Headline news is that four gullible black men have been arrested in New York by the FBI, after an agent provocateur operation presuaded them to try and blow up a synagogue and “Shoot down military aircraft”.
The FBI say they are a “homegrown” cell of four with no outside links to terror organisations. The FBI agent provocateur helpfully suggested targets to them and offered to provide them with weapons and equipment. There can never have been a more blatant example of a “Terror threat” generated by the authorities.
Obama of course desperately needed a terror threat to justify his stunning U turns. He is keeping Guantanamo open, continuing fake “trial” military tribunals there, continuing to bar detainees there from UK courts as “non-persons”, continuing the use of evidence from waterboarding and other torture, continuing spying on his own people under the Patriot Act, continuing extraordinary rendition, and refusing to release the photographic evidence of the torture.
Hard to justify all that, given the limited evidence of a real terror threat. But, Hey! Now we have the “Groom a Terrorist” programme. Find four angry and frustrated black men, tell them they can blow things up and offer to give them the means.
Instant terrorists.
The FBI spokesman said the “Leader” of the group (strikes me the leader was the agent provocateur) was motivated by “Anger at the deaths in Afghanistan caused by the US military.” There could not be a more complete rebuttal of the nonesense uttered by both Brown and Obama, that we have to fight in Afghanistan to keep us safe at home.
https://www.craigmurray.org.uk/archives/2009/04/hillary_and_pak.html
I’m inclined to give BO a *little* leeway on the Guantanamo business. Clearly they can’t just turn the inmates out of the front door and leave a few thousand guys in orange jumpsuits wondering the back streets of Havana. They have to send them *somewhere*, and I’m prepared to believe that the logistics of taking it all apart just might have been a bigger job than was apparent to BO on his first morning in the oval office… but one should certainly keep an eye on it. Continuation of the mock trials is not a good sign…
On the PLUS side for the BO administration so far, it’s nice to see the US government are in charge of the US car industry instead of the other way around for a change.
Just seen these guys being led away in cuffs on TV, the way their heads are lolling around suggests either sleep deprivation or drugging as they appear completely spaced out. What are the odds this bunch turn out to have low IQs and self esteem like the Sears Tower ‘plotters’.
Noting that the US Senate has voted 90-6 against granting the $80m funding proposed by Obama for the closure of Guantanamo.
When I heard this ‘news’ coming over the Radio 4 airwaves, I thought to myself ‘here we go again’.
Did anyone hear Naughtie chatting away to a Peter Wehner who worked in Karl Rove’s office? There was an almost clinical discussion about whether Obama will close Guantanamo and what will become of the those people still incarcerated there. It was amazing that Naughtie could chat away in this manner to a war criminal when he must know that many of the unfortunate prisoners (a high proportion of whom are innocent) have lost their minds in Guantanamo and have been subjected to torture. Clive Stafford Smith was also spesking.
Link to the audio –
http://news.bbc.co.uk/today/hi/today/newsid_8060000/8060855.stm
There are two very interesting and at the same time shocking links on medialens this morning. One concerns a patient having to undergo an examination by his GP at the behest of the FTAC (Fixated Threat Assessment Centre) and the other one is about the method of recruiting four UK Muslims into MI5.
Be careful what you say about Jacqui Smith – noamswampy Today, 9:52 am
How MI5 blackmails British Muslims – MikeD Today, 8:05 am
Oh come on Chris. Just when are you going to emerge from your own illusions?
U.S. Attack Killed 140 Villagers – Afghan Probe
By Hamid Shalizi and Peter Graff
“A copy of the government’s list of the names,
ages and father’s names of each of the 140 dead
was obtained by Reuters earlier this week. It shows
that 93 of those killed were children — the youngest eight days old —
and only 22 were adult males.”
http://informationclearinghouse.info/article22635.htm
May 09 / 10, 2009After US Strikes, Afghans Describe
“Tractor Trailers Full of Pieces of Human Bodies”
same URL but article = /article22578.htm
You give leeway to that.
Sleep well.
Yeah, I bet it was those same CIA agents who blew up the Twin Towers, eh?
it was an FBI agent, not the CIA. And the FBI themselves have said they proposed the target and supplied the dummy weapons.
