Lots of people are writing about the arrest of the arms dealer who thought he was selling antiaircraft missiles to terrorists for use in the U.S. against airliners. Many of the comments, rightly, have focused on the fact that the arrest resulted from a sting operation run by the U.S. No actual terrorists were involved. The implication is that the whole thing was prompted by the government, and thus is a sham.
I think that's a really wrong-headed approach in this case. From the story in the Washington Post:
Lakhani, 68, a British national ... was ordered jailed without bond on charges that he sold a Russian SA-18 shoulder-fired missile to federal agents posing as terrorists. He also allegedly promised to supply 50 more at a price of $5 million, and was interested in purchasing tons of C-4 plastic explosives, officials said.
The SA-18 is a scary weapon. The high-end version has a big warhead, it can hit much faster targets flying as high as 10,000 feet and from angles older missiles could not, and electronic countermeasures don't work against it very well. The fact that the guy arrested thought he could get 50 of them at only $100,000 each should make anyone sit up and take notice.
Also, this is exactly the kind of police work liberals should support. Someone who had the ability to supply terrorists with major weapons has been incarcerated. That's exactly the kind of action that we should prefer to preemptive wars and PATRIOT Act games. As Josh Marshall wrote: "[T]his is an unquestionably good thing for at least two reasons. First, it's a good thing to have behind bars any miscreant willing to make money by selling terrorists the equipment to bring down a commercial airliner. ... Second, and more to the point, you probably can't deter terrorists who are willing to kill themselves anyway. But you probably can deter some people with financial motives from supplying the terrorists with the weapons. And this probably goes some way toward that end."
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