I know. You're just as shocked (shocked! I say!) as I am that the FBI has another dumb one on the hook. But here's the thing: the guys that are gonna do serious damage are going to have actual experience outside this country (in addition to some here, hence the legitimate concern about the existence of domestically-originated, religiously-motivated terrorism*I do not regard this concern as being of the extent that we should modify our view of civil liberties from that of pre-9/11, FWIW). And that means we're going to be best off watching out for them. But it seems the height of silliness to me that we are expending resources entrapping people who don't understand the tools of the trade well enough to spot a fake.
I'm on board with us watching and listening to the people we think are trying to wage a kind of war against us, and trying to catch them with the goods (so to speak). But can we please cut out the Keystone Kops take on the Bad News Jihadis kinds of operations? It makes us look stupid (and the drone war makes us look arrogant, petulant, profoundly heartless and cruel).
So, I was prepared to call this guy I linked to above a liar1. But he's not a liar. He's just really stupid. Now I better understand the reaction of this country after 9/11.
Oh well.
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Strictly speaking he tells the truth: his only assertion about the references to the identity of the allegedly intended bomber are that the "Islamist/terrorist" link in the case is not highlighted in the headlines of his favorite media punching bags. The fact this information is revealed in the second paragraph is evidently not enough.↩
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