By Paul Craig Roberts
Why does the FBI orchestrate fake “terror plots”? The latest one snared Osman Mohamud, a Somali-American teenager in Portland, Ore. The Associated Press report is headlined: “Somali-born teen plotted car-bombing in Oregon.”
This is a misleading headline as the report makes it clear that it was a plot orchestrated by federal agents. Two sentences into the news report we have this: “The bomb was an elaborate fake supplied by the [FBI] agents and the public was never in danger, authorities said.” The teenager was supplied with a fake bomb and a fake detonator.
Three sentences later the reporters contradict the quoted authorities with a quote from Arthur Balizan, special agent in charge of the FBI in Oregon: “The threat was very real.”
The reporters then contradict Balizan: “White House spokesman Nick Shapiro said Saturday that President Barack Obama was aware of the FBI operation before Friday’s arrest. Shapiro said Obama was assured that the FBI was in full control of the operation and that the public was not in danger.”
Then Shapiro contradicts himself by declaring: “The events of the past 24 hours underscore the necessity of remaining vigilant against terrorism here and abroad.” The story arrives at its Kafkaesque high point when Obama thanks the FBI for its diligence in saving us from the fake plot the FBI had fabricated. After vacillating between whether they are reporting a real plot or an orchestrated one, the reporters finally come down on the side of orchestration. Documents released by U.S. Attorney Dwight Holton “show the sting operation began in June.”
Obviously, the targeted Portland teenager was not “hot to trot,” so the FBI had to work on him for six months. The reporters compare “the Portland sting” to the recent arrest in Virginia of Faroque Ahmed, who was ensnared in a “bombing plot that was a ruse conducted over the past six months by federal officials.”
Think about this carefully. The FBI did a year’s work in order to convince two people to participate in fake plots.
This is a misleading headline as the report makes it clear that it was a plot orchestrated by federal agents. Two sentences into the news report we have this: “The bomb was an elaborate fake supplied by the [FBI] agents and the public was never in danger, authorities said.” The teenager was supplied with a fake bomb and a fake detonator.
Three sentences later the reporters contradict the quoted authorities with a quote from Arthur Balizan, special agent in charge of the FBI in Oregon: “The threat was very real.”
The reporters then contradict Balizan: “White House spokesman Nick Shapiro said Saturday that President Barack Obama was aware of the FBI operation before Friday’s arrest. Shapiro said Obama was assured that the FBI was in full control of the operation and that the public was not in danger.”
Then Shapiro contradicts himself by declaring: “The events of the past 24 hours underscore the necessity of remaining vigilant against terrorism here and abroad.” The story arrives at its Kafkaesque high point when Obama thanks the FBI for its diligence in saving us from the fake plot the FBI had fabricated. After vacillating between whether they are reporting a real plot or an orchestrated one, the reporters finally come down on the side of orchestration. Documents released by U.S. Attorney Dwight Holton “show the sting operation began in June.”
Obviously, the targeted Portland teenager was not “hot to trot,” so the FBI had to work on him for six months. The reporters compare “the Portland sting” to the recent arrest in Virginia of Faroque Ahmed, who was ensnared in a “bombing plot that was a ruse conducted over the past six months by federal officials.”
Think about this carefully. The FBI did a year’s work in order to convince two people to participate in fake plots.
Read the rest of the article here - Fake Terror Plots 249
Paul Craig Roberts, a former assistant secretary of the U.S. Treasury and former associate editor of The Wall Street Journal, has been reporting shocking cases of prosecutorial abuse for two decades. His book, The Tyranny of Good Intentions, co-authored with Lawrence Stratton, is a documented account of how Americans lost the protection of law. It was released in 2008 by Random House.