Hmm. Let’s see. They had video of men firing rifles while calling for jihad and shouting “Allahu akbar.” They had video of Osama bin Laden and others who couch all their actions in the language of Islamic jihad. One of them said, “I’m doing it in the name of Allah.” They were “looking to obtain heavy weaponry.”
It was all because the informant pressured them, you see. Yep. Looks like entrapment to me. I’d have done exactly the same things in their situation. Wouldn’t you have? If someone came up to me and railed against the United States, helped scout out military installations for attack, offered to introduce me to an arms dealer, and gave me a list of weapons I could procure, including machine guns and rocket-propelled grenades, I’d be waging Islamic jihad in a heartbeat, wouldn’t you?
It’s hard to believe anyone could take such a scenario seriously, but here it is being seriously offered.
By Geoff Mulvihill for Associated Press, with thanks to Gary:
CHERRY HILL, N.J. “” He railed against the United States, helped scout out military installations for attack, offered to introduce his comrades to an arms dealer, and gave them a list of weapons he could procure, including machine guns and rocket-propelled grenades.
These were not the actions of a terrorist, but of a paid FBI informant who helped bring down an alleged plot by six Muslim men to massacre U.S. soldiers at New Jersey’s Fort Dix.
Those actions have raised questions of whether the government crossed the line and pushed the six men down a path they would not have otherwise followed.
It is an argument “” entrapment “” that has been made in other terrorism cases, and one that has failed miserably in this post-Sept. 11 era.
One defense attorney on the case, Troy Archie, said that no decision has been made on whether to argue entrapment, but that based on the FBI’s own account, “the guys sort of led them on.”
Rocco Cipparone, a lawyer for another one of the defendants, said he will take a hard look at “the role of paid informants and how aggressive they were in potentially prodding or moving things along.”…
“I never in my wildest dreams imagined what they’ve been accused of,” said Ismail Badat, trustee of the Islamic Center of South Jersey in Palmyra, where the Duka brothers worshipped….
Vincent Henry, director of the Homeland Security Management Institute at Long Island University and a 21-year veteran of the New York Police Department, said he is convinced that the Fort Dix defendants really were capable of pulling off such an attack.
“I’m sure they were,” he said. “The arrests were made as they were on their way to purchase the weapons, or at least some of the weapons. They had seemed to plan it out very, very well.”