No, this isn’t the headline of a newspaper from “Bizarro World” or even a satirical piece from The Onion. This is in fact what happened on November 26, 2010 at a Christmas tree lighting ceremony in Portland, Oregon’s Pioneer Courthouse Square. According to a criminal complaint signed in the District of Oregon, Mohamed Osman Mohamud was arrested by the FBI and Portland Police Bureau at approximately 5:40 p.m. (PST) Nov. 26, 2010 after he attempted to detonate what he believed to be an explosives-laden van that was parked near the tree lighting ceremony in Portland’s Pioneer Courthouse Square.
It is being reported FBI agents first met with Mr. Mohamud in Portland in July 2010, where he expressed a desire to conduct “Jihad” against non-Muslims. According to FBI affidavits posted on News Lincoln County, on November 4, 2010, Mohamud and the undercover FBI operatives traveled to a remote location in Lincoln County, Ore., where they detonated a bomb concealed in a backpack as a trial run for the upcoming attack. On Nov. 18, 2010, undercover FBI operatives picked up Mohamud to travel to Portland in order to finalize the details of the attack.” The US Attorney’s Office maintains that “the public was never in danger.” Tony Cartalucci writes, “Perplexing is why the FBI, knowing Mr. Mohamud’s criminal intent, and upon delivering the bomb to the willing would-be terrorist, would allow him to approach a large public venue and attempt to detonate the device in public view.”
Could it be that the feds need another event, or non-event in this case, to scare Americans into surrendering more rights in the name of “safety and security”? Cartalucci adds, “Maximum bloodless terrorism upon a public increasingly skeptical about the official narrative of the ‘War on Terror’ comes to mind. This skepticism, of course, comes from the fact that the only groups that seem to be actually building bombs and conducting terrorist operations are within our own Western governments. This is reinforced by shocking revelations that Anwar Al-Awlaki dined at the Pentagon, months after 9/11 while listed as Al Qaeda’s #3. Al-Awlaki has since been linked to the the ‘Underwear Bomber,’ the ‘Fort Hood Shooter,’ the “Times Square Bomber,” and the ‘Shoe Bomber,’ as well as the recent Yemeni parcel ‘bombs.’
While the mainstream media attempts to downplay the outrage of Americans concerning the government’s latest choice for air passengers — a hazardous ineffective x-ray machine or an equally ineffective, humiliating, and un-Constitutional groping — the stage was set for another high-profile terrorism story to reinforce the establishment’s faltering propaganda.”
If people continue to allow the government to infringe upon the right supposedly protected by the 4th Amendment to be protected from “unreasonable searches & seizures” then naked porno-scanners and enhanced pat-downs that border on sexual assault will soon no longer be confined to airports, but also train stations, bus depots, federal buildings and possibly shopping malls and school buildings. I agree with Thomas Jefferson: “I would rather be exposed to the inconveniences attending too much liberty than to those attending too small a degree of it.”