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In a sadly predictable followup to Portland’s “terror takedown” a fire was intentionally set at the mosque in Corvallis, Oregon, attended by Portland bomb plot suspect Mohamed Osman Mohamud.
The fire was reported at about 2:15 a.m. today. Corvallis Fire Department spokeswoman Carla Pusateri said the fire was intentionally set, but would not say what led investigators to the conclusion.
Pusateri said a police sergeant on duty spotted the fire at 2:15 a.m. and called for help.
“It was discovered much sooner than it could have been,” she said.
This may be one more plank in the probable campaign to drive Portland back into the arms of the FBI’s Joint Terrorism Task Force.
Real terrorism, real arson, real hate: will the FBI be called in to investigate the real terror, or do they just do Terror Theater now?
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And so the real terror begins, in response to the FBI’s Terror Theater Friday night.
Probably committed by White Christian Guys, and therefore by definition not terrorism. Really, Teddy, which country do you think you’re living in?
Fascinating that there’s no signage, yet the Imam was very visible on Portland media Saturday, showing photographers around the mosque, with photos inside and out. All in the name of denouncing the ‘attack’ on Portland’s living room, as all good Muslims must immediately do whenever a fanatic is lured into terrorism.
So that must have been how the arsonists found the mosque. Unless, of course, we have a parallel FBI arson plot underway. One that, unfortunately, went to fruition.
I find the timing interesting. This multi-purpose event could have been attempted sooner. Why now?
Well, there’s the months-long discussion of Portland re-engaging with the JTTF, for one thing. And there’s been some rumblings online of an effort to get the Port of Portland not to put porno-scanners at our airport, as scheduled next year.
Plus, these FBI boys need to rehabilitate their reputation from the Brandon Mayfield fuckup, big time.
We can certainly count on the FBI and ATF to be on the case, though. Too bad the Portland Police Bureau won’t be involved, since the City withdrew from the JTTF five years ago.
Funny, that.
I cannot disagree.
What if they never left?
Being an empire means never having to say you are sorry.
UPDATE:
Hurray! The FBI has manpower left over from its instigation and support of not-actual-terror to investigate real terror perpetrated against the Mosque in Corvallis:
===============================================================
The fire at the Salman Alfarisi Islamic Center was discovered by an on-duty police sergeant at about 2:15 a.m. today. It took firefighters 10 minutes to put it out and it damaged about 80 percent of the office it was contained to. No one was injured.
Sunday afternoon, U.S. Attorney Dwight Holton and Art Balizan, FBI special agent in charge for Oregon, visited the Corvallis Islamic center.
FBI spokeswoman Beth Anne Steele said it’s standard for the agency to become involved in attacks on religious groups, but that the possible connection between the fire and the arrest of Mohamud makes their involvement even more important.
“The FBI would not tolerate any retaliation on the Muslim community as a result of that arrest,” Steele said. “We have an ongoing relationship with the Muslim leaders
in Corvallis. This is of high concern to them.”
http://www.oregonlive.com/pacific-northwest-news/index.ssf/2010/11/fbi_to_aid_investigation_into_arson_fire_at_corvallis_mosque.html
““The FBI would not tolerate any retaliation on the Muslim community as a result of that arrest,” Steele said.”
Oh really. Wasn’t the FBI’s whole involvement geared toward increasing fear & tension. This is gag-producing, self-serving propaganda of the nth degree.
Ah, Americans at their best… not.
All Americans should write to their representatives in order to demand that they loudly condemn attacks against mosques and demand that the asses who did this are found and prosecuted.
Touché, madame.
With the tel-sat-co, you never get to leave home without them either.
I would complain to my congressman but the new guy is one of the hate guys. Hates Muslims I mean.
Those are the ones who need to hear it most from as many of their constituents as possible. Send an email tonight and call his office tomorrow.
“Real terrorism, real arson, real hate: will the FBI be called in to investigate the real terror, or do they just do Terror Theater now?”
The terror plot to bomb the square with the truck bomb went all the way to the kid using his cell phone to set it off – except it was caught by the FBI and they prevented any problem. To mock the legitimate effort of the FBI does no one any good.
As to the arson from minute one the FBI announced that they denounced any effort to harm anyone or anything over the bomb attack – and that they were investigating the arson.
