Now if it turns out that the FBI's version of events is inflated or inaccurate, that's another story, but the shithead was there at the event dialing a number he thought would leave a bunch of people, including many kids, laying dead or maimed.
It may be too early for anyone to know, but the crucial fact to me is how radical this guy was when the fbi first became aware of him. I'd need to hear some pretty convincing evidence of entrapment to believe that anyone who dialed that phone and hit send wasn't a mass murderer.
And I see no reason to wait for this guy to stumble over an actual terrorist, if he's clearly willing to kill, and there's evidence he was soliciting help.
And please, please spare me the troubled teenager defense. Unless there's some very strong evidence of entrapment, a 15 year-old dialing that phone is a murderer. Angst ain't got shit to do with a 19 year-old trying to detonate a truck bomb.
LOL - well, I guess he doesn't do anything to disprove the theory that most latent jihadi suicide bombers / shooters are engineers.
Okay - so he's 19. Technically an adult, but brain development-wise still a teen. He was an immigrant from a country with a terrible history. A foreign teen trying to fit in. His parents got divorced. They were disapproving of his radicalism and giving him shit. A troubled kid.
Then, there's this welcoming group - that accepts him, feels like a family, gives his life important meaning. But this group is associated with terrible violence and reviled by society at large. Be it a US gang, or jihadists - this stuff is VERY appealing to some disaffected young men.
He sounds like a foolish bumbling kid. He had the wrong email address for his 'contact', he couldn't get a ticket he wanted to Yemen, he didn't know where to get bomb making supplies, or what to do with them.
Until the FBI stepped in a guided him every step of the way.
AND, looking at the FBI's history in this country in general - they're full of shit, incompetent, dangerous and I don't trust one goddamn thing they say about anything.
And already the mosque the kid's family went to in Oregon has been firebombed! Jesus fucking Christ. The FBI is doing us NO favors in the 'war on terror'.
LOL - well, I guess he doesn't do anything to disprove the theory that most latent jihadi suicide bombers / shooters are engineers.
Okay - so he's 19. Technically an adult, but brain development-wise still a teen. He was an immigrant from a country with a terrible history. A foreign teen trying to fit in. His parents got divorced. They were disapproving of his radicalism and giving him shit. A troubled kid.
Then, there's this welcoming group - that accepts him, feels like a family, gives his life important meaning. But this group is associated with terrible violence and reviled by society at large. Be it a US gang, or jihadists - this stuff is VERY appealing to some disaffected young men.
He sounds like a foolish bumbling kid. He had the wrong email address for his 'contact', he couldn't get a ticket he wanted to Yemen, he didn't know where to get bomb making supplies, or what to do with them.
Until the FBI stepped in a guided him every step of the way.
AND, looking at the FBI's history in this country in general - they're full of shit, incompetent, dangerous and I don't trust one goddamn thing they say about anything.
And already the mosque the kid's family went to in Oregon has been firebombed! Jesus fucking Christ. The FBI is doing us NO favors in the 'war on terror'.
Awww...the poor disaffected young man from a broken family without a fully developed brain just wanted to take out his angst by killing a bunch of people.
Yeah, cuz the FBI is SO effective in it's war on terror! You GTFO!
I'm not saying I feel sorry for the kid. He's an idiot, clearly.
I'm SAYING, the current approach of the US government, military, FBI. etc. is more than incompetent, it's counterproductive and making things worse and more dangerous for Americans. And their meddling around with this dumb kid is laughable.
And to understand why people join gangs / jihadi movements, etc, is not to condone it. You need to understand it to be able to end it. And just like the police and military war on drugs and gangs in the US and Mexico has been utterly devastating and fomented tons of violence and death, the US approach to terror is similarly wrongheaded and is causing a ton of suffering.
Yeah, cuz the FBI is SO effective in it's war on terror! You GTFO!
I'm not saying I feel sorry for the kid. He's an idiot, clearly.
I'm SAYING, the current approach of the US government, military, FBI. etc. is more than incompetent, it's counterproductive and making things worse and more dangerous for Americans. And their meddling around with this dumb kid is laughable.
And to understand why people join gangs / jihadi movements, etc, is not to condone it. You need to understand it to be able to end it. And just like the police and military war on drugs and gangs in the US and Mexico has been utterly devastating and fomented tons of violence and death, the US approach to terror is similarly wrongheaded and is causing a ton of suffering.
In this case, they were effective.
Read my post about Adam Gadahn...this shit is real and if they saved one person's life they earned their money in this particular case.
How they handle other facets of the war on terror is a different thread.
