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Newburgh Four: Poor, Black, and Jailed Under FBI 'Entrapment' Tactics
In June, four men were jailed for 25 years over a US terror plot. The FBI painted them as dedicated fanatics, but were they lured by the promise of cash from a fake informant?
Imam Salahuddin Muhammad could hardly miss Shahed Hussain when he first appeared three years ago at his mosque in the dilapidated town of Newburgh, just 60 miles up the Hudson River from New York.
Newburgh Four member James Cromitie is led away by police. At trial, the judge said Cromitie was a man 'whose buffoonery is positively Shakespearean in its scope'. (Photograph: Robert Mecea/AP) Hussain was flash, drove expensive cars and treated people to gifts of cash and food. He also had radical opinions that stood out in a mosque that welcomed Shia and Sunni followers and had good relations with local Jewish and Christian communities.
"This guy said women should not be heard, not be seen. I thought that was strange," Muhammad told the Guardian as he sat in his office inside Newburgh's mosque." Muhammad, who is a black American convert, had no idea how strange things would get.
Hussain would make Newburgh's Muslim community famous when earlier this year four other black Newburgh Muslims were jailed for 25 years for a 2009 plot to fire a Stinger missile at US military planes. They also planted car bombs, packed with lethal ball bearings, outside Jewish targets in the wealthy New York suburb of Riverdale.
Prosecutors painted them as America-hating terrorists bent on slaughter. All four followed the instructions of Hussain, who meticulously organized the scheme: from getting the missile and bombs, to reconnaissance missions, to teaching the tenets of radical Islam.
The "Newburgh Four" now languish in jail. Hussain does not. For Hussain was a fake. In fact, Hussain worked for the FBI as an informant trawling mosques in hope of picking up radicals.
Yet far from being active militants, the four men he attracted were impoverished individuals struggling with Newburgh's grim epidemic of crack, drug crime and poverty. One had mental issues so severe his apartment contained bottles of his own urine. He also believed Florida was a foreign country.
Hussain offered the men huge financial inducements to carry out the plot – including $250,000 to one man – and free holidays and expensive cars.
As defence lawyers poured through the evidence, the Newburgh Four came to represent the most extreme form of a controversial FBI policy to use invented terrorist plots to lure targets. "There has been no case as egregious as this. It is unique in the incentive the government provided. A quarter million dollars?" said Professor Karen Greenberg, a terrorism expert at Fordham University.
Lawyers for the Newburgh Four have appealed. Their case will now be heard early next year. It is sure to prompt a re-examination of the way Hussain and the FBI invented a terrorist plot involving impoverished black Muslims in an economically deprived city.
The case will question the new ethos of the FBI, which, since the terror attacks of 9/11, has focused on pre-emptive prosecution. It also raises serious questions as to how the FBI has treated Muslim communities in America, who it says are a key ally in fighting terrorism, and yet are subjected to such tactics.
If the appeal fails, some believe the Newburgh Four case could end up at the Supreme Court. That won't be much comfort to Newburgh's Muslim community. "It felt terrible being targeted," said Muhammad. On his office walls hung several awards praising his work on inter-faith projects and promotion of peace. "We worked so hard to establish this place. Then our beautiful mosque is in newspapers all over the world," he said.
There is little doubt Newburgh has serious social problems. The wide expanse of Broadway sweeps to the Hudson as grandly as it did in the city's 19th-century heyday, but many shops are boarded up. Side streets are full of houses falling apart, boarded up, or burnt out. Even at 9am drug dealers openly ply their trade.
It is this poverty-drenched environment in which Hussain met James Cromitie, a loudmouth Walmart worker who claimed to deal drugs and stolen goods. Exactly why Hussain picked Newburgh is not clear. He had already acted as an informant in another controversial "entrapment" case in Albany, New York, where a local pizza owner and an imam were convicted for terrorist money laundering.
Now Hussain's brief was to fish for new suspects. He claimed to find one in Cromitie, who was prone to anti-Semitic rants. Hussain coaxed Cromitie along, eventually developing the plot to attack Riverdale and a US airbase on behalf of a Pakistani terrorist group. It was Cromitie who then recruited the other three men – David Williams, Onta Williams and Laguerre Payen – to fulfill Hussain's desire for lookouts.
From then, the FBI prosecution seemed straightforward. After all, even though the plot was fake, the men seemed to think they were carrying out an Islamic terror attack. Prosecutors believed they were a real threat. But it is not that simple.
None of the four men fit the usual profile of a terrorist-in-waiting, let alone an active militant. But they did fit the profile of desperate men who would do anything for money – and Hussain promised massive earthly awards.
For Cromitie, he proffered $250,000: a staggering sum. Hussain also offered to buy him a new BMW, a holiday in Puerto Rico, and a barber shop to set him up in his own business. The other three were also offered thousands of dollars in what must have seemed a miraculous windfall.
Both Williams men had done time in jail and were struggling. Onta Williams, the son of a crack addict mother, had started dealing drugs at 14. Meanwhile Payen, of Haitian origin, was possibly schizophrenic. He urinated in bottles in his bedroom and, when told of a trip to Florida as reward, said he could not go because he had no passport.
In meetings discussing the plot, Payen said little; he just devoured the copious free food Hussain bought. It is not a portrait of radical Islamists. It is a sad picture of life in an urban ghetto.
