The Sting: How the FBI Created a Terrorist

[wildbilln864]

After recording this video in a rundown Days Inn in Tampa, Florida, Osmakac prepared to deliver what he thought was a car bomb to a popular Irish bar. According to the government, Osmakac was a dangerous, lone-wolf terrorist who would have bombed the Tampa bar, then headed to a local casino where he would have taken hostages, before finally detonating his suicide vest once police arrived.

But if Osmakac was a terrorist, he was only one in his troubled mind and in the minds of ambitious federal agents. The government could not provide any evidence that he had connections to international terrorists. He didn’t have his own weapons. He didn’t even have enough money to replace the dead battery in his beat-up, green 1994 Honda Accord.

Osmakac was the target of an elaborately orchestrated FBI sting that involved a paid informant, as well as FBI agents and support staff working on the setup for more than three months. The FBI provided all of the weapons seen in Osmakac’s martyrdom video. The bureau also gave Osmakac the car bomb he allegedly planned to detonate, and even money for a taxi so he could get to where the FBI needed him to go. Osmakac was a deeply disturbed young man, according to several of the psychiatrists and psychologists who examined him before trial. He became a “terrorist” only after the FBI provided the means, opportunity and final prodding necessary to make him one.

https://firstlook.org/theintercept/2015/03/16/howthefbicreatedaterrorist/

[KG]

1. of course the US security state makes up scapegoats, while the actual threats

to society play with the county's future on wall st

[JonLP24]

2. Here's the thing I don't understand about the stings

Sure you can make a case they weren't really entrapment but all the money, time, & resources spent when why didn't they try to catch the terrorists at the other end? Why, not pretend to be the terrorists at the bottom to catch the mid-level terrorists they were pretending to be?

I feel that way would have been more effective in combating real terrorism & stopping future terrorist attacks. Instead, they wasted too much time trying to stop terrorists who wouldn't have gone from the ground floor without FBI agents pretending to be mid-level terrorists preaching & supplying them.

[JHB]

3. Two possible drivers I can think of:

1: headlines. Having the public see tangible results of what they are doing:

2: performance metrics. Much like #1, but more specialized. Something tangible in the agents' personnel files when it comes time to evaluate for promotions or raises, or for the Bureau as a whole when dickering for their budget.