Questions about the “Temple Plot”

The FBI and and media are going ape over this alleged “Temple bombing” plot in which four men from Newburgh, New York, planted what they thought were bombs outside a Jewish temple. Also, these “domestic terrorists” were planning to obtain Stinger missiles to shoot down U.S. military planes.

Interestingly, we see that the entire “plot” was hatched by an FBI informant:

The defendants, in their efforts to acquire weapons, dealt with an informant acting under law enforcement supervision, authorities said. The FBI and other agencies monitored the men and provided an inactive missile and inert C-4 to the informant for the defendants, a federal complaint said.

In June 2008, the informant met Cromitie in Newburgh and Cromitie complained that his parents had lived in Afghanistan and he was upset about the war there and that many Muslim people were being killed in Afghanistan and Pakistan by U.S. military forces, officials said.

Folks, let’s take a hard look at this one, please. It is not as though C-4 explosives and Stinger missiles are available at every neighborhood drug store. Had any of the four “terrorists” ever obtained explosives or anything similar on their own? Somehow, I seriously doubt it. The New York Times pretty much gives it away, although unintentionally:

A federal law enforcement official described the plot as “aspirational” — meaning that the suspects wanted to do something but had no weapons or explosives — and described the operation as a sting with a cooperator within the group.

“It was fully controlled at all times,” a law enforcement official said. (emphasis mine)

Indeed, this Freudian slip perhaps is the most truthful line in the entire article.

Share

6:19 am on May 21, 2009