Setting up terrorists?

Take note, one of the few serious business bigred threads

Saw this on Cnn: Somali-American accused of plotting to bomb Oregon tree-lighting event - CNN.com

Cliff notes: FBI sets up Somalian teen to bomb a Christmas tree lighting event. Undercover agents create a fake car bomb and arrest suspect when he follows through with operation.

What are people's thoughts on this? It feels like handing a freshmen at college a beer at a party and then arresting him for underage drinking once he takes a sip. At the same time, if he's going to underage drink anyway and we don't want him to drink, we are setting a precedent to deter students from drinking beers.

In all seriousness, I don't want people getting blown up by car bombs but I feel like there's something border line shady, infringing on individual freedoms going on here.

I get what you're saying but in all honesty I don't care how they catch people trying to blow shit up as long as they're not infringing on the rights of people that don't wanna blow shit up.

The question is would the kid ever have even thought about if they hadn't convinced him to. Terrorists use these kids because they're easy to manipulate. If our government is doing the same thing for the sake of entrapment then they're doing the same shit. Fear sells ducttape.

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Originally Posted by supahaole

The question is would the kid ever have even thought about if they hadn't convinced him to. Terrorists use these kids because they're easy to manipulate. If our government is doing the same thing for the sake of entrapment then they're doing the same shit. Fear sells ducttape.

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Yeah, this is the bad feeling I had about this whole operation. It feels very big brotherish and I don't think it echoes American rights, etc.

Whilst I have no doubt that internal politics played a big part in this with the people in charge after a big headline, I really don't see your problem with this.

The defendant made his intent to murder clear from the start, prior to the FBI introducing him to the bomb, however the sting proved beyond reasonable doubt that the defendant wasn't merely a fantasist - he actually pulled the trigger on a device that, in his mind, would kill as many people as possible. Don't you think that had the FBI presented an affidavit based on voice recordings alone, the defence would've torn them apart in court?

Whenever I read stuff like this, I'm thankful that 90% of homegrown terrorists are fucking idiots who fall for stupid stings like this. I'm pretty sure that at least 50% of the commune, if they wanted, could manage a terrorist attack.

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Originally Posted by supahaole

The question is would the kid ever have even thought about if they hadn't convinced him to. Terrorists use these kids because they're easy to manipulate. If our government is doing the same thing for the sake of entrapment then they're doing the same shit. Fear sells ducttape.

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Quote from CNN:

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The two communicated regularly, the affidavit states, and "using coded language, they discussed the possibility of Mohamud traveling to Pakistan to prepare for violent jihad."



Mohamud attempted to contact another associate who he thought would help facilitate his travel overseas, the affidavit states, but "because Mohamud used the wrong e-mail address in his efforts to contact [the second associate], he never successfully contacted him to arrange travel."

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Whilst I understand the source for this is a prosecution document, it looks like Mohamud was convinced about jihad way before the FBI came onto the scene. There are other quotes also indicating his intent.

I read that several times they would make suggestions to him about trying prayer and other non-violent ways that a faithful person might try to make a difference, but he was insistent on blowing people up.

I'm just glad that we provided the "bomb" instead of whoever else he might have got it from.

in b4 wuf

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Originally Posted by lolzzz_321

in b4 wuf

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He started writing his post a couple hours ago. If you waited another hour or so then you'd be cutting it close.

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Originally Posted by Hawk

I read that several times they would make suggestions to him about trying prayer and other non-violent ways that a faithful person might try to make a difference, but he was insistent on blowing people up.

I'm just glad that we provided the "bomb" instead of whoever else he might have got it from.

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My initial feeling was "wtf this is so wrong!" But the more I read, the more it seems like its perfectly on the up and up. Esp if they not only did not try to persuade him to blow shit up, but instead actually offered reasonable non-violent alternatives. It seems like the g-men really covered all their bases here and have given an example of how to deal with these threats. Maybe this means they've realized that torture does not garner any sort of positive results.

nice work FBI

Theres nothing wrong with what they did, but that doesn't change what an egregious waste of resources this was.

