Terror Plot Broken Up, Washington Saved: Really?

[Bill Mattocks]

So the news reported that the US government has stopped a terrorist attack using drones with explosives attached on Washington, D.C. That's a good thing, and I'm for it.

But what's the real deal here?

Here's the story:

http://am.blogs.cnn.com/2011/09/29/terror-plot-against-the-pentagon-averted-yesterday/

Terror plot against the Pentagon averted yesterday

Rezwan Ferdaus, a 26-year-old man from Massachusetts, was arrested Wednesday for allegedly plotting an attack on the Pentagon and the U.S. Capitol with a remote-controlled model aircraft filled with C-4 plastic explosives.

Sounds bad, right? Muslim-sounding name, plotting an attack, remote-controlled aircraft filled with C4 explosives. Very bad. Glad he was caught.

But then...

http://bostonherald.com/news/region...antial_steps_feds_g-men_gave_ferdaus_real_c-4

Accused remote-control aerial terrorist Rezwan Ferdaus was given 11⁄4 pounds of real C-4 high explosives along with nearly 24 pounds of an inert substitute by undercover G-men to make their case against Ferdaus that he had accepted the real thing, according to a federal indictment handed up yesterday.
...
Federal investigators who ran Ferdaus to ground, provided money, assault rifles, grenades and the explosives, but they said they monitored him closely so the weapons could not endanger the public before his arrest.

Wait a minute. The feds gave him the money, the weapons, and pretended to be A-Q so that he thought he was taking orders from A-Q? Basically, the feds were everything; supplier, fake A-Q members, and this idiot's entire 'terrorist cell'. He quite literally did not have EVEN ONE OTHER PERSON involved in his harebrained scheme.

What? Harebrained scheme? I mean, drones packed with explosives, that sounds pretty serious, doesn't it?

http://www.forbes.com/feeds/ap/2011/09/30/technology-us-model-plane-terror_8709582.html

These are not balsa-wood-and-rubber-band toys investigators are talking about. The FBI said Rezwan Ferdaus hoped to use military-jet replicas, 5 to 7 1/2 feet long, guided by GPS devices and capable of speeds over 100 mph.

Federal officials have long been aware of the possibility someone might try to use such planes as weapons, but there are no restrictions on their purchase - Ferdaus is said to have bought his over the Internet.

Counterterrorism experts and model-aircraft hobbyists said it would be nearly impossible to inflict large-scale damage of the sort Ferdaus allegedly envisioned using model planes. The aircraft are too small, can't carry enough explosives and are too tricky to fly, they said.

"The idea of pushing a button and this thing diving into the Pentagon is kind of a joke, actually," said Greg Hahn, technical director of the Academy of Model Aeronautics.

...

The model planes Ferdaus eyed were the F-4 Phantom and the F-86 Sabre, small-scale versions of military jets, investigators said. The F-4 is the more expensive of the two, at up to $20,000, Hahn said. The F-86, one of which Ferdaus actually obtained, costs $6,000 to $10,000 new.

Ferdaus' plan, as alleged in court papers, was to launch three such planes from a park near the Pentagon and Capitol and use GPS to direct them toward the buildings, where they would detonate on impact and blow the Capitol dome to "smithereens." He planned to pack five pounds of plastic explosives on each plane, according to prosecutors.

James Crippin, an explosives and anti-terrorism expert, said that much C-4 could do serious damage - a half-pound will obliterate a car. But he said getting a stable explosive like C-4 to blow up at the right time would have been hugely difficult.

And there were slim prospects of causing any serious damage to buildings like the Pentagon and Capitol, which are undoubtedly hardened to withstand explosions, according to Crippin, director of the Western Forensic Law Enforcement Training Center.

"Basically, I think he's suffering from delusions of grandeur," he said.

And this guy? Undoubtedly a bad guy, no argument there. Perhaps also a lunatic. And a dope-smoker.

http://www.foxnews.com/us/2011/09/3...ad-previous-arrests-but-seemed-well-adjusted/

Rezwan Matin Ferdaus, born and raised in Mass., has been in trouble with the law before.

The Ashland terror suspect arrested by the FBI this week was also arrested in for marijuana possession while he was a Northeastern University student.

Ashland police stopped him in 2005 after his car ran a red light. Police smelled marijuana in the car, according to a police report, and found two plastic bags of the drugs inside the vehicle.

Even his own mosque didn't want him around:

http://www.boston.com/news/local/ma...ue_ousted_ashland_man_charged_in_terror_plot/

The Ashland man who allegedly plotted to fly explosive-laden, remote-controlled airplanes into federal buildings in Washington, D.C., was asked to leave a Roxbury mosque last year because of his radical Islamic views and suspected support of Al Qaeda, a mosque official said yesterday.

Rezwan Ferdaus was said to revere the terrorist organization, and he criticized the mosque’s participation in interfaith efforts and in politics. He also disapproved of the mosque’s liberal policies that allowed men and women to eat and drink together in its cafe and was hostile toward women he thought dressed inappropriately or who had conversations with men, the official said.