Which fact precisely do you wish to dispute, Brendan?
“Yeah, I bet it was those same CIA agents who blew up the Twin Towers, eh?”
Seriously, at what point does infiltration become entrapment, and then shade into complicity? The distinctions are subtle. It’s all so reminiscent of The Man Who Was Thursday.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Man_Who_Was_Thursday
Chris, it gives me no pleasure in having to conclude that there is no ‘plus’ side to the Obama administration. President Obama’s moral high ground has caved in beneath his feet with his craven willingness to bow to pressure from the US military industrial complex (with help from their loathsome cheerleader Dick Cheney). Here’s a link to some of the photos President Obama wants to suppress. They are deeply disturbing.
http://www.smh.com.au/ftimages/2006/02/15/1139890768716.html
Craig – waiting to hear your views on the Obama Middle East “peace proposal” for Israel/Palestine!
Are our ‘terrorists’ similarly recruited? See today’s independent.
http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/home-news/exclusive-how-mi5-blackmails-british-muslims-1688618.html
More on the New York ‘plot’ here:
http://www.prisonplanet.com/new-york-terror-plot-another-government-provocateured-set-up.html
According to the New York Times the men themselves intended to attack American targets, but that once they chose their targets, the FBI agent got them fake weapons. They appear to have attempted what they believed to be murder, and therefore I don’t have much sympathy for them.
However MI5’s behaviour appears disgraceful, similar to the KGB in getting people to join as informers willy-nilly. There must be some real idiots in the secret services, and the sooner they share the fate of MPs caught seriously misusing public resources, the better. After the next election, I look forward to learning that these reincarnated Soviets have been booted out unceremoniously (i.e. no gong for them except the one from the Gong Show).
Can I just clarify that I am not the ‘Chris’ who posted first here and would seek to distance myself from his/her views.
Is this name duplication a glitch or are there really two of me?
I would appreciate an answer…. Craig? Anyone?….
Abe Rene,
They are quite possibly horrible people. But whether they were any real threat, or would ever have got anywhere near organising to do anything without FBI assistance, I very much doubt.
NYT take is different from BBC this morning. They had been infiltrated for over a year. Provided the trial is public, we will get more detail in a couple of years.
All rather reminiscent of the ‘pizza delivery’ plot on the Fort Dix New Jersey military base. As soon as I saw the first news releases I posted my take on it:
A handful of low-IQ types are selected via internet monitoring. A leader introduces himself, offering expertise and weaponry. This ‘leader’ is working for the intelligence services, attempting to entrap these dullards into making home-grown terrorists of themselves, thus helping to advance the bullshit ‘War of Terror’.
Needless to say, my analysis at the time was quite brutally assaulted. I was accused of many things, including being on the side of the ‘terrorists’. Needless to say, my analysis was also correct.
” The FBI informant paid to infiltrate a band of suspected terrorists in South Jersey said yesterday that he offered to organize their attack on U.S. soldiers, but only because he wanted to build trust and find out more about the group.
“If you appoint me as emir (leader), I should be able to tell you which plan can be done, what can be expected, who should be present and what are the possibilities,” the informant, Mahmoud Omar, told defendant Mohamad Shnewer in a conversation after the two men drove to Fort Dix.
“I am going to be the brain, okay,” he added later. “Until now, I don’t know about anyone involved in this subject … except you and I.”
Shnewer’s attorney, Rocco Cipparone, highlighted the exchanges as he grilled Omar for a third day, trying to show that the only terrorist conspiracy was one planted and nurtured by the informant.”
That playbook’s looking pretty tired, no?
The NY terrorists might not have succeeded in getting materials to put together a small plastics device, but a large amount of relatively crude explosives in a van or lorry might be another matter. So here’s a Q: how easily might they have done an Oklahoma or something similar?
Abe – The OKC bombing is not what it seems. Ask yourself what happened and who was responsible. Get that image firmly in your mind. Then read the following, which are verbatim transcripts of live news from Oklahoma City:
“The first bomb that was in the Federal building did go off. It did the damage that you see right there. The second explosive was found and defused. But the third explosive that was found, they’re working on right now as we speak”. Live broadcast by NewsChannel 4 Oklahoma April 19th 1995
“What we were told at the scene a few minutes ago is that in fact two different explosive devices were found in addition to the one that went off”.