Yeah, cuz the FBI is SO effective in it's war on terror! You GTFO!
I'm not saying I feel sorry for the kid. He's an idiot, clearly.
I'm SAYING, the current approach of the US government, military, FBI. etc. is more than incompetent, it's counterproductive and making things worse and more dangerous for Americans. And their meddling around with this dumb kid is laughable.
And to understand why people join gangs / jihadi movements, etc, is not to condone it. You need to understand it to be able to end it. And just like the police and military war on drugs and gangs in the US and Mexico has been utterly devastating and fomented tons of violence and death, the US approach to terror is similarly wrongheaded and is causing a ton of suffering.
I'm still waiting for someone to tell me what the FBI should have done once they got the tip about this moron.
Give him a backrub? Offer him a free ticket to Pakistan? Maybe get him a job as a clubhouse attendant for the Trailblazers?
I'm sure he's in Room 101 right now getting a backrub.
Phantom crimes are some Sci-Fi bullshit. We tried it throughout the War on Drugs, locking up thousands of people over crumbs of crack while other people with ounces, even kilos, of powder cocaine got probation, suspended sentences, and community service. It was all cosmetic to assuage the fears of the voting public by creating a boogieman. The same thing is happening now. People with the most blood on their hands are being paid bucket loads of tax payer cash, and every once in a while we sacrifice a retard to make us all feel safer.
If this phantom statistic makes people feel better about the way we are conducting the War on Terror, then I guess it looks like we will be in Afghanistan and Iraq for another decade at least, because in case you didn't know, both places are FUBAR. What that will do to the standard of living here is anybody's guess. But I would venture that we will not be freer or safer or richer.
I'm sure he's in Room 101 right now getting a backrub.
Phantom crimes are some Sci-Fi bullshit. We tried it throughout the War on Drugs, locking up thousands of people over crumbs of crack while other people with ounces, even kilos, of powder cocaine got probation, suspended sentences, and community service. It was all cosmetic to assuage the fears of the voting public by creating a boogieman. The same thing is happening now. People with the most blood on their hands are being paid bucket loads of tax payer cash, and every once in a while we sacrifice a retard to make us all feel safer.
If this phantom statistic makes people feel better about the way we are conducting the War on Terror, then I guess it looks like we will be in Afghanistan and Iraq for another decade at least, because in case you didn't know, both places are FUBAR. What that will do to the standard of living here is anybody's guess. But I would venture that we will not be freer or safer or richer.
Left leaning soulstrut LOL.
So to be genuinely left leaning one would have to support what, exactly? Giving this kid daily humjobs and a bag of cash?
I'm still waiting for an answer to the question: What should the FBI have done once they got the tip?
I'm sure he's in Room 101 right now getting a backrub.
Phantom crimes are some Sci-Fi bullshit. We tried it throughout the War on Drugs, locking up thousands of people over crumbs of crack while other people with ounces, even kilos, of powder cocaine got probation, suspended sentences, and community service. It was all cosmetic to assuage the fears of the voting public by creating a boogieman. The same thing is happening now. People with the most blood on their hands are being paid bucket loads of tax payer cash, and every once in a while we sacrifice a retard to make us all feel safer.
If this phantom statistic makes people feel better about the way we are conducting the War on Terror, then I guess it looks like we will be in Afghanistan and Iraq for another decade at least, because in case you didn't know, both places are FUBAR. What that will do to the standard of living here is anybody's guess. But I would venture that we will not be freer or safer or richer.
Left leaning soulstrut LOL.
So to be genuinely left leaning one would have to support what, exactly? Giving this kid daily humjobs and a bag of cash?
I'm still waiting for an answer to the question: What should the FBI have done once they got the tip?
Counseling......a big hug.....a check for any inconvenience....and a home version of the Al Queda Milgram Experiment board game.
real life proof of the 4 lions thesis IMO (y'all should watch that film) - that real life terrorists are often hapless disconnected young men whose lack of real capability, knowledge or destructive ability make them a threat to noone but themselves. clearly this young man had no chance of assembling a bomb, getting any terrorist training (he couldn't even get a visa for fucksakes) or hurting anyone until the FBI decided they could make a pyrrhic victory out of his capture.
real life proof of the 4 lions thesis IMO (y'all should watch that film) - that real life terrorists are often hapless disconnected young men whose lack of real capability, knowledge or destructive ability make them a threat to noone but themselves. clearly this young man had no chance of assembling a bomb, getting any terrorist training (he couldn't even get a visa for fucksakes) or hurting anyone until the FBI decided they could make a pyrrhic victory out of his capture.