Blustering fantasist
Yet the FBI treated the gang, especially Cromitie, as dedicated fanatics. Cromitie certainly disliked Jews. "All the evil in this world is due to the Jews," Cromitie told Hussain. But Cromitie also told Hussain he believed President Bush was the anti-Christ and he wanted to kill him "700 times".
Cromitie falsely claimed to have visited Afghanistan. He said he stole guns from his job at Walmart, yet the shop did not sell firearms. He said he had been jailed for murder and thrown bombs at police stations: all lies.
Cromitie seemed less a terrorist and more a blustering fantasist. Indeed, away from the company of Hussain, there is little sign Cromitie did anything for the plot. When Hussain gave him a camera and told Cromitie to reconnoitre targets, he promptly sold it.
He knew little about Islam; it was Hussain who tried to educate him about jihad. Hussain complained bitterly his pupil was doing nothing. "You've not started the first step, brother. Come on," Hussain griped on tape.
In fact, Cromitie tried to ditch Hussain. For weeks on end Cromitie pretended to leave Newburgh to avoid him. Cromitie ignored Hussain's phone calls, deleted voice mails and pretended not to be in when Hussain came around his house. He stopped going to the mosque.
Only when Cromitie lost his job, and became desperate for money, did he contact Hussain again. "I told you, I can make you $250,000, but you don't want it, brother," Hussain told him.
Now Cromitie agreed and set about finding lookouts. "Ok, fuck it. I don't care. Ah, man. Maqsood, you got me," he said, using Hussain's fake name.
Even further into the plot – when Cromitie again told Hussain he did not think he could do it – Hussain said his overseas terrorist "brothers" might cut his head off. Cromitie came back on side.
The sheer scale and proactive nature of Hussain's actions has shocked legal experts, Muslim groups and civil rights organisations. They say it went far beyond a fair use of resources in neutralising a real threat. Not only was the entire plot fake, but it seemed only Hussain's Islamic coaching, talk of cash rewards and constant attention was keeping it alive.
But then Hussain was no normal informant. The entire FBI entrapment strategy in post-9/11 America has drawn fire for using informants with criminal records, shady pasts, financial incentives or a record of deception. Hussain had all four.
"He is a brilliant con man. He could con people about anything," said Steve Downs, a lawyer with Project Salam, which campaigns on entrapment cases.
At trial, Hussain's shocking past emerged. He claimed to have been arrested on murder charges in Pakistan. He admitted entering the US on a fake British passport. He had fraud convictions for a driving license scam. Indeed, he became an FBI informant in exchange for help with those charges.
He claimed to be poor, yet received mysterious sums of money from Pakistan. In 2009 and 2010 he got at least $250,000 that way. He explained having two luxury cars with a bizarre story that Pakistani leader Benazir Bhutto gave them to his family on a trip to New York.
He also claimed he never offered Cromitie a quarter of a million dollars, saying the phrase "$250,000" was a secret code name for the plot. Then he confessed he had not told either his FBI handlers or Cromitie of the code's existence; only he knew about it.
During the entire investigation, he earned $100,000 from the FBI in wages and expenses. In a tough economy, that is well-paid work for a convicted fraudster.
Yet Hussain was the sole personal witness for the FBI. His reports of what Cromitie had talked about were taken as truth, even though Hussain did not record the first four months of their meetings. And, once he began recording, the FBI unusually allowed him to switch the tape on and off. "They gave him a real long leash. He could do whatever he wanted," said Downs.
Therefore, there are large, unexplained gaps in the tapes, including the final minutes of the plot itself as the bombs were put in position. Hussain claimed - as he often did – that equipment malfunctioned at the vital moment.
Shakespearean buffoonery
Even Judge Colleen McMahon – who put the Newburgh Four behind bars – slammed the FBI. "Only the government could have made a terrorist out of Mr Cromitie, a man whose buffoonery is positively Shakespearean in its scope," she said in court. She added: "I believe beyond a shadow of a doubt that there would have been no crime here except the government instigated it, planned it and brought it to fruition."
Those comments did not appease Alicia McWilliams, David Williams's aunt. "This was a movie script, written by the FBI," she fumed.
But it is hard to drum up support. Newburgh showed that for a jury the mention of the word "terrorism" can override legal concerns. It also makes campaigning for the Newburgh Four – and other Muslims caught in entrapment schemes – difficult. "Fear does that to people. When you say "terrorism", that is a powerful word. Even half of my family don't want anything to do with this," McWilliams said.
But what were the Newburgh Four thinking? In letters sent from jail, David Williams claimed they were intent on eventually robbing Hussain. Williams had a brother in need of a liver transplant and he said he wanted cash for that. It is a story McWilliams believes.
Muhammad also thinks it might be possible. "Maybe they thought they were playing Hussain for money. But they were the ones being played," the imam said. Others are not so sure.
Greenburg believes the men likely knew what they were doing, but were interested in cash, not religion. "From the evidence, they believed in the plot. But they didn't believe in jihad," she said. For prosecutors, that was enough to justify the whole scheme. "Ordinary people … would have known better. For Pete's sake, they would have called the cops when they heard there was a terrorist in town. These four men? They didn't give it a second thought," said prosecutor David Raskin in court.