Mike Arnett, Attorney
“One device was deactivated – apparently there’s another device and obviously whatever did the damage to the Murrah Building was a tremendous, very sophisticated explosive device.” Governor Frank Keating
“The medical teams downtown are unable to get into the wreckage to retrieve more of the injured because of the presence of other bombs in the area” unidentified spokesperson
“Two other explosive devices were found – they were not detonated and they were larger than the first” KFOR TV
Any questions?
Craig said:
Provided the trial is public, we will get more detail in a couple of years.
If government sensitive trials involving participating informants in the UK are anything to go by, we may not know much. In the UK these kind of trials are manipulated in various ways; vital disclosure is withheld, evidence is fabricated, the defence particularly counsel works for the prosecution and the judge, who doesn’t want secrets of the inner sanctum revealed, produces a judgment to suit.
Noting that the last batch of home grown “terrorists” apprehended in US by the very same methods, these were asking for uniforms, and incriminated themselves by getting filmed swearing oath of allegiance to “Al Qaeda”. Furthermore noting that historically FBI has been propping up the threat sources, as in the case of KKK chapters, which if it were not for the subscriptions the various FBI informers, paid in lieu of their membership would have resulted in total collapse of KKK. (FBI field agents used to attend the meetings, and get on with their work, along with the rest of the “KKK” membership of the chapter. Ie all the attendants were FBI.
However, ugly fact remains that through the fear bating, and scaremongering the constructs of control are set kept in place.
Noting the request for uniforms, and the swearing in ceremony of the last batch of “terrorists” involved in Sears Tower plot.
This latest “plot” apparently has moved on to; buying the hardware from the FBI. Although as it is the case these days one must await the court hearings, and or later inquests to find the degrees of the relevance and truthfulness in the early day reporting of of such affairs. This is historically proven that the early day reportage of Brazilian Jean Charles de Menezes shooting, was telling of a puffer jacket wearing, running man type, villain, ready to blow the planet to kingdom come, if anyone can still recollect?
Therefore, time will prove as to whether these latest “terrorists” caught up in the net of the FBI are in fact any more than the following;
http://tinyurl.com/2pgnrk
However, more pressing issues of the torture story is somehow getting swamped by the torrents of the opinions of the latter day Fascio whom verily believe anyone left of Hitler (yeah I know) is a fully paid up member of the Communist Party of Shadow USSR in waiting.
As the following will clearly illustrate.
http://tinyurl.com/qgqh9q
http://tinyurl.com/abodv3
http://tinyurl.com/acnwne
http://tinyurl.com/olfozz
Note the comments section, and the ratings of the comments, which is a glimpse into the shenanigans of the Sydney Harmsworth traditions of helping the underdog Fascisti, as it was the case with il Duce the last time around. (curious rating system deployed; any attempts in down click of any of the Fascio’s wisdom in the vogue is registered as four approval clicks of the same).
Meanwhile back at the ranch Obama is press ganged into protecting the child molesters and child rapists in the name of national security. The standards of deviancy deployed make Karimov to appear to be a Sunday School rebel in comparisons to the US torturers’ techniques;
http://tinyurl.com/pp8yhc
“I saw [name blacked out] fucking a kid, his age would be about 15-18 years. The kid was hurting very bad and they covered all the doors with sheets. Then when I heard the screaming I climbed the door because on top it wasn’t covered and I saw [blacked out], who was wearing the military uniform putting his dick in the little kid’s ass,” Mr Hilas told military investigators. “I couldn’t see the face of the kid because his face wasn’t in front of the door. And the female soldier was taking pictures.”
As it can be deduced, it is the same smell but different shit; in the groundhog day lands.
Therefore we can safely assume that yet again the conceptual terrorist are out to influence the course of the events in a direction that no longer makes any sense, even for the wizards any more.
Craig: “But, Hey! Now we have the “Groom a Terrorist” programme. Find four angry and frustrated black men, tell them they can blow things up and offer to give them the means.