You're misusing "pyrrhic victory."
So (even though you don't specifially say so) I'm guessing you think they should have done nothing.
And I don't have any terrorist training or any bomb-making knowledge, but if I was pissed off and crazy enough it wouldn't exactly be hard for me to hurt people.
I'm sure he's in Room 101 right now getting a backrub.
Phantom crimes are some Sci-Fi bullshit. We tried it throughout the War on Drugs, locking up thousands of people over crumbs of crack while other people with ounces, even kilos, of powder cocaine got probation, suspended sentences, and community service. It was all cosmetic to assuage the fears of the voting public by creating a boogieman. The same thing is happening now. People with the most blood on their hands are being paid bucket loads of tax payer cash, and every once in a while we sacrifice a retard to make us all feel safer.
If this phantom statistic makes people feel better about the way we are conducting the War on Terror, then I guess it looks like we will be in Afghanistan and Iraq for another decade at least, because in case you didn't know, both places are FUBAR. What that will do to the standard of living here is anybody's guess. But I would venture that we will not be freer or safer or richer.
Left leaning soulstrut LOL.
So to be genuinely left leaning one would have to support what, exactly? Giving this kid daily humjobs and a bag of cash?
I'm still waiting for an answer to the question: What should the FBI have done once they got the tip?
Counseling......a big hug.....a check for any inconvenience....and a home version of the Al Queda Milgram Experiment board game.
Maybe pay his expenses so he can go on the Adam Gadahn Comedy Tour.
I'm sure he's in Room 101 right now getting a backrub.
Phantom crimes are some Sci-Fi bullshit. We tried it throughout the War on Drugs, locking up thousands of people over crumbs of crack while other people with ounces, even kilos, of powder cocaine got probation, suspended sentences, and community service. It was all cosmetic to assuage the fears of the voting public by creating a boogieman. The same thing is happening now. People with the most blood on their hands are being paid bucket loads of tax payer cash, and every once in a while we sacrifice a retard to make us all feel safer.
If this phantom statistic makes people feel better about the way we are conducting the War on Terror, then I guess it looks like we will be in Afghanistan and Iraq for another decade at least, because in case you didn't know, both places are FUBAR. What that will do to the standard of living here is anybody's guess. But I would venture that we will not be freer or safer or richer.
Left leaning soulstrut LOL.
So to be genuinely left leaning one would have to support what, exactly? Giving this kid daily humjobs and a bag of cash?
I'm still waiting for an answer to the question: What should the FBI have done once they got the tip?
Counseling......a big hug.....a check for any inconvenience....and a home version of the Al Queda Milgram Experiment board game.
Yes, that's clearly what we want.
Listen, I'm not as worried about the Tea Party as I am about supposedly informed, "clear thinkers" who watch what amounts to a Holiday special where the FBI swoops down and stops the Grinch from blowing the Who's to bits as they sing Who carols around their Christmas tree and react uncritically, with perhaps the added benefit of a tear in their eye.
If this kind of thing isn't setting off your bullshit detector, then you need to change the batteries.
What was the FBI supposed to do? Watch him, and maybe, just maybe, should he make contact with REAL terrorists, we get them in the deal.
I'm sure he's in Room 101 right now getting a backrub.
Phantom crimes are some Sci-Fi bullshit. We tried it throughout the War on Drugs, locking up thousands of people over crumbs of crack while other people with ounces, even kilos, of powder cocaine got probation, suspended sentences, and community service. It was all cosmetic to assuage the fears of the voting public by creating a boogieman. The same thing is happening now. People with the most blood on their hands are being paid bucket loads of tax payer cash, and every once in a while we sacrifice a retard to make us all feel safer.
If this phantom statistic makes people feel better about the way we are conducting the War on Terror, then I guess it looks like we will be in Afghanistan and Iraq for another decade at least, because in case you didn't know, both places are FUBAR. What that will do to the standard of living here is anybody's guess. But I would venture that we will not be freer or safer or richer.
Left leaning soulstrut LOL.
So to be genuinely left leaning one would have to support what, exactly? Giving this kid daily humjobs and a bag of cash?
I'm still waiting for an answer to the question: What should the FBI have done once they got the tip?
Nothing, you know like when they got the memos entitled "Bin Laden determined to strike within US".
You've always demonstrated clearly that you are a DU/DLC dittomonkey. If this manufactured event had happened with Bush in office you would be spinning it very differently. Fact.