However, that concept disturbs civil rights experts and legal figures, who dislike that FBI informants can offer money to people in return for committing crimes and then prosecute them. "I'm sure you could find hundreds of people, unfortunately, who would agree to commit very bad crimes for money," defence lawyer Mark Gombiner said.
Some say the FBI has now softened its tactics in the wake of the fallout from Newburgh. Last month, a sting by New York police netted suspected terrorist Jose Pimentel allegedly building a bomb with the help of an NYPD informant. Yet the FBI declined to get involved. It did not consider the man a legitimate threat. "The Newburgh case has had an impact. I know that," said Greenberg.
But for now the Newburgh Four remain in jail. Their families desperately hope they will be successful in next year's appeal. And Hussain? With two successful cases behind him, he is an experienced FBI asset. He has now disappeared from those who knew him in Albany and Newburgh. "Maybe he got a new assignment from the FBI," said Downs.
47 Comments so far
Show All"None of the four men fit the usual profile of a terrorist-in-waiting, let alone an active militant. But they did fit the profile of desperate men who would do anything for money – and Hussain promised massive earthly awards."
So what's a greater threat? Terrorists from La-La-land, or your poor starving masses? And should the reaction of society be to brutalize the poor starving souls more? What did we actually LEARN from this other than when you treat everything that isn't born rich as an automatic loser, the "losers" will find ways to express their rage? I would expect that soon we will hear nothing but stories about our poor being "caught in the nick of time" before lashing out.
Amerikkkkkka is a sick, sick, sick place. Thank goodness your brilliant namesake died young.
And we learn about how sick it is from a newspaper 3000 miles across an ocean from here.
He was 58, that's not a bad year to die...especially if you drank as much as he did.
Let's see, there's this guy who works for the government, named Hussain something, and he's a master conman. Reminds me of someone one, uh, uh, on the tip of my tongue.
If there are no terrorists we have to create them.
Apologies to Voltaire.
CTRL: I was going to post a comment along the same lines.
At one time there was a TV commercial for Maytag that showed repairmen sitting around all day. The premise was that the machines were so good, these fellows (and their repair skills) were not needed. I view the entire Homeland Security apparatus along similar lines. Not to say these guys are doing a great job, but rather, like the Maytag repairmen, there IS nothing here to fix. Therefore, as you put it, they have to create the phantom threat... otherwise, how else can they justify their personal salaries along with the massive funds being routinely poured into these programs based on citizen CONTROL. It's all sickening.
This is true. Someone recently pointed out the nonsensical aspect of the airport security pageant. If there were so many terrorists around, they would just go other public places. But they haven't, which leads one to suspect there are not so many terrorists around. So the FBI has to invent them to keep the funds flowing, the fear level at at least orange, and the jobs justified.
And the sheep wullingly go along by accepting the TSA goon squar tatpctics.
The sheep should have boycotted the airlines until those searches stopped.
But even my very Liberal, Obama loving Uncle happily goes thru the death scans.
You are right. There are so many other ways for them to hurt us if they excisted in the 1st place.
But it is ok for the US to have it's people in other countries stirring up all kinds of shit.
But if another countrie's agent is hwre, he is a terrorist
Today's December 11th and I believe Amurkan democracy so much that I actually want to see some of it. OK.
Jclientelle: I think you're a fair, honest, and clear-minded poster. So may I ask you a question? Given this new law (I dont recall its I.D. #) that will make it possible for the U.S. Prez to arrest virtually anyone by associating his (or her) acts and speech with material support for terrorism, do you see the way being cleared for arresting those who oppose U.S. foreign and domestic policies of aggression, etc.?
I can see that Minitrue gets it. We're all a lot like those frogs set into water being slowly brought to a boil. Each day another law or injustice takes place without redress; and meanwhile, security forces are building up, domestic spying operations are being excessively-funded, police departments and their tactics are being seamlessly woven into those previously reserved for foreign military campaigns, Habeas Corpus is in tattered fragments (along with much of The Constitution and Bill of Rights), the checks and balances meant to curb absolute power corrupting absolutely instead work to support that objective, and FEMA camps are waiting.
I feel threatened by these things. Reading the book, "Dangerous Dossiers" and recognizing the degree to which the Nazi-mind set always targets the Intelligentsia, added to very real campaigns of political terrorism previously directed at liberals, presumed Communists, and those on the Left, there is certainly precedent for more than suspicion. I believe this site is under surveillance, too.
Comments?
Thanks for your kind words. .
"...do you see the way being cleared for arresting those who oppose U.S. foreign and domestic policies of aggression, etc?" HELLS YEAH. You would have to be blind not to see that possibility. Legal protections have been systematically and planfully dismantled over the years. Now hit orders can be put out for anyone without any explanation or oversight, and / or we can be thrown into jail forever without any due process, trial, lawyer etc. We citizens are now eligible to experience the way, say Latin American activists and others, have been treated by the CIA for years.
Between unemployment, global warming, ruinous and immoral war, etc. etc. however, we cannot stop telling the truth and think that our silence will protect us. Something gets everyone in the end, so would rather go down doing the right thing and joining with others than to sit by and watch "As the World Burns" on my TV.
