mysterious stranger offering out of the blue to give him a bomb actually gave him… a lump of inert material. If this clown wanted to do some damage, he should have gotten the ATF to sell him an “assault rifle” [sic] and gone to some military gathering and opened fire. Kinda like the documented mentally unstable “Allahu Akhbar” army major that was being watched.
4. Heck, maybe we’ll even discover that a wise man at this guy’s local mosque was trying to talk him out of terrorist acts… kinda like another recent sting in which… a guy at the mosque talked most of the idiots out of the stupidity, but the feds put enough pressure on one that he decided to go through with… um… the sting with inert materials because he had no freaking clue how to build/buy a real bomb… and thus posed pretty much no credible threat… where have I heard that one before?
Just: That is a theory. Maybe these guys would have just gone and had a drink and gotten over it. But where the theory falls down is they were willing to go along with the plot and set off a bomb. Now I don’t know about you but I wouldn’t do that! You couldn’t get me to set off a suicude bomb to kill people if you broke my legs and arms and beat me about the head and shoulders. Also as I understand the charges the perp was given multiple opportunities to back out and choose to go ahead with the bombing. In my opinion this proactive approach saves lives. It obviously doesn’t satisfy everyone but it works.
Bear: It appears to me that your distrust and paranoia concerning the FBI and the government is clouding your judgement. I don’t know the level of responsibility this perp had but my gut response is not to defend him while your response seems to be to defend the perp and attack the methodology of catching him. Maybe when more is known we will have a better idea if the perp is just some innocent kid or the FBI saved lives.
(Joel, having trouble posting here today, with FF and IE.)
Windbag, let me explain some things that you’ve clearly failed to grasp in their entirety.
But first… Oh! The “distrust and paranoia” strawman argument. Always handy when someone confronts you with inconvenient facts. And “defend the perp”; please quote my exact words (no fair transcribing the little voices in your head) where I defended ol’ Quazi. I was under the impression that the reports paint him as an easily manipulated idiot, crazy and stupid enough that he thought his FBI inert material would hurt people (well… maybe if he dropped that 1,000 pound lump on someone…).
Anyway…
This is Joel’s blog, where Joel shares informal observations and updates on life’s little calamities (Hi, Zoe!) with his friends and like-minded people. This is not a commercial news service, nor a heavily funded think tank; not even a scholarly institution of higher education. Neither Joel nor myself these days is a paid security consultant (so far as I know; correct me if I’m wrong, Joel). That means we are not your dedicated — unpaid — research department. You don’t get to walk into a casual conversation, make unsubstantiated assertions at odds with facts, and then demand that we prove you aren’t right, complete with 8×10 glossies with circles and arrows and notes on the back. And bibliographies, no doubt.
Well… You can walk in and demand that. But we’ll just laugh at you.
-giggle-
See?
If you want to boost your credibility, do some research of your own before you jump into a conversation to tell everyone else they’re wrong and you’re right. If someone does offer you a direction for further study (study – the idea being that if you look into it on your own, you’ll gain a better understanding than if someone simply force feeds you their own selected “facts” outside of context), you might try following it up before ridiculing it with a strawman argument (Wiki-freaking-pedia? C’mon, dude.).
If you consider this site to be part of your “research”, consider approaching other commenters politely and asking for information and links for freaking research as a favor (note that demanding someone else prove that you aren’t wrong and ignoring the research direction offered doesn’t count as requesting an aid to self-education).
But to get back to your bizarre claim that the feds saved a lot of lives with this bust: You might want to mention that to the feds, who are under the impression (or so claim) that ” the public was not in danger” (http://news.yahoo.com/second-man-arrested-plot-bomb-us-federal-nyt-050115625.html). So… was Quazi a dangerous terrorist with the will and means to kill lots of people, or was he just an idiot with a 1,000 pounds of junk “not in working condition” while “closely monitored”?
Sheesh, Windy. The case against Quazi is already starting to look so weak that the feds are now trying to link him in the public eye with an alleged child pornographer on the other side of the continent.
Windbag, spouting off with ignorant opinions on this subject is like taking a stand in the global warming debate, then asking, “What’s CO2? And this ‘forcing’ and ‘feedback’ people keep talking about?” There is an unsubtle difference between an ignorant blowhard and a student trying to cure his ignorance (heh; maybe we should be calling you “Brytni” (http://www.indiegogo.com/genderneutralkittenfund?a=775991 )). If you have trouble with any of those words, get a dictionary; I’d suggest an online dictionary (http://dictionary.reference.com/), but you’d probably just whine that I didn’t define the words for you right here.
The FBI is a PR-driven organization (look into the history of the FBI’s “most wanted” list, for example). Low-profile busts of stupid conspirators based on intelligence (which is supposedly how they discovered Quazi in the first place) don’t garner budget-increasing media exposure. Public arrests involving 1,000 pound (fake!) bombs do.
W/i/n/d/y/ Brytni, you know who else is PR-driven? Terrorists. They need fear; that’s the goal. Killing people is just one tactic to generating that fear. The killing isn’t even necessary. When gullible fools unquestioningly accept any scary LEO press release and gibber in terror, the terrorist achieve their goal:
http://wondermark.com/c/2006-08-11-220plan.gif
And when those gullible fools believe FBI-supplied 1,000 pound fake bombs are killing people, the (mid-east type) terrorists don’t even have to bother with [non!]exploding shoes and panties (we keep tellin’ ’em ‘n tellin’ ’em that Semtex doesn’t blow up when set on fire; but nooo…). Or idiots who think a little 20-20-20 lawn fertilizer (http://answers.yahoo.com/question/index?qid=20080901233346AANrhid) will level Times Square.
