Hard Light Productions Forums
Off-Topic Discussion => General Discussion => Topic started by: MP-Ryan on May 08, 2012, 10:47:47 am
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Related to the security theatre thread, but [I thought] deserving of its own discussion.
https://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/world/cia-foils-new-al-qaeda-underwear-bomb-plot-against-airliner/article2425831/
Officials told The Associated Press a day earlier that discovery of the unexploded bomb represented an intelligence prize resulting from a covert CIA operation in Yemen, saying that the intercept thwarted a suicide mission around the anniversary of the killing of Osama bin Laden.
Rep. Peter King, R-N.Y., chairman of the House Homeland Security Committee, said Tuesday that “a number of countries” provided information and cooperation that helped foil the plot. He said he had no information on the would-be bomber, but that White House officials had told him “He is no longer of concern,” meaning no longer any threat to the U.S.
Sen. Dianne Feinstein, D-Calif., who heads the Senate Intelligence Committee, told reporters Monday night that she had been briefed Monday about an “undetectable” device that was “going to be on a U.S.-bound airliner.”
They could dismantle every new policy and procedure implemented at the TSA since 2001 today, put that funding into human intelligence programs, and travel would STILL be more secure than it is right now.
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But then where would we get bald mannequin naked pics of air travelers?!
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Related as well, the US gov recently released a bunch of material from bin Laden's personal files, including letters in which he complained that al Qaeda cells were killing too many Muslim civilians and causing too much collateral damage, thereby alienating the very people they were fighting for
lol
i like to imagine al qaeda and US CENTCOM all 'careful, dude, there are civilians there. that is a big wedding. can you just - move that VBIED over that way so we can - okay, thanks, i'm going to send some predators now. okay. have a good day, CAMEL ****ER' 'peace out HEATHEN DOGPIG please be careful we're really courting that guy'
lol
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I think my favorite part of those letters was that even bin Laden dissed Fox News. :D
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Granted its really just a technicality but I'd be rather uncomfortable with being equipped with a device that blows up balls first.
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http://www.nytimes.com/2012/05/09/world/middleeast/suicide-mission-volunteer-was-double-agent-officials-say.html?_r=2&hp
The suicide bomber dispatched by the Yemen branch of Al Qaeda last month to blow up a United States-bound airliner was actually an intelligence agent for Saudi Arabia who infiltrated the terrorist group and volunteered for the mission, American and foreign officials said Tuesday.
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Like a boss.
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And then the press go and **** it up by announcing to the world that he's a double agent.
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maybe "freedom of the press" isn't such a good idea after all.
:warp:
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It looks like one intelligence agency can impersonate terrorists and the other can detect them. Too bad that they apparently don't coordinate with each other.
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Well I think the point of this story is that they did. The agent gave up the bomb so it could be studied and make detecting bombs like it easier.
Then the TSA can **** it up.
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That's what I get for not reading the articles.
Reading them, though, I'm confused. How did the press find out about this?
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It was announced intentionally. I don't think there was any screwup here.
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The double agent's status was probably already comprimised when... nothing blew up.
Oh bloody hell, he was on a mission to blow himself up! There's no way anything would have been gained from maintaining his cover...
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Wanna bet?
How much info do you think they'd have got if they claimed they'd picked him up just due to some lucky random check (maybe with a hint of a racial profiling in to make the terrorists angry and therefore less likely to think rationally about it) and then just threw him in a jail with some other terror suspects they think have information?
Hell, even just sticking to the story long enough to see who pays for his lawyer might give them new info.
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Except anything you just mentioned has the unintentional side effect of pissing off everybody who happens to look like our double-agent at the same time as our terrorists.
This sends a much clearer message. "We can put our guys in your operation whenever the hell we want to, and you'll never know it until we want you to know it."
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The racial profiling bit might (which is why I suggested it as a maybe) but why the **** would people in Muslim countries be pissed off about the US capturing a terrorist and putting him in a jail with other terrorists? :confused:
Hell you can even still have the "We can put our guys in your operation whenever the hell we want to, and you'll never know it until we want you to know it." after he's rubbed his testicles in their faces not once but twice. :p
Right now the message you've got is "We can put guys in your operation whenever the hell we want to, and you'll never know it until you read about it in the newspaper or on Wikileaks" Hell, all that suggests is that the terrorists really need to infiltrate the newspapers pretty sharpish.
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Wanna bet?
How much info do you think they'd have got if they claimed they'd picked him up just due to some lucky random check (maybe with a hint of a racial profiling in to make the terrorists angry and therefore less likely to think rationally about it) and then just threw him in a jail with some other terror suspects they think have information?
Hell, even just sticking to the story long enough to see who pays for his lawyer might give them new info.