Millions of people in this country want to harm many others in this country, some of them are muslim, some of them live in the wilds of Montana. They all get up every day to eat breakfast, send their kids to school, and maybe head to Walmart to buy a new phone charger. And the country still exists. If the FBI spent the same money and energy entrapping young Aryan Nation rednecks, the country, starting with the House of Reps, would go apeshit. Parts of the country would have National Guard mobilized and you'd feel like you were living in the Green Zone. So we leave it alone and just get on with things because it solves nothing in fact would create more sympathizers.
Here's a fucking novel idea: stop voting for this, BobLarryMoe.
real life terrorists are often hapless disconnected young men whose lack of real capability, knowledge or destructive ability make them a threat to noone but themselves. .
Meet Adam Pearlman....he is real, not a thesis.
I've been friends with his father for 20 years.....he told me he never in his wildest dreams imagined his son was capable of becoming what he has become.
In a short period of time, Gadahn became a senior commander to Bin Laden and is assumed to be playing the role of "translator, video producer, and cultural interpreter???
Here is a story about him from The New Yorker that I was interviewed for....
Would this kid in Portland or Hosam Smadi who was convicted in Dallas earlier this year under similar circumstances become the next Adam Gadahn?......there's no way to know....but there certainly is a greater than zero chance they could have, and they demonstrated their desire to do just that.
Rock, no disrespect but it seems like every single moral/political argument on this site involves you taking an outrageous exception or peculiarity and passing it off as the norm, even when the weight of statistics and daily events points to the opposite.
Would this kid in Portland or Hosam Smadi who was convicted in Dallas earlier this year under similar circumstances become the next Adam Gadahn?......there's no way to know....but there certainly is a greater than zero chance they could have, and they demonstrated their desire to do just that.
Should we start arresting and detaining people on a "greater than zero chance" that they might commit a crime?
Once again, the system is not supposed to work that way.
As Sport Casual stated, this country of around 300,000,000 people is full of 'potentially violent' folks, many of them, surprisingly enough, domestically bred white people, who spend much of their time trafficking on the intertubes in seditious, threatening chest beating.
Like the man said, let's start rounding up and penning that pack of douchetards and see what happens.
Of course that's not going to happen, no matter how many guns they have, because it would be an affront to our system of justice and the American way, which these days seems to have a lot of blind spots in it.
Rock, no disrespect but it seems like every single moral/political argument on this site involves you taking an outrageous exception or peculiarity and passing it off as the norm, even when the weight of statistics and daily events points to the opposite.
Yeah dude....."exception of peculiarity"
SportCasual said:
If the FBI spent the same money and energy entrapping young Aryan Nation rednecks, the country, starting with the House of Reps, would go apeshit. .
A secret FBI report, obtained by ABC News, identifies 22 domestic terror organizations as the current subjects of 338 active FBI field investigations.
The Aryan Nations, and other white supremacist groups, are cited in the report for hate crimes, fire bombings, threats via mail, as well as robberies and murders. The National Alliance, one of the largest neo-Nazi organizations in the world, is subject to 51 FBI investigations alone, according to the report.
Just recently, officials in Riverside, Calif., discovered a huge collection of automatic weapons, narcotics and Nazi paraphernalia -- the efforts, they suspect, of a volunteer high school football coach and the teenagers he had recruited for a neo-Nazi group. Among the weapons cache, Riverside County Sheriff's Department deputies and the FBI found over 75 firearms, 15,000 rounds of ammunition and several bulletproof vests. The coach and 18 others are awaiting trial.
Rock, no disrespect but it seems like every single moral/political argument on this site involves you taking an outrageous exception or peculiarity and passing it off as the norm, even when the weight of statistics and daily events points to the opposite.
Yeah dude....."exception of peculiarity"
SportCasual said:
If the FBI spent the same money and energy entrapping young Aryan Nation rednecks, the country, starting with the House of Reps, would go apeshit. .
A secret FBI report, obtained by ABC News, identifies 22 domestic terror organizations as the current subjects of 338 active FBI field investigations.
The Aryan Nations, and other white supremacist groups, are cited in the report for hate crimes, fire bombings, threats via mail, as well as robberies and murders. The National Alliance, one of the largest neo-Nazi organizations in the world, is subject to 51 FBI investigations alone, according to the report.
Just recently, officials in Riverside, Calif., discovered a huge collection of automatic weapons, narcotics and Nazi paraphernalia -- the efforts, they suspect, of a volunteer high school football coach and the teenagers he had recruited for a neo-Nazi group. Among the weapons cache, Riverside County Sheriff's Department deputies and the FBI found over 75 firearms, 15,000 rounds of ammunition and several bulletproof vests. The coach and 18 others are awaiting trial.
