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Feds: Roslindale man had plans to behead somebody specific out of state, then decided it would be easier to kill a local cop
By adamg on Wed, 06/03/2015 - 10:19pm
In an affidavit in the case against an Everett man, an FBI agent today gave the explanation for why a Boston cop and an FBI agent felt it important to confront Usaama Rahim in Roslindale yesterday: An 5 a.m. phone call, monitored by federal and local terrorism investigators, in which Rahim allegedly explained he didn't want to wait to travel out of state to behead a specific person, so was going to go out and kill one of the local "boys in blue."
A Boston Police officer and an FBI agent fatally shot Rahim, 26, in the parking lot of the CVS on Washington Street, near his Blue Ledge Drive apartment, shortly after 7 a.m. yesterday. Officials say the officers did not intend to arrest Rahim at that point, but that he came at them with a large knife, even after they told him repeatedly to drop the weapon.
In an affidavit filed in US District Court in Boston in the case against David Wright of Everett, a federal investigator also revealed that a third man met with Rahim and Wright on a Rhode Island beach on May 31 to discuss the planned beheading - for which he allegedly prepared by buying "three fighting knives," including an "Ontario Spec Plus Marine Raider Bowie fighting knife," and a sharpener on Amazon.com. In a phone call on May 26:
RAHIM advised WRIGHT that "I just got myself a nice little tool. You know it's good for carving wood and like, you know, carving sculptures ... and you know ..." WRIGHT and RAHIM then both began laughing. I believe that when RAHIM said "nice little tool" that was "good for carving," he was referring to the Marine Raider Bowie fighting knife that he had purchased the previous day.
The potential victim of the beheading - and that third man - were not identified, although press reports say the alleged intended victim was anti-Moslem activist Pamela Geller.
At a press conference on Tuesday, local and federal law-enforcement officials said they had had Rahim under 24-hour surveillance "for some time," which explains the urgency to talk to Rahim after he got off the phone with Wright yesterday morning.
According to the affidavit, Rahim and Wright talked around 5 a.m. on Tuesday. Rahim allegedly said he could no longer wait to go out of state to behead his original intended victim. Wright allegedly asked if he were "going on vacation" instead:
Yeah, I'm going to be on vacation right here in Massachusetts ... I'm just going to ah go after them, those boys in blue. Cause, ah, it's the easiest target and, ah, the most common is the easiest for me ...
Additionally, during this conversation, RAHIM revealed to WRIGHT that he planned to randomly kill police officers in Massachusetts either yesterday (June 2) or today (June 3). In response, WRIGHT advised him to prepare his will and leave "his possessions" to a named individual. ...
After discussing with RAHIM the plan to attack police officers, WRIGHT directed RAHIM to delete information from, and destroy, his Smartphone and wipe his laptop computer. Specifically, with regards to RAHIM's phone, WRIGHT instructed RAHIM:
WRIGHT: Make sure also, very important, make sure that, ah, at the moment that you decide to that you ah, delete, you delete ah, from your phone or you break it apart. Throw it down to the ground.
RAHIM: Yup.
WRIGHT: Get rid of it, before anybody gets it; make sure it's completely destroyed.
RAHIM: I will.
WRIGHT: Because, at the scene, at the scene, CSI will be looking for that particular thing and so dump it, get rid of that. At the time you are going to do it, before you reach your destination you get rid of it.
Because he allegedly told Rahim to destroy the phone, Wright was charged with one count of conspiracy, specifically, "to obstruct a federal investigation by destroying electronic evidence on Rahim’s smartphone."
The affidavit briefly discusses Rahim's death:
Shortly after this conversation, on June 2, 2015, RAHIM was on a public street in the Boston area, when he was approached by Boston Police Officers and FBI special agents. RAHIM took out one of the knives he had purchased from Amazon.com when he saw the officers and agents. One of the officers told RAHIM to drop his weapon and RAHIM responded, "you drop yours." RAHIM then moved towards the officers while brandishing his weapon, and he was shot by law enforcement.
