Would-Be Bomber Arrested In Kansas; Planned Suicide Attack on Ft. Riley

The Associated Press (as carried by the Boston Herald) reports that a 20-year old Topeka man has been arrested as he attempted to arm what he believed to be a thousand-pound bomb outside Ft. Riley, Kansas. John T. Booker Jr. is alleged to have planned an attack in conspiracy with others who were actually FBI agents; Booker's postings to Facebook in March 2014 about his desire to die as a martyr brought him to the FBI's attention, and the FBI sting operation which ended in his arrest began after these posts. Booker had been recruited by the U.S. Army in February of last year, but his enlistment was cancelled shortly thereafter.

Comments

masdf

[Anonymous Coward]

So once again, the FBI entraps someone by convincing them to carry out an attack so that they can stop it and pretend to be heroes. How about actually stopping attacks that you haven't yourself created? Oh, right. That count is still at zero. And I guess you need to justify all your bullshit somehow.

Re:masdf

[BitterOak]

So once again, the FBI entraps someone by convincing them to carry out an attack so that they can stop it and pretend to be heroes. How about actually stopping attacks that you haven't yourself created? Oh, right. That count is still at zero. And I guess you need to justify all your bullshit somehow.

Actually, stings like this may prevent actual attacks from occurring by providing a deterrent. Would you join such a conspiracy if your co-conspirators might be FBI agents? Operations like these send a message out to would-be terrorists: you're not safe planning attacks in this country.

Re:masdf

[Anonymous Coward]

This does *not* make us safer. Quite the opposite, really. They use people like him to promote their own agenda. That is, they want to "prove" that everyone is a terrorist and they need more money and approval to stomp all over our rights, and you shouldn't complain about it.

What happens when one of their sting operations don't go according to plan? Maybe their guy goes a little nuts and decides to do things his own way, ends up killing or hurting a lot of innocent people. The FBI in this case could have stopped it by behaving appropriately instead of pressuring and reassuring him that doing evil was the way to go. Maybe without the FBI egging him on, he wouldn't have done anything.

Here, they found someone that was exhibiting some obvious mental problems. Instead of getting him the help he clearly needed, they decided to make a show out of it for their own propaganda machine.

Re:masdf

[cold fjord]

You apparently didn't comprehend the story. That guy was committed to make an attack and die in the process before he came into contact with the FBI. Where is your evidence that the FBI was "pressuring" and "reassuring him"?

Here, they found someone that was exhibiting some obvious mental problems. Instead of getting him the help he clearly needed, they decided to make a show out of it for their own propaganda machine.

What is your evidence that he had mental problems? He certainly had different values, but that isn't the same as being mentally ill. If anything your claim of "obvious mental problems" and that they "decided to make of show out of it for their own propaganda machine" indicates you probably don't understand what was happening. How is it jihadis conduct suicide bombing all over the world (without FBI contact) but you think they can't happen here?

That is, they want to "prove" that everyone is a terrorist and they need more money and approval to stomp all over our rights, and you shouldn't complain about it.

No, they are trying to prove that guy culpable for his actions in a court of law. That has nothing to do with your fatuous claim which is clearly nonsense.

Re:masdf

[cold fjord]

You're making an unsupported claim: "My posts propose that the FBI gets help for these people instead of propping them up and egging them on."

Where is the proof of that? Propping them up? Egging them on? This guy made his intent clear before the FBI ever came into contact with him. Why do you believe that wasn't his actual intent? Why do you believe that he didn't intent to kill people? What is your evidence that he is mentally ill instead of willing to engage in attacks that are consistent with his values and like those that occur around the world on a daily basis? Why do you think that America can't have ordinary ideologically inspired terrorists like other parts of the world?

The FBI cares about people's safety which is why they investigate people that announce their desire to commit violent jihad. That isn't "trying to draw attention to themselves," that is investigating the crimes people announce they intend to commit.

Re:masdf

[bkmoore]

You apparently didn't comprehend the story. That guy was committed to make an attack and die in the process before he came into contact with the FBI. Where is your evidence that the FBI was "pressuring" and "reassuring him"?

Quick google, the FBI has charged over 150 suspected 'terrorists' since 9-11 based on evidence from sting operations. Did they really prevent 150 people from committing terrorist acts? The FBI is either very good at catching terrorists before they even plan their attacks, or they are going out and setting people up. The Tsarnaev brothers kind of disprove the first possibility.