They don't talk among themselves. They don't pay for lawyers for themselves. It's rather like the IRA used to be. The spyhunt paranoia and internal upheaval among the terror groups as they watch each other is worth more.
Also this announcement wasn't for our domestic consumption; it was for the Saudis, as illustration of their government's stance on the issues of terrorism, Islamic radicialism, and who they think their allies are. The Kingdom's foreign policies are in a state of flux. They've been a vocal supporter the Arab Spring revolutions and made recent strong commitments to combating terrorism in their southern neighbors after it spilled across the border a few times too many.
It also serves as a declaration of war; they will use all means within their power.
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The details I've read indicate the operative got out with the tech and turned it over with other information, leading to a drone strike which effectively burned his chances of survival if he went back in.
There's also an important psychological component of the infiltration announcement hitting the media - now these groups get to hunt through their midst and hopefully prune out some actual terrorists on suspicion they are intelligence agents too, which NGTM-1R raised, as well as reduce communication between various groups (which is already shaky) on similar suspicions.
I think disclosure of the method in this case was actually a brilliant move in itself beyond the bomb tech that was obtained.
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Also, don't forget the effect it had on general public, sending a clear message that CIA and other intel agencies can do something against them. This directly counteracts the terrorists efforts to, well, terrorize the population.
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Also, don't forget the effect it had on general public, sending a clear message that CIA and other intel agencies can do something against them. This directly counteracts the terrorists efforts to, well, terrorize the population.
Eh... Up until the "he was a double agent" bit, it sounded like "The CIA is doing a good job". But considering he was a double agent... unless the CIA or Saudi intelligence plans to infiltrate Al Qaeda so hard that every damn person who volunteers to be a suicide bomber is actually a double agent... meh.
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Still, it shows a successful infiltration and intercepting a bomb. That shows people that terrorists can actually be infiltrated. You can't just arrest them and foil their plans, hoping they'll give up someday. This shows that action against terrorists is possible, not just reaction. It also shows it very clearly, unlike blowing up some rocks or a shootout somewhere in the mountains. I don't remember hearing of such successful infiltrations before (doesn't mean there weren't any, but not as publicized). I think it's good for overall morale.
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Pretty much all the plots the CIA h as stopped recently have been goaded on by themselves; the last couple attempted bombings were all orchestrated by the CIA (this isn't a conspiracy thing); some easily-influenced civilian is goaded into doing something, given fake "training" and fake bomb equipment, then apprehended later. It's a cycle of fear that gets the agency more funding and keeps the populace at large at "Threat Level Orange".
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Pretty much all the plots the CIA h as stopped recently have been goaded on by themselves; the last couple attempted bombings were all orchestrated by the CIA (this isn't a conspiracy thing); some easily-influenced civilian is goaded into doing something, given fake "training" and fake bomb equipment, then apprehended later. It's a cycle of fear that gets the agency more funding and keeps the populace at large at "Threat Level Orange".
Which is why the bomb actually came from the hands of the head of the Yemeni organization the Saudis are pissed with, and the EU passport, and the instructions...
Care to back that up or are you spouting gibberish?
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(this isn't a conspiracy thing)
(this isn't a conspiracy thing)
(this isn't a conspiracy thing)
(this isn't a conspiracy thing)
(this isn't a conspiracy thing)
seems legit
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lol:
A January 2011 letter from Gadahn to an unknown recipient discusses al-Qaida's media strategy ahead of the tenth anniversary of the Sept. 11 terror attacks, and explains where the group might focus its press efforts.
"From the professional point of view, they are all on one level—except [Fox News] channel which falls into the abyss as you know, and lacks neutrality too," Gadahn wrote. "I used to think that MSNBC channel may be good and neutral a bit, but is has lately fired two of the most famous journalists—Keith Olberman and Octavia Nasser the Lebanese—because they released some statements that were open for argument."
Gadahn continued: "In conclusion, we can say that there is no single channel that we could rely on for our messages. [They] may ignore them, and even the channel that broadcast them, probably it would distort them somehow. Or they may ignore the message and conduct a smearing of the individuals, to the end of the list of what you know about their cunning methods."
He added: "As for Fox News, let her die in her anger."
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Even Al-Qaeda, who probably has most similarity in thought process to the network as anyone, can't take Fox News seriously. That's hilarious.
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Pretty much all the plots the CIA h as stopped recently have been goaded on by themselves; the last couple attempted bombings were all orchestrated by the CIA (this isn't a conspiracy thing); some easily-influenced civilian is goaded into doing something, given fake "training" and fake bomb equipment, then apprehended later. It's a cycle of fear that gets the agency more funding and keeps the populace at large at "Threat Level Orange".
Which is why the bomb actually came from the hands of the head of the Yemeni organization the Saudis are pissed with, and the EU passport, and the instructions...