Not long after, FBI agents went to Wright's Everett home for a chat, the affidavit continues:
During this interview, the agents asked WRIGHT about what had transpired at the Sunday meeting on the beach in Rhode Island. According to WRIGHT, at that meeting, RAHIM told WRIGHT and the third person that he was going to behead the intended victim in another state. WRIGHT indicated that he agreed with RAHIM's plan and supported it.
Wright is also known as Dawud Sharif Wright and Dawud Sharif Abdul Khaliq.
Innocent, etc.
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| Attachment | Size |
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 Affidavit in Wright case | 269.39 KB |
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Comments
l'm confused...
Was Pam Geller not the person the deceased was interested in beheading out of state?
Women that don't hide their
Women that don't hide their faces from men, challenge religious beliefs, and hold satirical cartoon contests are just so terrifying and threatening to fundamentalist patriarchies.
As opposed to
women who trade in hate and fear for a living?
Or the...
...glitterati that admired Piss Christ? Boy, they got shot at all the time by Christians. Oh, no, sorry, they didn't. My bad.
Wow!
One usually would have to go to Breitbart or the Herald for that type of logic!
Well played.I'm sure George Tiller would agree.
He can't.
He's dead.
So, what do you mean by, Breitbart or the Herald?
Keep an open mind and remain skeptical
Two things make us comfortable about the killing of Usaama Rahim;
1) A Boston police officer and FBI agent Police tell us he attacked them with his knife and they had to kill him to defend themselves. The video is not conclusive on this point. Prior to approaching him for questioning in a parking lot, the police did not have probable cause to arrest him despite 24-hour surveillance (and a wiretap on his phone?)
2) Allegedly, he was part of a 'terror network' that was going to kill a policeman Tuesday or Wednesday (instead of Pam Geller.) Behead, they said. What was their evidence? Was it a credible threat under the law? We haven't seen the evidence of this terror network. We haven't seen the sum total of evidence that makes his threat credible and therefore illegal. We know that the US Attorney did not think there was probable cause prior to when they approached him for questioning. Did they screw the pooch or save a police officers life?
Do you think that's a fair question?
The public wants to know what's going on so the press published whatever the police leak as well as what they report officially. That standard is not the standard required in a court of law.
Keep an open mind and remain skeptical. There are more than a few troubling aspects of this case that ended in the suspects death.
speek freely
Pam Geller is a bigoted ahole who makes a living in the US Islamophobia industry. Still, no one deserves to be killed or face death threats for speaking freely ...if not falsely in a manner that induces fear and hatred in some people toward Muslims, who she detests. She's a provacatuer who uses the media.
Instead more free speech is needed to take her arguments apart and reveal them for what they are. Here's one by Dean Obeidallah entitled “Muslim-Bashing Can Be Very Lucrative,” which basically accuses Geller of inciting violence to fatten her own bank account. Is Dean on the mark or off it?
Fear Inc.: The Roots Of the Islamophobia Network In America
Who are the millionaires behind the Islamophobic industry in America?
Long live Pam Geller, hopefully long enough for her to recognize the harm she does.
About depicting Muhammad:
Radical Islam
The Middle East is a bloody train wreck. The Saudis are reaping as they have sown with their Wahabbi schools. Fifteen of the nineteen September 11 hijackers were Saudi. ISIL is winning turf that they, by rights, should be losing hand over foot. Christians, who have been there for two thousand years, are being murdered by the thousands. Muslims that don't toe the line of radical (conservative, seventh century) Islam are called apostates and murdered by the thousands. The Sauds have their hands full in Yemen, Syria is a non-functional state, Afghanistan is hanging by a thread and Egypt threw out the Muslim Brotherhood, sentencing a bunch of them to death. Hell, it's tough to tell the players with a scorecard.
Some of the best reporting on the ME is from the BBC And Al J.
Oh, Iran is on its way to a bomb.
All Islam has shown me is death and fire. It is a violently opressive regime spread by the sword.
Do you think I care about a drawing of Mohammed (PBUH) on a damn cocktail napkin?
I don't give a shit what the Koran says about graven images. But, keep that damn 'religion' away from me.
Quite frankly I'm more
Quite frankly I'm more worried about Israeli Nukes, and the lack of scrutiny there too.
