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filthy
SFN Die Hard
USA
14408 Posts |
 Posted - 05/23/2009 : 15:54:28
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Link FBI ‘lured dimwits' into terror plot
The arrest of petty crooks over a plan to target Jews has put the use of sting operations under fireTony Allen-Mills, New York
ON the steps of New York city hall on Friday, Michael Bloomberg, the mayor, praised the police officers and federal agents who helped disrupt an apparent terrorist plot to blow up a synagogue and shoot down military aircraft.
The mayor was flanked by more than 100 homeland security and counter-terrorist specialists, all of whom had a hand in an elaborate sting that netted four alleged Muslim extremists. Their plan, according to FBI agents, was to detonate a “fireball that would make the country gasp”.
The operation was acclaimed by New York officials for its success in averting what David Paterson, the state governor, described as “a heinous crime”.
Yet not every New Yorker was impressed by the latest in a long line of purported anti-terrorist triumphs that have supposedly averted tragedy in New York, Chicago, Toronto and several other North American cities since September 11, 2001.
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"What luck for rulers that men do not think." -- Adolf Hitler (1889 - 1945)
"If only we could impeach on the basis of criminal stupidity, 90% of the Rethuglicans and half of the Democrats would be thrown out of office." ~~ P.Z. Myres
"The default position of human nature is to punch the other guy in the face and take his stuff." ~~ Dude
Brother Boot Knife of Warm Humanitarianism,
and Crypto-Communist! 
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HalfMooner
Dingaling
Philippines
15831 Posts |
Posted - 05/24/2009 : 07:38:54 [Permalink]
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The defendants will be able to be represented properly in a real court of law, unlike the "renditioned" detainees and those at Gitmo. The truth can come out, and the fine line between informer and agent provocateur should be exposed to both judge and jury.
I distrust the comments of some of the defense attorneys quoted, such as dismissing them as "dimwits." (Dummies can be criminals, too, just look closely at any prison population.) Stuff like:| “Did they really need all those men in ninja suits with M16 rifles to arrest four idiots?” wondered Kindlon, a former marine sergeant whose main concern is that real terrorists may be plotting undisturbed while domestic US agencies focus on fantasists. “Somewhere, someone in Al-Qaeda must be laughing.” |
Well, yes, having suspects outnumbered during arrest is a very good idea, actually. One doesn't send in a single Dirty Harry.
One needs to ask what would these "dimwits" have been doing if the real Jaish-e-Mohammed or al-Qaeda had been their recruiters, and provided real plastic explosives and a real Stinger?
The quoted anti-entrapment people seem to me to be skipping over questions like how seriously James Cromitie, the plot leader, was working to put together a terror attack. I'm just guessing, but I suspect he was cruising mosques for some time for that purpose before the FBI assigned its snitch.
The trials should establish whether the FBI went over the line and persuaded these guys to attempt something they had no earlier intention to do.
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“Biology is just physics that has begun to smell bad.” —HalfMooner
Here's a link to Moonscape News, and one to its Archive. |
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Dude
SFN Die Hard
USA
6891 Posts |
Posted - 05/24/2009 : 09:18:21 [Permalink]
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I have some concerns about this case as well. I don't doubt that everythiing done by law enforcement was technically legal, but..
They had these guys under surveilance. What possible reason (other than political) could there be to encourage their conspiracy in the way they seem to have done?
If we knew about these guys, and had them under the looking glass, what would the harm have been in leaving them alone to hang themselves? When they bought their first bomb component (from a non-law enforcement source) we could have arrested them. Let them decide their own fate, so to speak.
Instead we had an undercover person encourage them to conspire and then sell them fake explosives...
Seems to me that some one wanted a big case to advance a career, so one was created.
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Ignorance is preferable to error; and he is less remote from the truth who believes nothing, than he who believes what is wrong.
-- Thomas Jefferson
"god :: the last refuge of a man with no answers and no argument." - G. Carlin
Hope, n.
The handmaiden of desperation; the opiate of despair; the illegible signpost on the road to perdition. ~~ da filth |
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Entrapment?