Where was the FBI when the Glenn Beck fan got into a gun battle with the police when he was on his way to shoot up the ACLU and an environmental foundation?
Would this kid in Portland or Hosam Smadi who was convicted in Dallas earlier this year under similar circumstances become the next Adam Gadahn?......there's no way to know....but there certainly is a greater than zero chance they could have, and they demonstrated their desire to do just that.
Should we start arresting and detaining people on a "greater than zero chance" that they might commit a crime?
Once again, the system is not supposed to work that way.
As Sport Casual stated, this country of around 300,000,000 people is full of 'potentially violent' folks, many of them, surprisingly enough, domestically bred white people, who spend much of their time trafficking on the intertubes in seditious, threatening chest beating.
Like the man said, let's start rounding up and penning that pack of douchetards and see what happens.
Of course that's not going to happen, no matter how many guns they have, because it would be an affront to our system of justice and the American way, which these days seems to have a lot of blind spots in it.
Jeeez....You're acting like they saw this kid walking down the street and said "He looks Muslim therefore he may commit a crime" and arrested him.
Rock, no disrespect but it seems like every single moral/political argument on this site involves you taking an outrageous exception or peculiarity and passing it off as the norm, even when the weight of statistics and daily events points to the opposite.
Yeah dude....."exception of peculiarity"
SportCasual said:
If the FBI spent the same money and energy entrapping young Aryan Nation rednecks, the country, starting with the House of Reps, would go apeshit. .
A secret FBI report, obtained by ABC News, identifies 22 domestic terror organizations as the current subjects of 338 active FBI field investigations.
The Aryan Nations, and other white supremacist groups, are cited in the report for hate crimes, fire bombings, threats via mail, as well as robberies and murders. The National Alliance, one of the largest neo-Nazi organizations in the world, is subject to 51 FBI investigations alone, according to the report.
Five years old.
Just recently, officials in Riverside, Calif., discovered a huge collection of automatic weapons, narcotics and Nazi paraphernalia -- the efforts, they suspect, of a volunteer high school football coach and the teenagers he had recruited for a neo-Nazi group. Among the weapons cache, Riverside County Sheriff's Department deputies and the FBI found over 75 firearms, 15,000 rounds of ammunition and several bulletproof vests. The coach and 18 others are awaiting trial.
The legal defense of entrapment was first recognized by the Supreme Court in the 1932 case Sorrels v. U.S., in which the court decided that entrapment occurred when ???the design originates with the officials of the Government, and they implant in the mind of an innocent person the disposition to commit the offense.??? But who is to determine whether a person has such a disposition, and how?
Rock, no disrespect but it seems like every single moral/political argument on this site involves you taking an outrageous exception or peculiarity and passing it off as the norm, even when the weight of statistics and daily events points to the opposite.
Yeah dude....."exception of peculiarity"
SportCasual said:
If the FBI spent the same money and energy entrapping young Aryan Nation rednecks, the country, starting with the House of Reps, would go apeshit. .
A secret FBI report, obtained by ABC News, identifies 22 domestic terror organizations as the current subjects of 338 active FBI field investigations.
The Aryan Nations, and other white supremacist groups, are cited in the report for hate crimes, fire bombings, threats via mail, as well as robberies and murders. The National Alliance, one of the largest neo-Nazi organizations in the world, is subject to 51 FBI investigations alone, according to the report.
Five years old.
Just recently, officials in Riverside, Calif., discovered a huge collection of automatic weapons, narcotics and Nazi paraphernalia -- the efforts, they suspect, of a volunteer high school football coach and the teenagers he had recruited for a neo-Nazi group. Among the weapons cache, Riverside County Sheriff's Department deputies and the FBI found over 75 firearms, 15,000 rounds of ammunition and several bulletproof vests. The coach and 18 others are awaiting trial.
Yep.....five years old....which means it might as well not have even happened.
smh
I was editing my post when you replied.
There were examples of actual, right wing violence, perpetrated while the FBI apparently had their thumbs up their ass (especially in the Tiller case) or were otherwise occupied chasing phantoms.
The legal defense of entrapment was first recognized by the Supreme Court in the 1932 case Sorrels v. U.S., in which the court decided that entrapment occurred when ???the design originates with the officials of the Government, and they implant in the mind of an innocent person the disposition to commit the offense.??? But who is to determine whether a person has such a disposition, and how?
The Thought Police, that's who!
You don't need Thought Police to catch someone who writes articles for the magazine Jihad Recollections or exchanges emails with a known Al Queda recruiter.