I cannot believe I just read
I cannot believe I just read that comment. You must be more worried about Israeli nukes than Saudi Arabia, which recently implied that they are in the market for a bomb, because of Shiite Persia...
Here's looking at you, Pakistan.
I'm worried about your lack of rationality.
I'm worried about your lack of vision
Israel won't even admit they have the bomb, nor did they sign onto the NPT, citing "security interests". That scares me as much as radical Islam.
The crazy is getting strong here.
If you're really as afraid of Tel Aviv as you are of Iran, then either you are trolling or you really need friggin professional help.
Israel has a religious zealotry problem
Only those zealots are running the country, just like they are in Iran, except with our tax dollars.
If you don't recognize that for what it is, you are either delusional or blind to reality.
I'm afraid of both actually
as any rational person would be. I don't subscribe to the Israel can do no wrong and if you disagree you're a stinking anti-Semite meme. Grow up.
Boston area victim of religiously motivated terrorism
dmcboston, meet my former neighbor, Shannon. She was murdered at her workplace by a religious extremist.
She was a lovely young woman when she was murdered by a Christian terrorist, and I still miss our back fence and bus stop chats.
Dude, get off of this "muslims OMG!!!" shit right now. Religious zealotry is the REAL problem, not Islam per se.
http://www.dailykos.com/story/2011/01/30/939874/-3...
Nice try...
But you're not going to derail the real issue that is the threat of Islamic terrorism.
Define "the real issue"
What do you mean by "the real issue"?
Do you mean "The most important public safety issue facing us?" How do you make that determination?
When is the last time....
...a Christian, Jew, or any member of a religion other than Islam, beheaded an "infidel" or crashed an airliner into a skyscraper, or swept across two countries, bringing death and terror to millions of people? How does the fact that ISIS has called for, and carried out, killings of uniformed men and women in the west, men and women who put themselves in danger to keep you safe, make you feel?
Boo!!!!!
I feel exactly the same way about the murder of innocent law enforcement by Islamic terrorists as I do about the murder of innocent police officer Brian Moore by a non-Islamic criminal, or the murder of innocent police officers Rafael Ramos and Wenjian Liu by a non-islamic criminal. Awful.
Am I supposed to somehow feel different about the death of a law enforcement officer based on the religious motivations of the murderous loser who killed him? I really don't get it.
Yeah, I acknowledge that Islamic terrorism is a threat to me. So is bad shellfish. And neither are anywhere near as much a threat to me as the texting driver in the oncoming lane, or the junkie down the block who wants my wallet.
The very same people who were telling us to cower in fear of Ebola are now telling us to cower in fear of foreign terrorists. If you're going to be scared, pick something meaningful to be scared of.
Trust me...
I'm not scared. I have training that most people do not have, and it's actually a big part of my occupation to be a.) well read in the threats from the spread of Islamic terrorism worldwide, and b.) to be memtally and physically ready to respond to those threats at a moments notice. I appreciate that you've taken the time to think philisophically about this issue, but as I said before, given that this is something I do as part of my job, I don't have time for that.
Chop away, but sharpen the axe, too
Abraham Lincoln said, "Give me six hours to chop down a tree and I will spend the first four sharpening the axe."
We need people to chop down trees.
We also need people to choose which trees need to be chopped down.
We also need people to keep the axes sharp.
Without the second two, the first is entirely a waste of time.
Don't get me wrong... Just because heart disease is a big killer doesn't mean I think all the people working on meningitis research ought to drop what they're doing and work on heart disease instead; and, similarly, I don't believe all the people working to combat Islamic terrorism ought to drop what they're doing and work on opiate addiction or gang violence or drunk driving.
But, on the other hand, I think it's incumbent upon the people who decide where the money gets spent (and, ultimately, that's us, acting through our elected government) ought to be thinking hard about priorities. And we've been shockingly bad at it. We spend time, energy, public attention, and dollars in a completely skewed way relative to actual risk.
Pick a sophisticated multinational corporation and peek under the covers. You can bet that their capital, R&D, and operating budgets are allocated with regard to expected payoff, based on reams of data and careful analysis. I don't think it's in the slightest unreasonable that I ask that we allocate our $4 trillion Federal budget the same way.
