Home grown terrorism and the media

I knew it was coming, the mantra from some media that the recent terrorists arrested in New York were good boys.   The Nation didn't use that particular term with these four men, who wanted to blow up Jewish Synagogues and blow up military planes.  Robert Dreyfuss called them idiots, insinuating they were too stupid to actually carry out a terror attack and calling it a 'bogus terror plot.  I ask you, how smart does someone have to be to blow something up?  The answer:  not very.

However, Walid Phares at The Counterterrorism Blog believes the four men, James Cromitie, David Williams, Onta Williams and Laguerre Payen, were serious about bombing Jewish synagogues and gunning down military planes.

According to the Associated Press, the arrests came following a nearly yearlong undercover operation that began in Newburgh, N.Y., roughly 70 miles north of New York City. The patience, professionalism and sophistication of the law enforcement procedures in engaging the “cell” until it is trapped tell us that the first lines of defense are efficient. Since the 9/11 attacks the New York task forces have been able to arrest suspects in a number of plots including against the Fort Dix New Jersey military base, John F. Kennedy Airport, the Herald Square subway station in Manhattan and the Brooklyn Bridge.  [snip]

NBC New York aired underscored that the four men are Muslim, all citizens and one of Haitian descent. Being Muslim is not the issue here. The problem is that they are “Jihadists” and US citizens at the same time...  [snip]

According to a criminal complaint, “Cromitie began working with an FBI informant in June 2008 when he told the official that his parents has lived in Afghanistan and that he was upset with the ongoing war there, including the deaths of many Muslim in Afghanistan and Pakistan by U.S. military forces.” Compare this statement with many statements made by previously stopped cells: they are the same, almost to the word. They are produced by the same “ideological war room.” Cromitie didn’t mention the killing of more Muslims by the Taliban, al Qaeda and the likes. Same goes for all previous arrests. Isn’t it interesting? We need to be careful and not buy the propaganda served by the alleged terrorists but at the same time we need not to be naïve. NBC NY for example said “the motives behind the alleged plot are not yet known, but authorities said that Cromitie was apparently upset over the war in Afghanistan.” After eight years of conflict with the Jihadists and dozens of cells dismantled, their literature reviewed there is no question about “motives.” It is a war, and in each one of its attack, there is the overarching motive, ie, the ideology.  (continue at The Counterterrorism Blog)

The four terrorists were convicts who were converted to Islam in prison.  According to the City Room blog at the NYT:

  ...  the F.B.I. informer in this case also helped to convict two Albany Muslims on terror-related money-laundering charges three years ago. The informer, who is 52, began cooperating to avoid being deported to Pakistan after being arrested on charges that he helped immigrants cheat on their driver’s tests.

Is there a crime in using the same informant in two different cases?

From The Nation:

"Most of these guys don't get tried," said security analyst Bruce Schneier. "These are not criminal masterminds, they're idiots. There's huge fanfares at the arrest, and then it dies off."

The New York men arrested last week were ex-convicts down on their luck. In federal court, one admitted that he'd recently gotten stoned. "I smoke it regularly," he told the judge. Not to worry, he added, "I understand everything you are saying." ...

However, court statistics show that most domestic terrorism cases never make it to trial.

And why don't then make it to trial? Because nearly every one of them is utterly bogus.  (The Nation)

I beg to differ:

The Fort Dix terrorists, or jihadists, Shain Duka, bottom left, Eljvir Duka, Dritan Duka, Mohamad Ibrahim Shnewer and Serdar Tatar, were tried and found guilty of conspiring to murder members of the U.S. military.

In the Herald Square terror plot, James Elshafay was sentenced to five years in prison and Shahawar Matin Siraj was sentenced to 30 years.

In the JFK terror plot, suspects were Russell Defreitas, a United States citizen and native of Guyana who was the alleged ringleader and worked for a time at the airport; Abdul Kadir, a citizen of Guyana and former member of the Guyanaese National Assembly; Kareem Ibrahim, a citizen of Trinidad and Tobago; and Abdel Nur, a citizen of Guyan.  On June 29 the four men were indicted on charges with conspiring to "cause death, serious bodily injury and extensive destruction" at the airport.

In the Brooklyn Bridge plot, Iyman Faris aka Mohammad Rauf was convicted of providing material support to Al Qaeda, for his role in a plot to destroy the Brooklyn Bridge.

So, even though many call these terrorists, "good boys", or say they are too ignorant to carry out an attack, or that their plots were never "organizational", and that they don't get tried or convicted ... I beg to differ.  As Rich Lowry, editor of the National Review writing in the New York Post,  says,  "Foiled terror plots often will seem ridiculous and unlikely, especially when they are pre-empted" but should be taken seriously."

I'm sure if some of the media heard about a plot whee 20 nice young Muslim boys would board passenger jets, over power the passengers and staff, enter the cockpit, remove the pilots, take over the airplanes, and fly them into major US landmarks and kill thousands of people -- the headline would be the same -- nothing to worry about, it probably wasn't operational, they were too stupid to pull it off....  Ding dong, they would again be wrong.

UPDATE:  From Dr. Phyllis Chesler:

While there have been a number of “political” bombings in Manhattan between 2005-2008, (outside the Times Square military recruitment center, the British Consulate, and the Greek Consulate), all thought to have been committed by a “man on a bicycle,” and at a Starbucks in Providence, Rhode Island, this one, according to one eyewitness, may have been committed by two “blond teenagers.”

Please note: The media is telling us that no Arabs, no Muslims, no Afghans, no jihadists were involved in this attack, that this one was an all-American, all-Christian prank. Does that make you feel safer?

Remember when the entire eastern seaboard experienced a power failure in August of 2003 and how relieved we all were, despite sweltering without light, electricity, transportation, communication or refrigeration, when we discovered that it was “only” a massive grid failure, not another terrorist attack?

Comments

[Skunkfeathers]

The media is an interesting breed of pond scum: since the prez is Barry, the four jihadists "are too stupid" to be a credible threat; if Dubya or another Republican were president, "these are dangerous men, thanks to the policies of conservatives".

Some of our media are beyond pathetic, and beyond reason and credibility.

[MK]

It's always the same predictably stupidity from the left Debbie. The evil ones are either too stupid, the CIA framed them, the Jews did it or they had some sort of grievance and were just getting even.

[Debbie]

MK and Skunkfeathers:

Excellent points both. The blame always goes to everybody except the bad guys themselves, except when a Republican is in charge.

.

[GW]

Great post. One might ask how much we would have laughed at the idiocy of the 9-11 hijackers had they been picked up on 9-10. Their plan to destroy the WTC towers, the White House and the Pentagon would have seemed fanciful indeed. It is a measure of how much we now live in bubble of false security - at least for some on the left and in the MSM - that plots like this can simply laughed off and the perpetrators looked portrayed as anything other than the potential murderers that they are.