Pressure cookers are called WMDs.
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Was he crazy or radicalized? Or both?
But yeah, I don’t think we have the tools or system set up to help these people. I am not even 100% you can. Institutionalizing someone is still sorta like prison if he is crazy. If he is radicalized, then what, re-education camps?
Shit like this has no easy answer. Though I agree I’d like to see something in place where we can at least try.
Considering that they actually discussed leaving behind something that just resembled Arabic in order to lay a claim of responsibility, it’s pretty clear this wasn’t much of a criminal mastermind.
(The article’s a bit confusingly written… it’s hard to tell whether the “FBI’s source” was making the suggestion or saying that the suspect did. But either way, it doesn’t seem like the sort of suggestion that would be in a high-quality conversation.)
The FBI’s source said they had to leave a claim of responsibility, something that “resembles of Arabic. … We could make it up.”
Bro, do you even jihad?
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I’m ambivalent on this.
There’s entrapment – but there’s also “this guy was totally willing to go blow people up.”
How much had he been “groomed” into that? How hard is that to do?
Although the article says the handler “reminded” the “suspect” that he’d be blowing up women and kids, I don’t doubt that it was in a “oh, gosh – women and kids, are you sure you want to do this?” manner.
So, I don’t know.
UPDATED: struck-out negative. I do doubt it went down in that fashion.
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According to the article, the FBI found out about Medina and decided to make a connection after he had discussed wanting to attack a synagogue. They didn’t plant that idea with him - but they did transform it from an attack with guns (Medina’s idea) into a bomb attack – which could much more easily be an inert, untestable device (has to be blown up), unlike a gun (easy to fire a single round).
How much hate could they ramp up in a “weeks-long probe” compared to him already wanting to attack a synagogue?
Assuming we’re getting the “real” story from the FBI.
Did I mention being ambivalent?
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Florida Man exists outside your puny definitions of time, space, and casual drug/alligator/firearm use.
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In other news, white terrorists get more than a slap on the wrist.
That’s something, anyway. Although: death penalty, ugh.
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Both crazy and radical are totally legal.
No, But look at what system we DO have.
[applauds]
That you leapt from my suggestion of therapy at public expense to "reeducation camps’ speak to your own radicalization more than his.
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What system is that? Are you saying we have a system that could have been used? I really don’t know what we do and do not have available. We do have mental hospitals, but I don’t know what system we have in place where the FBI could make them go into one.
But looking at the overall picture - what is radicalization? How do you “fix” that. I really don’t know. This isn’t a mental health thing as much as psychology thing. So I think you and I can agree that wanting to blow up Synagogues is a bad thing and we should stop that. Can you commit someone though because they want to do bad things? That isn’t necessarily crazy. And of course, yes, I do tend to take it to the 1984 level with the idea of “fixing” what people think by the government. I’m dark like that.
But as per my last sentence, we should try to improve our mental health system and I am fine with using public funds for that.
the FBI.
[quote=“Mister44, post:52, topic:77468”]
We do have mental hospitals, but I don’t know what system we have in place where the FBI could make them go into one.[/quote]
MAYBE the FBI is the WRONG CHOICE of system.
When all you have is a hammer, everything looks like a nail.
Again, I suggested therapy in the private sector, and you’re starting from institutiionalization as the least we SHOULD DO?
And HE is the radical??? Put your own hammer down maybe? These are human beings.
what is radicalization?
a word you brought into the discussion for me to define, which is a rhetorical pile of crap thing to do.
Right on. I agree.
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OK I am not connecting the dots here. We have private sector therapy. So in this case you have someone who needs help but is not seeking it out (As far as we know.) The FBI found out this person wanted to commit a terrorist act. At that point, the FBI is invovled. Before that, I don’t know how the FBI found out. If it was an acquaintance or friend who reported him or if he just went on some forum and was like, “Hey, where can I get a bomb?”
So I guess I need you to clarify, before the FBI got involved, what are you suggesting someone could do?
After the FBI got involved, what are you suggesting they could have done?
Thanks.
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Meh… hollywood’s version of terrorism tends to be void of nuance, I hate to say it. I’d say the best film I’ve seen on this issue must be Four Lions:
Paradise Now is a good one, too:
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I think that at least one of the more recent organizations calling itself the Ku Klux Klan was only able to stay in business because the undercover Federal agents, unlike all the other members, paid their dues on time.
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Don’t put words into his mouth!
Okay, who else is going to proactively look for these people?
You don’t want the FBI to do it.
Do you have another suggestion?
Whoops, missed that.
How are they going to proactively seek out these individuals who want to attack synagogues with guns and divert them?
A private-sector push for more bus-advertising? The back of the yellow-pages? Flyers under the overpasses where shady gun-dealers make deals?
Yes. Us.
Lots of people want to attack things with guns. How do any of them get stopped? How can we slow up more of them? Let the FBi find them, they probably get reported to the FBI if they worry their neighbors (the aforementioned us).
What does the FBI do with this information? Apparently encourage them. What else could they do?
Anything. Some kind of confinement if they’ve been violent, sure. But maybe some probation with mandated mental health intervention. How to pay for it? Well I see a slice of the FBI budghet that sure appears to be poorly spent on these folks.
How many agents do you think took part in this one man’s down fall. How many different people might it have taken to show him another way? And do those people draw anywhere near the salaries of the agents and their infrastructure.
How do we get there? I don’t know everything. But what the FBI is doing in cases like these IS NOT on the way to there.
We invest in different things if we want different outcomes. We should not invest in further destabilizing someone obviously already marginalized.
ETA: operations like this also radicalize the local community against whatever that man was trying to do for the people he DID feel accepted by. Too bad they were setting him up.
I;d prefer it if the FBI kept closer tabs on the materials needed to MAKE the IED. That’s not exactly common knowledge, or easy to do without help. Maybe kept tabs on the guy and see who he found to help him? Becuase if killing is bad, then the people who make the bombs… they’re the bad guys. Even when it is us.