.
Equivocation
Yes, extremism is bad. Yes, Christianity has extremists. Yes, there are periods of Christian history that parallel contemporary Islamic history in regards to brutality (the Spanish Inquisition, for instance). But here and now, these things exist at different scales, and you can't pull back a curtain to reveal them to be exactly the same. This is not a value judgment, not a competitive comparison about religion, not a comment on race or ethnicity or background: this is just a casualty statistic.
http://super-economy.blogspot.com/2011/02/islamist...
(And of course, as anyone paying attention realizes, the primary victims of Islamic terror are not white Americans or Europeans, but Africans, Indians, Middle Easterners (Persians, Yazidis, Arabs, etc), and South Asians:)
(Also this is back from 2011 and so excludes Charlie Hebdo and the Marathon Bombing)
(This article was also written by a Kurdish refugee immigrant in Sweden)
Circular logic
If you define "terrorist attacks" so as to exclude Aurora and Sandy Hook, then, yes, it looks like Islamic extremism is the most important thing to worry about.
But if instead of defining the problem to be solved as "terrorist attacks," which is a somewhat arbitrary category, you were to define it as "things that might cause my life, or the life of someone I love, to end prematurely and unpleasantly," then yeah, stopping jihadis stays on the radar, but it is no longer the primary, obsessive focus.
What I want my government to do with my tax dollars is:
Hint: Ebola, crazed pilots crashing airplanes on purpose, and other things the news media have told you to be afraid about, are so far out to the right of the decimal point that they don't even make it onto the page.
Let me guess
You don't actually know any Muslims in real life?
Images of Muhammad
Recently visited the re-done Islamic Art section of the Metropolitan Museum of Art (which is stunning) -- and saw 14th C. artworks that depicted the life of Muhammad.
thank you
a rare voice of reason in these comments - thank you.
" terrifying and threatening to fundamentalist patriarchies."
EVERYTHING that doesn't agree with their seventh-century radical Islam beliefs threaten them.
As opposed to 3000 BCE radical beliefs?
http://www.xojane.com/issues/it-happened-me-fleeing-hasidism-and-living-...
That's bad too!
Yup, the Abrahamic faiths are pretty awful, sexist, racist, outmoded, and a danger to the world on the whole. Christianity and Islam are responsible for millennia of forced conversions, wars, rapes, and cultural destruction (the parallels are strong between the Christianization of Europe and the Islamic Conquests of India [to name one], but the latter is somehow slightly more bloody and horrific). Judaism has luckily gone through very tolerant phases and the majority of followers are able to look at the Torah in context, but the Hasids are absolutely all about being throwbacks to the patriarchy of Abraham's time.
Also, speaking of context, it's worth tempering equivocations by comparing the fraction of Jews who are Hasids with crazy beliefs that harm people, to the fraction of Christians and Muslims with crazy beliefs that harm people:
Showing her hair makes it feminist!
"Explain the difference"
The one on the left doesn't want to kill me?
Radical Islam. We're talking about a plot to behead a cop. Focus, swirl.
You are sure of that
Right.
probable cause of a credible threat and an arrest?
That assertion we're told, is based on a wire tap of a phone call made at 5AM Tuesday, correct?
Why wasn't it considered probable cause of a credible threat and an arrest?
"The one on the left doesn't want to kill me?"
We tend to be pretty civil on Uhub but there are a lot of people in this country who frequently talk about war with others. We have syndicated radio shows which come within a thread of suggesting that "liberals" should be murdered. (And to a lesser extent the same language is used towards conservatives by people who call themselves progressive.)
Perhaps the radical islamic groups are closer to carrying out their actions but either way it's open discussion of violence for political reasons. (BTW, ISIS is political, not religious. The religion is just a handy justification for political actions.) And yes, that's scary.
Care to specify a "progressive"...
... calling for (or hinting at) the need to exterminate consevatives?
Never seen this happen, but I am not omniscient. ;-}
She probably does
You are from the evil gay-loving East coast and that's all she needs to know.
Has somebody reported that?
I'm just going off an FBI press release, to be honest; haven't been keeping up with MSM stuff.
