Nonstopdrivel
14 years ago

SUNDAY, NOV 28, 2010 06:29 ET
The FBI successfully thwarts its own Terrorist plot
 
BY GLENN GREENWALD

AP
Mohamed Osman Mohamud, in an image released Nov. 27.
(updated below)

[img_r]http://www.salon.com/news/opinion/glenn_greenwald/2010/11/28/fbi/md_horiz.jpg[/img_r]The FBI is obviously quite pleased with itself over its arrest of a 19-year-old Somali-American, Mohamed Osman Mohamud, who -- with months of encouragement, support and money from the FBI's own undercover agents -- allegedly attempted to detonate a bomb at a crowded Christmas event in Portland, Oregon. Media accounts are almost uniformly trumpeting this event exactly as the FBI describes it. Loyalists of both parties are doing the same, with Democratic Party commentators proclaiming that this proves how great and effective Democrats are at stopping The Evil Terrorists, while right-wing polemicists point to this arrest as yet more proof that those menacing Muslims sure are violent and dangerous.

What's missing from all of these celebrations is an iota of questioning or skepticism. All of the information about this episode -- all of it -- comes exclusively from an FBI affidavit filed in connection with a Criminal Complaint against Mohamud. As shocking and upsetting as this may be to some, FBI claims are sometimes one-sided, unreliable and even untrue, especially when such claims -- as here -- are uncorroborated and unexamined. That's why we have what we call "trials" before assuming guilt or even before believing that we know what happened: because the government doesn't always tell the complete truth, because they often skew reality, because things often look much different once the accused is permitted to present his own facts and subject the government's claims to scrutiny. The FBI affidavit -- as well as whatever its agents are whispering into the ears of reporters -- contains only those facts the FBI chose to include, but omits the ones it chose to exclude. And even the "facts" that are included are merely assertions at this point and thus may not be facts at all.

It may very well be that the FBI successfully and within legal limits arrested a dangerous criminal intent on carrying out a serious Terrorist plot that would have killed many innocent people, in which case they deserve praise. Court-approved surveillance and use of undercover agents to infiltrate terrorist plots are legitimate tactics when used in accordance with the law.

But it may also just as easily be the case that the FBI -- as they've done many times in the past -- found some very young, impressionable, disaffected, hapless, aimless, inept loner; created a plot it then persuaded/manipulated/entrapped him to join, essentially turning him into a Terrorist; and then patted itself on the back once it arrested him for having thwarted a "Terrorist plot" which, from start to finish, was entirely the FBI's own concoction. Having stopped a plot which it itself manufactured, the FBI then publicly touts -- and an uncritical media amplifies -- its "success" to the world, thus proving both that domestic Terrorism from Muslims is a serious threat and the Government's vast surveillance powers -- current and future new ones -- are necessary.

There are numerous claims here that merit further scrutiny and questioning. First, the FBI was monitoring the email communications of this American citizen on U.S. soil for months (at least) with what appears to be the flimsiest basis: namely, that he was in email communication with someone in Northwest Pakistan, "an area known to harbor terrorists" (para. 5 of the FBI Affidavit). Is that enough to obtain court approval to eavesdrop on someone's calls and emails? I'm glad the FBI is only eavesdropping with court approval, if that's true, but certainly more should be required for judicial authorization than that. Communicating with someone in Northwest Pakistan is hardly reasonable grounds for suspicion.

Second, in order not to be found to have entrapped someone into committing a crime, law enforcement agents want to be able to prove that, in the 1992 words of the Supreme Court, the accused was "was independently predisposed to commit the crime for which he was arrested." To prove that, undercover agents are often careful to stress that the accused has multiple choices, and they then induce him into choosing with his own volition to commit the crime. In this case, that was achieved by the undercover FBI agent's allegedly advising Mohamud that there were at least five ways he could serve the cause of Islam (including by praying, studying engineering, raising funds to send overseas, or becoming "operational"), and Mohamud replied he wanted to "be operational" by using exploding a bomb (para. 35-37).