Instant terrorists.”
Isn’t it rather condescending to suggest that these four angry and frustrated black men had no choice in the matter? Or does their status as frustrated and angry black men render them exempt from responsibility for their actions?
If you have the vast apparatus of state resources on your side you can pretty much manipulate anything. Look at this was David. Aside from the ‘spectacular’ fabricated attacks of 7/7 and 9/11 how many successful attacks have there been? Pretty much zero to be honest. Well, we had the 21/7 debacle. We had Glasgow airport and Richard Reid. :-0 It’s all scaremongering. So, are we to believe that they just seem to stumble on all the ‘would be attackers’? I don’t mean to patronise. Think about it logically. They need to keep uncovering ‘plots’. If there really were gangs of ‘plotters’ out there we’d know about it by now.
I agree with Jaded. The setting up of people in the UK by the secret services in excise and VAT frauds is highly sophisticated; certain people are targeted, some with little understanding of business or the law in the UK and as a consequence have no idea that what they’re doing is illegal.
With regard to 7/7 I suspect the guys were duped including the informant into thinking they were carrying out a dress rehearsal.
Lord Liverpool would be proud.
Yup whats with all these terrorist attacks having to be so spectacular…it’s all a bit dubious especially just how successful 7/7 and 9/11 were and the thousands of unanswered that still remain and the utter amateurishness and failure of the supposedly “thousands” of attacks we keep getting told about. MI5 is pretty much the best intelligence service in the world, if these low level terrorists keep getting caught with utter ease, how on Earth did all those folk manage to create wreak such spectaculars???
On that note was any one a tiny bit perturbed when the moron Anjem Choudary became spokesman for islam for a month, beginning somewhat coincidentally the same week as that former gitmo inmate wished to talk about his torture?…Does all the recent noises about Abu Graib again start to ring a bell at all?
If there was such a ravenous need to kill us all like the “New York Post” seems to tell us every week, Don’t you think more people would be dead. Hell all you’d need is a brick to place on a train track over here in England and all hell would break loose……I kinda feel that morons like those guys are simply kept on tap, ready for when needs arrive to oil the propoganda wheels again.
Well said Adam. All the teareway teenagers roaming our streets are far, far, far more dangerous than the terorists (lack of) we keep getting warned about. I’m not judging the cretins here, as they have been woefully let down by society. And yes, just one disillusioned muslim could get hold of a gun and go on a shooting spree and do a whole myriad of other terrible things quite easily. But no, we hear about shoe bombs, fertiliser bombs, portable missile launchers aimed at planes, biological attacks, sea attacks, the list goes on… ***BIG, BAD, NASTY, TERRORISTS. MUHAHAHA.*** They have been watching too much ’24’ methinks. It’s the biggest load of codswallop i’ve ever heard. I’m very concerned about the ‘60,000 terrorist spotters’ plan and I just wonder what it will evolve into. The plan was widely mocked, as it should have been, but not many people seemed overly concerned about possible sinister alternative intentions. I think the elites are very worried about the internet and the democratic forces within it. They genuinely fear real change. That ‘60,000 twit squad’ will slowly evolve into a state tool of population repression in my opinion.
rarely have i read such a deluded blog in which nearly everybody seems to have their head up their ass.
OK clearly this is a site where entrapment theory earns support and the theory that the authorities and their informant were able to prevent a violent attack is seen as at best gullible naivety and at worst active acquiescence to unscrupulous state coercion.
But in the event that information comes to light strongly suggesting that those men detained weren’t entrapped unscrupulously, who here will be brave enough to stand up for these revolutionary seekers of justice and say that even had they not been intercepted and instead eventually managed to do damage at a synagogue, even killing or injuring people, it still might be justifiable, if the synagogue, or those of its patrons killed or injured were sympathetic, or at least not opposed to Zionism?
Any takers?
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LQqq3e03EBQ
Yet Another Bogus ‘Terror’ Plot
posted by Robert Dreyfuss on 05/22/2009 @ 07:56am
By the now, it’s maddeningly familiar. A scary terrorist plot is announced. Then it’s revealed that the suspects are a hapless bunch of ne’er-do-wells or run-of-the-mill thugs without the slightest connection to any terrorists at all, never mind to Al Qaeda. Finally, the last piece of the puzzle: the entire plot is revealed to have been cooked up by a scummy government agent-provocateur.
