Reading the details of how the FBI did this makes me proud of our government from head to toe. No chest pounding, no waterboarding, no pressure from above to spring the trap to coincide with the mid-terms, no elevated terror alerts. Just competence.

To me this is yet another reason to focus on finding the bomber and not the bomb. A thousand TSA Freedom Frisks wouldn't have turned up this guy, yet we continue with that charade. That and competence doesn't deliver eyeballs for advertisers, and isn't that what this country is all about right now?

In Portland??? Yikes!
But the crazies are everywhere.
Bravo for the FBI and all that good old fashioned police work.

Now they just have to get past the guy's entrapment defense, and he can join the Urban Survivalists in the federal joint.

The spouse has just suggested that Randy and Sam have Gerding Edlen design, and PDC build, a LEED certified dome over the Square, install the Randy Loos and racks of bunks for the homeless.
No more terrorist threat now!

As long as they get $1.80 an hour for on-street parking, those two are happy no matter what's in the van.

No courage on his part, just an attempt for the ultimate hit and run sucker punch. If only the Inglorius Basterds would have caught him first, they might have carved the word "coward" into his forehead.

A German news article reported the following statements, made a few days ago, by cabinet leader Kristina Schroeder.

'Schröder indicated that discussion of the issue had been hampered by political correctness. Religion was part of culture and culture shaped behaviour, she said.

"Social disadvantage and discrimination are important factors, but they are not sufficient as an explanation," she said. “There is a co-dependence between religiousness, macho norms and tendency towards violence. If someone made an issue of the disproportionate tendency to violence among young Muslims, it was always said that this was a blanket judgement. But that’s not the case." '

Go, baby. Hey, can you have a little talk with Michelle and Hillary and inject a little leadership over here? I mean, I know they aren't quite of your caliber (Catholic mothers of seven with a medical degree and a national historical perspective on mass hate/violence problems leading to exterminations, etc), but seriously, could you PLEASE ask them stop wearing hijabs every time they go to a Muslim country???PLEASE???

Seriously, if I ever see Michelle or Hillary in a hijab again, I'm voting for Palin. Unless of course, Palin dons one, in which case, permanent dread, hopelessness, and nausea will set in.

Two things puzzle me:

The operation went on seemingly more like a negotiation between the FBI and the perp. Didn't he get wise? With even the first quizzing about consequences, wouldn't he have asked "Hey! Whose side are you guys on?"

Second, why all the detail before even a Grand Jury has met? I wouldn't be thinking entrapment, I would be thinking fair trial impossible.

I heard that the tree-lighting event was supposed to be a blast.

From another POV:

http://my.firedoglake.com/teddysanfran/2010/11/26/fbi-thwarts-bomb-plot-at-xmas-tree-ceremony-in-portland-oregon/

Gee - yet another young MUSLIM caught trying to blow innoicent people and things up. The religion of "peace".. Sure, whatever you say..

On the bright side, such terror is not (not yet anyway) state policy.

Pakistan Muslims warn of anarchy over Christian

Iran Court: 'Pastor To Be Executed By Hanging'

The inclusion of the words "under god" into the Pledge of Allegiance in 1954 is qualitatively the same sort of thing, with only less compulsion.

The real evil is the lack of belief in complete nonsense. When any nut (of any religion) claims anything is a God Given Right, such as liberty, it simultaneously adds the qualifier that the lack of the expression of such belief means that the right does not apply to the unbeliever. I hate religious nut cases, in the same way I hate idiocy, with sadness and pity.

Nevertheless, be thankful the celebrants were not in Egypt.

Muslims Project Islam's Worst Traits onto Israel and the Jews [and Christians]

Merry Holidays, folks. Anyone can believe any nonsense they like, so long as I remain free to ignore it.

Correction: Kristina Schroeder, "Federal Minister for Family Affairs, Senior Citizens, Women and Youth" is not a Catholic doctor mother of seven. Her predecessor, Ursula Von Leyden, was the uber-mom I was mixing her up with.