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Originally Posted by Renton

Theres nothing wrong with what they did, but that doesn't change what an egregious waste of resources this was.

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Instead you would suggest they do what?

Nothing? How about cultivating an environment where people don't want to suicide bomb us?

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Originally Posted by Galapogos

He started writing his post a couple hours ago. If you waited another hour or so then you'd be cutting it close.

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A few days ago I typed up a post, but deleted it and left the thread.

Now I'm back and will say three things

The FBI did a great job. It's unfortunate, but this kid was hellbent on icing some niggas, and I think his own parents turned him in. The undercovers engaged in the opposite of entrapment. The story is that they went out of their way to try to encourage him to go against his desires to explode children, but when he pulled the fake trigger, there were no more options left.

Renton has a good point about focusing on restructuring society, it's usually one of my first points with things like this, but it's also a pipedream. Read about Omelas. I believe it is virtually impossible for humans to live in elaborate societies that don't perfectly, metaphorically embody The Ones Who Walk Away From Omelas, in all its tragedy

My other thought is a sort of side idea about how much emphasis we put on anti-terrorism, and in turn are creating our own Orwellian, militarism, prison, totalitarian state. In a way, we get scratched in the face, and our response is to murder the perp's entire family while forcing everybody to wear padded gloves.

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Originally Posted by Renton

Nothing? How about cultivating an environment where people don't want to suicide bomb us?

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Do you feel that this operation is taking a step away from a future in which we don't have people wanting to blow us up in the name of Allah?

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Originally Posted by boost

Do you feel that this operation is taking a step away from a future in which we don't have people wanting to blow us up in the name of Allah?

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Possibly. They had to pick the guy with the most islamic possible name. Now middle america gets to see on the news how we busted someone called Mohamed Mohamud for terrorism, breeding even more anti-islamism among americans (if that were possible).

More likely though it did next to nothing to quell islamic terrorism in the world. Sting operations like this cost millions of dollars to execute. That wasted money could have been spent feeding the hungry, researching solar energy or nanotechnology, helping to pay off the national debt, etc.

I agree.. what's the actual threat? More people choke on popsicle's in the US every year than die by terrorist attacks. I know that for a fact because I just made it up.

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Originally Posted by oskar

I agree.. what's the actual threat? More people choke on popsicle's every in the US than die by terrorist attacks. I know that for a fact because I just made it up.

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We need to go straight to the source...DEATH TO THE TREES

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Originally Posted by Renton

Nothing? How about cultivating an environment where people don't want to suicide bomb us?

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This seems impossible...

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Originally Posted by oskar

I agree.. what's the actual threat? More people choke on popsicle's in the US every year than die by terrorist attacks. I know that for a fact because I just made it up.

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the actual threat (in this case) is this guy would have blown up a bunch of civilians, had he been in contact with the right person instead of an undercover FBI agent.

forever taking this person out of society seems like a fine use of resources to me.

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Originally Posted by Renton

That wasted money could have been spent feeding the hungry, researching solar energy or nanotechnology, helping to pay off the national debt, etc.

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Well right, I definitely wish funding was not so skewed to the police state/military industrial complex... but seeing as these millions were allocated to the FBI, I don't mind what the FBI did with them... after all the FBI is not in the business of building solar panels or feeding the hungry.

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Originally Posted by Lukie

the actual threat (in this case) is this guy would have blown up a bunch of civilians, had he been in contact with the right person instead of an undercover FBI agent.

forever taking this person out of society seems like a fine use of resources to me.

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No, that's the potential threat. /smartass

I just tried to look up how many people died on US soil due to terrorist attacks in the last decade, but I can't find any useful numbers. If anyone who's better at google could help me out here... :)
But I can assure you it is vastly overshadowed by almost any other cause of death that is out there. There have to be better ways to spend u guyses tax dollars. Terra form mars, build a space elevator, invest in armageddon-meteor prevention systems, or if you insist figure out something so we don't loose tens of thousands of children every day to curable and preventable diseases on this planet. I don't care, but I'm sure there are better ways to spend u guyses tax dollars.