J Clientelle: I agree 100%. I just wanted to see if we were on the same page.-----------------------------------------------------------------
GALEN: I just wish the honorable calling to defend one's family still relied on rocks and spears... as opposed to today's weapons that scare the ca ca out of me. -----------------------------------------------------------------
MINITRUE: Great posts on this thread!
How many politicians vote a certain way for large sums of money?
How crucial to see the fallacy in the Prosecutor's fantasy.. that sensible upstanding people would have turned in Hussain instead of being lured into the FBI Entrapment Game of Creating Terrorists. There's nothing so annoying as to see the defenders of government criminality make bold claims about uprighteousness as being what they have done ..........................................................................................................
The idea of the OTHER pontificator I find annoying -- about whether these fellows were insane (schizoid) and using the idea that the one fellow was saving his URINE in bottles in his bedroom as EVIDENCE of INSANITY is another case of IGNORANT AUTHORITARIAN IMPOSITION OF LABELS -- but instead is another clue to ignorance by the psychobabble supporting group .........................................................................
Apparently the psycho-babble pontificator is ignorant of current high performance international SANITATION in current ECO-SUSTAINABLE practices ............................................................................
In some African countries there are local governments seriously making strides in improving agricultural productivity AS WELL as developing high performing sanitation in the cities..... There the city sends tank trucks around the city to collect the urine of citizens from their weekly output. That urine is then aged and used in the countryside agriculture. The city pays such citizen saver/contributors $4/week, not a small amount for some people in such places. Demonstrating the value of URINE. ........................................................................................................................
The Finns were the first to do the research and show that this form of fertilizer was about 30% more productive that standard petro-based fertilizers. AND the crops were CLEANER and it was nearly free, unlike the Monsanto cabal and their methods of tormenting lowerclass farmers in other countries, as well as here ..........................................................
Of course, the idea that urine is unclean is so completely upside down. Urine was used as a wound cleaner in battlefield medicine before the antibiotics were available. IT'S A STERILE FLUID. It's so unfair to be so negative towards your own body and its natural processes. Another evil gift from government health departments that are responsible for the devastation resulting from their designed sewage handling, imposed here and now being foisted on foreign countries as 'civilized' and needed, both evilly wrong .........................................................
There are so many people who are tormented for lack of a decent water supply yet these Health Dept morons make the system set up for us to urinate and defecate into clean drinking water. Absolutely immoral ...................................................
And the Health Dept idea of how fearful we should be of sewage is valid only because their system does brew up a horrid mess, mixing incompatibles so nothing gets properly processed, then suffocating helpful bacteria in their designed anoxic conditions, and then stewing it for some form of burial in the country or expensive high-volume cleaning in the city ............................ Cleaning at the 'point of creation' is thoroughly simple and effective .............................................................
If we were to do what the Eco-San people are doing, storing urine for gardening and composting fecal properly, then the residual water could serve as landscaping supply IF we were to each have our own CONSTRUCTED WETLANDS as a feature of our landscape. Counterproductive flushing is eliminated, saving a third of the water now being needed for flushing AND Huge amounts of water would ALSO then be saved from and for landscape and garden needs, THEREBY to improve life, save infrastructure expenses and improve the environment .......................................................................................................
One of the leaders in this movement in California is the wonderfully sensible and intrinsically ethical Laura Allen and you can see her own system at this video .........................
( www.youtube.com/user/dectiri ) .........................................................................
I presume an African American (if that's what the other fellows were) might have had some awareness of such African hoped-for progress but I'm not about to make any judgement on his likeliness of having dreams of owning his own farming operation with his share of that quarter million that they were subversively promised .............................................
But to presume to judge the fellow, now in total terror for his own future and his family's survival in tough times, in bad circumstances to start with locally, is thoroughly unfair. The psycho-babble promoter may have thought he/she could get some sympathy for this fellow but if the right moves are made to free these victims of FBI criminality-creation, then the sympathy will only get the guy sequestered in some inmate hole for schizoid patients .............................................
Let's try to make some decent images of poor people conned and bludgeoned into engaging in FBI created criminal imitating. Urine saving is not necessarily a psycho-babble clue.
And all the while the Police are zapping the commons with LRADs and warfare-grade pepper spray, destroying our civil and human rights, lying to us and manipulating us to fight in their wars-for-profit. The Elite and their Government stooges monitor our communication, surveil our movements in public, erode the education of our children, and poison the very environment we need to sustain life on this planet.
And all the while we are told, indoctrinated, 'Do Not Fight Back. Submit. Obey."
To those of you who think that playing by the rules, trying to work within an utterly corrupt system, going-along-to-get-along, I say you have been DOMESTICATED.
You have surrendered your humanity. You are now PRODUCT, property of the Masters, the Elite who proclaim their status with their boot on your throat. You wouldn't fight back, or even think of defying them, even though your life and that of your families is at stake.
Those who advocate violence on public boards are either idiots, agent provocateurs or both.
There is a difference between 'violence' and 'self-defense'.
You seem to be locked into the uni-directional violence-from-the-top-down-only-is-acceptable paradigm, unwilling to even consider self-defense.