Hi Adam, yes:
Hi Adam, yes [it was reported]:
http://www.cnn.com/2015/06/03/us/boston-police-shooting/
Apparently, yes.
Being interested in killing a specific someone and actually finding them and successfully doing it are two very different things.
Killing a random cop is a different story. Not easy, but possible.
My take? I wish they could have gotten the guy alive, but screw it, he had a ka-bar and the willingness to use it.
Well, after all...
it was CNN.
I wonder if the "third man" was an FBI agent
Doing one of those semi-entrapment/provocation things the FBI has done from time to time. Find a Facebook crackpot and try to instigate him into doing something arrestable, sort of thing. Hopefully they're not doing that so much anymore- it always seemed sort of unwise and morally suspect
Here is an interesting take
Here is an interesting take on this whole episode.
I appreciate the work that Glenn Greenwald has done but
This piece is ridiculous. He's upset because they described it as a "black knife?" It IS a black knife, ffs. All of the language used to describe the suspects contains "alleged" etc--where is the attempt to "smear?" And he seems to pay no heed to what many here and elsewhere have observed of the BPD's attempt to be as transparent as possible and to immediately engage Muslim community leaders. Why not include the brother's immediate, evidence-free attempt to "smear" the police by trying to fit his brother's killing into an Eric Garner narrative? If Greenwald was bending any further backwards to make this story fit his own agenda, he'd sprain something.
I read it differently
Um, no these were his questions (his piece was published Wed, June 3, 9:29AM. That was before the affidavit was filed in court) :
and in conclusion
Um, maybe because the media didn't
HAVE the answers to those questions yesterday? Though the first two questions seem kind of obvious--you can't arrest someone for what they are planning to do.
It's the "aggressively and uncritically" part that I object to, especially given that Greenwald seems to be diving in very aggressively on the counterpoint without any more information than anyone else has. And is he really claiming that any "rational discussion of whether the killing was justified" has been precluded? With everyone reporting (uncritically) on the brother's claim that he was shot in the back and a video which had yet to be made publicly available AND the current atmosphere in which police are under intense scrutiny for this exact kind of thing? Come on--it makes no sense.
If the media doesn't have the answers
Why are they doing a mic check for the FBI?
In case you didn't read that far above:
He includes it partially
By repeating elements of Ibrahim's fiction in his screed, e.g. Rahim was at the bus stop.
At best, Greenwald is guilty of everything he's charging other media with - repeating unproven assertions in an attempt to smear people.
At worst, he's intentionally and knowingly distorting the case.
I always love it when journalists complain about "the media." Dude, _you're_ the media.
skeptical of claims made by the police after police homicide
His point is that law enforcement was able to portray the deceased in the media as a terrorist who was radicalized online by ISIS and who was a threat to the officers at the scene but we don;t know which claims are true and neither does the media but they reported them just the same.
Remember when they said he had a machete? It looks like he didn't. What is the evidence that he was radicalized online by ISIS? I haven't seen it. Do you think we will?
The writer is a former constitutional lawyer, now an advocacy journalist. I think he wants journalists to be more skeptical of claims made by the police to the media. I think he has a point.
It happened barely 24 hours ago.
The jury--even of public opinion--is hardly in. We've only seen a smidgen of the evidence here but the media is reporting what they can. I'm not sure what you--or Greenwald--think the alternative is.
dvdoff, erik g and Swirlygirl should be ashamed...
I hope Caroline Kennedy (sometimes Schlossberg, except when seeking office) considers the involved Boston Police officer and FBI agent for this year's "Profile in Courage" awards. The potential mayhem that was prevented is just unimaginable.
Ashamed of what, Fish?
Having an opinion in America? No one's shaming you for the fascistic nonsense you post sometimes.
Not unimaginable at all
It's not unimaginable at all. Criminals murder people all the time. Sometimes with knives; sometimes with guns. Sometimes the police stop a dangerous criminal before he kills someone.Sometimes they don't.
All indications at this point seem to be that this was good police work and a justified shooting, but don't make it out to be some kind of miracle. Is there some reason why this particular incident is more worthy of a "profile in courage" award than any other incident in which police officers have confronted and disarmed a dangerous criminal?