But strangely, while all other conversations with Mohamud which the FBI summarizes were (according to the affidavit) recorded by numerous recording devices, this conversation -- the crucial one for negating Mohamud's entrapment defense -- was not. That's because, according to the FBI, the undercover agent "was equipped with audio equipment to record the meeting. However, due to technical problems, the meeting was not recorded" (para. 37).

Thus, we have only the FBI's word, and only its version, for what was said during this crucial -- potentially dispositive -- conversation.
Also strangely: the original New York Times article on this story described this conversation at some length and reported the fact that "that meeting was not recorded due to a technical difficulty," but the final version omitted that, instead simply repeating the FBI's story as though it were fact: "undercover agents in Mr. Mohamuds case offered him several nonfatal ways to serve his cause, including mere prayer. But he told the agents he wanted to be 'operational,' and perhaps execute a car bombing."

Third, there are ample facts that call into question whether Mohamud's actions were driven by the FBI's manipulation and pressure rather than his own predisposition to commit a crime. In June, he attempted to fly to Alaska in order to work on a fishing job he obtained through a friend, but he was on the Government's no-fly list. That caused the FBI to question him at the airport and then bar him from flying to Alaska, and thus prevented him from earning income with this job (para. 25). Having prevented him from working, the money the FBI then pumped him with -- including almost $3,000 in cash for him to rent his own apartment (para. 61) -- surely helped make him receptive to their suggestions and influence. And every other step taken to perpetrate this plot -- from planning its placement to assembling the materials to constructing the bomb -- was all done at the FBI's behest and with its indispensable support and direction.

It's impossible to conceive of Mohamud having achieved anything on his own. Before being ensnared by the FBI, the only tangible action he had taken was to write three articles on "fitness and jihad" for the online magazine Jihad Recollections. At least based on what is known, he had no history of violence, no apparent criminal record, had never been to a training camp in Afghanistan, Pakistan or anywhere else, and -- before meeting the FBI -- had never taken a single step toward harming anyone. Does that sound like some menacing sleeper Terrorist to you?

Finally, there is, as usual, no discussion whatsoever in media accounts of motive. There are several statements attributed to Mohamud by the Affidavit that should be repellent to any decent person, including complete apathy -- even delight -- at the prospect that this bomb would kill innocent people, including children. What would drive a 19-year-old American citizen -- living in the U.S. since the age of 3 -- to that level of sociopathic indifference? He explained it himself in several passages quoted by the FBI, and -- if it weren't for the virtual media blackout of this issue -- this line of reasoning would be extremely familiar to Americans by now (para. 45):

Undercover FBI Agent: You know there's gonna be a lot of children there?

Mohamud: Yeah, I know, that's what I'm looking for.

Undercover FBI Agent: For kids?

Mohamud: No, just for, in general a huge mass that will, like for them you know to be attacked in their own element with their families celebrating the holidays. And then for later to be saying, this was them for you to refrain from killing our children, women . . . . so when they hear all these families were killed in such a city, they'll say you know what your actions, you know they will stop, you know. And it's not fair that they should do that to people and not feeling it.



And here's what he allegedly said in a video he made shortly before he thought he would be detonating the bomb (para. 80):

UserPostedImage
UserPostedImage

We hear the same exact thing over and over and over from accused Terrorists -- that they are attempting to carry out plots in retaliation for past and ongoing American violence against Muslim civilians and to deter such future acts. Here we find one of the great mysteries in American political culture: that the U.S. Government dispatches its military all over the world -- invading, occupying, and bombing multiple Muslim countries -- torturing them, imprisoning them without charges, shooting them up at checkpoints, sending remote-controlled drones to explode their homes, imposing sanctions that starve hundreds of thousands of children to death -- and Americans are then baffled when some Muslims -- an amazingly small percentage -- harbor anger and vengeance toward them and want to return the violence. And here we also find the greatest myth in American political discourse: that engaging in all of that military aggression somehow constitutes Staying Safe and combating Terrorism -- rather than doing more than any single other cause to provoke, sustain and fuel Terrorism.



