The FBI has received substantial criticism over the past decade — much of it valid — but nobody can deny its record of excellence in thwarting its own Terrorist plots. Time and again, the FBI concocts a Terrorist attack, infiltrates Muslim communities in order to find recruits, persuades them to perpetrate the attack, supplies them with the money, weapons and know-how they need to carry it out — only to heroically jump in at the last moment, arrest the would-be perpetrators whom the FBI converted, and save a grateful nation from the plot manufactured by the FBI.
Last year, the FBI subjected 19-year-old Somali-American Mohamed Osman Mohamud to months of encouragement, support and money and convinced him to detonate a bomb at a crowded Christmas event in Portland, Oregon, only to arrest him at the last moment and then issue a Press Release boasting of its success. In late 2009, the FBI persuaded and enabled Hosam Maher Husein Smadi, a 19-year old Jordanian citizen, to place a fake bomb at a Dallas skyscraper and separately convinced Farooque Ahmed, a 34-year-old naturalized American citizen born in Pakistan, to bomb the Washington Metro. And now, the FBI has yet again saved us all from its own Terrorist plot by arresting 26-year-old American citizen Rezwan Ferdaus after having spent months providing him with the plans and materials to attack the Pentagon, American troops in Iraq, and possibly the Capitol Building using “remote-controlled” model airplanes carrying explosives.
None of these cases entail the FBI’s learning of an actual plot and then infiltrating it to stop it. They all involve the FBI’s purposely seeking out Muslims (typically young and impressionable ones) whom they think harbor animosity toward the U.S. and who therefore can be induced to launch an attack despite having never taken even a single step toward doing so before the FBI targeted them. Each time the FBI announces it has disrupted its own plot, press coverage is predictably hysterical (new Homegrown Terrorist caught!), fear levels predictably rise, and new security measures are often implemented in response (the FBI’s Terror plot aimed at the D.C. Metro, for instance, led to the Metro Police announcing a new policy of random searches of passengers’ bags). I have several observations and questions about these matters:
(1) The bulk of this latest FBI plot entailed attacks on military targets: the Pentagon, U.S. troops in Iraq, and possibly military bases. The U.S. is — as it has continuously announced to the world — a Nation at War. The Pentagon is the military headquarters for this war, and its troops abroad are the soldiers fighting it. In what conceivable sense can attacks on those purely military and war targets be labeled “Terrorism” or even illegitimate? The U.S. has continuously attacked exactly those kinds of targets in multiple nations around the world; it expressly tried to kill Saddam and Gadaffi in the wars against their countries (it even knowingly blew up an entire suburban apartment building to get Saddam, who wasn’t actually there). What possible definition of “Terrorism” excludes those attacks by the U.S. while including this proposed one on the Pentagon and other military targets (or, for that matter, Nidal Hasan’s attack on Fort Hood where soldiers deploy to war zones)?
(2) With regard to the targeted building that is not purely a military target — the Capitol Building — is that a legitimate war target under the radically broad standards the U.S. and its allies have promulgated for itself? The American “shock and awe” assault on Baghdad destroyed “several government buildings and palaces built by Saddam Hussein”; on just the third day of that war, “U.S. bombs turn[ed] key government buildings in Baghdad into rubble.” In Libya, NATO repeatedly bombed non-military government buildings. In Gaza, Israeli war planes targeted a police station filled with police recruits on the stated theory that a valid target “ranges from the strictly military institutions and includes the political institutions that provide the logistical funding and human resources” to Hamas.
Obviously, there is a wide range of views regarding the justifiability of each war, but isn’t the U.S. Congress — which funds, oversees, and regulates America’s wars — a legitimate war target under the (inadvisedly) broad definitions the U.S. and its allies have imposed when attacking others? If the political leaders and even functionaries of other countries with which the U.S. is at war are legitimate targets, then doesn’t that necessarily mean that Pentagon officials and, arguably, those in the Congress are as well?