The black-helicopter region of my brain is thinking what convenient timing to reveal a scary terrorist plot in one of the least terror-fearing parts of the country.

I feel way better about being diddled by TSA's minions now.

But that's just crazy thinking, right?

Don't see many asking, why Portland?

I hope the lacking of that question is confirmation that many do understand what winds the radical's spring.

Now, to see if 'The Mayor' mentions it.

During the Vietnam War, the boxer, M. Ali, said: "I ain't got no fight with them Viet Congs." The same point should be made today: "We ain't got no fight with them Muslims." The time has come to let the people in the Middle East and Southwest Asia work out their own problems. Wars do not last forever. Support the troops by bringing them home; the terrorism will end thereafter.

"that Randy and Sam have Gerding Edlen design"

You're missing it, the problem is that he is a sexually-confused minority youth. Sam needs to d a couple of things:
- Hire a couple of staff members with requisite PowerPoint skills to put Portland on the map for dealing with these youth
- Give the kid a parking space closer to CIty Hall so Sam can mentor him
- Oh snap, he's from Corvallis? His anger arises from not having mass transit available which creates economic repression so we need to extend the Purple MAX line to Corvallis since a vital downtown needs it.
- Building a re-education center so he can qualify for those 1000s of new green jobs will help also.

Sam and Randy dealing with this would be like Abbott and Costello trying to figure out who's on first.

For all the black helicopter types, we can always let the locals take care of it - It's just in Portland I'd like to have the local politicians have a higher IQ than those they are trying to stop from bombing us.

Thank god this was only a pissed off teenager without too much planning ability.

Great job by the FBI. This had to be an expensive time consuming operation. Obviously they took it deadly seriously and spared no expense to nail this guy. Worth every penny.

So I thought Portland was not going to cooperate with FBI regarding terrorism investigations, remember that?

Have we changed our mind about that? If so, when?

Maybe an actual plot to blow up Pioneer Square at Christmas actually woke up the PC powers that be.

I am interested to know if this guy was involved in The African Migration and Development Program (formerly known as the Somali Bantu Project) within the Hatfield School of Government at Portland State University?

According to wikipedia, the majority of Somali Bantu are Muslim and one of the goals of the Somali Bantu Project is to resettle them throughout the United States.

Makes me wonder...

Cant wait to see how the Indymedia crowd tries to spin this one.

Anthony,
Let's not forget that you are referring to a city hall who's head is a confessed and documented liar, that makes decisions and secret arrangements behind closed doors, then makes PC announcements that sound good to keep the lotus eaters happy.

What they say and what they do seem rarely to be the same thing.

This kid sounds like another disgruntled youth that wasn't that much of a danger to society... yet, that is.

I'm glad to know that even in this anti-American Poeple's Republic of Portland the FBI is keeping a watchful if low-profile eye on things. Still, it would be interesting to know what prompted them to set him up for ensnarement like this.

JC: Perhaps his callous disregard for the lives of the children he allegedly hoped to murder.

Why Portland, indeed. The kid himself said it. Noone is expecting anything out here in the woods.

Broad solutions to big problems are needed.

But no solutions are forthcoming as long as the problem is swept under the rug by the PC multiculturalists, who protect all cultures equally, even cultures that practice stripping their girls of all their sexual sensory tissue so that they will remain faithful to their husbands.

Just remember, peace is war, ignorance is knowledge, and whatever else Orwell said.

It makes perfect sense for this kid, or any other terrorists, to target Portland precisely because the city has sworn not to cooperate with the FBI.

Here is a good article stating that Adams was way out of the loop on this one. And of course he says we should still be opting out of FBI cooperation. Bring on the terrorist!

http://www.portlandtribune.com/news/story.php?story_id=129088821899238800

None of this is really all that shocking...

I'm sure the Muslim congregations around the country will be thunderous in their condemnation of this mass murder attempt....

I am suprised this has not happened before now.

I would not be shocked to find out that a Al Queda terror cell is operating in PDX... PSU certainly has a ton of "students" from the middle east....