Re:masdf

[amiga3D]

They've been doing this same stuff for decades. Before the Islamic nutcases it was other groups like the so called home grown "militia" groups. They infiltrated one local group of idiots here that just got together to shoot guns, drink beer and bitch about the government. Impatient with the fact that the pussies weren't ever going to do shit they got their inside guy to show them how to make a bomb, then he helped them get the stuff to make one and then after that he helped them make it. Since they were too big a bunch of pussies (or just not really that crazy) to use the thing they only got to prosecute for "conspiracy." I didn't feel much pity for them as they were a sad group of morons but what a waste of money.

Re:masdf

[gtall]

I see. So a Muslim cleric is now a trained psychiatrist who can spot an Islamic nutjob from a regular Muslim...by what, precisely? Wanting to do something the cleric wouldn't entertain himself?

Re:masdf

[mellon]

17.3.

Dumb question. The job of the FBI is to arrest people who commit crimes. They should arrest exactly those people, and no other people. Of course it's an imperfect science, and they will miss some criminals and arrest some innocent people. But a key demographic they should avoid is arresting people who wouldn't have committed crimes without their help, because it is explicitly not their job to instigate criminal activity.

Re:masdf

[mellon]

Terrorists are interested in instigating terror. If they were as big a danger as they are said to be, they would already have let off a bomb in an airport security line and killed a hundred people waiting to be screened. The fact that this hasn't happened either means that the government has a machine that watches our every move and knows who is going to set off bombs, in which case they don't need these stings, or else it means that there really aren't that many people who are interested in committing mass murder who are able to get into the United States and act on that wish.

Re:masdf

[Pseudonym]

That doesn't make him less dangerous.

What makes him dangerous is filling his head with dangerous thoughts. The vast majority, if not all, of the people whom the FBI have entrapped in the past are some of the more vulnerable members of society: people without a strong social support structure, part of a marginalised community, often poor, often unemployed, and so on.

It's a fundamental axiom of modern policing that the best way to stop crime is to stop people from becoming criminals in the first place. If someone is at risk of becoming a criminal, the best thing you can do is divert them away from that as early as possible. For the FBI to turn a non-criminal into a criminal is not just a failure, it's sociopathic.

Re:masdf

[Anonymous Coward]

That's actually not likely at all, since the ONLY ones they stopped were the sting operations, which, again, are things that almost certainly never would have happened without their encouragement.

People really need to understand just how evil the people in our government are. They want to think of them as good people, but they aren't. They have been corrupted by an evil system. For case studies of how this works, read "The Lucifer Effect" or the wiki on the Stanford Prison Experiment. There good men played the role of prison guards and instantly changed into sadistic assholes. Here people are playing the role of anti-terror agents, and have also turned into assholes as a result.

Re:masdf

[Mr D from 63]

You are right, don't blame religion. But also don't overlook the fact that a known religious structure is a key element in the widespread recruiting and development of terrorists. Be it an end or a means depends on where you stand in that structure. But if you don't talk about that structure and call it what it is, you can not hope to dismantle it.

Re:masdf

[Livius]

let's remove all security with respect to airplanes. Care to fly now?

Yes. Since it's reduced my airfare, and massively reduced inconvenience, personal indignity, and time wasted at airports, and only marginally compromised air travel security.

Re:masdf

[Pseudonym]

Unfortunately, these are the same people that are easily exploited and swayed into terrorist acts.

If they're that malleable, then they should be able to be steered into being a productive member of society instead of being a criminal. The FBI had a choice about which they could do. They chose the one which would give them a headline and a story on Slashdot.

Re:Alternative title

[circletimessquare]

it's not entrapment

it really isn't

entrapment is getting you to do something you don't want to do

if the guy expresses his sincere, original desire to do something, no coaxing, no suggestion, that's 100% on him

i don't know why so many people don't understand what entrapment is

Re:Alternative title

[whoever57]

it's not entrapment

Just because it doesn't fit the legal definition of entrapment doesn't mean that it isn't morally entrapment.

In this case, yes, the guy had the desire to do something. However, he did not and would never have had the capability to do anything. There was no public safety justificaton for this FBI operation.

Re: Debunking a myth

[mellon]

Christianity forbids warfare outright (Aquinas notwithstanding), and yet look at all the wars that have been fought in the name of Jesus, and all the "christian nations" that have fought wars for supposedly just causes. If you're going to lay terrorism at the feet of Islam, at least get the rest of the story straight.