(3) The irony that this plot featured “remote-controlled aircraft filled with plastic explosives” is too glaring to merit comment; the only question worth asking is whether the U.S. Government can sue Ferdaus for infringing its drone patents. Glaring though that irony is, there is no shortage of expressions of disgust today, pondering what kind of Terrorist monster does it take to want to attack buildings with remote-controlled mini-aircraft.
(4) Wouldn’t the FBI’s resources be better spent on detecting and breaking up actual Terrorist plots — if there are any — rather than manufacturing ones so that they can stop those? Harboring hatred for the U.S. and wanting to harm it (or any country) is not actually a crime; at most, it’s a Thought Crime. It doesn’t become a crime until steps are taken to attempt to transform that desire into reality. There are millions and millions of people who at some point harbor a desire to impose violent harm on others who never do so: perhaps that’s true of a majority of human beings. Many of them will never act in the absence of the type of highly sophisticated, expert push of which the FBI is uniquely capable. Is manufacturing criminals — as opposed to finding and stopping actual criminals — really a prudent law enforcement activity?
(5) Does the FBI devote any comparable resources to infiltrating non-Muslim communities in order to persuade and induce those extremists to become Terrorists so that they can arrest them? Are they out in the anti-abortion world, or the world of radical Christianity, or right-wing anti-government radicals, trying to recruit them into manufactured Terrorist plots?
(6) As usual, most media coverage of the FBI’s plots is as uncritical as it is sensationalistic. The first paragraph of The New York Times article on this story described the plot as one “to blow up the Pentagon and the United States Capitol.” But the FBI’s charging Affidavit (reproduced below) makes clear that Ferdaus’ plan was to send a single model airplane (at most 1/10 the size of an actual U.S. jet) to the Capitol and two of them to the Pentagon, each packed with “5 pounds” of explosives (para. 70); the Capitol was to be attacked at its dome for “psychological effect” (para 34). The U.S. routinely drops 500-pound or 1,000-pound bombs from actual fighter jets; this plot — even if it were carried out by someone other than a hapless loner with no experience and it worked perfectly — could not remotely “blow up” the Pentagon or the Capitol.
(7) As is now found in almost every case of would-be Terrorist plots against the U.S. — especially “homegrown Terrorists” — the motive is unbridled fury over (and a desire to avenge) contintuous U.S violence against Muslim civilians. Infused throughout the charging Affidavit here are such references to Ferdaus’ motives, including his happiness over the prospect of killing U.S. troops in Iraq; his proclamation that he’s “interested in traveling to Afghanistan” to aid insurgents; his statement that “he wanted to ‘decapitate’ the U.S. government’s ‘military center’ and to severely disrupt . . . the head and heart of the snake” (para 12) and to “essentially decapitate the entire empire” (para 34) (compare that language to how the U.S. described what it tried to do in Baghdad). At least according to the FBI, this is how Feradus replied when expressly asked why he wanted to attack the U.S.:
Cause that would be a huge scare . . . the point is you want to scare them so they know not to mess with you . . . They have . . . . have killed from us, our innocents, our men, women and children, they are all enemies (para 19).
If the FBI’s allegations are accurate, then it’s clear Ferdaus has become hardened in his hatred; he talks about a willingness to kill American civilians because they have become part of the enemy, and claims that he fantasized about such attacks before the FBI informant spoke to him.
But whatever else is true, it’s simply unrealistic in the extreme to expect to run around for a full decade screaming WE ARE AT WAR!! — and dropping bombs and attacking with drones and shooting up families in multiple Muslim countries (and occupying, interfering in and killing large numbers before that) – and not produce many Rezwan Ferdauses. In fact, the only surprising thing is that these seem to be so few of them actually willing and able to attack back that — in order to justify this Endless War on civil liberties (and Terror) — the FBI has to search for ones they can recruit, convince, and direct to carry out plots.