Care to back that up or are you spouting gibberish?
I'm not talking about this incident. I'm specifically thinking of the thwarted White House bombing from a few weeks back.
EDIT: Can't find the link for all this that I saw on Reddit. *Shrugs* Oh well.
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I'm not talking about this incident. I'm specifically thinking of the thwarted White House bombing from a few weeks back.
Which apparently wasn't picked up by the news here, or by any other news source I have access to, so the whole idea behind your statement doesn't work.
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Well maybe my memory's bad. I can't find any reference to the White House bomb plot at all anyway, all the results are saturated with this Yemeni one. Like, literally I can't find any mention of it because all results for "white house bomber" or "white house bomb plot" redirect to this. :\
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Reddit.
Don't go to Reddit.
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Reddit.
Don't go to Reddit.
(http://fi.somethingawful.com/safs/smilies/0/4/reddit.001.gif)
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Here we go, a friend of mine found the article I was talking about;
http://www.techdirt.com/articles/20120430/02112518698/nytimes-realizes-that-fbi-keeps-celebrating-breaking-up-its-own-terrorist-plots.shtml
The United States has been narrowly saved from lethal terrorist plots in recent years - or so it has seemed. A would-be suicide bomber was intercepted on his way to the Capitol; a scheme to bomb synagogues and shoot Stinger missiles at military aircraft was developed by men in Newburgh, N.Y.; and a fanciful idea to fly explosive-laden model planes into the Pentagon and the Capitol was hatched in Massachusetts.
But all these dramas were facilitated by the F.B.I., whose undercover agents and informers posed as terrorists offering a dummy missile, fake C-4 explosives, a disarmed suicide vest and rudimentary training. Suspects naïvely played their parts until they were arrested.
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*Bump* Here's another article from the Rolling Stone;
http://www.rollingstone.com/politics/blogs/national-affairs/how-fbi-entrapment-is-inventing-terrorists-and-letting-bad-guys-off-the-hook-20120515
The guy who convinced the plotters to blow up a big bridge, led them to the arms merchant, and drove the team to the bomb site was an FBI informant. The merchant was an FBI agent. The bomb, of course, was a dud. And the arrest was part of a pattern of entrapment by federal law enforcement since September 11, 2001, not of terrorist suspects, but of young men federal agents have had to talk into embracing violence in the first place. One of the Cleveland arrestees, Connor Stevens, complained to his sister of feeling "very pressured" by the guy who turned out to be an informant and was recorded in 2011 rejecting property destruction: "We're in it for the long haul and those kind of tactics just don't cut it," he said. "And it's actually harder to be non-violent than it is to do stuff like that." Though when Cleveland's NEWS Channel 5 broadcast that footage, they headlined it "Accused Bomb Plot Suspect Caught on Camera Talking Violence."
Read more: http://www.rollingstone.com/politics/blogs/national-affairs/how-fbi-entrapment-is-inventing-terrorists-and-letting-bad-guys-off-the-hook-20120515#ixzz1v4Cz8o2K
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you know this has the effect of sowing fear in the minds of would be plotters that their trusted bomb supplier could be a double agent.
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*Bump* Here's another article from the Rolling Stone;
http://www.rollingstone.com/politics/blogs/national-affairs/how-fbi-entrapment-is-inventing-terrorists-and-letting-bad-guys-off-the-hook-20120515
The guy who convinced the plotters to blow up a big bridge, led them to the arms merchant, and drove the team to the bomb site was an FBI informant. The merchant was an FBI agent. The bomb, of course, was a dud. And the arrest was part of a pattern of entrapment by federal law enforcement since September 11, 2001, not of terrorist suspects, but of young men federal agents have had to talk into embracing violence in the first place. One of the Cleveland arrestees, Connor Stevens, complained to his sister of feeling "very pressured" by the guy who turned out to be an informant and was recorded in 2011 rejecting property destruction: "We're in it for the long haul and those kind of tactics just don't cut it," he said. "And it's actually harder to be non-violent than it is to do stuff like that." Though when Cleveland's NEWS Channel 5 broadcast that footage, they headlined it "Accused Bomb Plot Suspect Caught on Camera Talking Violence."
Read more: http://www.rollingstone.com/politics/blogs/national-affairs/how-fbi-entrapment-is-inventing-terrorists-and-letting-bad-guys-off-the-hook-20120515#ixzz1v4Cz8o2K
Oh yeah, I saw this on teh Anon news tweet place.
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Oh yeah, I saw this on teh Anon news tweet place.
Because nothing validates an idea more than having Anonymous agree with it.
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Oh yeah, I saw this on teh Anon news tweet place.
Because nothing validates an idea more than having Anonymous agree with it.
It doesn't automatically invalidate it, either