I didn’t “attack the methodology of catching” Quazi. The feds “caught” him as soon as they supposedly had credible evidence that he was conspiring to commit a terrorist act (that conspiracy is a crime, a major felony, remember?). I object to the feds running a pointless, time-consuming, and expensive P/R/ o/p/e/r/a/t/i/o/n/ sting to no real purpose other than generating a more exciting press release to to impress B/r/y/t/n/i/ gullible fools.
Joel, Mama, anyone… Wake me up if “Brytni” here actually says something rational.
Windy,
Unfortunately, its more than theory, its fact. I know you’re opposed to folks citing info for you to look up, so I won’t bother, but look up some of the arrests the feds have made. There’s a chilling similarity of coercion, grooming and lack of actual skills to carry out an attack in all of them.
There was one actual real plan recently, the Times Square Bomber. The feds knew nothing about it!!!. He actually made a bomb himself, loaded it in an suv, parked it in Times Sq. and set it to explode. Not a single cop stopped him. A firing glitch prevented the expolsion, I think, followed up by alert citizens who reported seeing a bomb in an suv to local police, who made the arrest. The feds were busy chasing harmless fools like the guy in this story and probably didn’t know about him til they saw it on the evening news.
Windy, the ones who blab about what they “want” to do are fall less dangerous than the ones who sit home simmering in silence, and there’s NOTHING the feds are going to do to find or stop them.
Hey, Bear: It’s all the links. WordPress dumps comments with lots of links into an “awaiting moderation” bin as possible spam, no matter how many times the commenter has been approved. Sorry about that.
You guys play nice.
Gotcha, Joel. Weird thing was, I couldn’t even get to the “awaiting moderation” notice at first. It just… evaporated everything with no response at all. Several times. Usually I just get a “resend” prompt, then a message that “that looks like a duplicate post”, which — if I ignore it — makes my posts never appear. That Jetpack service is peculiar.
Just Waiting: “…the Times Square Bomber. The feds knew nothing about it!!!. He actually made a bomb himself, loaded it in an suv, parked it in Times Sq. and set it to explode. Not a single cop stopped him. A firing glitch prevented the expolsion, I think”
Actually, that’s the other case I’ve been referring to. It wasn’t a firing glitch, though. The problem was that the (allegedly trained in bomb making) idiot made his “bomb” out of nonexplosive materials (common multi-component lawn fertilizer instead of ammonium or urea nitrate, and propane minus the needed oxygen; the retail consumer fireworks were a nice touch, though). Major high school chem class fail. He did succeed in setting his SUV on fire, but a Molotov cocktail would have been cheaper, faster, more effective, and less easily traced.
Thanks Bear, I knew it was something like that.
Bear you protest that I post something that disagrees with you and insist that you have your say but I should not be allowed to have mine. Fine. Don’t respond when someone disagrees with you.
Just waiting: I don’t doubt that you can find examples of FBI misconduct or failures. I don’t doubt you can find the same thing in almost every police department. My point is that those exceptions are not the rule. Most of the time our police and FBI and our other public safety people do good things. I am unwilling to jump on a bandwagon that accuses ALL FBI and police of being bad or dirty. As for this one instance (Nafis) the more I read the more I believe he instigated this effort and not the FBI and that if the FBI had not gotten wind of it he would have carried out his plan to set off a bomb and kill Americans. Until I hear or read evidence to the contrary I think the FBI deserves credit for once again thwarting a terrorist attack.
Gone,
Again you’re missing the point. I never started an ALL FBI bandwagon, and it has nothing to do with misconduct or failures. Rather it is their approved conduct under the new standard operating procedures in the war on terror that I dislike.
Feds troll their snitches and social media sites looking weak, angry, gullible dupes. They take these poor dupes and groom them into wanting to do something. The seeds they plant and cultivate become the terror plots they then smash in big headlines. Not everyone will agree to the violent route, but dupes do appear to be plentiful.
And yes, the FBI does deserve credit. They have managed to stop every single attack they have instigated.
Brytni: “Bear you protest that I post something that disagrees with you and insist that you have your say but I should not be allowed to have mine. “
No, I simply pointed out that if you spout off on a subject without knowing something about it first, you can expect to be laughed at and otherwise relegated to the just-another-lawnorder-troll bin, but that you could certainly spout off. I did , however, object to your habitual use of strawman arguments (this being yet another example). By now, I’d think you’d have found it easier to just learn something about the subject. Finally.
(And you might want to mention to those voices in your head — the ones who keep telling you strange things like, “Bear isn’t allowing you to talk” — that since this isn’t my site, nor do I have moderator privileges, nor even magical powers over your packet-routing through the ‘Net tubez, that I don’t control whether or not you comment here.)
Just Waiting: “the FBI does deserve credit. They have managed to stop every single attack they have instigated.”
Well… there was the first WTC bombing where they kinda lost track of the day the bombers were planning to strike (and I’m generously not making the allegations over who thought it was a good idea to give those terrorists live explosives; seen credible evidence both ways). [grin]
Just: The FBI found out from a CI that Nafis wanted to commit a terrorist act to kill lots of Americans. Once they know this they have a legal responsibility to act on that information. But you seem to be standing up for this terrorist’s rights and angry that the FBI successfully stopped him AND did it in a way that will assure he goes to jail for a long time. It seems to really rub you the wrong way.