BTW....as far as peculiar exceptions go...there are more American citizens who have actually joined Al Queda than those arrested for just wanting to become a murdering terrorists.
Have we gotten this far without someone pointing out the silent third partner in all this?
This kind of story plays out really well in a media climate in which arresting a potential "radical Islamist in our midst!!!" is going to make headlines a lot easier than, say, arresting a White supremacist.
The FBI might, indeed, be incompetent and have misguided priorities but let's face it: we don't know about what they do outside of the tiny fraction of "cases" that get broken to the public. This happens to be high-profile in a way that other, more "credible" cases may get glossed over.
It seems to me that there's two different arguments happening in the thread, one of which wants to scrutinize the FBI over their general handling of, well, everything (and I doubt a single soul on this board is going to defend their overall record). The other is trying to point out the specifics of this case and whether the FBI overreacted/entrapped/etc. On a certain level, I just don't think the two can be conflated.
Have we gotten this far without someone pointing out the silent third partner in all this?
This kind of story plays out really well in a media climate in which arresting a potential "radical Islamist in our midst!!!" is going to make headlines a lot easier than, say, arresting a White supremacist.
The FBI might, indeed, be incompetent and have misguided priorities but let's face it: we don't know about what they do outside of the tiny fraction of "cases" that get broken to the public. This happens to be high-profile in a way that other, more "credible" cases may get glossed over.
It seems to me that there's two different arguments happening in the thread, one of which wants to scrutinize the FBI over their general handling of, well, everything (and I doubt a single soul on this board is going to defend their overall record). The other is trying to point out the specifics of this case and whether the FBI overreacted/entrapped/etc. On a certain level, I just don't think the two can be conflated.
real life proof of the 4 lions thesis IMO (y'all should watch that film) - that real life terrorists are often hapless disconnected young men whose lack of real capability, knowledge or destructive ability make them a threat to noone but themselves. clearly this young man had no chance of assembling a bomb, getting any terrorist training (he couldn't even get a visa for fucksakes) or hurting anyone until the FBI decided they could make a pyrrhic victory out of his capture.
You're misusing "pyrrhic victory."
So (even though you don't specifially say so) I'm guessing you think they should have done nothing.
erm, no. a pyrrhic victory is just that - a victory where nothing has actually been acheived. there was no bomb, there were no means to make one, there was no contact with actual terrorists. all there was - an angry teenager with a misguided desire to channel anger and depression into destruction based on shaky ideological foundations. rather like the average 19 year old US military recruit i would think.
a more appropriate response might have been-
-threat assessment - member of a cell? no. ability to create weapons, disseminate knowledge and training? none. cause for concern? yes. put him under surveillance.
-psychological profiling - what's his motivation for jihad? dropped out of college, shit family situation, disenfranchised and in need of direction. politically engaged. fine, put him under surveillance.
There's an enormous amount of change that goes through us all at that age. You can go from political protestor to right wing advocate in 5 years. I don't think theres anyway you can consider the FBI's response to this as proportionate. The war on terror is fought on many fronts and the media is a key battlefield. This was an expensive PR exercise. Perhaps it works as a deterrent but i reckon the real badguys just use this as fuel for the fire.
Comments
It may be too early for anyone to know, but the crucial fact to me is how radical this guy was when the fbi first became aware of him. I'd need to hear some pretty convincing evidence of entrapment to believe that anyone who dialed that phone and hit send wasn't a mass murderer.
And I see no reason to wait for this guy to stumble over an actual terrorist, if he's clearly willing to kill, and there's evidence he was soliciting help.
And please, please spare me the troubled teenager defense. Unless there's some very strong evidence of entrapment, a 15 year-old dialing that phone is a murderer. Angst ain't got shit to do with a 19 year-old trying to detonate a truck bomb.
Okay - so he's 19. Technically an adult, but brain development-wise still a teen. He was an immigrant from a country with a terrible history. A foreign teen trying to fit in. His parents got divorced. They were disapproving of his radicalism and giving him shit. A troubled kid.
Then, there's this welcoming group - that accepts him, feels like a family, gives his life important meaning. But this group is associated with terrible violence and reviled by society at large. Be it a US gang, or jihadists - this stuff is VERY appealing to some disaffected young men.
He sounds like a foolish bumbling kid. He had the wrong email address for his 'contact', he couldn't get a ticket he wanted to Yemen, he didn't know where to get bomb making supplies, or what to do with them.
Until the FBI stepped in a guided him every step of the way.
AND, looking at the FBI's history in this country in general - they're full of shit, incompetent, dangerous and I don't trust one goddamn thing they say about anything.