A better posting might of been, in my opinion, a questioning of why our media hid and is hiding the fact that the FBI learned of the plot via a worried Muslim in the kid’s world who thought the kid had gone off the rails. Noting that the hero of the story was a Muslim informant does not seem to fit the media’s need to not praise any Muslims – ever – so they praise only the FBI. The FBI deserve praise – but a major part of the story is missing from the reporting.
The terror plot to bomb the square with the truck bomb went all the way to the kid using his cell phone to set it off – except it was caught by the FBI and they prevented any problem. To mock the legitimate effort of the FBI does no one any good.
When you write it went all the way, you mean that we paid FBI agents to contact this kid and, over the course of months, provide him with everything that could have potentially been harmful, right?
I’ll be impressed when the FBI thwarts a real plot rather than manufacturing one.
As to the arson, let’s see if the FBI finds those responsible and prosecutes them. Till them, the FBI is looking a bit stupid in this whole thing, imo.
Yes, it struck me as a particularly egregious and pandering response.
Nothing was “caught by the FBI” in the Portland case.
The entire plot was operationalized by the FBI with cash, an apartment, a van, “bomb-making materials” and transportation all over the state to test the first fake bomb. You give the FBI — especially THIS Portland FBI office — entirely too much credit when you imply they stopped a ticking bomber in his tracks.
Nothing of the kind occurred. And it’s entirely possible that nothing of ANY kind would have occurred without the active intervention, grooming, resources, encouragement, and aggrandizement of FBI agents posing as more senior jihadis.
We only have the USAttorney’s word and the FBI’s word on this. So go very, very slow when doling out credit for their work: they are the only source of information.
Think critically: question authority.
Very well phrased. The FBI may have had reason to watch him, but not to approach him and walk him through the steps to becoming a potential threat. This 19-year-old’s life is ruined. I’m not sure the FBI accomplished much else in this case.
Take a hike, wingnut fascist. TIA…
Yeah. Glad to see the FBI on the case:
[Article]
Guess I should refresh more often.
And to add to Kville’s point, some of the articles have made it clear that the young man’s entire family are feeling the blow from this set-up most acutely. So there could be unnecessary second-level ramifications from this clowning as well.
If I were AG Holder, I’d be asking how many times agents have tried to do this very thing (i.e. contact US citizens who did nothing more than write a few stupid emails in order to try to turn them into potential threats) where the FBI’s attempt to turn a teenager – or anyone – into an active jihadist was a total waste of time.
I’m sure this kid isn’t the only one they tried to do this with, wasting a lot of time and resources.
The whole thing makes me wonder whether Holder and these agents believe that there are real terrorists out there who are plotting real attacks. From what I see here, they don’t.
This is sickening.
This is happening with the spotlight of a 24/7, World Wide Web distribution, communications/social media system that kids these days are *plugged into* for outrageous numbers of hours per day. I see this behavior in public places and many parents aren’t restricting their kids’ use. One single parent is only restricting the pre-teens’ usage now because of emerging issue with aggression. I looked at how the kids are spending X-box and on-line time and it’s graphic war gaming. You and I didn’t have that. We have filters. We have detachment. We have critical thinking skills and tactile experience. They don’t.
Documentary excerpt #1 (from “Play Again”):
link: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IZ3J0szCGqk
Documentary excerpt #2: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=erVmBIx2lUY
I can see how kids can be driven to suicide– especially at-risks kids. At the rate we’re going, they are *all* at-risk. We need to collectively come to our senses about this reality.
“And it’s entirely possible that nothing of ANY kind would have occurred”
Possible, but how likely, and how many lives would you gamble on it? People keep glossing over the fact that the kid went looking for terrorist training.
If the FBI hadn’t gotten involved, would he have found what he was looking for? Maybe, maybe not. If he did, people would have died.
If he didn’t would he have given up? Maybe, maybe not. If he didn’t, people would have died. It doesn’t take a van full of explosives, just a Molotov cocktail tossed onto the freeway.
The kid wanted to kill people: it hardly seems like “critical thinking” to take an attitude of well, gee: maybe nothing would have happened
And you keep glossing over “critical thinking” when you accept at face value FBI statements – which are the only statements available about the case.
Where is your ironymeter as regards the FBI?
