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Permalink Reply by David on September 20, 2010 at 12:20pm

There's a lot of assumptions there. First, I don't think there's any indication that the "associate" was anything like deep cover in a suspected terrorist cell. I had the impression he was just some stringer who hung around the mosque talking shit hoping somebody would bite. I always assumed we have a bunch of folks like that, based on my extensive knowledge of police procedure stemming from the fact I've seen all five seasons of The Wire.

Secondly, I wouldn't say we all agree he was *just* a blowhard. I mean, Shahzad, the Times Square guy, seems to me to be the same kind of supposedly harmless braindead blowhard, and he came very close to killing a lot of people. We've had a string of these apparently stupid blowhards failing (just barely) in serious terrorism attacks in the last few years.

Despite what some think, I believe the number of people actually willing to go all the way and actually plant a bomb in a public place is actually relatively small, at least in the US. Besides, there's a deterrent effect here. If some guy who's being asked to plant a bomb for real is thinking right now "hey, I wonder if these guys are legit", that's a good thing.

James Baum said:

The biggest issue I have with this whole "sting" is the fact that the guy this nutjob contacted in what he thought was a bunch of radical terrorist types was actually an FBI agent.
Think about this. The FBI already had a deep-cover agent inside some suspected terrorist cell. Who knows how many resources and man-hours went into planting this guy there? And then they "use" up this resource to bust this doofus? Don't you think he's totally blown his cover with the other guys now? There is this whole bunch of guys who know that this guy is now an FBI agent and that they are being watched now that all of this has gone down. Now they are going to be 10x as careful and 10x as hard to keep an eye on.

Slick move guys! -or were the other guys a dead end too so this is the best they could do, busting this idiot to get some return out of their investment?

But nobody in the news even mentions THIS point. In fact, while looking for the original article I notice that the news isn't even mentioning this fact any more. The FBI just blew a perfectly good asset to arrest this yahoo whom we all pretty much agree wasn't much of a real threat and just a blowhard.

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Permalink Reply by Bob Maher on September 21, 2010 at 7:55am

Only problem I have with this is that the guy was promised money if he planted the bomb. FBI did not say how much, but if they offered one million dollars to one thousand random people, I'm guessing more than one would take it.

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Permalink Reply by Michael Perz on September 21, 2010 at 8:34am

Since the bombing was set to happen just as a Dave Matthews Band concert had ended, the answer to your question is really dependent upon how one defines need.

arohr said:

Is there really a need to be an apologist for this individual's actions?

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Permalink Reply by Michael on September 21, 2010 at 12:37pm

Sounds to me like entrapment.

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