[GVS]

FBI engineered the "attack" then congrats all around for stopping it...left on thier own these guys were low level petty criminals.


Profiles of New York City terrorism suspects
The Associated Press
Four men living in Newburgh, N.Y., are accused of plotting to bomb Jewish sites in New York City and shoot down a military airplane in the Hudson Valley north of the city. They are:

NAME: James Cromitie

Aliases: Abdul Rahman, Abdul Rehman, David Anderson

Age: 55

Residence: Newburgh

Background: Convicted in 1987 of misdemeanor drug possession; 12 later arrests for drug offenses that led to three felony convictions in 1989, 1990 and 1992, according to parole department spokeswoman Heather Groll.

He served prison time under three names: his own, the variation James Crometie and the alias "David Anderson." His most recent arrest was for selling drugs to an undercover officer near a New York City school.

Daphne Moore, a spokeswoman for Wal-Mart, confirmed that Cromitie worked at the Wal-Mart in Newburgh until three months ago.

---

NAME: David Williams

Aliases: Daoud, DL

Age: 28

Residence: Newburgh

Background: Williams' aunt, Aahkiyaah Cummings, said he was a good father to his 7-year-old daughter and newborn son. He was introduced to Islam in prison but never talked about his faith, she said. He grew up in Brooklyn's Williamsburg section.

He was released from prison in April 2005 after doing just less than a year on minor drug and weapons charges. He violated parole in August 2005 and went back to prison until December that year, when he was released on parole in Brooklyn.

---

NAME: Onta Williams

Alias: Hamza

Age: 32

Residence: Newburgh

Background: Williams served about three months in state prison on drug charges in Orange County. He was released to federal custody in August 2003, convicted of federal drug charges and sentenced to 70 months in federal prison. It is unclear when he was released.

His uncle, Richard Williams, said Onta is separated from his wife and she has custody of his three children, ages 6 to 15. He lived with his uncle until February, then moved in with his girlfriend.

---

NAME: Laguerre Payen

Aliases: Almondo, Amin

Age: 27

Residence: A native of Haiti living in Newburgh

Background: State records show he was released on parole in August 2005 after serving just more than a year in prison for hitting two people with pellets fired from a BB gun and snatching purses from two women in Rockland County.

Hamin Rashada, an assistant imam at a Newburgh mosque, described Payen as penniless, jobless, quiet, evasive and paranoid. He had been fighting deportation to Haiti and for the custody of his 3-year-old son, who is living locally with the child's mother. Rashada said he was introduced to Islam in prison; the imam said he worried about Payen's lack of knowledge about the religion.

 

[GVS]

By the now, it's maddeningly familiar. A scary terrorist plot is announced. Then it's revealed that the suspects are a hapless bunch of ne'er-do-wells or run-of-the-mill thugs without the slightest connection to any terrorists at all, never mind to Al Qaeda. Finally, the last piece of the puzzle: the entire plot is revealed to have been cooked up by a scummy government agent-provocateur.

I've seen this movie before.

In this case, the alleged perps -- Onta Williams, James Cromitie, David Williams, and Laguerre Payen -- were losers, ex-cons, drug addicts. Al Qaeda they're not. Without the assistance of the agent who entrapped them, they would never have dreamed of committing political violence, nor would they have had the slightest idea about where to acquire plastic explosives or a Stinger missile. That didn't stop prosecutors from acting as if they'd captured Osama bin Laden himself. Noted the Los Angeles Times:


Prosecutors called it the latest in a string of homegrown terrorism plots hatched after Sept. 11.

"It's hard to envision a more chilling plot," Assistant U.S. Atty. Eric Snyder said in court Thursday. He described all four suspects as "eager to bring death to Jews."


Actually, it's hard to imagine a stupider, less competent, and less important plot. The four losers were ensnared by a creepy FBI agent who hung around the mosque in upstate New York until he found what he was looking for. Here's the New York Times account:


Salahuddin Mustafa Muhammad, the imam at the mosque where the authorities say the confidential informant first encountered the men, said none of the men were active in the mosque. ...

Mr. Cromitie was there last June, and he met a stranger.

He had no way of knowing that the stranger's path to the mosque began in 2002, when he was arrested on federal charges of identity theft. He was sentenced to five years' probation, and became a confidential informant for the F.B.I. He began showing up at the mosque in Newburgh around 2007, Mr. Muhammad said.