And already the mosque the kid's family went to in Oregon has been firebombed! Jesus fucking Christ. The FBI is doing us NO favors in the 'war on terror'.
Awww...the poor disaffected young man from a broken family without a fully developed brain just wanted to take out his angst by killing a bunch of people.
GTFOOHWTBS.
I'm not saying I feel sorry for the kid. He's an idiot, clearly.
I'm SAYING, the current approach of the US government, military, FBI. etc. is more than incompetent, it's counterproductive and making things worse and more dangerous for Americans. And their meddling around with this dumb kid is laughable.
And to understand why people join gangs / jihadi movements, etc, is not to condone it. You need to understand it to be able to end it. And just like the police and military war on drugs and gangs in the US and Mexico has been utterly devastating and fomented tons of violence and death, the US approach to terror is similarly wrongheaded and is causing a ton of suffering.
In this case, they were effective.
Read my post about Adam Gadahn...this shit is real and if they saved one person's life they earned their money in this particular case.
How they handle other facets of the war on terror is a different thread.
I'm still waiting for someone to tell me what the FBI should have done once they got the tip about this moron.
Give him a backrub? Offer him a free ticket to Pakistan? Maybe get him a job as a clubhouse attendant for the Trailblazers?
Phantom crimes are some Sci-Fi bullshit. We tried it throughout the War on Drugs, locking up thousands of people over crumbs of crack while other people with ounces, even kilos, of powder cocaine got probation, suspended sentences, and community service. It was all cosmetic to assuage the fears of the voting public by creating a boogieman. The same thing is happening now. People with the most blood on their hands are being paid bucket loads of tax payer cash, and every once in a while we sacrifice a retard to make us all feel safer.
If this phantom statistic makes people feel better about the way we are conducting the War on Terror, then I guess it looks like we will be in Afghanistan and Iraq for another decade at least, because in case you didn't know, both places are FUBAR. What that will do to the standard of living here is anybody's guess. But I would venture that we will not be freer or safer or richer.
Left leaning soulstrut LOL.
I feel no more or less safe now that he is in custody.
But to ignore him because of failed wars on drugs and terror elsewhere is pretty absurd.
So to be genuinely left leaning one would have to support what, exactly? Giving this kid daily humjobs and a bag of cash?
I'm still waiting for an answer to the question: What should the FBI have done once they got the tip?
Counseling......a big hug.....a check for any inconvenience....and a home version of the Al Queda Milgram Experiment board game.
You're misusing "pyrrhic victory."
So (even though you don't specifially say so) I'm guessing you think they should have done nothing.
And I don't have any terrorist training or any bomb-making knowledge, but if I was pissed off and crazy enough it wouldn't exactly be hard for me to hurt people.
Maybe pay his expenses so he can go on the Adam Gadahn Comedy Tour.
Yes, that's clearly what we want.
Listen, I'm not as worried about the Tea Party as I am about supposedly informed, "clear thinkers" who watch what amounts to a Holiday special where the FBI swoops down and stops the Grinch from blowing the Who's to bits as they sing Who carols around their Christmas tree and react uncritically, with perhaps the added benefit of a tear in their eye.
If this kind of thing isn't setting off your bullshit detector, then you need to change the batteries.
What was the FBI supposed to do? Watch him, and maybe, just maybe, should he make contact with REAL terrorists, we get them in the deal.
Nothing, you know like when they got the memos entitled "Bin Laden determined to strike within US".
You've always demonstrated clearly that you are a DU/DLC dittomonkey. If this manufactured event had happened with Bush in office you would be spinning it very differently. Fact.
Millions of people in this country want to harm many others in this country, some of them are muslim, some of them live in the wilds of Montana. They all get up every day to eat breakfast, send their kids to school, and maybe head to Walmart to buy a new phone charger. And the country still exists. If the FBI spent the same money and energy entrapping young Aryan Nation rednecks, the country, starting with the House of Reps, would go apeshit. Parts of the country would have National Guard mobilized and you'd feel like you were living in the Green Zone. So we leave it alone and just get on with things because it solves nothing in fact would create more sympathizers.
Here's a fucking novel idea: stop voting for this, BobLarryMoe.
Meet Adam Pearlman....he is real, not a thesis.
I've been friends with his father for 20 years.....he told me he never in his wildest dreams imagined his son was capable of becoming what he has become.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Adam_Yahiye_Gadahn
In a short period of time, Gadahn became a senior commander to Bin Laden and is assumed to be playing the role of "translator, video producer, and cultural interpreter???
