[Pen-l] Dossier on FBI entrapment in “war on terror”

[Louis Proyect <lnp3@xxxxxxxxx>]

For the past couple of days the major media have been all lathered up 
over the “plot” involving four ex-cons who were supposedly ready to blow 
up synagogues in the Bronx and shoot down military aircraft with 
explosives and missiles supplied by a Jihadist group. It turned out that 
the explosives (fake) were supplied by the FBI as well as the suggestion 
to attack the synagogues in what has by now become a pattern of 
entrapment since 9/11. The arrests were obviously timed to help Obama 
push through his Bush-lite proposals to win the “war on terror” at the 
expense of our civil liberties.

The arrested men were not al Qaeda operatives but marginal and powerless 
figures with no capacity to act on their fantasies. After the 
“ringleader” posted a message to a bulletin board about how he would 
like to become a martyr in Afghanistan, he was contacted by an FBI 
informant who put the wheels in motion.

As is so often the case, the informant had a material interest in 
drawing the four men into the FBI orchestrated conspiracy. Today’s NY 
Times reported:

"Salahuddin Mustafa Muhammad, the imam at the mosque where the 
authorities say the confidential informant first encountered the men, 
said none of the men were active in the mosque. An assistant imam, Hamin 
Rashada, said Mr. Cromitie and Mr. Payen occasionally attended services.

"Mr. Cromitie was there last June, and he met a stranger.

"He had no way of knowing that the stranger’s path to the mosque began 
in 2002, when he was arrested on federal charges of identity theft. He 
was sentenced to five years’ probation, and became a confidential 
informant for the F.B.I. He began showing up at the mosque in Newburgh 
around 2007, Mr. Muhammad said.

"The stranger’s behavior aroused the imam’s suspicions. He invited other 
worshipers to meals, and spoke of violence and jihad, so the imam said 
he steered clear of him.

"'There was just something fishy about him,' Mr. Muhammad said. Members 
'believed he was a government agent.'

"Mr. Muhammad said members of his congregation told him the man he 
believed was the informant offered at least one of them a substantial 
amount of money to join his 'team.'

There is little doubt that the informant was paid handsomely for his 
dirty work.

It occurred to me that it would be worth assembling a dossier on all 
these dodgy arrests since September 11, 2001. I told my wife as I began 
work that being able to access Lexis-Nexis for free is a benefit of 
working at Columbia University that is worth more to me than health 
insurance or the retirement plan.

This might not be in complete chronological order but it is a fairly 
complete record of all the sordid stings and trumped up cases from the 
beginning of this dark night in history.

full: 
http://louisproyect.wordpress.com/2009/05/22/dossier-on-fbi-entrapment-in-war-on-terror/
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