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NY Times: 'FBI Foils Its Own Terrorist Plots'
Fluffeh writes "Breaking up terrorist plots is one of the main goals of the FBI these days. If it can't do that, well, it seems making plots up and then valiantly stopping them is okay too — but the NY Times is calling them on it. '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.'"
>In case you haven't heard one of Obama's admins was selling guns to drug dealers in Mexico,
In 2006.
When Obama was secretly President.
God damn him and his time machine.
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BMO
The FBI has gone to the opposite extreme. Have you seen their listed of "suspected terrorists"??? It includes people who pay with cash, cover their cellphones while chatting, have a Ron Paul or Campaign for Liberty bumper sticker, carry a pocket constitution (wow; knowing the law; horrible), and on and on. At the end of the day almost everyone is a suspected terrorist by the FBI list.
My AC stalker: " I personally agree with your posts most of the time, but that won't keep me from modding you troll"
More people died of food poisoning in any year you care to mention than died in the twin towers attack. How about we have intrusive laws surrounding food preparation. And you can pick the locality of New Yowk City for that stat and it still holds true. While more people in the world are worried about the possibility of American drone strikes, possible invasion of their country, or just the devaluation of the world reserve through quantitative easing shrinking their money supply.
Just because something makes a great show on TV does not mean it is any more important than the thousands of news stories that didn't, but we're somehow working as if this is the case, case in point the Syria issue as opposed to the Bahrain issue. Per head the regime in Bahrain has killed more people than the Syrian regime. Since Bahrain is a small nation. We hear little of Bahrain however, perhaps due to the American Naval Base in the country. Due to the propaganda you're fed you find it laughable that I suggest the two nation's states are even remotely equivalent. Yet I remind you that in relation to their populations the Bahrain regime has killed more citizens then the Syrian regime.
Nope, you just encourage people to try harder and make a bigger impact. Did it ever occur to you that these people might have been saved by convincing them to use peaceful means to make their point. instead we've taught a lesson that deception, lies and treachery are the way to accomplish your goals. People do learn by example. What example has the FBI given us?
This would be a scandal if the FBI was making up its own attacks, recruiting people to join them, and then arresting those people.
It did. The FBI agents found "dissident" groups with no malicious intent, but possible malicious thoughts. The agent would then conceive the plans and pressure the non-violent dissidents to act, then arrest them when they did.
None of these are cases where the terrorist was trying to purchase C4 and the FBI set up a fake buy and nabbed them. The FBI agent was the one looking to buy the C4 and convinced innocents to stand next to him while he did, then arrested them.
If the FBI agent had not approached the dissidents, there would have been no crime. Thus, any actions by the FBI to create a crime is entrapment.
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He didn't say "no" 101 times, though. When someone asks "wanna go blow up a bridge", you have to choose the correct answer EVERY SINGLE TIME. Forever.
When the DA asks you "did you do it", even after answering "no" 101 times, "you have to choose the correct answer EVERY SINGLE TIME. Forever."
And yet, just about everyone will eventually give in (usually after 20-30 hours without sleep or food) and say "yes", regardless of guilt, just to make the interrogation stop.
Peer pressure is no excuse for enacting a terrorist plot
Legally, no. Realistically, you can quite seriously get just about anyone to do just about anything, with enough pressure. Yes, even you.
The FBI, the DHS, even the local Boys in Blue, understand this, and exploit it on a daily basis and as a matter of regular procedure to guarantee they look good regardless of the truth of the situation.
This is not all the FBI is doing though. The "suspect" not presented with a plot on day one and then ignored forever if they say no thanks. These guys are softened up first and encouraged to become more radical. Then maybe a plot is suggested, and suggested over and over until their resistance is worn down. The FBI is not infiltrating existing terrorist cells or finding existing terrorists. They do not open up a fake arms store and wait for customers to show up unprompted.
If you're corruptible and in a position in which your corruption gets people killed
He was never in that position, and could never be in that position. The FBI constructed a months-long distortion of reality, which could not have happened without the FBI, which created the delusion in the fool's mind that this thing was possible. Without that delusion, he never posed a credible threat. He-as-effective-terrorist was entirely a creation of the FBI.
Now, if you want to put him in jail because in his mind he believes that doing this thing is a good idea -- fine, argue that position. But don't pretend he would ever have been anything more than a thinker of foolish thoughts without the FBI fabricating the context in which he acted.
That is the fundamental question: Did the FBI prevent a credible threat? If not, then it can be nothing but theater. If no crime would have happened without the FBI's participation, then he cannot have been a harm and can hardly be considered a criminal unless you want to go down the road of thought-crime.
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And please, please tell us that you really believe that everyone taken down in a sting is no brighter than a hick good 'ole boy complaining about the "gubermint"
Not everyone by any means, but it looks that way in this case.
There's nothing inherently wrong with sting operations.
The thing is that organized crime bosses, arms traffickers embezzelers and corrupt officials exist.
It seems that in this case, there actually weren't any terrorists, so the "sting" operation had to create them first, then catch them.
You'll note that in your example, the sting was only offering to buy all the weapons.
In the terrorist version, the FBI would first have to find some dumb poor guy in a bar somewhere and give him a huge bunch of weapons. Then give him lots of instruction on how to act like a proper international arms dealer. Then they would have to offer to buy the weapons. Then they could claim they've caught another international arms dealer! Woo hoo!
You see the trouble with sting operations to catch terrorists is that terrorists pretty much don't exist in anything more than homeopathic quantities. If you invent them first then catch them, it's a waste of time and money.
The same can't be said for all the other cases you quoted.
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