GALEN: I agree with everything you say, except I seem to recall that your recipe (or response) is based on retaliation, and fighting back. A very compelling recent piece (posted on CD) by Rebecca Solnit related all the reasons why violence would not work. If there is a larger order to the universe, and if there is a time (or season) for every purpose under heaven, then the Law of Cycles itself promises that corruption can only last so long. It's lasted TOO long, for sure, to those on the front lines of suffering. We know from climate change, the end of cheap oil, the fury of the rising masses on just about every continent... that the Old Ways are largely over. The elites are fighting to maintain what will not stand up to the tests of time. It's possible that some will resort to violence (at great costs to themselves, and likely engendering yet more police state controls); and who knows, perhaps those sparks of violence will fit into the overall calculus. I prefer to think that as the wheel of time turns, the Pharaoh's compounds will come asunder, for ultimately the earth moving under them contributes to a complete collapse of the foundations they rest upon. In other words, The Change is organic... and it's my hope that violence need not be included.
SR - You are one of the posters I have been reading for years on CD, and greatly respect your views and opinions. I want to say that right out. But...
"Rebecca Solnit related all the reasons why violence would not work."
But violence DOES work. That's why the Elite use it so frequently and so freely. They KNOW it works. They have also inculturated and indoctrinated the descending levels of social hierarchy with the mistaken belief that you not only should not resist, but that to do so is immoral.
Ms. Solnit also dragged out the old canard that "The Master's tools can never be used to bring down the Master's house."
Only partially correct. The 'Master' will never willingly use the his own tools to bring down what he has built. But that's not to say you can't get your own tools to do the job. A hammer doesn't care who uses it, or how. It can be used to build, it can be used to demolish. Intent is the key.
I would hazard a guess that many people who use that saying have never built or demolished a house, including Ms. Solnit. I have done both. It's hard, dirty back-breaking labor. But it has to be done.
Many people, too many is my opinion, have the demonstrably false idea that you can and must work from within the system if you want to see change. But haven't the events of the past ten years demonstrated that no matter how many marches, protests, vigils, letter campaigns, on and on ad nauseum PROVEN that the Elite and their political puppets DON'T CARE? How can you change a system that corrupts you, that co-opts you into compromising your morals and ideals? Just look at the professional Corporate PR flacks who now run Greenpeace and related environmental organizations, working hand in glove with the very Corporations that are destroying the environment, the same Corporations that control the Government via political funding.
This article about the FBI PROVES that the PTB are so desperate for an identifiable enemy to blame they are willing to manufacture them. Therefore, the system, which you want to work with, will either corrupt you, or cast you in the role of villain. It is beyond redemption. QED.
Change IS organic. It is also natural, and very frequently painful, and bloody. Like any mammalian birth. Even hatching from an egg requires that the offspring use force, violence, to break the shell. Otherwise, it dies.
Thank you for the respect you've shown me. Look, I am not naive. I see the violence going on to "keep things in order," as shown by police departments, and worst of all, the Egyptian military. I didn't want to be the prophet of doom raining on the "Egyptian Spring," but the idea of the Military taking over never seemed to me in any remote way a liberating factor. ------------------------------------------- I think it's harder for a man to take the crap than for a woman. Whether it's testosterone or all the things that condition men to be hard and tough in our society, the sense of "occupation" by the elites is probably felt more like a boot to your back than it is to mine. --------------------------------------------------- My main reflex against violence is that it will lead to so much MORE violence. Who do you think is better armed here, Galen? Can you imagine drones sent to a demonstration? The bloody bodies of the kids hidden from the MSM, yet going viral before those who publish the photos are treated to about as much legal fairness as Bradley Manning? -------------------------------------------------------- As for processes that take place organically, how about you and I come halfway each, and agree that there will probably be some violence; but that it makes sense not to egg on more than is necessary. I will not pretend to know the exact % in that equation. One could pull up the statistics not only quoted by Solnit, that show how often nonviolence DOES work to change society. It's that evil and all the weaknesses found in individuals and society as a whole will never be vanquished once and for all. Sometimes I think those who want to topple all elements of capitalism presume that a Utopian society will follow. -------------------------------------------------------------------- So many prophecies speak of this phase as a Massive Transition; and just as Einstein related, what is to come will not be answered by or through the old, familiar models. Let us allow ourselves to begin to Imagine Other. Peace. (And the shell analogy was a good one.)
@ Siouxrose - Honestly, all I want is to live and let live, in a world where I can grow a garden, be a woodworker, and watch my kids grow up healthy.
I don't expect a Utopia. And I think you know any 'Utopia' would be just as tyrannical as what we are living in now.
"As for processes that take place organically, how about you and I come halfway each, and agree that there will probably be some violence; but that it makes sense not to egg on more than is necessary."
Very much in agreement on this point. That being said, I will defend my friends and family, and do what I must in order to achieve that.
The phony war on terror is part of the new fascism.
This is also a way TPTB keep Muslims as the boogeymen.
I too think this is entrapment.
But then you have the whole US Government aware of the FF9/11 so they can convince the sheep that the wars are for self defense, and not so the military can invade a country for their resources.
I hate all this country stands for.
Anyone involved in any real or entrapment plot, terror or Drug War related and was offered these kinds of inducements would feel threatened by death or severe retaliation if they refused to cooperate or talked to authorities whether or not the threat was given.
In this case the threat of retaliation was even overt.
Case Dismissed!
Judge Jim
And the (white) prosecutor saying: "Why didn't the four call the police?"
