Hello, May I Offer You A Crime?

Bismillahi Rahmani Rahim

Salaam Alaikum wa Rahmatullah


I hesitated before posting this.  I don’t want anyone to take this the wrong way.  So let me preface my little tale by saying that I am a religious Muslim and I’m proud of my faith.  I also believe that suicide bombings are wrong, attacking innocent civilians is wrong, and that the people who get sucked into conspiracies hatched by law enforcement are so dumb they probably deserve what they get.  What is dumber is for my tax money to be spent on sting operations that target the aforementioned dumb people and entrap them into committing crimes they never would have otherwise been a part of.  Yes, lots of testosterone-driven young Muslim men post “I love jihad” on their Facebook pages and talk about the injustice, the very real injustice, of Israelis killing Palestinians and the US going to war against a country that did not attack us on 9/11.  And lots of testosterone-driven young Muslim men, left to themselves, would continue to post such information, would continue to listen to lectures by Anwar al Awlaki, and would also continue to work at their uncle’s halaal meat shop and would never get beyond muttering angrily into their teacups while they hang out at the shisha place on Friday nights.  These are the angry young men, full of righteous indignation and no prospects, who get taken in by the government.  And it is not making you or me one whit safer, because by using these deceitful tactics, by sending agents provocateur into our masaajid, they are alienating the very people they need the most in the fight against murder in the name of Islam.  How do they do it?  Read on….

Okay, imagine you are an undercover cop and you want to prevent bank robberies.  Let’s say you go into a bar and you buy your beer and you just sit around and listen to guys talking.  You hang out at the bar almost every night and then one night John is complaining to Bob that, dang it, he’s tired of living paycheck to paycheck and he wishes he could just knock off a bank and get rich.  Yeah, Bob, replies, we’d really stick it to those rich bankers, huh?  They both laugh over the idea, talk about what they’d do with all that money, drain their beers, say goodnight, and go home for the evening.  They meet up at the bar a couple of times a week, and talk about robbing a bank becomes kind of a running joke.  The undercover cop overhears them and thinks Aha!  I’ve found someone who could possibly at some time in his life consider thinking about wanting to rob a bank.  How can I actually get him to DO that so I can arrest him and keep him from robbing the bank?  So he moseys up to the two guys and offers to buy the next round.  They get to talking and shooting the breeze, and undercover cop just “happens” to mention that his cousin is a teller at a local bank, and that dang bank has stiffed him by not paying him enough and not promoting him.  Sure would be nice to get back at that evil bank….

So the seed is sewn and the undercover cop cultivates John and Bob, feeding their anger at the unfair bank and giving them nuggets of information about how easy it would be to knock off a bank when you’ve got someone on the inside.  Over time, the talk moves from the land of idle fantasy to reality, and the tipping point is reached when undercover cop brings John and Bob two guns, a getaway car, and his cousin’s work schedule.  John and Bob, who never in their lives would have the werewithal or knowhow to rob an actual bank, are about to rob an actual bank.  Or so they think.

The day arrives.  Undercover cop, having woven his web and drawn them in, feebly offers them the opportunity to call off the job, while stoking their hatred of bankers and rich people and painting an image of them as Robin Hood heroes.  They figure they’ve gone this far, and everything has worked smoothly thus far.  What could go wrong?  They gas up the getaway car, put the guns (loaded with blank rounds, of course), into their jackets and head off towards the bank.  Undercover cop says he will be the getaway driver, so when they go inside, he is able to simply walk away.  The “cousin” is another undercover cop, and he continues to play out the fake robbery scenario with a lobby full of cops dressed as tellers and customers.  Bob and John pull out their guns and yell “This is a stickup!” and are promptly drawn down on by twenty people carrying guns NOT loaded with blank rounds.  They are arrested, paraded before the media, and the world hears how the police have foiled a pair of crafty bank robbers out to steal from hardworking Americans.

My friends, this is called ENTRAPMENT.  Change John and Bob to Ahmed and Hassan and change it from a bar to a mosque and change it from a bank robbery to an attack on a recruiting station or a Christmas tree lighting, and you have what we are told is ” defending the country”.   Is this the best use of our resources?  I think not.  The only small satisfaction I get is that, in the case of the young man in Baltimore who was just arrested, the FBI did get a terminally stupid individual off the street before he could hurt himself by stumbling over his ignorance.  I feel safer already.