As was noted - THIS! after we got rid of the hate slogan "Christmas Tree."

My thinking is that we ought to double down on Muslim outreach...perhaps institute a "shadow" sharia law government to which we could turn to for guidance in moments like this.

Certainly, CAIR should be given a permanent seat (at least as a powerful observer) in city government to prevent another round up such as happened to the American's of Japanese descent or Jews in a Stalinist pogrom.

How did we fail this youth and how can we satisfy him and his co-religionists? We need to provide the most vocal and active members of the state's Muslim community with a potent parental role in our local and national governments.

Oregon and America's parochialism caused this misunderstanding.

Gotta love these quotes from the most recent Oregonian online story:

"Portland Mayor Sam Adams said today that he didn't know about the investigation into a plot to detonate a bomb at the tree-lighting ceremony at Pioneer Courthouse Square last night. Adams said he would have been notified if the bomb had been live."

and

"Adams said he and Commissioner Amanda Fritz and Police Chief Mike Reese will be doing outreach to leadership in the Somali community."

"Just competence." Just luck that they got the FBI found out about this to begin with. How many undercover FBI agents do you think we have that have infiltrated terrorist organizations?

Drew G: I do not disagree, I was only wondering what information the FBI had in advance to set up a sting like this. We may never be told.

Barney: I couldn't agree more. If Portland weren't so insignificant to the real world, it would not have taken this long. Again, I am grateful Federal agencies keep on eye on things and disregard the political posturings of local elected officials.

The Feds publicize these never could succeed Keystone Kops Kapers to show they are busy beavers rooting the jihadists out -- what we aren't told are narrarives of the more insiduous, ingenious foiled plots that would scare our pants off.

Gosh, no torture, no illegal surveilance, no water boarding. Just good old fashioned police work.

Great

This fine fellow is a naturalized U.S. citizen, and apparently lived in Beaverton before attending OSU.

I wonder what local person(s) influenced his fifteen-year-old mind to desire (and later act toward) the mass death of innocents.

Those mentors still walk free, ready to repeat the process (if they haven't already). Perhaps we will hear more about them.

Well, at least now we have an explanation for that explosion we all heard back in the summer. It must have been the 'practice run'.

Hmmm...I wonder what events could radicalize a 19 year old Muslim.... hmmm... could it be the invasion of two Muslim countries that never attacked the United States? Countless drone attacks that have killed innocent bystanders? A government that screams "terrorism" at the slightest question of its authority?

This young man is little more than a patsy, targeted and set up by the FBI so the government can continue its relentess security state.

"Adams said he and Commissioner Amanda Fritz and Police Chief Mike Reese will be doing outreach to leadership in the Somali community."

I'd love to be there. To set the scene, conservative Moslem Somali elder and in this corner, Sam Adams. Gay and openly so, who has a predilection for young males about the age of the kid that got arrested.

Yeah, this'll go far.

Only Starbuck had a clue--read the article he linked to. Swallow the fantasy that this was some last-minute heroic diversion of disaster if you want to, but the reality is something far more disturbing: your own government enabled, developed, coaxed, coached, and encouraged the thing for over a year and a half. And that's just the tip of the iceberg.

No one said it was last-minute.

When the voices in your head give you permission to show us the rest of the iceberg, please do.

What's really amazing is that the fellow knew several months in advance what day the tree lighting ceremony was going to be--before the rest of the public knew.

Well, you did say it was a bullet we dodged, not one of those Crawler vehicles that move the space shuttle around.

before the rest of the public knew

Has it ever been any night other than the night after Thanksgiving -- ever, in the entire history of the event?

PDX 411, those grievances could indeed have been leveraged in the grooming of young Mr. Mohamud. Where I'm going is that most 15-year-olds (regardless of background) don't develop such an understanding of U.S. foreign policy on their own.

Assuming that he spoke the truth regarding the four-year-old origins of his desire for jihad, then who first inspired him to think along these lines? I assume that he lived in Beaverton (attending Westview High) at this time.