“We said, ‘Look, that’s not going to work here,’ ’’ said Atif Harden, director of institutional advancement at the Islamic Society of Boston Cultural Center. “I can’t think of a mosque where he was welcome. He was clearly way out of step with the rest of the Muslim community . . . very disaffected, very disturbed. Just a bitter, angry guy.’’

I don't think there is any doubt that this guy is an angry, disaffected, Muslim man who would like very much to inflict pain and suffering on America; he's got the soul of a terrorist, no doubt about that. And I would not suggest for a minute that he's not dangerous. If nothing else, he's a threat to himself, and anyone who get get their hands on weapons can harm others. I don't really have a problem with him being taken off the streets.

But I'm not sure that a grand terrorist plot has been detected and averted. It looks to me as if the FBI intercepted this kid in his search for terrorist cohorts (which is very good, thank you FBI) and then constructed a fantasy world for him, where they pretended to be his A-Q handlers, gave him FBI 'cell members' and provided him with all the money, explosives, planes, cell phones, AK-47 rifles, and everything else he thought he would need to carry out his Wiley Coyote Acme plans for world domination. Then they dropped the net on him and announced that they had saved the world. Uh, no. They caught a lone nutter. And good job they did; he was clearly disturbed enough to have hurt himself or others, even to have killed. But could he have done ANY of the things he had imagined on his own? No. Could he have done them if the FBI had actually been A-Q and the bombs and etc real? Uh, no. So FBI, you save us from an Islamic terrorist wannabe, yes; and you deserve credit for that. However, please button up your shirt; there's no big red "S" under there.

 

[granfire]

5 pounds of C4....is that even gonna scratch the pentagon? I mean, a fully tanked up big jet did relatively little....

Yeah, I suppose the FBI gave this lone nutter a few weeks worth of wet dreams....

The plot spoiled is more like a tempest in tea cup....but hey, with really knowledgable people he could have done some damage....

 

[crushing]

I wondered how much like the Christmas Tree Bomber this would turn out to be, where the FBI had to beg and beg and finally persuaded the man to go along with their plot so they could swoop in and save America from terrorism.

 

[Bill Mattocks]

but hey, with really knowledgable people he could have done some damage....

This I absolutely agree with. And I'm definitely glad the FBI caught him. No doubt.

However, the headlines and the fantasy-world-saving bit...not so much.

Especially with his Acme Wiley Coyote plans.

 

[Carol]

This I absolutely agree with. And I'm definitely glad the FBI caught him. No doubt.

However, the headlines and the fantasy-world-saving bit...not so much.

Especially with his Acme Wiley Coyote plans.

I don't know, Bill I'm not sure if I'm glad they caught him.

Guys like Rezwan Ferdaus scare the crap out of me. Everything is all going fine, and then something goes horribly wrong. Their friends have girlfriends or are getting married, but they don't date. Or maybe they do but they can't hold down a relationship. No one seems interested in them long term. Maybe they don't have quite the magic or charm to rise above the crowd, so to speak. Or maybe they have viewpoints (especially towards women) that would make most sensible ladies run away in horror. And then something just snaps....but instead of exploding they implode, and emerge under some extreme or hardline construct. That becomes their focus, purpose, beliefs, and identity. They have little else to lose, and they have morphed in to an identity they KNOW will bring them power and attention. This is the sort that can hurt a lot of people , even if his methods wouldn't be successful the first time around. I think we're in full agreement here.


The media is just as much, if not moreso, on point for the world-saving story. However, on the eve of his capture (naturally the Boston media went wall-to-wall with the story), there was an FBI person saying something akin to "Some may think this is entrapment, but we gave him many opportunities to walk away."

Could there be so much invested in this fantasy land that the charges vested will not stick? THAT scares me. What do you think?

 

[Bill Mattocks]

Could there be so much invested in this fantasy land that the charges vested will not stick? THAT scares me. What do you think?

I suspect that the charges will stick, but I have no doubt that his attorneys will argue entrapment. Even if the FBI gave him everything, if they did not put the ideas into his head, it's not entrapment. My guess (and it is only that, a guess) is that the FBI was extremely careful to record every time they told him that he was about to do something that (he believed) was about to hurt or kill people, and they recorded his doing it anyway. They may have aided and abetted him in every possible way, but they didn't plant the notions in his head to do these things, they were apparently his bizarre plots, not theirs, and they put the detonators, etc, into his hands and let HIM pull the trigger. So I think he's done and will be convicted.

It's just...how far does this go? What if he had decided that if he had a 'death ray' he could destroy the entire planet, the FBI gave him a 'death ray' and he pulled the trigger on it with glee? Do we then charge him with crimes against humanity and the attempted murder of 7 billion people? See what I mean? No matter how bonkers and hateful this cretin is, he could not have done the things he wanted to do. So the whole thing...hmmm.