The “Bin Laden” hoax is consuming our time and energy even as the global corporate-financier oligarchs flee forward cashing in on the political capital they presume they have gained by making this announcement. Even a superficial examination of mainstream media’s headlines and interviews with the CIA director himself calls into question the official narrative with mind numbing contradictions and faulty logic even a child could spot.
The CIA itself is only 95% sure, based on facial recognition, that they bagged their rogue agent. A London Guardian report compounds this uncertainty stating that the CIA compared the alleged DNA of this man they claim to have shot dead in Pakistan, not with a previous sample from Osama Bin Laden, but against a Bin Laden family member. If we are to believe any of this at all, the CIA is not even saying they are 100% sure, so why should we be?
“We were never really certain about whether or not Bin Laden was there.”
Stripping further credibility away, was CIA Director Leon Panetta’s interview on PBS where he begins by saying the CIA had no evidence and were entirely uncertain Osama Bin Laden was even in the compound to begin with. According to a Washington Post article, the CIA claims to have had a nearby safe house from which they observed the alleged compound for months. They also confirm that not a single photo or shred of evidence was revealed throughout the course of this lengthy surveillance mission that the elusive, bearded mastermind was present.
But debating the minutiae is self-defeating. Bin Laden has been long dead, according to a myriad of government officials both in America and abroad. We must look at how this stunt is being exploited at home and abroad, rhetorically and geopolitically.
Domestically
It has become an opportunity at home to criticize all who question government statements and further punish those in Western society who still take their responsibility of holding their government accountable seriously. Perhaps the most ridiculous examples can be gleaned from the Pittsburgh Post Gazette article penned by Reg Henry titled, “It’s time for conspiracy theorists to shut up,” where he postulates anyone questioning the “95%” certainty of the CIA is a “lunatic.”
Despite the Jessica Lynch story being completely fabricated, Henry believes her injury and her signing up for service still makes her a hero. He also believes that Pat Tillman is likewise a hero simply for serving, despite being murdered by his own government who then treacherously covered it up. He omits the fact that Tillman had become critical of the war and his true heroism was for standing up against a system willing to murder its own to perpetuate its malicious agenda. Henry might want to read Pat Tillman’s brother’s rebuttal.
How a real American responds to official government statements: Cindy
Sheehan nails government lies and the propagandists who peddle them to
the wall with healthy skepticism and independent, critical thinking.
This attack on those who question the official narrative coming from a known lying, murderous government is not confined to America’s shores. Jim Corr of “The Corrs” fame has been a long-time outspoken critic of the emerging global government and in particular the glaring inconsistencies behind the September 11, 2001 attacks on the World Trade Center. This vigilance and skepticism has cost him a heavy price, as he faces a constant, unending barrage by pundits like Reg Henry and his counterparts overseas.
Just one of many media barrages unleashed on Jim Corr of Ireland to undermine him personally, and the message of truth he carries.
Most recently he was attacked by the Irish Daily Mirror which stated, “I call it Jim Corr Syndrome and it seems to be contaminating more and more people. It occurs when something big happens and ordinary folk believe the craziest conspiracy story rather than accept the plain truth. Bin Laden is dead. He was shot during a raid by US special forces. End of story. I’m inclined to believe President Obama on this one but Jim doesn’t and he’s not alone out there. Ironically it’s right-wing Christians who are clambering for evidence of bin Laden’s death. So much for faith.” www.youtube.com/watch?v=seU4xsz9vsY&feature=player_embedded
Declan O’Shea of Infowars Ireland breaks down the latest attack on Jim Corr and the absolute absurdity surrounding the recent “Bin Laden” hoax.
Apparently the author, Mr. Pat Flanagan, is also unaware of even the official narrative and how tenuously it stands. He also seems to insist that we should simply have “faith” in our government, a statement that surely sent many brave Irish men who fought for Ireland’s freedom over the centuries, spinning in their graves. Such an attitude has invited some of the darkest chapters in human history. Telling people to “shut up” and have “faith,” are the very hallmarks of a fascist society, and we already see amidst this atmosphere of “shut up” the concurrent expansion of an ever increasing, omnipresent police-state. Will we be told next by Henry and Flanagan that having armed paramilitary guards standing on every street corner like Castro’s Cuba is indicative of freedom?