As I understand it, this kid exchanged a few stupid emails with a friend more than a year ago, the exchanges stopped, and the FBI stepped in a few months later posing as a friend of this friend.
He appears not to have been looking for anything when the FBI posers contacted him.
“The terror plot to bomb the square with the truck bomb went all the way to the kid using his cell phone to set it off – except it was caught by the FBI and they prevented any problem”. Papau, there was no “truck bomb”. It was a fake bomb, but the media find it attention-getting to bury that fact in the middle of the story while headlining it as a near-bombing. There was also no plot, except the one the FBI arranged with this kid. He might be potentially dangerous, but I suspect that real terrorist organizations don’t want much to do with these marginal, incompetent characters that the feds entrap. He apparently tried contacting real terrorists on the internet and got nowhere, so the FBI stepped in to assist him.
It’s all theater now, all the time.
I suspect that real terrorist organizations don’t want much to do with these marginal, incompetent characters that the feds entrap.
And now we know that the feds are more focused on playing games with these marginal, incompetent characters than with locating and thwarting the real terrorist organizations.
Looks like the feds don’t think there are real terrorists out there who are plotting real attacks, not if they’re wasting so much time and resources on nonsense like this.
The real terrorists have figured out that we will destroy ourselves with our own self inflicted drama and kabuki.
Our country has been dead since November 22, 1963.
It’s a pity that Progressive rhetoric is only now beginning to hint at that.
Better late than never, I suppose.
Teddy Partridge is upstairs!
Sunday Late Night: McCain Blames Obama’s “Inexperience” for DADT Repeal Promise
Well, Kelly, is it a greater logical fallacy to accept the FBI’s statements than it is to dismiss them? Not that I consider any federal agency deserving of unconditional trust, but in the absence of any contradictory information it seems more reasonable to assume that they are telling the truth than to assume that they are lieing.
Hello, Knoxville. I guess we’ll find out at trial when they play the tapes.
“Because even the most elementary common sense demonstrates the futility and counter-productivity of insults as tools of persuasion, we have to ask why so many people choose to employ them. I see two possibilities: (i) the people who are doing so are shockingly stupid; (ii) the people who are doing so aren’t actually interested in persuasion, but instead insult others primarily to pleasure themselves. Neither of these possibilities is attractive.”
From a really good diary you apparently missed:
http://my.firedoglake.com/barryeisler/2010/11/15/how-to-argue/#comment-264648
I’ve recently found myself thinking about a proverb, supposedly common to Russian revolutionaries, back when they were fighting against the tsar. From Dostoevsky, maybe? “Whenever three activists meet, two of them are police spies.”
Would not surprise me, that they work both sides of the tracks. If so, guess they gave this guy real matches, whoops.
Except, of course, for the tape that indicates the suspect “made a choice,” declining to take lesser, non-violent, options — the tape that’s required to prove the FBI didn’t entrap him. And why won’t we hear THAT tape?
Because the “equipment malfunctioned” according to the affidavit.
Excellent and, in this exact case, true.
I haven’t seen the affidavit, Teddy: where did you find it?
Details of the FBI’s case: http://www.salon.com/news/opinion/glenn_greenwald/2010/11/28/fbi/index.html
The assumptions about the indepence of this kid’ actions are completely without foundation.
“The assumptions about the indepence of this kid’ actions are completely without foundation.”
Yes, if you start with the presumption that every single FBI agent involved is willing to commit perjury and possibly end up in prison. I’d wager that FBI agents have a tough time in prison.
No, I do not unthinkingly accept anything the FBI says: that would be as dumb as unthinkingly rejecting anything the FBI says.
What level of willingness to kill did the kid have before the FBI responded to his attempt to contact terrorists? I’ll meet you halfway and say that’s uncertain. It’s theoretically possible all he really wanted was someone to teach him how to properly pronounce “Allahu Akbar,” at least until the FBI egged him on. Of course, if that was the case he’d have run like hell if they started talking about murder.
If you don’t mind my asking — theoretically speaking, of course — just how much coaxing would it take to get you to set off a bomb in a crowd? According to to the “hapless dupe” theory all it took in his case was three grand and some flattery…
Sigh, once again I screwed up the italics typing HTML by hand while multi-tasking. My apologies.