Arrests in New York 'attack plot'

[The Yosemite Bear]

I've never heard this claim before. Do you have any sources to support this viewpoint?

Mostly my memories of the early 1970's, conversations I've had with people, and the like - nothing authoritative. In other words, life experience. Would you be happier if I amend it to say "It's my opinion that ---"?

Sure, if you like... I wasn't alive in the 60's or early 70's, and nothing I've ever learned (books, school, TV, people I know, etc.) would suggest that Jews joined the Civil Rights movement for primarily selfish reasons. That doesn't mean it's not true, or that I doubt your experience, it's simply such a different take on their motivations from everything I've ever heard, that's all.

note: how can you possibly have not heard of 2/3rds of the Mississippi Civil Rights murders? thye only made a movie or two about the case, come on the Klan even burried those kids alive, (we know this because of the damage to their hands, and the contents of their lungs during autopsy.) Selfish folks don't leave Cornell university to go down to bum fuck Jim Crow south on behalf of other people.

[The Yosemite Bear]

next the whaler is going to say that those guys did it just to get their faces on a stained glass window in a christian church....

[Broomstick]

I'd argue that our current PotUS is an example where the child of an immigrant African did better than the average black man whose family has been here since slavery days.

correct me if I'm wrong, but isn't the first lady the descendant of a slave? I'm pretty sure here family has been in the US a long time,

Yes, that is correct. I'd say she was an example of how well a descendant of slaves can succeed in this country with good education and the motivation to better herself. She, too, has done better than average. The two statements are not mutually exclusive.

[Rogue 9]

Sure, if you like... I wasn't alive in the 60's or early 70's, and nothing I've ever learned (books, school, TV, people I know, etc.) would suggest that Jews joined the Civil Rights movement for primarily selfish reasons. That doesn't mean it's not true, or that I doubt your experience, it's simply such a different take on their motivations from everything I've ever heard, that's all.

note: how can you possibly have not heard of 2/3rds of the Mississippi Civil Rights murders? thye only made a movie or two about the case, come on the Klan even burried those kids alive, (we know this because of the damage to their hands, and the contents of their lungs during autopsy.) Selfish folks don't leave Cornell university to go down to bum fuck Jim Crow south on behalf of other people.

Erm... Bear? Two-thirds of the murder victims you name were, in fact, Jews; this actually rather supports what the Whaler was saying...

[Broomstick]

And if it was in regards to what I said - that some Jews were unbigoted and selfless in joining the civil right movement in no way would bar other Jews from having selfish motives.

[Big Phil]

next the whaler is going to say that those guys did it just to get their faces on a stained glass window in a christian church....

I just spent five minutes trying to come up with an appropriate response to your two posts... but the stupidity in them is so strong I just can't...

[The Yosemite Bear]

Shit I got my posters and their arguements confused, sorry Sanchez. The part that disturbs me, is that since 2001, the FBI has been doing more future crime, sting ops rather than investigating. Trolling internet groups looking for "tough guys" and "rubes", giving money to drug dealers in exchange for finding them "Terror suspects" they can bust. This whole case was manufactured and controlled by the FBI to make headlines, and justify more money.

[Broomstick]

I'm a little confused here, Bear - if someone offered me money or whatever in exchange for planting bombs I'd tell them to fuck off because I'm perfectly clear that doing so is illegal, unethical, immoral, and a jillion other sorts of wrong. People who are that kind of fucked up stupid to be tempted into that sort of horseshit get no sympathy from me.

[The Yosemite Bear]

what disturbs me, is that since the war on terror, and even before that, the FBI has gone from being an investigative enity, to being rather pro-active. They have been shopping for stupid people who they can set up and sting. They have been paying criminal groups for assistance in finding dumb losers Broom. It the whole problem with paying drug lords and militia in Afganistan and Iraq to supply terror suspects, except were talking biker meth dealers, and smarter then your average hood gangbangers in the US. Like the Paint Baller pizza delivery guys in your native Illinois were talking folks that are too stupid to be a credible threat getting sent to prison for life, because a more intellegent criminal felt it would be more profitable, and allow him to continue his REAL activities unmolested in exchange for scape goats who are too stupid to be a real threat.

[The Yosemite Bear]

Or to clairify my point. Rather then going after the sex slave traffiker, the mid to high level drug dealer, the outlaw biker gang who manufactures meth and murders people more often then they bathe, were paying them to supply us with people who "could" be home grown terrorists. These people are egged on and pressured to show results in a operation that's entirely financed by our government, and well were talking people who are too fucking stupid and pridefull to see a scam as a scam. Which essentially puts the terror threat list down to: Ethnic Minority, who is dumb enough to fall for an obvious con.

[Broomstick]

Just one minor correction - I'm not a native of Illinois.

On to your concerns: The dumbfucks who fall for these stings are exactly the same people who can be recruited as cannonfodder by true terrorists. Again, I don't have a ton of sympathy for these idiots.

Second, the FBI is not neglecting their other duties. For example, they've been rather active at putting away corrupt politicians in the Chicago area. Granted, that seems an endless (and thankless) task, rather like attempting to bail out a sieve.

Third, this sort of sting operation is nothing new - it's been going on for decades. During the 60's the standing joke was that half of any radical group meeting were undercover government agents, and I think the same was said of communist meetings during the McCarthy era although that was a little before my time.