Along the way: From whom did he receive the motivation (and necessary information) to contact foreign persons whom the Feds were already monitoring? Could he have done this on his own? Possible, but it seems less likely.

IMHO the most dangerous folks involved with this plot (induced or choreographed as it may be) are those who set the 15-year-old on the path -- whether they actively encouraged him to engage in combat, or were "just sayin" a little bit every day.

Of course, the FBI could know much more about Mohamud's early influences than has been filed and reported. For what they are worth, the TV news indicated that he joked about terrorism while in high school, and that nobody believed he was serious.

As for scheduling, yes the tree lighting ceremony (and the parade) are held regularly on the day after Thanksgiving.

A determined attacker (i.e. somebody who has already waited for four years) has their pick of crowded events in the Square throughout the year.

So who picked this event, Mr. Mohamud or the FBI actors? Either way, I'd love to see the thought process for selecting the big Christmas-related celebration.

Unlike the O, looks like the Mercury was kind enough to post the entire affidavit online, for anyone else interested in more details.

Thank you very much Aaron, I encourage everybody to read this. My question is answered -- The FBI alleges that the defendant selected the target:

---------

44. The parties continued to talk MOHAMUD described the target he had identified to UCE1 and UCE2:

"Basically it's [Pioneer Square] like, Portland is like the main meeting where they have events everybody comes up there you know? So they have a, on the 26th of November ... they have a Christmas lighting and some 25,000 people that come. ... "

--------

It gets even better after this, including the bit where he confirms that he indeed wants to harm children. Whudda guy.

I would suggest anybody with bright ideas about logging into that hotmail account in the affidavit not do so, I'm pretty sure I'm going to have to start watching out for black helicopters now.

screenshot

I can't figure out if both this kid and the FBI didn't understand what "UA1" meant or if they are keeping it around as a honey pot or just don't care or what.

I think I came across why this year's lighting ceremony was special -- it happened to fall the second anniversary of the 11/26/08 Mumbai terror attacks. The affidavit mentions that the defendant was inspired by this attack.

If you haven't seen the documentary about Mumbai, I recommend it highly. The conversations between the attackers and their masters alone are enlightening (and quite bone-chilling). Here's a copy:

http://europenews.dk/en/node/24746

The HBO version had an additional introduction before the same film, but I can't find the full length of that edition online.

It makes perfect sense for this kid, or any other terrorists, to target Portland precisely because the city has sworn not to cooperate with the FBI.

Backing out of the Joint Terrorism Task Force is not the same as swearing "not to cooperate with the FBI." The police force cooperates all the time -- what the city doesn't do is give the FBI carte blanche to use Portland officers without any oversight.

It was "Police Chief Potter" who withdrew from the JTTF, and while I'm not a big Potter fan, he was right on this one. The JTTF refuses to share information with the uniformed or civilian leadership in charge of the officers assigned to the JTTF -- even if those leaders go out and get the necessary security clearance. Basically, our officers become deputized FBI agents, operating under FBI direction. The Mayfield case should give everyone pause as to the FBI's competence and respect for constitutional rights, recent successes notwithstanding.

The FBI is not to be questioned.
Just ask Brandon Mayfield.

what the city doesn't do is give the FBI carte blanche to use Portland officers without any oversight.

Right...because the PPB is so competent with oversight of their people on their own.

The FBI is not to be questioned.
Just ask Brandon Mayfield.

Right, because its just not possible that following the evidence can lead to the wrong person. That never happens...

The guy's name was Mohammed. I think this might explain most of the reasons why hundreds of people were targeted for slaughter in Pioneer Square.

sorta like;

- mohammed (atta, 9/11 pilot)
- mohammed (john allen), DC sniper
- mohammed (sheik khalid)- decapitated Danny Pearl

Mohammed, Mohammed, WHY is your name so popular amongst these bloodthirsters?

Can't imagine.

