Today comes the latest "it's not political" national security case:
Two leaders of a mosque in Albany, N.Y., were arrested today in an FBI-led sting operation on charges related to a purported terrorist plot to buy a shoulder-fired missile, authorities said. ...
In a press conference in Albany, New York Gov. George Pataki (R) said of the case, "The fact is there are terrorists among us." He said he wanted to assure the public that federal, state and local authorities "are taking this threat to our freedom very seriously" and will continue to be "proactive" in the war on terrorism.
"Today we see here again in the capital region those among us who seek to help terrorists conduct horrible acts against the people of America and against our freedom," Pataki said.
I think it's entirely in the realm of possibility that the whole fucking thing is a lie made up to create the appearance of a threat and to make the Bush administration look like it's "doing something." And that makes me sad. Of course Pataki would throw a couple of guys in jail just to make himself look good in preparation for the convention. But law enforcement? I don't want to believe that professional prosecutors would bring a completely bogus case for no reason except to lick their ultimate boss's ass, but there it is.
Now, is it likely the entire thing is bogus? No, but it's a real possibility. What's likelier is that there is some level of criminality at play here, with some vague connection to something that might be plausibly argued to be terrorism-related, if you squint at it in dim light and hold it at the right angle.
What do I mean? Read this paragraph closely:
Federal officials said Arif and Hossain were being charged with providing material support to terrorism by conspiring to help a man they believed was a terrorist purchase a shoulder-fired missile. In fact, the purchaser was an undercover operative working for the FBI.
Get that? They were busted for helping an undercover agent. Were there any actual terrorists involved in this scheme before the FBI operative got involved? It doesn't say, so that tells me the answer is no. If so, then worst case is they were laundering money from the one guy's pizzeria operation, and they were approached by some FBI operative who got them to agree to help him, and
at some point revealed he was involved in some arms deal. In other words, they went after these two Muslims guys with the intent of tagging them with a terrorism-related charge, even though they weren't involved in terrorism at all beforehand.
Of course, the whole thing might be bogus, like I said. So there's the choices as I see them: the whole thing is bogus, or the terrorism angle was manufactured. But what the fuck, right? It's worth a couple of points to Bush.
Update 8/6/04: Today's version of the Post story linked to above has new information. The weapon the FBI operative told the guys he wanted to buy an RPG-7, not a "missile launcher." And the cops claims to have videotape of a meeting where the operative showed the guys a picture of the grenade launcher. (Typical for the Feds - they love tape.)
First, were they speaking Arabic? Does the FBI have competent translators? Second, if the tape shows what they say it shows, then this illustrates the reach of conspiracy law. Allegedly these three agreed to commit a purely financial crime, and then the operative said his goal was terrorism, and as a result, the other two are tagged with conspiring with him to commit terrorism just as if that was their goal, too. Conspiracy is one of those things that we inherited from the English common law that should have been abandoned a long time ago, but cops love it too much.
And the point from yesterday still stands: the Feds intentionally manufactured a terrorism charge against two guys - who allegedly were committing a financial crime - because they are Muslims. Can you imagine them going after English-speaking white Christian Americans with this technique?
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