The stranger's behavior aroused the imam's suspicions. He invited other worshipers to meals, and spoke of violence and jihad, so the imam said he steered clear of him.

"There was just something fishy about him," Mr. Muhammad said. Members "believed he was a government agent."

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."


So a creepy thug buttonholes people at a mosque, foaming at the mouth about violence and jihad? This is law enforcement? Just imagine if someone did this at a local church, or some synagogue. And the imam says the people "believed he was a government agent."

Preying on these losers, none of whom were apparently actual Muslims, the "confidential informant" orchestrated the acquisition of a disabled Stinger missile to shoot down military planes and cooked up a wild scheme about attacking a Jewish center in the Bronx.

It gets even more pathetic:


The only one of the four suspects who appears to have aroused any suspicion was Payen, a Haitian native who attended the Newburgh mosque. Assistant imam Hamid Rashada said his dishevelment and odd behavior disturbed some members, said the assistant imam, Hamid Rashada.

When Payen appeared in court, defense attorney Marilyn Reader described him as "intellectually challenged" and on medication for schizophrenia. The Associated Press said that when he was asked if he understood the proceedings, Payen replied: "Sort of."


Despite the pompous statements from Mayor Bloomberg of New York and other politicians, including Representative Peter King, the whole story is bogus. The four losers may have been inclined to violence, and they may have harbored a virulent strain of anti-Semitism. But it seems that the informant whipped up their violent tendencies and their hatred of Jews, cooked up the plot, incited them, arranged their purchase of weapons, and then had them busted. To ensure that it made headlines, the creepy informant claimed to be representing a Pakistani extremist group, Jaish-e Muhammad, a bona fide terrorist organization. He wasn't, of course.

It is disgusting and outrageous that the FBI is sending provocateurs into mosques.

The headlines reinforce the very fear that Dick Cheney is trying to stir up. The story strengthens the narrative that the "homeland" is under attack. It's not. As I've written repeatedly, since 9/11 not a single American has even been punched in the nose by an angry Muslim, as far as I can tell. Plot after plot -- the destruction of the Brooklyn Bridge! bombing the New York Subways! taking down the Sears Tower! bombing the Prudential building in Newark! -- proved to be utter nonsense.

 

[flat9999]

since 9/11 not a single American has even been punched in the nose by an angry Muslim

While not exactly condoning the actions of the FBI, if true.
What about the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, many soldiers killed.
The bombings in Bali.(7 Americans killed)

Sounds like the editor is sympathetic.

 

[coot09]

GVS .... did you write that? Or, did you copy it from somewhere? If copy, state the source ... it goes to credibility.

I'll say a couple things ...

-I saw that "imam" being interviewed. He looked like a prison convert himself, and I wouldn't believe a word he says.

-Last nights's news said the fake bombs were already planted at the temple(s) in the Bronx, and they were travelling to shoot down the aircraft with the stinger. If true, they are much more dangerous than " hapless bunch of ne'er-do-wells or run-of-the-mill thugs ."

It is disgusting and outrageous that the FBI is sending provocateurs into mosques.

But, thats how terrorist trainers find their suicide bombers. And, they are here in America.

I do understand what you are saying, and I have a big problem with local police and 4th Amendment issues, etc ....... but, we are dealing with national security, evil people with the most evil intentions, and possibly horrible weaponry.

 

[GVS]

GVS .... did you write that? Or, did you copy it from somewhere? If copy, state the source ... it goes to credibility.

Yet Another Bogus "Terror" Plot posted by Robert Dreyfuss on 05/22/2009 @ 07:56am

http://www.thenation.com/blogs/dreyfuss/437864/yet_another_bogus_terror_plot

 

[GVS]

These guys were petty criminals, what a joke I just saw Kelly from the NYPD acting all smug like the captured some great criminal/terrorist minds.

Where the hell were they when the saudi's were over here learning how to take off in jets but had no interest in learning how to land them, what a bunch of JO's!!!

 

[landwolf]

GVS I think you do protest too much ?

 

[GVS]

GVS I think you do protest too much ?