Sure! You are a poor black man in a dangerous rough neighborhood, who probably gets harassed and intimidated by cops for any reason or no reason at all - and where snitches have a very short life span. Sure, you would call the cops on this Hussain guy.
I'm curious what would have happened if the four guys simply shot him. They would have faced life without parole with "Hussain" transformed into a loving father and heroic anti-terrorism fighter.
The sad case of the Cuban Five comes to mind. They were sent to prison, some for life for informing the FBI about an ongoing Miami-Cuban-terrorism plot.
“If you tell a lie big enough and keep repeating it, people will eventually come to believe it. The lie can be maintained only for such time as the State can shield the people from the political, economic and/or military consequences of the lie. It thus becomes vitally important for the State to use all of its powers to repress dissent, for the truth is the mortal enemy of the lie, and thus by extension, the truth is the greatest enemy of the State.”
“The most brilliant propagandist technique will yield no success unless one fundamental principle is borne in mind constantly - it must confine itself to a few points and repeat them over and over”
And:
“Think of the press as a great keyboard on which the government can play.”
Joseph Goebbels, MiniProp for Hitler’s Third Reich
1897-1945
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
"Naturally the common people don't want war: Neither in Russia, nor in England, nor for that matter in Germany. That is understood. But, after all, it is the leaders of the country who determine the policy and it is always a simple matter to drag the people along, whether it is a democracy, or a fascist dictatorship, or a parliament, or a communist dictatorship. Voice or no voice, the people can always be brought to the bidding of the leaders. That is easy. All you have to do is tell them they are being attacked, and denounce the peacemakers for lack of patriotism and exposing the country to danger. It works the same for any country."
Herman Goering to Gustave Gilbert at Nuremberg, 18 April, 1946
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
The above is part of the primer of domestic terrorism and control. It has merely been "improved" by new techniques and hardware. The step-by-step enslavement of We the People is proceeding apace. We have been slowly conditioned to accept fascism and cruelty as normal. Little by little the ante has been raised and the people have gone along with it.
It sounds like at least a few are becoming aware, but the fascists have been preparing for that also. Hence the NorthCom training of combat brigades in "suppressing civil dissent," the ongoing development of more suppression devices such as the sound cannon, the pain ray, various new gasses, etc., and the concentration camps built with a no-bid contract by KBR. KBR is now putting out an RFP for contractors to man, feed, water, etc., the camps.
As We the People become more aware, turn off the Big Game and Dancing with the Stars, and take to the streets to assert our rights, the 1% will order its minions to suppress or imprison us.
IF the 99%ers in the military and the domestic police decide to turn on their masters, or at least refuse to fire on their own people, we may be successful. If not, there is a world of misery before us until the 1% finally turns on itself for absolute control and the system collapses from its own dry rot.
Remember, bombs and guns and camps can kill people, but they cannot erase ideas. This has been proved time and time again. As long as we keep the idea of peace and freedom in our minds and hearts, eventually we will succeed, but the cost will be high.
"IF the 99%ers in the military and the domestic police decide to turn on their masters, or at least refuse to fire on their own people, we may be successful."
I wouldn't hold my breath waiting for that to happen. Police (and military) work attracts the same type of thugs the world over. Remember the goon at UC Davis? The one who casually pepper sprayed people while they were sitting quietly? He's your typical cop. Many of them look at civil unrest as an opportunity.
It is a British news organization, the UK Guardian, engaged in serious, well-researched journalism here about FBI informant tactics on the domestic front of the US government's ongoing global war on terrorism. The surreal story of the Newburgh Four - who is really conspiring, who is really scamming who and why - is like something out of Kafka, or a LeCarre spy novel where no one is actually who they claim or appear to be. Very informative inside account of tax payer dollars at work in the federal justice system.
The legal precedent and confidential informant tactics on display in this tale of a targeted antiterrorism sting operation grew directly out of the war on drugs. Federal conspiracy law and federal law regarding entrapment evolved over the years to bring us where we are: cops posing as terrorists, or cops handling civilian snitchs posing as terrorists, paying to recruit criminals and dupes to act like terrorists in order that the long arm of the law can swoop in preemptively at the last moment to save the day, often with great fanfare. Feeling safer yet?
The law of entrapment has been stretched and distorted almost beyond recognition in the federal courts and most state criminal justice systems over the last thirty years. No longer is it unusual for one team of cops (posing as big time drug sellers) to induce some financially strapped or greedy sucker to be the middle man go-between to set up a controlled substance transaction with a second team of cops (posing as big time drug buyers).
Surprize! Shame on the guy in the middle for getting stung when the buy/bust climax comes down. If he or she was pre-disposed to commit the crime according to the prosecution team's theory, then justice has been done and the cycle repeats.
It is not impossible to find law enforcement officials who will look you straight in the eye and say such tactics do, in theory, deter crime. Maybe universal paranoia will scare them all straight.
Bill from Saginaw
These kinds of stings and scams and all-around trumped-up entrapment operations have become SOP for Amerikan law-enforcement in recent decades-- a "cottage industry", if law-enforcement agency headquarters, the hallowed halls of justice, and prisons can be considered a "cottage" .
If nothing else, they stoke self-inflating and self-justifying budgetary allotments for the entire law-enforcement "fusion" pyramid-- police, "justice", the Homeland Security apparatus, and the teeming Amerikan gulag at the end of the line. And, concomitantly, they're the trusty ropes and rungs on the career ladders in the vast and expanding interlaced institutions staging and running the show.