From Glenn Greenwald:

http://www.salon.com/news/opinion/glenn_greenwald/2010/11/28/fbi/index.html

There are, at last count, over 25 long-schedule events in the past year with similar expected numbers of people. At Pioneer Courthouse Square. Available on the website.

And yes, Jack's right, the tree lighting is regularly the day after Thanksgiving.

Here's a mental exercise: imagine in place of Mohamed your own teenage child. Imagine you find out suddenly that the FBI has been grooming, coaxing, coaching, and cajoling him along a path that ends at the Square. Your kid who attends a local high school, gets good grades, isn't in trouble, and you and your family are not secret "terrorists"--you've got a house, jobs, kids, grocery bills, etc.

My first question, if it were my teenage child, would be this: why did you secretly encourage and support my son's curiosity and dangerous activities for almost two years?

Because in fact, that's likely how his parents are feeling now--like the butt-end of a sick and elaborate con game.

Seriously? Rock climbing or hang gliding is a "dangerous activity". This is the willing preparation for and the thwarted attempt to commit a heinous crime.

This "person", and I use that term loosely, pushed the button to detonate what he thought was an OKC sized expolosive. He attempted to murder me, my family and a thousand other people in Pioneer Square on Friday night. Dangerous activity indeed.

Were I the FBI I would respond to that question with "Please explain to me in as much detail as you can how you raised your child so as to completely lack a soul."

Seriously? Rock climbing or hang gliding is a "dangerous activity". This is the willing preparation for and the thwarted attempt to commit a heinous crime.

If our government helped him plan a bombing, provided him fake materials, encouraged him with suggestions for locations and times, coached him in details--how, exactly, is arresting him at Pioneer Square "thwarting" anything?

Were I the FBI I would respond to that question with "Please explain to me in as much detail as you can how you raised your child so as to completely lack a soul."

To which I would respond as a parent: "Please explain to me what part of your soul drove you to mentor and encourage my son for almost two years to commit violence?"

Well White Meat, wouldn't your son still have a choice to not commit violence? Many people even have moral souls without good parenting or mentoring.

Laying the blame on someone else is getting tiring.

Well White Meat, wouldn't your son still have a choice to not commit violence?

Wouldn't the FBI still have a choice to tell the boy's parents? Or are you so bent on believing that the boy was unstoppable, inevitable evil incarnate?

The other white meat.

Your arguments are resounding all over the deranged mental vacuum of leftist logic.

You forget that not just any kid wants to commit mass murder. Only severe sociopaths and psychotics are driven to such acts. In this case, a kid in the thrall of a mass religious psychosis, as practiced by those who:

1) take every word of the Koran and Hadeeth seriously and literally

2) believe that the life of Mohammed as laid out in his biography is an exemplary life to be followed in the modern age
(warlord, pillager,predator).

3)Believe in one of the five pillars of the religion, which is obeisance to a class of clerics called mullahs, and operating under the influence and guidance of a cleric who adheres to points (1) and (2).

Wake up and smell the coffee, all of you who believe that this insect was "groomed." We have to be profoundly grateful for the skill, tenacity, and wile of all who participated in this sting, which I'm sure included quite a few good Muslims who take points 1-3 with a gigantic grain of salt, God bless them.

Whitemeat should we be worried about your offspring? I'm fairly certain that some 'mentoring' wouldn't lead mine to try to kill

--Hutz

It was reported today (Monday) that the young man's father had concerns, and contacted either the FBI or law enforcement. The attempted bomber also graduated from high school early, and appears to have been out of the family home for at least a year and a half.

It was reported today (Monday) that the young man's father had concerns

Uh, no. It wasn't "reported"--there was a post by a guy who "visited a coffee shop and talked to some Somali guys", who apparently knew everything about everything and told him "secret" information--which contradicted the FBI affidavit in several puzzling ways. The end of the "story" gives away the writer's actual intent--he makes sure to explain how his "evidence" makes any inkling of entrapmen ridiculous. Uh huh. Sounds like a neutral party to me.

But hey, critical thinking is out the window on this one.