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Originally Posted by oskar

No, that's the potential threat. /smartass

I just tried to look up how many people died on US soil due to terrorist attacks in the last decade, but I can't find any useful numbers. If anyone who's better at google could help me out here... :)
But I can assure you it is vastly overshadowed by almost any other cause of death that is out there.

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I don't understand why you're saying these things and they're making me sad.

A man contacted a Pakistani terror group stating his desire to become a jihadist. If it wasn't for the fact that he was retarded he'd have got through to them.

You think we shouldn't bother monitoring these guys?

If you want the number of people killed on US soil due to terrorist attacks, the 3,000 killed on 9/11 is a decent place to start.

In terms of the homegrown threat, it's really really naive to think homegrown terrorism isn't a threat - just look at 7/7 and the Madrid train bombings.

If you think the amount of money dedicated to anti-terrorism is inefficient due to the numbers killed, do you also think the amount of money dedicated to murder investigations is inefficient, considering cancer kills ~40x more than murders in the US?

^can't argue with that avatar

Ya, I think the idea that this money could have been better spent is troublesome. Lets say by diverting all of the counter-terrorism funds into cancer research we could cure it. But by doing so we would have on average 7,000 (I think this is somewhere around 2x 9/11) deaths due to terrorism a year. It seems pretty clear that this society, while it lives longer lives overall, would be much more frail and fear ridden. As people lost confidence in the government they would lose confidence in the dollar (the only thing propping it up..) and you can see where this is going...

along with the deaths and immediate property damage, 9/11 took something in the order of $1,000,000,000,000 out of the US economy.

clearly a tree lighting ceremony is different, but the point is that people being able to lead their lives and for society to function normally is extremely important economically (among other things).

I think people get so caught up in the reality that many a bad law and policy has been passed in the name of preventing terrorism (e.g. USA patriot act) that when something clearly good comes of it, like the FBI nailing a guy attempting to murder a bunch of civilians, somehow that gets lumped in with the bad as well.

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Originally Posted by Lukie

along with the deaths and immediate property damage, 9/11 took something in the order of $1,000,000,000,000 out of the US economy.

clearly a tree lighting ceremony is different, but the point is that people being able to lead their lives and for society to function normally is extremely important economically (among other things).

I think people get so caught up in the reality that many a bad law and policy has been passed in the name of preventing terrorism (e.g. USA patriot act) that when something clearly good comes of it, like the FBI nailing a guy attempting to murder a bunch of civilians, somehow that gets lumped in with the bad as well.

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Pretty spot on.

I just don't think that fighting terrorism does anything. 10 years later Bin Laden hasn't been cought. It's the nature of terrorism that makes it completely vain to try and fight it directly. When you want to fight terrorism you should look at why terrorism thrives and what you can do to convince people that there are better things to do with their afternoon than to strap on explosives and kill a bunch of people and themselves.

Osama being caught is one of the last things those in charge of the war want to happen. Our presence in that region is almost entirely based on oil security and profits for the military/industrial/congressional complex. War on Terror and Operation Enduring Freedom are purely scapegoats and propaganda material that an overwhelming majority of people do not realize, even most people who think the wars have been lies still don't even come close to acknowledging the depth of those lies.

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Originally Posted by wufwugy

Osama being caught is one of the last things those in charge of the war want to happen. Our presence in that region is almost entirely based on oil security and profits for the military/industrial/congressional complex. War on Terror and Operation Enduring Freedom are purely scapegoats and propaganda material that an overwhelming majority of people do not realize, even most people who think the wars have been lies still don't even come close to acknowledging the depth of those lies.

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Thanks for the cliffnotes, where's the real post?