Just to cite an old example: the PRI radio program "This American Life" did a story years ago about some foolish aging charlatan who was beguiled into posing as a "weapons dealer" by a government informant dangling the prospect of making big bucks selling "missile launchers" to some nebulous outlaw customer-- ostensibly a terrorist organization.
Although the mark was no angel, he was so far from being an actual "weapons dealer" that the informant had to obtain a dummy missile launcher from his government handlers as a prop for the poor sucker to bring to a meeting with the alleged "buyers".
Without digging for the link and re-listening to the story, IIRC it featured a retired FBI agent who expressed surprise that the agencies would even use this particular snitch-- a "Curveball"-type with whom the retired agent had personally worked in the past, and who proved to be so treacherous and unreliable that he was dropped from the snitch rolls.
Naturally, after toting the informant-supplied non-smoking gun to the meeting, the target was promptly busted, prosecuted, and convicted. He never knew what hit him; the only thing he was arguably "guilty" of was being a sucker willing to risk leaning outside the law to make a fat profit-- exactly the sort of bold risk-taking that earns Amerika's esteemed banksters and financiers lucrative bonuses and accolades instead of long prison sentences.
The conviction was sold as a big feather in the cap of the ambitious prosecuting US Attorney, who vehemently insisted that the caper was unquestionably a genuine and substantial victory by Amerikan justice over the nefarious, evil forces of terrorism.
Incidentally, the self-righteously gloating US Attorney was none other than Chris Christie, who's since risen to the office of governor of New Jersey and is bruited about as potential Presidential material.
So, although The Guardian and other mass-media outlets are to be commended for exposing this horrorshow, it's no wonder that bogus and thoroughly scurrilous trumped-up "investigations" and prosecutions are, and show every sign of remaining, a staple in the Amerikan Imperium's institutions of law-enforcement and-- you should pardon the expression-- justice.
I like the way you delineated these tacits to segue into the career of Christie. Must be my cynicism for Modern Amerika and all...but it almost makes one reminisce about the days where the male, as hunter, could just go out and shoot a bird and return home feeling like a big man. Honestly, I think a lot of guys in uniform miss that immediate sense of engagement--with danger and reward. Now, in their place, they set up these "stings" where they are as guilty (or more) as the thugs they lure into their carefully constructed ambushes. In this economy, where so many are starving and need to make a buck, I'd think the "terrorism-fishing-cottage-industry" would have no shortage of targets to sting? Does what is spent on Homeland Security make our GNP look better?
In 1971 I was involved in what the government would now call eco-terrorism. A group of us took direct violent action to bring attention to the chemical warfare being done to the environment, and people of Vietnam, by the MIC and Dow chemical, called agent orange. It was very strange when it all went down, and I didn't understand until many years later, when I was able through a FOIA request, to get the FBI file, maybe fifty pages, that was so heavily redacted that there were only the ifs ands and butts left to read. The FBI claimed national security. What that really meant, was that one or two members of our group were either FBI provocateurs, or informants. The FBI has a long history of such things, and looks like they are still at it. They care not at all about the legality of these actions. The MIC doesn't give a damn about legality, morality, or humanity. When the government can bring witnesses against you with secrete identities, you live in a police state.
During Vietnam (remember Vietnam?) there was a group in Seattle that were peacefully protesting the war. I don't remember the group, might have been AFSC or something similar.
Anyway, they had been doing peaceful protesting when a guy joined their group. After a while, he told them they were not effective, that they needed to do something to catch the attention of the media and the people to bring their message forward. They continued to demonstrate and distribute literature.
Then, he again made his pitch and said they should blow up a bank or something to get attention. They said no, they were dedicated to non-violence.
Then he told them he could get hold of explosives and would teach them how to make bombs. They said "No!"
Eventually, he showed up at a meeting with all the paraphernalia and said he would show them how to assemble it. They said "No!!"
Finally, he said he would place one and set it off to show them how easy it was to do and how effective it would be. They again refused, but he said he would do it anyway.
Apparently, a few went near the scene, just to see what he was doing. Suddenly, the cops came in and rounded up the whole group as terrorists and threw them in the slammer.
When it came up to trial, the "bomber" was the chief witness against them. When it came out that he was an FBI agent, the judge said it was entrapment and threw the case out of court.
I don't suppose there are many on the bench today who would have the moral courage to do the same thing. Nowadays, the 'bomber" would probably give his "evidence" in the judge's chambers so his cover wouldn't be blown.
Can you say agent provocateur?
I knew you could.
Hey minitrue, Now that the MIC has almost totally co-opted the courts, the government, and Wall St. A second American Revolution,and Rewrite of the constitution is going to be the only way to prevent a full scale fascist police state.
minitrue -
Yes, it does take some moral courage for a judge in a black robe (even one with lifetime job security tenure, as in the federal judiciary) to dismiss a criminal indictment on grounds the police/prosecutor team used tactics that the judge finds reprehensible.
Remember, the case you mention arose from the Vietnam War era. The real problem is that in the last thirty to forty years, federal and many state courts' caselaw has restricted the ability of judges regardless of their moral courage level to use the Draconian sanction of dismissal, even when the government misconduct is demonstrably egregious.