I’ve seen this movie before.
In this case, the alleged perps — Onta Williams, James Cromitie, David Williams, and Laguerre Payen — were losers, ex-cons, drug addicts. Al Qaeda they’re not. Without the assistance of the agent who entrapped them, they would never have dreamed of committing political violence, nor would they have had the slightest idea about where to acquire plastic explosives or a Stinger missile. That didn’t stop prosecutors from acting as if they’d captured Osama bin Laden himself. Noted the Los Angeles Times:
Prosecutors called it the latest in a string of homegrown terrorism plots hatched after Sept. 11.
“It’s hard to envision a more chilling plot,” Assistant U.S. Atty. Eric Snyder said in court Thursday. He described all four suspects as “eager to bring death to Jews.”
Actually, it’s hard to imagine a stupider, less competent, and less important plot. The four losers were ensnared by a creepy FBI agent who hung around the mosque in upstate New York until he found what he was looking for. Here’s the New York Times account:
Salahuddin Mustafa Muhammad, the imam at the mosque where the authorities say the confidential informant first encountered the men, said none of the men were active in the mosque. …
Mr. Cromitie was there last June, and he met a stranger.
He had no way of knowing that the stranger’s path to the mosque began in 2002, when he was arrested on federal charges of identity theft. He was sentenced to five years’ probation, and became a confidential informant for the F.B.I. He began showing up at the mosque in Newburgh around 2007, Mr. Muhammad said.
The stranger’s behavior aroused the imam’s suspicions. He invited other worshipers to meals, and spoke of violence and jihad, so the imam said he steered clear of him.
“There was just something fishy about him,” Mr. Muhammad said. Members “believed he was a government agent.”
Mr. Muhammad said members of his congregation told him the man he believed was the informant offered at least one of them a substantial amount of money to join his “team.”
So a creepy thug buttonholes people at a mosque, foaming at the mouth about violence and jihad? This is law enforcement? Just imagine if someone did this at a local church, or some synagogue. And the imam says the people “believed he was a government agent.”
Preying on these losers, none of whom were apparently actual Muslims, the “confidential informant” orchestrated the acquisition of a disabled Stinger missile to shoot down military planes and cooked up a wild scheme about attacking a Jewish center in the Bronx.
It gets even more pathetic:
The only one of the four suspects who appears to have aroused any suspicion was Payen, a Haitian native who attended the Newburgh mosque. Assistant imam Hamid Rashada said his dishevelment and odd behavior disturbed some members, said the assistant imam, Hamid Rashada.
When Payen appeared in court, defense attorney Marilyn Reader described him as “intellectually challenged” and on medication for schizophrenia. The Associated Press said that when he was asked if he understood the proceedings, Payen replied: “Sort of.”
Despite the pompous statements from Mayor Bloomberg of New York and other politicians, including Representative Peter King, the whole story is bogus. The four losers may have been inclined to violence, and they may have harbored a virulent strain of anti-Semitism. But it seems that the informant whipped up their violent tendencies and their hatred of Jews, cooked up the plot, incited them, arranged their purchase of weapons, and then had them busted. To ensure that it made headlines, the creepy informant claimed to be representing a Pakistani extremist group, Jaish-e Muhammad, a bona fide terrorist organization. He wasn’t, of course.
It is disgusting and outrageous that the FBI is sending provocateurs into mosques.
The headlines reinforce the very fear that Dick Cheney is trying to stir up. The story strengthens the narrative that the “homeland” is under attack. It’s not. As I’ve written repeatedly, since 9/11 not a single American has even been punched in the nose by an angry Muslim, as far as I can tell. Plot after plot — the destruction of the Brooklyn Bridge! bombing the New York Subways! taking down the Sears Tower! bombing the Prudential building in Newark! — proved to be utter nonsense.
http://www.thenation.com/blogs/dreyfuss/437864/yet_another_bogus_terror_plot?rel=hp_picks