Another frame up plot

It is amazing that the enforcement agencies are unable to even be creative in fabricating "terror" plots, and keep using the same modus operandi every single time. Now they allege that four Muslim men planned to attack two synagogues in the Bronx, and an Air National Guard base upstate NY. Here a review from some of the articles:

LENGTH OF INVESTIGATION
The supposed "investigation" has been in the works since June of 2008. However, the alleged suspects did not begin to plan anything until October of 2008, when they began to meet in a house in Newburgh to start planning. This raises the question of what exactly happened between June and October of 2008. This is usually the time that the informants use to radicalize and provoke the would-be suspects to get them to point of wanting to do something. It is at this point that the informant brought them to a house of his choosing which was fitted with audio and video recording equipment. Convenient.

ROLE OF INFORMANTS
From the very first reports, it was clear that the informants in this case played a clear role. The very first articles, from the morning after the arrests, indicate that the informant was the one to provide "weapons" for this plot. It is hard to imagine that the person providing such highly sophisticated weapons, stinger missiles and explosive devices, would have been playing a backseat role in the other parts of the formation of the plot. Without a doubt, the offer to provide weapons cannot occur without incitement or encouragement to conception and planning of such a plot. In fact, the informant claimed to be a member of Jaish-e-Mohammed. Now, which one of these person would be more likely to suggest, and be looked up to, to perpetrate a terror plot? The informant(s) who claims to be a member of Jaish-e-Mohammed, offers weapons and explosives for the plot, or the four men who lacked basic Islamic knowledge, and one of whom was smoked out and high on the night of the arrests, had long rap sheets, and possible psychological problems? (No offense intended to recent converts, potheads, people with rap sheets, people with mental issues, or dumb folk - just an indication of who the enforcement agencies go after).

Such must have been the role of the informant, that he was able to bring the suspects into a house of HIS choice, which was equipped with concealed audio and video recording devices. It is also telling that the FBI and NYPD were able to drive in and use an 18-wheeler to block the suspected vehicle, which is no minor feat on a Bronx street even on a Sunday night, and indicates the level of infiltration and coordination. The words of one of the law enforcement officers, "it was fully controlled at all times," take on more than one meaning.

The Imam of the masjid that the suspects and informants attended, indicated that there had been widespread suspicions about the informant. Many in the congregation suspected that he was a government informant and provocateur, who kept inviting people to their houses and tried to engage them in radical discussions, and even offered them money to engage in violent acts.

The owner of the restaurant that the group met at noticed when the informant joined the group at meals. He also noticed that the informant usually paid for the meals, and assumed that he was the "boss" of the group.

This article in the NYT indicates that the informant is in fact Shahed Hussain, the same informant who was used in in the setting up of an Albany Imam and pizzeria owner in 2004. There is demand for professional informants apparently and experience counts. This guy is reported to have tried to recruit young members of the masjid, particularly African Americans, to join his team. The informant, as in many other cases, started to work with federal authorities, to work off a fraud charge from 2002, and to avoid deportation.

The Imam of the masjid raises an important point - “How do you go to the government about the government?”

TIMING OF ATTACKS
It must be noted that these tactics instituted under the Bush administration continue under the Obama administration, despite many public grievances against such tactics by Muslim communities, Muslim organisations, and even mainstream media. As usual, the timing of such plots often seek to serve a function within larger political debates and decisions. The "Herald Square Plot" was seized upon days before the 2004 Republican national Convention in NYC. This plot was timed, at the behest of the informant no doubt, to result in arrests the day before Obama's speech on national security and on his strategy for Guantanamo Bay prison. The arrests also took place on the same day that Obama revealed intentions to use "preventative detention" in cases related to terrorism. Such tactics, however, have already been in practice with regards to the Muslim community, where suspects are immediately charged with terrorism, and slowly over time those charges peter out to minor charges like credit card fraud or identity theft, or in many cases outright dismissal of all charges.

CONTEXT
The would-be suspects in this case, and the comments of notorious anti-Muslim politician Peter King indicate the shift or expansion that Domestic War of Terror will take in the coming future, to assert that "there’s a real threat from homegrown terrorists and also from jailhouse converts.” This shift to extend this racist targeting to include African American Muslims and convert communities has been part of the planning of law enforcement agencies for quite a while, and also from the NYPD's report.

Additionally, this indicates the shifting of law enforcement involvement to earlier and earlier stages, as was indicated and suggested by the NYPD report, which suggested law enforcement involvement and intervention at or even before suspects become radicalized. This same notion was then unsuccessfully attempted to be enshrined into law with HR 1955. All of this is clearly indicated by the words of the mayor himself: “I’ve always thought of our police department’s primary job, not as first responders but as first preventers.”

The NYPD report also mentioned that NYPD was involved in training of police and enforcement agencies in other countries. Indeed the fruits of such training are bearing out in the use of the same tactics in other countries including the UK.

For additional context for the purpose behind such tactics, read at the end here.

Reads:
- Informer’s Role in Bombing Plot
- At N.Y. Mosque, Many Suspected an Informant Before 4 Were Arrested in Plot
- FBI ‘lured dimwits’ into terror plot
- How MI5 blackmails British Muslims: ‘Work for us or we will say you are a terrorist’
- NYPD's report on Muslims