Yes Bob, the 5 killed, 264 maimed in other Boston Muslim terror
Yes Bob. History.
I don't follow your argument at all
I don't follow your logic at all.
There were 51 murders in Boston in 2014. 5 by "Muslim terror." Were the other 46 somehow less significant?
Is a police officer who stops a Muslim criminal on his way to commit murder somehow more courageous, or doing more for public safety, than a police officer who stops a member of an Irish-American gang from South Boston on his way to kill a witness? or an ivy-league WASP doctor from Wellesley on his way home to murder his wife?
Bob, the murders done in the name of Islam tend to be mass
Bob, the five Islamic murders that we know of in Boston were in 2013, not 2014, but let that go. Our police officers who merely don the uniform are courageous. That's not even in question. Joe Fitzgerald has a nice piece in today's Herald. History tells us that Muslim terror is different. While the murderous Wellesley doctor and Irish-American gang member are also despicable, the Islamic terrorists (WTC, Boston, Fort Hood, etc.) seek maximum impact using economy of force. Once again in this case, only a small amount of terrorists involved. The "Profile in Courage" award is worthy since, especially in this heated environment, the police officer and federal agent stopped the threat. Beheadings were prevented. Don't forget Oklahoma City, too. While the spoon-fed media has "concluded" that moron Timothy McVeigh was the mastermind, reporter Jayna Davis (now blackballed) exposed the Muslim connectioin.
I'm still not following you.
If I understand your theory correctly, the marathon bombing guys are worse criminals than, say, they guy who shot up the theater in Colorado, or the guy who shot up the school in Connecticut, or the guy who blew up the federal building in Oklahoma, because.... ... there's where I lose the plot.
I'm not saying that one loser with a knife can't ruin someone's whole day, or even several someone's whole days, but let's not make this out to be the disruption of a major criminal enterprise here.
As I said, seems to be good police work, and a justified shooting, and they seem to have stopped a criminal who was on his way to commit murder. And that's certainly a good thing. But knock it off with the hype, please.
Eight facts about terrorism in the United States
washingtonpost:
Always follow the money
People who want you to be scared, when the facts suggest otherwise, usually have an agenda.
Anon 3:41 am, they're now in power
Of course terrorism is down. The terrorists of the 70's are now advising Obama and/or teaching college classes.
Bob, you seem unable to grasp the motivating element, Jihad. We agree "they (sic) guy who shot up the theater in Colorado, or the guy who shot up the school in Connecticut or the guy who blew up the federal building in Oklahoma" are terrible. Any officer involved in saving lives in those incidents deserves a commendation. Those atrocities didn't happen in the current climate of "questionable" police shootings, however. I have extra respect for our Boston Police officer and FBI agent who, despite the current climate, chose to put down this terrorist. Training takes over. Money we have well spent.
Obama is being advised by former members of the IRA?!
Now this is news.
And why, pray tell Fish
Do they want to commit Jihad on us? Do they hate our freedoms?
Haven't you read the news?
They want to force Irish gay marriage down his throat!
I have no problem understanding the motivating element
I have no problem understanding the motivating element.
What I'm asking you for, repeatedly, and not hearing an answer, is some sort of explanation as to why a guy who kills because of jihad is somehow a worse threat than a guy who kills because he's bat-shit crazy, or because he wants my iPhone to feed his opiate addiction, or because he gets behind the wheel drunk?
If you actually read that
If you actually read that article the misleading graph is taken from, you might come to the conclusion that the FBI should keep left-wing organizations under close scrutiny; they are responsible for the vast majority of attacks. The problem is that despite the lower number of attacks, Muslim terrorists are responsible for the overwhelming majority of fatalities.
Muslims all the way down, eh Fishy?
I'm sure that you are now going to tell us that you heard somewhere that this guy screamed "الله أكبر!" as he murdered my friend:
Please stop
When I was in 6th grade, a mentally unstable man entered my school with a 12 gauge shotgun with the intent of murdering innocent children. He demanded our principal lead him to the nearest classroom (mine), and thankfully, my principal - deciding it was either his life or the life of his students - took the gunman down a few dozen feet from my classroom. Having his own ribs broken in the process.
