"Right now, to me he's, like, the dumbest person on this Earth."

Meet the four hapless dudes who allegedly plotted to blow up synagogues in New York, the scheming informant who recruited them, and the deeply sketchy FBI agent who reeled them in.

The title of this post is a quote from the sister of one of the accused plotters.

Comments

[Eric Jaffa]

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http://www.nytimes.com/2009/05/22/nyregion/22plot.html?pagewanted=2&_r=1&hp

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.”
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So the informant bribed poor people to hang around him, then set them up.

As someone who has attended lots of synagogue services, of course I have a low opinion of people who plant real-or-fake bombs at a synagogue.

But I'm skeptical any of these four people would have planted bombs without the informant's involvement.

[Cai]

Those two links were really fascinating reading. I've only really just started to think about the police as anything-less-than a force for absolute good, and things like this are really opening my eyes. Thanks for posting!

[The Phantom]

If they don't prevent the thing from happening, they're inept.

If they do prevent the thing from happening, they're " sketchy "

Three cheers for the FBI, the NYPD, the NYS Troopers and everyone who prevented a catastrophe. And a special shoutout for the sketchy informant.

My buddy works construction, and a few years ago, worked on the building of an apt house next to the synagogue in Riverdale that was set to be blown up.

[Lindsay Beyerstein]

No, this particular FBI agent is sketchy because he testified that he browbeat a wounded teenage terror suspect into saying that he recognized a photo of some dude he'd never seen, who turned out to be Maher Arar--a straight arrow Canadian guy who graduated from McGill around the same time as Darcy did. As a result, this totally law abiding father and business owner was kidnapped from JFK airport on his way home from vacation and sent to Syria to be confined in a cell the size of a casket and tortured for 10 months. The US still won't explain why this happened because of "national security"--but the Canadian PM apologized to Mr. Arar on national TV.

I don't know agent Robert Fuller did anything sketchy wrt the Moronic Four, though he may have been totally played by the scheming informant.

[Eric Jaffa]

The Phantom -

Whether the informant prevented a terror plot from happening is the big question.

If he just want around a mosque offering people money to join him for dinner and convinced them to join a group he was forming which would wage jihad, that is very different from infiltrating a group already planning attack.

The NY Times article says "The full nature and extent of the informant’s role in facilitating the plot is unknown."

I don't claim to know what happened yet, but that will probably be clearer as time goes by and more articles are written.

[cfrost]

Interesting that agent Fuller still has a job. Were I, as a federal employee, to cause one ten thousandth the flap Fuller did with the Maher Arar case, I’d certainly be summarily sacked, regardless of federal employment category

The loser “terrorists” remind me of some prisoners I worked with a while back. We had a fish habitat restoration project where we used prison labor. Many of the prisoners struck me as men that for whatever reason or reasons, - idiots for parents, poverty, clueless & ignorant, etc. - were just hopelessly ill equipped to make a living under their own steam. Most were a good deal more sad than in any way threatening. A few were just completely lost: afraid of small animals, couldn’t drive, couldn’t build a fire, illiterate, had to be taught how to use common tools, didn’t know the names of ordinary objects, and so on.

[jawbone]

Lindsey B--

I don't claim to know what happened yet, but that will probably be clearer as time goes by and more articles are written.

Let us hope. And especially hope that their lawyers are given all the information which they are supposed to get.

Sometimes, that doesn't happen....

[Eric Jaffa]

jawbone -

If it seemed like LB wrote that sentence you quoted, actually I did.

[Bruce the Canuck]

>No, this particular FBI agent is sketchy because ...as a result, this totally law abiding father and business owner was kidnapped from JFK airport on his way home from vacation and sent to Syria ... and tortured for 10 months.

If nothing else, he makes a great fantasy vs reality contrast for 24/"Jack Bauer" fanboys.

[Eric Jaffa]

Informant offered liver transplant for Bronx terror suspect's brother, sez mom

BY Joe Kemp, Nicole Bode, Alison Gendar and John Lauinger
DAILY NEWS WRITERS

Sunday, May 24th 2009, 4:00 AM

The mother of Bronx terror suspect David Williams said the government snitch who cozied up to her son promised him a liver transplant for his dying brother...Elizabeth McWilliams said the informant, Shahed (Malik) Hussain, befriended her son in March as the family worried how it would afford a transplant for the would-be bomber's brother, who has a terminal illness, the immunity disorder sarcoidosis.

"He promised he would take care of it," McWilliams said..."He said, 'Don't worry, mom. I'm going to be able to give you money on [Thursday] to help you with the Lord.'"

...Hussain even paid a fine for Williams in Queens on April 30, his mother said.

http://www.nydailynews.com/news/ny_crime/2009/05/24/2009-05-24_the_bait_and_snitch_informant_offered_liver_transplant_for_suspects_brother_sez_.html#ixzz0GTygWrTA&B