UPDATE: A very similar thing happened last month when the FBI announced that it had arrested someone who was planning to bomb the DC Metro system when, in reality, "the only plotting he did was in response to instructions from federal agents he thought were accomplices." That concocted FBI plot then led to the Metro Police announcing a new policy of random searches of passengers' bags.

Meanwhile, in Oregon, the mosque sometimes attended by Mohamud was victimized today by arson. So the FBI did not stop any actual Terrorist plots, but they may have helped inspire one.



These tactics are almost identical to the ones used by the FBI to arrest alleged child-porn users. The FBI and the media like to portray these men as hopeless degenerates, insatiable in their ravenous craving for these depraved images, but the reality is almost exactly the opposite. It takes, on average, about 13 months of wheedling and cajoling by undercover FBI agents to get these men -- almost all of whom are first-time offenders -- to bite on the offer of the supposedly salacious images. When they finally succumb to their curiosity and lay down their credit card numbers, they're fed a bunch of black-and-white images of little girls in cute flippy skirts showing their panties dating from the 1950s (nothing truly pornographic whatsoever) and then busted for possession of child pornography.

Contrary to the impression the media likes to portray, child pornography is an incredibly scarce commodity. There is in fact only one major purveyor of internet child porn on the face of this planet, and that is the Federal Bureau of Investigation itself, which has screwed up countless lives in its maniacal quest to quell a phantom menace.

There is actually a small but growing number of psychologists who say the very idea of pedophilia as a psychological condition is a myth and that it flat-out doesn't exist. Believe it or not, there has never in the annals of psychology been recorded a case of an adult who was exclusively -- or even primarily -- sexually attracted to prepubescent children; almost without exception, convicted sex offenders have primarily had normal sexual relationships with adults. Yet we have a whole infrastructure of protections against this supposed social catastrophe: sex-offender registry lists (even though 90% of sexual assaults are committed by parents, siblings, and other trusted caretakers), missing-children's lists (even though the vast majority of children are in fact abducted by parents, with only about 110 children being abducted by strangers every year); child-porn enforcement squads, etc. It's such a senseless waste of time, money, and resources that could be better directed against true threats.

The FBI's work against terrorists so often falls under pretty much the same umbrella of uselessness. It's a bunch of self-congratulatory frippery, a Punch-and-Judy show for the benefit of a sensationalistic media syndicate and a gullible public.
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4PackGirl
14 years ago
OR it really did happen. 😃
Formo
14 years ago
I get what you are saying, and what the article you posted is saying.

But isn't it against Geneva or something to have a soldier of the US shoot or take any violent action unless violence upon them happened first? I'm seriously asking because if I remember correctly my buddy mentioned to me the one time he was shot at in Iraq, they didn't see the shooter or gun, they DID see a 'civilian' sprinting away from them (everyone assumed he was the shooter) but didn't return any fire because of Geneva (or whatever it's called). If that's the case, then how could the allegations against our troops doing what the article is saying they are doing be true?

Ok, now my last statement, then I'm done. Even if our troops ARE killing innocent civilians/children in the sand box, why is this article still justifying almost how it's ok that the extremist Muslim terrorists are doing the same to our citizens? I'm ok with whomever is writing this piece on how they are questioning the FBI's tactics in 'catching' this kid. I get it, completely. It's better to have people who question authority consistently than having sheeple. But it certainly seems to me the article is really just justifying extremist Muslim terrorists' actions because 'we started it'. Not only is that childish, it still doesn't make what they are doing right. By any stretch of the imagination.
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Thanks to TheViking88 for the sig!!
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