Here is a story about him from The New Yorker that I was interviewed for....
http://www.newyorker.com/reporting/2007/01/22/070122fa_fact_khatchadourian
Would this kid in Portland or Hosam Smadi who was convicted in Dallas earlier this year under similar circumstances become the next Adam Gadahn?......there's no way to know....but there certainly is a greater than zero chance they could have, and they demonstrated their desire to do just that.
Should we start arresting and detaining people on a "greater than zero chance" that they might commit a crime?
Once again, the system is not supposed to work that way.
As Sport Casual stated, this country of around 300,000,000 people is full of 'potentially violent' folks, many of them, surprisingly enough, domestically bred white people, who spend much of their time trafficking on the intertubes in seditious, threatening chest beating.
Like the man said, let's start rounding up and penning that pack of douchetards and see what happens.
Of course that's not going to happen, no matter how many guns they have, because it would be an affront to our system of justice and the American way, which these days seems to have a lot of blind spots in it.
Yeah dude....."exception of peculiarity"
A secret FBI report, obtained by ABC News, identifies 22 domestic terror organizations as the current subjects of 338 active FBI field investigations.
The Aryan Nations, and other white supremacist groups, are cited in the report for hate crimes, fire bombings, threats via mail, as well as robberies and murders. The National Alliance, one of the largest neo-Nazi organizations in the world, is subject to 51 FBI investigations alone, according to the report.
Just recently, officials in Riverside, Calif., discovered a huge collection of automatic weapons, narcotics and Nazi paraphernalia -- the efforts, they suspect, of a volunteer high school football coach and the teenagers he had recruited for a neo-Nazi group. Among the weapons cache, Riverside County Sheriff's Department deputies and the FBI found over 75 firearms, 15,000 rounds of ammunition and several bulletproof vests. The coach and 18 others are awaiting trial.
http://abcnews.go.com/WNT/Investigation/story?id=681288&page=1
That story/report is five years old.
Where was the FBI when the Glenn Beck fan got into a gun battle with the police when he was on his way to shoot up the ACLU and an environmental foundation?
http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2010/07/21/MNMN1EHB37.DTL
Or last year when Dr George Tiller was assassinated after years of threats?
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2009/05/31/george-tiller-killed-abor_n_209504.html
Jeeez....You're acting like they saw this kid walking down the street and said "He looks Muslim therefore he may commit a crime" and arrested him.
Yep.....five years old....which means it might as well not have even happened.
smh
The Thought Police, that's who!
I was editing my post when you replied.
There were examples of actual, right wing violence, perpetrated while the FBI apparently had their thumbs up their ass (especially in the Tiller case) or were otherwise occupied chasing phantoms.
You don't need Thought Police to catch someone who writes articles for the magazine Jihad Recollections or exchanges emails with a known Al Queda recruiter.
BTW....as far as peculiar exceptions go...there are more American citizens who have actually joined Al Queda than those arrested for just wanting to become a murdering terrorists.
This kind of story plays out really well in a media climate in which arresting a potential "radical Islamist in our midst!!!" is going to make headlines a lot easier than, say, arresting a White supremacist.
The FBI might, indeed, be incompetent and have misguided priorities but let's face it: we don't know about what they do outside of the tiny fraction of "cases" that get broken to the public. This happens to be high-profile in a way that other, more "credible" cases may get glossed over.
It seems to me that there's two different arguments happening in the thread, one of which wants to scrutinize the FBI over their general handling of, well, everything (and I doubt a single soul on this board is going to defend their overall record). The other is trying to point out the specifics of this case and whether the FBI overreacted/entrapped/etc. On a certain level, I just don't think the two can be conflated.
Fascinating
erm, no. a pyrrhic victory is just that - a victory where nothing has actually been acheived. there was no bomb, there were no means to make one, there was no contact with actual terrorists. all there was - an angry teenager with a misguided desire to channel anger and depression into destruction based on shaky ideological foundations. rather like the average 19 year old US military recruit i would think.
a more appropriate response might have been-
-threat assessment - member of a cell? no. ability to create weapons, disseminate knowledge and training? none. cause for concern? yes. put him under surveillance.
-psychological profiling - what's his motivation for jihad? dropped out of college, shit family situation, disenfranchised and in need of direction. politically engaged. fine, put him under surveillance.
There's an enormous amount of change that goes through us all at that age. You can go from political protestor to right wing advocate in 5 years. I don't think theres anyway you can consider the FBI's response to this as proportionate. The war on terror is fought on many fronts and the media is a key battlefield. This was an expensive PR exercise. Perhaps it works as a deterrent but i reckon the real badguys just use this as fuel for the fire.