[confused][confused][confused]

 

[Setters4Life]

From today's NYTimes:

Informer’s Role in Bombing Plot
WILLIAM K. RASHBAUM and KAREEM FAHIM
Published: May 22, 2009
Everyone called the stranger with all the money “Maqsood.” He would sit in his Mercedes, waiting in the parking lot of the mosque in Newburgh, N.Y., until the Friday prayer was over. Then, according to members of the mosque, the Masjid al-Ikhlas, he approached the young men.

He asked Shakir Rashada, 34, if he wanted to come over for lunch. He offered Shafeeq Abdulwali, 39, a job, perhaps at his construction company. Jamil Muhammed, 38, said he was offered cellphones and computers.

The man, a Pakistani, occasionally approached the assistant imam of the mosque, proposing meetings, or overpaying for a sandwich he would buy at a mosque fund-raiser. In time, many of the mosque’s older members had made the man for a government informant, according to mosque leaders. They said that he seemed to focus most of his attention on younger black members and visitors.

“It’s easy to influence someone with the dollar,” said Mr. Muhammed, a longtime member of the mosque. “Especially these guys coming out of prison.”

The members of the mosque now believe that Maqsood was the government informant at the center of the case involving four men from Newburgh arrested and charged this week with having plotted to explode bombs at Jewish centers in New York City. The government has said that the four men, several of whom visited the mosque in Newburgh and all of whom spent time in prison, were eager to kill Jews, and prosecutors charged that they had actually gone so far as to plant what they believed to be bombs on the streets of New York, an act the F.B.I. captured on videotape.

The government case revolves significantly around the work of an informant who facilitated the men’s desire to mount a terrorist attack.

The role of informants has been a constant in the terror cases made by federal and local authorities since 9/11. And just as constant have been the attempts by lawyers for those charged to portray their clients as dupes, people who would not have committed to do harm without the provocation of the informants.

Those attempts have typically failed. Juries, evidently unmoved by claims about the conduct and influence of the informants, have routinely convicted those charged in the terror plots, like the five men charged with wanting to kill soldiers at Fort Dix in New Jersey, and the young Pakistani immigrant from Queens charged with conspiring to plant a bomb in Herald Square.

And, it turns out, an entrapment defense failed in a case involving the informant in this week’s bomb plot investigation.

The informant was not identified in court papers unsealed on Wednesday in Manhattan. But according to a person briefed on the case, the informant is Shahed Hussain, the central prosecution witness in a 2004 federal sting focusing on a pizzeria owner and an imam at an Albany mosque.

Lawyers for those men argued that Mr. Hussain, who had posed as a wealthy Muslim radical, had entrapped their clients in an ultimately fictional plot to kill a Pakistani diplomat with a missile. But a federal jury convicted the two men, and they were sentenced to 15 years in prison.

“Any defense attorney worth his salt is going to argue entrapment,” Raymond W. Kelly, the New York police commissioner, said Friday when asked about the use of an informant in the Newburgh case. “The argument will be made in court. But in essence, the law says you have to be otherwise not disposed to do the crime to successfully use the defense of entrapment.”

The government’s court filings present the informant as someone who merely assisted the violent intentions of the four men. Federal authorities have asserted that one of the defendants, James Cromitie, was angry about the war in Afghanistan and was determined to strike at America, and later at Jews. The informant, who told the men he had connections to a Pakistani terror group, then provided the men with what they believed to be sophisticated explosives and a missile.

Asked whether he thought the four men were a serious security risk before they were approached by the informant, Joseph M. Demarest Jr., who heads the F.B.I.’s New York office, said: “It was their plot and their plan that they pushed forward. We merely facilitated. They asked for the explosives. They asked for the Stingers, or rockets, I think, is the way they described it. They did leave the packages of what they believed to be real explosives, the bags, in front of two temples in the Bronx.”

Vincent L. Briccetti, who represents Mr. Cromitie, said he was aware of Mr. Hussain’s role in the Albany case, which was reported on Friday in The New York Post.

“His history is of interest to us,” Mr. Briccetti said.

Court records from the Albany case show that Mr. Hussain came to the United States from Pakistan in 1993 or 1994. He appears to have held a variety of jobs, and come to own a number of businesses and properties. But in 2002, he was charged with a scheme involving taking money to illegally help people in the Albany area get driver’s licenses.

