Good guy. He will be missed.

[Guest post by Aaron Worthing; if you have tips, please send them here.]

In some ways, this is a predictable rehash of Patterico’s post yesterday, only we are switching out who is being silly this time.  I mean the title of Greenwald’s post “The FBI successfully thwarts its own Terrorist plot” tells you most of what it is about, but of course this is done with extra paranoia.  For instance, he finds all kinds of paranoid conspiratorial goings on in the fact that the FBI was unable (for technical reasons) to record one encounter with the defendant.  And of course you have to love the sheer snottiness of this passage:

That’s why we have what we call “trials” before assuming guilt or even before believing that we know what happened: because the government doesn’t always tell the complete truth, because they often skew reality, because things often look much different once the accused is permitted to present his own facts and subject the government’s claims to scrutiny.

Mmm, get in a good whiff of that there liberal condescension.  (Summoning my thickest redneck drawl…)  Gee, us bumpkins never heard of this thing called a try-elle—can you tell us, more you sophistercated city guy?

Okay, I will stop that now (and AD, for the record all bad grammar and spelling in the foregoing paragraph was intentional).

It goes on explaining that part of the reason why he turned to jihad was because he was so poor and the mean U.S. government prevented him from obtaining any gainful employment:

In June, he attempted to fly to Alaska in order to work on a fishing job he obtained through a friend, but he was on the Government’s no-fly list.  That caused the FBI to question him at the airport and then bar him from flying to Alaska, and thus prevented him from earning income with this job (para. 25).  Having prevented him from working, the money the FBI then pumped him with — including almost $3,000 in cash for him to rent his own apartment (para. 61) — surely helped make him receptive to their suggestions and influence.

You get that?  According to Griswald Greenwald, the correct course of action would have been to allow this man who was plotting to engage in terrorism to board a U.S. flight. And further because we prevented him from working in Alaska that meant there was absolutely no employment he could obtain, anywhere.

But where this post really sets itself apart is where Greenwald then decides to argue that this plot—which he believes is a frame up—was our just deserts for eight years of Chimpy McHitler:

There are several statements attributed to Mohamud by the Affidavit that should be repellent to any decent person, including complete apathy — even delight — at the prospect that this bomb would kill innocent people, including children.  What would drive a 19-year-old American citizen — living in the U.S. since the age of 3 — to that level of sociopathic indifference?   He explained it himself in several passages quoted by the FBI, and — if it weren’t for the virtual media blackout of this issue — this line of reasoning would be extremely familiar to Americans by now (para. 45)[.]

But in fact it is all quite familiar and indeed tedious.  We have been hearing it since 9-11.  This version is we get the terrorists claiming claiming that our soldiers target civilians as justification for terrorism.

But here’s the thing, Glenn, our soldiers don’t target civilians as a general rule and when they do they are very often arrested and rightfully punished for doing so.  So where on earth would he get the idea that our soldiers as a matter of policy regularly target civilians, Glenn?  Oh, right, from lefty propagandists like you.

And notice how Greenwald infantilizes these terrorists.  According to Greenwald, we are intentionally murdering civilians in Afghanistan and that is a horrible crime that justifies the murder of innocent civilians here at home—even in cities that decided to sit out on the war on terror.  But on the other hand, the murder of American civilians on 9-11 doesn’t justify the murder of Afghan civilians, does it?  And you get the feeling that it is because the perpetrator is dark skinned or belonging to a certain religion that he does not believe this young man is as responsible for his actions.

In which case, if true, would justify all kinds of things Greenwald opposes, such as racial profiling in TSA scan or grope procedures.  I mean if we can’t trust “those dark, exotic, foreign-seeming Muslims” to be willing to endure the murder of civilians without resorting to the murder of civilians, then all kinds of profiling is justified, isn’t it?  And thus once again a liberal who condemns bigotry engages in precisely the same kind of bigotry.  It would be funnier if it was not so predictable.

Update: Unintentional spelling error fixed.

[Posted and authored by Aaron Worthing.]

[Guest post by Aaron Worthing; if you have tips, please send them here.]

This is a juicy catch from Byron York:

In 2005, leaders in Portland, Oregon, angry at the Bush administration’s conduct of the war on terror, voted not to allow city law enforcement officers to participate in a key anti-terror initiative, the FBI’s Joint Terrorism Task Force.  On Friday, that task force helped prevent what could have been a horrific terrorist attack in Portland.  Now city officials say they might re-think their participation in the task force — because Barack Obama is in the White House.

Mmm, yeah, they are motivated by the fact we have a new president.  Never mind that he has been president for nearly two years now.  Nah, I am calling B.S. on that one.

And of course these paragraphs contain a little schadenfreude,too:

What is ironic is that the operation that found and stopped Mohamud is precisely the kind of law enforcement work that Portland’s leaders, working with the American Civil Liberties Union, rejected during the Bush years.  In April 2005, the Portland city council voted 4 to 1 to withdraw Portland city police officers from participating in the FBI’s Joint Terrorism Task Force. Mayor Tom Potter said the FBI refused to give him a top-secret security clearance so he could make sure the officers weren’t violating state anti-discrimination laws that bar law enforcement from targeting suspects on the basis of their religious or political beliefs.

Other city leaders agreed.  “Here in Portland, we are not willing to give up individual liberties in order to have a perception of safety,” said city commissioner Randy Leonard.  “It’s important for cities to know how their police officers are being used.”

(Emphasis added, for extra irony.)  Of course I am very glad that we are talking about Portland being ironically saved from itself, instead of being ironically allowing a man to murder a few hundred of its citizens.  But I am reminded of John Stewart Mill speaking of the miserable creature that “has no chance of being free unless made and kept so by the exertions of better men than himself.”  In this episode, the FBI and (credit where credit is due) the Obama administration is the better people.

Anyway, as they say, read the whole thing.

Update: More details about the plotter, here, including this:

Authorities have not explained how a young Muslim man described by friends as an average university student who drank an occasional beer and hung out with fraternity friends became so radicalized.

Actually indulging in stuff like drinking a beer can be a bad sign.  The 9-11 terrorists engaged in a lot of conduct that was sinful in the eyes of radical Islam (drinking, going to strip clubs, etc.), because they believed that the act of carrying out 9-11 would save their souls.  More:

Prosecutors say after the trip to the backcountry, Mohamud made a video in the presence of one of the undercover agents, putting on clothes he described as “Sheik Osama style:” a white robe, red and white headdress, and camouflage jacket. He read a statement speaking of his dream of bringing “a dark day” on Americans and blaming his family for getting in the way.

“To my parents who held me back from Jihad in the cause of Allah. I say to them … if you — if you make allies with the enemy, then Allah’s power … will ask you about that on the day of judgment, and nothing that you do can hold me back,” he said.

It’s interesting that his parents were opposed to this.

Update (II): And in other news, there has been an arson attack on the mosque that the bomber occasionally attended.  To his credit, the Imam didn’t take this as a chance to condemn the community at large:

Islamic Center leader Imaam Yosof Wanly said he doesn’t believe the fire is a reflection on the community of Corvallis where he has lived for 24 years.

“I know people here know the true reality of the Muslim community here,” he said. “It’s a sad situation.”

Wanly condemned the alleged plot by the 19-year-old, stating he “denounced the actions of Mohamed Mohamud.”

Hat tip, The Blaze.

[Posted and authored by Aaron Worthing.]