Geopolitically
The most alarming aspect of this entire “Bin Laden” hoax is its geopolitical implications. While people argue over the minutia of the shoddy government narrative and question the patriotism of skeptics, the alleged killing of Bin Laden in the middle of Pakistan’s intelligence and military community has increased tensions between Washington, Islamabad, and perhaps unnoticed by the likes of Reg Henry and Pat Flanagan, Beijing as well. In fact, a flurry of mainstream media stories covered China’s awareness that this stunt is designed to give America an excuse to enter into Pakistan and thus directly confront China who has an established and growing presence in the region.
AlJazeera’s article, “After Osama, China fears the next target,” indicates that the Chinese are well aware America’s foreign policy to “spread democracy” is in actuality an attempt to contain the rise of China and other emerging economies. While pundits in the West maintain such claims are the makings of “tinfoil hat” conspiracies, a nation of 1.3 billion is mobilizing to confront this very real threat.
The skeptical who might be tempted to accuse China’s leadership of unwarranted “tinfoil hat” paranoia might want to consult the the 2006 Strategic Studies Institute’s report “String of Pearls: Meeting the Challenge of China’s Rising Power across the Asian Littoral.” Throughout the report, China’s efforts to secure its oil lifeline from the Middle East to its shores in the South China Sea are examined as are means to maintain American hegemony throughout the Indian and Pacific Ocean. The premise is that, should Western policy wonks and paper-pushers fail to entice China into participating in the “international system” as “responsible stakeholders,” an increasingly confrontational posture must be taken to contain the rising nation.
Dr. Webster Tarpley breaks down on Press TV the greater implications
of the “Bin Laden” hoax, including the threat of general world war. Part II
can be found here. All three interviewees make valid, cogent points.
Considering the current standoff brewing in Pakistan, where we see a convergence of Iranian, Indian, American, Chinese, and Pakistani interests, punctuated by provocative drone attacks just hours after Pakistan warned America over violating its airspace, it is quite clear “confrontation” has become the order of the day. The disposal of “Bin Laden” or at least his politically convenient ghost, signals not a drawing down of America’s global war, but a deep breath being taken before the final plunge into confrontation with Pakistan, China, and Russia.
The dangers are very real. We must not back down from our innate rights to hold our government accountable for the statements it makes regarding the actions it is increasingly unilaterally taking. We must call out those who tell us to “shut up” and “have faith” and remind them that it is not only our right, but our duty to “speak up” and scrutinize everything our government says and does. We must reach out and remind them of the danger servile obedience invites, and the horrifying historical examples that exhibit the results from such a cowardly stance. We are literally being penned in, rallied around the flag, and mobilized for a greater, impending confrontation, of that there is no doubt.
To contact Mr. Reg Henry of the Pittsburgh Post Gazette and INTELLIGENTLY remind him of his duty as an American, he can be reached at, [email protected] .
Mr. Pat Flanagan can also be INTELLIGENTLY reminded of his duty as a journalist to objectively examine the evidence before conducting a campaign of degradation against those exercising their rights and duty to call into question their government at, [email protected] .
Tony Cartalucci’s articles have appeared on many alternative media websites, including his own at
The Federal Bureau of Investigation employs upwards of 15,000 undercover agents today, ten times what they had on the roster back in 1975.
If you think that’s a few spies too many — spies earning as much as $100,000 per assignment — one doesn’t have to go too deep into their track record to see their accomplishments. Those agents are responsible for an overwhelming amount of terrorist stings that have stopped major domestic catastrophes in the vein of 9/11 from happening on American soil.
Another thing those agents are responsible for, however, is plotting those very schemes.