Unfortunately, what this individual did succeed in was murdering the school nurse with a shotgun blast to the back at point blank range.
*EDIT* I've cut out the emotional babbling in my original post that originally went here.
Do I now think all mentally disturbed people are going to try to kill me because of something that happened 20 years ago? No. That would be completely irrational.
Am I going to use her death as some sort of bizarre rebuttal to the notion that there may be a severe problem plaguing this world with the perversion of a certain religion and those who adhere to it (or perhaps something more tangible, like gun control)? Absolutely not, again, that would be irrational.
I would actually have complete respect for your point of view if you mentioned this woman without injecting yourself into it. Anyone who has died at the hands of a monster had a family and friends who now miss them - you are not special and unique, and her death has nothing to do with you.
Your case, unfortunately (and I'm not trying to downplay what happened, it is extremely sad and I honestly feel for your loss) is a statistical outlier. Despite what you're attempting to allude to - and quite poorly, might I add, as it is clouded by pure emotion - there is not some rash of Christian extremists marauding around the globe, raping and murdering non-Christians because of their beliefs.
Presently, the overwhelming majority of religious violence is at the hands of the following groups. No, I don't have a citation, but I do follow the news from various global entities and am able to use logic and reason:
Al Shabaab
Al Qaeda
Taliban
Hezbollah
Hamas
ISIS
Boko Haram
Notice any common thread? All extremists, yes. But even 0.5% of 1.5 billion is ALOT of bad apples.
Again, your point is?
Well, that would be interesting if the question were, "Which religions in the world are more violent than others?"
But that's not the question. The question is "How should the limited funds, talent, and attention of our public safety forces be allocated?"
And from that perspective, drunk driving, violent robberies committed by desparate opiate addicts, and murder sprees by bat-shit-crazy people are probably a higher risk to me, and a more effective use of my law enforcement dollar, than chasing after the lone wolf jihadi loser.
No, that's actually not the question.
Bob, please do try to follow along.
It's absolutely exhausting to watch you jump headfirst into a subset of comments, make some assinine point that has nothing to do with the original intent of the conversation in the first place, and then have to imagine you smugly sitting behind your keyboard with some shit-eating grin on your face as if you made some sort of groundbreaking, salient point.
The focal point of this particular conversation, as far as I was concerned, was whether it was logical and/or rational to put Christian religious zealots on equal footing with Islamic religious zealots in terms of which particular brand of religious zealotry is wreaking the most havoc present day.
This is not about prioritizing the allocation of resources in terms of what is the greatest threat to life and proprety domestically. If it was, I would actually agree with you Alas, it is not. So your comment is at the very least out of scope, though probably more along the lines of utterly imbecilic.
Really?
Why isn't that the question? Isn't that the question we should be asking?
The question I should be asking
The question I should be asking is why am I even debating you in the first place. You make my head hurt. It's like trying to herd cats. In a word, its impossible. Or impossible, as the French say.
When I ask my dog if she wants a treat, she sits politely and goes through her short repertoire of tricks. What she doesn't do is go jump up onto the kitchen counter and take a shit into the sink basin, or any other ludicrous array of actions you could possibly dream of that have absolutely nothing to do with her current task at hand.
But I digress, and I will reluctantly engage.
Do you think zero resources should be used to monitor these threats because the chance of it affecting any single person in a country of 320 million is minute? Should a blind eye be turned instead? Is there some magical percentage Bob Leponge would like to see be allocated? If so, how much?
Basically, do you have an end game or a feasible solution? Or are you just complaining and presenting contrarian arguments for the fun of it?
I'm a huge fan of rationality.
How do you think resources should be allocated?
I think resources should be allocated in proportion to the size of the risk and in proportion to the likelihood that expending resources is going to make a difference. Big risks should get big money. Small risks should get small money.
In that regard, my opinion differs sharply from that of most people, who seem to think we ought to expend resources in proportion to how scary the news coverage is.