Bill from Saginaw
Has anyone noticed that many blog sites have stopped allowing comments to articles? Yahoo is as recent as of today. Why this cessation of communicating opinions and ideas on articles over what appears to be the disappearing neutral internet. An exceptional dangerous situation for those wanting to object to what the elite are doing to the people and this country. And the despicable use of the supposed highest of american law enforcement, the seemingly patriotic FBI, but patriotic to whom.
No comment. ;)
Samo: I'll wager a guess. Given the slippery slope of recent legal rulings and similar "judicial" inroads, we're not far from the point where passionate criticism of insane government policies can be conflated with "material support for terrorism." I mean, isn't that the logical conclusion to remarks like "You're either with us, or against us"? If a Website or host can be considered party to the action, such venues may decide to co-opt such potential judgmental calls by doing away with potentially inflammatory commentary at all.
Sioux: Thanks for the description, it is what I think also. I also think we have only just begun to see these insidious laws and legal rulings. Might be why usatoday, suddenly jumped to allowing comments through facebook. Sort of lets usatoday off the hook and provides portals and exposures of those who are critical of the corporate government. Kind of like the M$M wants no unkind words about themselves or through their sterile venue. Usatoday was my M$M source to see how irresponsibly they informed people and they do more than not act M$Mish.
My main purpose for the seemingly out of context comment was to see if any others have noticed this phenomena. You gave as good a answer as I would expect. I just hope CD remains open to comments and others where the people can vent their frustrations, which will possibly against the law in a short time.
"Some say the FBI has now softened its tactics in the wake of the fallout from Newburgh. "
Horseshit. How about the Texan used car salesman who was plotting with another low life FBI informant to assassinate the Saudi ambassador to the US. The FBI, along with the CIA, the DHS, large city police depts, and special, death dealing units of the imperial US military, is just another whoring, US terror enforcement unit.
FBI= federal bogeyman inventors.
The Federal Bureau of Entrapment has really made itself "Untouchable" this time
- I'll have nothing to do with them.
And it takes a foregin news organization to give Americans this perspective.
It's not just "post-9/11" that the FBI and US law enforcement have resorted to entrapment and infiltration to create "terrorist" events. The original WTC attack in 1993 was another FBI baby where the agency actually supplied the explosives, and even the events of 9/11 themselves appear to have been set up as a sort of international sting and then allowed to go through. But our "protectors" don't limit their frame-jobs to the area of terrorism. A lot of drug busts are sting/entrapments, too, and they've been doing this for a very long time. I remember a friend from my days in NYC who came from an Indiana farm family and whose parents, struggling financially like so many single-family farmers, were lured by an undercover FBI agent into growing marijuana between the cornstalks to make extra money and then busted and sent up the river for a great many years. The treacherous strategy of entrapment is deeply ingrained in the culture of "law enforcement" in the US, and seems to me to stem from perverse need to punish people. The country's institutions would have to be reformed from the bottom up for this ever to change, and I can't see it happening with anything short of a revolution.
The FBI, along with the Supreme Court, appears to be doing its best to convince us that the US Constitution is just a "G-D piece of paper," as Mr. Bush asserted and as Barry apparently believes (maybe the document earned Barry's enmity when he had to discuss it over and over again while giving lectures that pained him immensely).
All I can say is:
"Good job, guys! Now what do you want us to do given that we no longer respect the law that gives the US government power over us? Do you really think that fear, and only fear, will be enough?"
Sooo many good comments here and I agree, we're in a world of trouble but this situation didn't just 'happen', it's been created for a reason and is just part of an overall takeover plan- population control may be a minor part of it all but I don't think so. Not having enough food and water resources for themselves brings much concern for the elite but right now, they've got to do something with us; most don't have jobs so we can't spend, how else are they going to make money off us? The private prison industry continues to thrive on gov't. bucks; private security forces are employed all around the world, why not here? Think Blackwater..er uh, no....Xe, they are. No, no they've changed again: let's see....Academi, is it? (with John Ashcroft on board) But they're about to show a need for these companies, you know, the ones run by their buddies....it's all these homegrown terrists we've got growin over here, you know? Just wait, I say they're coming to a town near you any day now ('you' meaning all of us of course) because after all, doesn't the elite put a lot of belief in The Georgia Guidestones and don't they instruct on population control to something like 500,000 or something really low like that? Anyway, just saying, a lot has been spent in the past 10-12 years building massive prisons, many of which are still empty....I worked in the construction industry as a commercial lender and it just amazed me; still does. Add those to the centers being erected for the roundup of brown peoples....disgusting and scary.
It's a damnedable disgrace that 2 supposed Black Leaders [Obama & Eric Holder] have continued the persecution & entrapment of primarily Black & Brown men who are nominally 'Muslim' so-called 'militants' based on the Bush - Cheney - Neo-CON phony War on Terror policy - which in essence is a Racist - Imperialistic - Police-State policy!
I refer again to the Oct 18 essay by Mike Pirsch entitled "America is a Fascist State Because it is Racist" [www.blackagendareport.com/content/america-fascist-state-because-it-racist] & Also note this article by Li Onesto 'Stories from Harlem' [www.globalresearch.ca/index.php?context=va&aid=28210]