In the newest Big Bad Plot to Kill All the Americans, 27 year old Jose Pimentel was arrested for planning to bomb several targets in New York City--most notably, mailboxes during his practice runs. He's been under police surveillance for three years, and left a trail that all but screamed "come and get me 'cause I'm a bad person!"
When these idiots post on their open blogs just what they're going to do, one has to wonder, once again, just why we should be afraid. And then when the suspect operates an entire website centered around the subject...yes, they're living in the underground, coming to get us. Be very afraid.
And then there's some insight into just how far our wonderful law enforcement officers are willing to go to prove that there's still something to be afraid of.
Along the way, Mr. Pimentel began making incriminating statements to an informant who was working with the police, investigators said. Those conversations were recorded.
I suppose this shouldn't really surprise me. It doesn't actually--I mean, our government has already assassinated one American citizen, and didn't seem at all concerned about it--but it is rather worrisome. No, more than that: it's definite entrapment. We have an informant who was egging on Mr. Pimentel for the sake of the police, so they could build a more convincing case against him.
Of course, it just shows me that, once again, our government has a vested interest in scaring us back into submission every few months...just as soon as it appears that we might actually be starting to realize that there's not that much to be afraid of.
Posts
1 comment:
The most generous interpretation of why the FBI/etc are busy egging on and creating terrorists to bust is so that the interpretation of any actual potential terrorists here when they interact with someone else who seems to encourage such actions is to conclude that this person must be a federal agent.
I'd have to say that a) most terrorists or potential terrorists are not necessarily that smart, so the level of deterrence is probably pretty low and b) this is giving a lot of strategic credit to a systematic policy that has a ton of contrary evidence running alongside it. The uncovering of FBI training materials relating to Islam for starters (whenever the topics of "Robert Spencer" and "Islam" or "Muslims" are in the same room for open discussion, this is not a promising sign). The fact that we lack any systematic approach to evaluate the effectiveness of any anti-terror policies for another.
Post a Comment