You might recall last fall how people were being told to quake in their boots over fear of Ebola, how it was a terrifying threat, how we ought to slam shut our borders, disrupt international commerce, drop everything and devote all our national resources to fighting it, etc. At the time I was fond of asking people whether they thought Ebloa or Influenza was a bigger problem, and they would generally look at me as though I were insane, and say "Ebola, of course." When I pointed out that the number of Americans killed in an average year by ordinary influenza was somewhere between 5,000 and 20,000 depending upon the seriousness of that year's strain, whereas the number of people killed by Ebola was something like 4, the more rational would pause, thoughtfully, and say, "gee, I didn't know that." The less rational would accuse me of simply not understanding the world we live in.
I feel the same way about terrorism. There's a huge complex of media, military, and law enforcement interests that make a ton of money over keeping you scared about terrorism. Without a doubt terrorism is a risk, but it's not a big risk. In their most successful month ever, in history, September 2001, terrorists killed almost as many people on American soil as died in preventable motor vehicle accidents. Motor vehicle accidents are a bigger risk to me and to my family than terrorism. I think *some* money... significant money, even, should be spent mitigating the risks of terrorism, because it's a significant risk. But it's not in the top 10. So I think the big money should be spent elsewhere.
Atlanta Olympic Bombing killed how many?
Christian terrorist Eric Robert Rudolph was a mass murderer, too.
Wait, the Atlanta Bomber was in Rozzie?
Missed that in the local coverage! I heard it was some Muslim guy name Rahim, affiliated with a local Mosque. (Am I allowed to use the "M" word, in your world?)
When did Eric Rudolph show up around here?
While the spoon-fed media has
...okay, now we know you're just a nut.
You should be ashamed
You use our Constitution like toilet paper to mop up after your ecstatic reaction to someone being killed by cops.
Attached a copy of the affidavit to the original post
And updated the original post with more details from it.
Great job by the feds. I
Great job by the feds. I wonder if the third man was an informant and will never be named or it will be a fake name that they release
Well ...
The Globe already knows who he is, but isn't printing his name because he hasn't been charged yet. He's the guy whose home in RI was searched on Tuesday.
I don't want Freedom of Religion
I'd prefer Freedom from Religion!
I second the motion.
I second the motion.
These assholes
Not only are they trying to kill innocent people. Now they're also making me feel sympathy for Pamela fucking Geller. Ugh.
Hmm.
Nope. No sympathy here.
Why?
All we have here is one murderous hater wanting to kill another murderous hater who would kill him if she wasn't so busy generalizing her murderous hating.
Needs to exist
Pamela Geller is not a nice person, but she needs to exist. Protecting the freedom of speech of folks who are downright unlikeable is what creates a safe margin around the rest of us.
A really basic question. . .
Why was the planned murder a terrorist plot and not a murder plot? What's the distinction?
Distinction
You murder an individual
You terrorize a population
Crime vs. Hate Crime
It's terrorism if they planned the killing to scare the public and advance a political agenda as opposed to murder which is generally between two people/groups without the larger political goal.
So the difference is in the intent
Of the crime they intended to commit? And the FBI determined that intent from Facebook likes and wiretaps? (Do I have this right?)
So by this logic, mass shootings such as Columbine, Newtown, and Aurora wouldn't be considered terrorism because though they terrify the public they have no political motivation and/or the motivation is unknown?
I know it's obviously more complicated than that legally but just the basic distinctions are confusing to me.
I'm trying to understand why the plan to kill an individual police officer by 1 or 2 individuals unsupported by a terrorist group would be considered terrorism.
Yes
IANA Prosecutor but that's the logic. In the cases you point out the murderer had mental health problems and wasn't trying to make a political point or was working on behalf of a larger organization which attempts to cause panic with the hopes of changing policy.
On a local level, a drug dealer who goes after another isn't doing so as part of a plot of cause panic -- at least not among the general public. Drug dealers & organized crime don't want national attention. Terrorists do.
Simple
Attack an NAACP office or women's health clinic in the name of God = murder plot.
Muslim plans to kill anyone = terror plot
Simply because he was a
Simply because he was a radicalized extremist who was influenced by ISIS. And other obvious questions?
How do you define radicalized extremist?
How did the FBI decide that
Because he's not white
n/t