To avoid being deported, he agreed to assist the government — first taking part in a sting aimed at the driver’s license scheme, and later in a heroin trafficking case. In 2003, the F.B.I. enlisted him in a more ambitious case. They wanted him to help them learn more about the intentions of a man who they worried might be supportive of terror, Yassin Aref, and toward that end, began to focus on his friend Mohammad Mosharref Hossain.

Under the coaching of a federal agent, and often wearing a recording device, he met with the men, and presented himself as what he later at trial called “a wealthy radical.” Eventually, the government charged the two men with money laundering as part of a plot to acquire missiles, and perhaps use one to kill a Pakistani diplomat.

Mr. Hussain testified at length at the trial of the two men, and defense lawyers sought to portray him as a tool of an overly zealous government.

He said that he met with an F.B.I. agent before every encounter with the two men to go over his game plan.

“What Agent Coll used to tell me, I used to tell them exactly,” Mr. Hussain testified under cross-examination about his dealings with the F.B.I. agent and the two men.

“So you did exactly what Agent Coll told you?” he was asked by a defense lawyer.

“True,” he answered.

James E. Long, a lawyer who represented Mr. Hussain from 2002, when he was arrested, until 2006, refused to comment.

William C. Pericak, an assistant United States attorney in Albany who prosecuted Mr. Aref and Mr. Hossain, also would not comment about the informant. But after the convictions of the two men, he said, “You can’t put a percentage on how likely these guys would have been to commit an act of terrorism. But if a terrorist came to Albany, my opinion is that these guys would have assisted 100 percent.”

The man called Maqsood, before appearing in Newburgh, had first approached the Masjid Al-Noor mosque in nearby Wappingers Falls, according to members there. The imam and several board members said a man who called himself Maqsood started sporadically attending services there in 2007. He was flashy, they said, and bragged about his real estate business and properties. He drove a black Mercedes and always came alone.

Zubair Zoha, a former treasurer of the mosque, said the man asked him three times for the full list of members of the mosque, saying he wanted to approach potential customers. But he was largely ignored or dismissed.

He stopped coming, the members said, around June 2008.

It was then, according to the government’s court papers, that their informant struck up a relationship with Mr. Cromitie at the mosque in Newburgh, a set of dealings that would result in the bomb plot.

The imam in Newburgh, Salahuddin Mustafa Muhammad, said he was angry that the informant had associated his mosque with the scheme that had nothing to do with regular members. He condemned the plot, but questioned whether the men who were arrested would have committed to it had the informant not shown up.

Mr. Muhammad said he wondered whether he should have done anything differently once he had suspicions about the man named Maqsood.

“How do you go to the government about the government?” he asked.


Colin Moynihan, Nate Schweber and Karen Zraick contributed reporting.

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/05/23/nyregion/23informant.html?emc=eta1

 

[230grain hollowpoint]

GVS I hope this dosen't start another stupid war between us. I apologize for anything I said in those previous disputes

FBI engineered the "attack" then congrats all around for stopping it...left on thier own these guys were low level petty criminals

So What! The intent was there (as it is among 90% of Muslims) they were just stupid enough to buy fake C4 and fake Stinger misssles. I say kudos to the law enforcement that grabbed them before they were able able to get real explosives and weapons.

I would take anything in The Nation or the New York Times with a grain of salt since they are simply left wing sounding boards for people like Noam Chomsky.

If you want to cut and paste stuff off the internet try these web sites:
http://www.humanevents.com/
http://townhall.com/

Here is one counter point to the "The Nation" article cited.
http://townhall.com/columnists/MichelleMalkin/2009/05/22/the_jihadi_virus_in_our_jails

 

[GVS]

GVS I hope this dosen't start another stupid war between us. I apologize for anything I said in those previous disputes

I agree with you 230Grain, I just think all the hype is a bit over the top, did the FBI stop a terrorist attack? I'm not so sure. I guess the point of my post is don't just listen to the news, look closely at the motives, I don't feel much safer having these 4 guys off the street.

I hope the FBI and homeland are actually doing something better than this to keep us safe.

 

[CountryBoy]

I hope the FBI and homeland are actually doing something better than this to keep us safe.

They are, you and I just don't hear everything.


What has happened since 9/11 to make anyone think they are not doing a good job?