In sum, although there was an uptick in stings post-9/11 I don't see anything particularly new in the technique. The major reason for more stings of this nature is that the FBI was told to find terrorists BEFORE they killed a bunch of people, rather than chasing them after the fact. Can you propose an alternative method to do this?

[The Yosemite Bear]

Not handing out bribes to criminal informents for finding people?

it's worked so well in Afganistan

[weemadando]

The question I've heard raised, and also pondered briefly myself and that I think is going to be especially common in Australia after all the War on Terror shit that went down here (Habib and Hicks cases in Gitmo and the Haneef scandal):

How real was the threat that these guys posed or was it built entirely by the guys making the case against them?

Obviously we'll find out more as it goes along, but if it turns out that the informant/UC (I've seen it reported as both) found some disaffected guys who were grumbling about "that damn gubmint" and then went "hey, I'm from a terror group in Pakistan, want to do something about it?" and led them down the path... I want to doubt that this would be the case, but damnit, the Australian gov't and police forces have fucked up badly enough trying to look hard on terror. And this is in America. New York, America.

Some of the coverage I've heard indicated that the informant/UC offered these guys the explosives training, procured the explosives and all the rest... My question then is: Had they just been left to their own devices, would it have been nothing more than a few guys complaining about foreign policy with ambitions? And did the presence of this informant/UC escalate their behaviour to a level where it might as well have been entrapment and creating a threat that would never have otherwise been real?

[The Yosemite Bear]

That's exactly the point I've been belabouring. The one case in Illinous during Bush II the Dumb, was that some drug dealers found some Internet blogging tough guys who played paintball on the weekend, and played on the macho man fears of these idjits, gave them drugs to fuck with their desionon making policies, gave them weapons that wouldn't work, and their training was RAR! we play airsoft!, and then sent them out as a supposed threat to the Sears tower.....

These stoners should still be delivering pies, getting high, and eating more pies till their arteries clogged and they die.

[hongi]

Obviously we'll find out more as it goes along, but if it turns out that the informant/UC (I've seen it reported as both) found some disaffected guys who were grumbling about "that damn gubmint" and then went "hey, I'm from a terror group in Pakistan, want to do something about it?" and led them down the path... I want to doubt that this would be the case, but damnit, the Australian gov't and police forces have fucked up badly enough trying to look hard on terror. And this is in America. New York, America.

Some of the coverage I've heard indicated that the informant/UC offered these guys the explosives training, procured the explosives and all the rest... My question then is: Had they just been left to their own devices, would it have been nothing more than a few guys complaining about foreign policy with ambitions? And did the presence of this informant/UC escalate their behaviour to a level where it might as well have been entrapment and creating a threat that would never have otherwise been real?

It looks like they wanted to do it, but had no way of doing it until the informant gave them the means. If the suspects were in any way smart, they would have suspected something the moment the informant said he could supply C4. Really guys? It's that easy to get C4 and Stinger missiles?

The defense is going to argue that the informant's mere presence and telling the suspects that he was a part of a terrorist organisation pushed everyone over the line when they would not otherwise have. To be honest, their whole 'operation' seems a little sad. They were a group of petty criminals with drug problems, with nowhere near the money or resources needed to initiate such an attack. They needed someone else to come in and help them do it.

[The Yosemite Bear]

well my take on this was:

dumb ass 1: The MAN and the JEWZ are holding us DOWN!,
dumb ass2: yeah tell me about it, because I've been busted for just minor drug charges I can't get a job
Dumb ass3: so how did you guys get out so early?
Dumb ass2: We converted to ISLAM brother, all praise the Prophet Minister Farrakhan, wait there's a dealer brother I met from the prison prayer meetings.
CI: *after selling the three dumb asses some drugs* so now that your all high, would you like to strike back against the man, Minister Farrakhan's made a deal with Al-quida and I can get you some C4 and stinger missile just like on TV
Dumb ass3: did that brother say we're gonna be on TV?

[Count Chocula]

How real was the threat that these guys posed or was it built entirely by the guys making the case against them?

They had the motive, and the FBI gave them the means and opportunity. Bear's right in that these were low-level dipshits, BUT...they were low-level dipshits willing to commit mass murder and the FBI in my opinion did right in this case.

They did a hell of a lot better than they did in 1993 (under another Democrat), where the FBI provided the Blind Sheikh and his idjits with explosives and a van via an informant, then LET THEM BOMB THE WORLD TRADE CENTER. Oops.

To be fair, it looks like the FBI has learned a lot from their mistakes of the 1990s and are doing a much better job catching the kind of people we really don't want walking around free.

[Plekhanov]

How real was the threat that these guys posed or was it built entirely by the guys making the case against them?

They had the motive, and the FBI gave them the means and opportunity. Bear's right in that these were low-level dipshits, BUT...they were low-level dipshits willing to commit mass murder and the FBI in my opinion did right in this case.

Do we really know just how much of a motive they had before the agent provocateur went to work on them yet?

There are no end of dumbfucks out there who can potentially be talked into all manner of illegal acts by a persuasive government agent and then neatly entrapped when that same agent supplies the means after helping to generate the motive.

[Broomstick]

My concern is that the same crowd of dumbfucks could be talked into the exact same thing by a representative of a terrorist organization backed by a some funding.

I will also note that, I, too, am concerned about the FBI stirring up this sort of trouble or entrapping people who would otherwise actually be harmless.

The thing is, I don't feel I have enough information to determine which category this falls into.