2 Men Accused of Trying To Make X-Ray Weapon 470
gurps_npc writes "Two radical pro-Israel terrorists were caught in upstate NY when they tried to solicit money from various honorable Jewish organizations to build a truck based x-ray weapon. They intended to drive the truck around and then turn on the x-ray machine, focusing on enemies of Israel. But the Jewish organizations they tried to solicit money from refused to participate. Instead they called the FBI, who promptly set up a sting. The men were arrested before the machine was in working order."
They were probably just broke and ... (Score:2, Insightful)
They were probably just broke and got solicited by undercover FBI goons to make a "terrorist" plot.
Re:A conspiracy... (Score:2, Insightful)
... I can see right thru it.
It reads more like a modern day version of someone trying to sell the Brooklyn Bridge. However, IANAR[aygun engineer].
Remember, when god is on your side (Score:4, Insightful)
Anything is acceptable. burning witches, executing gays, xraying muslims, rocketing israelis, raping kids, car bombing protestants. its all good as long as god agrees....and if you read your books there are passages that'll help you along :)
Re:Every pro-israel is a terrorist by default (Score:2, Insightful)
There's plenty that Israel has done that could be considered crimes beyond survival. However, "Israel" and "Jews" are only slightly more synonymous than "Muslims" and "Iraq".
Re:A conspiracy... (Score:5, Insightful)
"the undercover investigator brought Crawford X-ray tubes to examine for possible use in the weapon, followed by their technical specifications a month later. ... Investigators gave Feight $1,000 to build the control device and showed the men pictures of industrial X-ray machines they said they could obtain."
Hmm.. wonder whose idea this whole plot was. We've only heard one side so far.
Re:The system worked (Score:5, Insightful)
Really glad to hear that it was Jewish Americans who turned the crazies in. Hopefully many of the mosques in America that encounter radical and/or terrorism sympathetic persons will rise to the occasion and do the same when they hear something actionable, instead of waiting for the government to find the bad guys without assistance.
That is, in fact, the norm rather than the exception.
Did I dodge the knee jerk liberal piling-on?
No, you just told us that you don't know how liberals think.
Re:A conspiracy... (Score:2, Insightful)
This is just CIA/NSA propaganda. Grocery store celeb news mags for people "afraid". Something "terrible" is gonna happen one day if we don't justify our fucked society.
Re:A conspiracy... proving you wrong (Score:5, Insightful)
Timothy McVeigh. Blew up Oklahoma building.
Ted Kaczynski, the Unabomber.
David Koresh and the Branch Davidians.
So many idiots going in and shooting up schools.
Not one of them muslim.
Re:radical terrorist (Score:5, Insightful)
"radical terrorist" is something interesting. That suggests there could be some "moderate terrorist". Anyone encountered that weird kind of terrorist?
They don't tend to be called 'terrorists'(because, by virtue of being moderate, they use violence to achieve ends that good, upstanding, people agree with); but nothing about being a terrorist actually requires any particular flavor of agenda, just the presence of somebody opposed to whatever your agenda is, and the willingness and capability to employ coercive violence and fear.
Somebody like Sir Arthur Harris [wikipedia.org] would arguably qualify. He was an ideologically unexceptional commander of British air forces during WWII, and implemented the British 'saturation bombing' efforts against civilian targets and infrastructure. As he candidly described it:
"the destruction of houses, public utilities, transport and lives, the creation of a refugee problem on an unprecedented scale, and the breakdown of morale both at home and at the battle fronts by fear of extended and intensified bombing, are accepted and intended aims of our bombing policy. They are not by-products of attempts to hit factories."
If that doesn't qualify as 'terrorism', I'm not certain what would; but he's a deeply un-radical figure, pretty much heading to the office every day to implement the (widely prevailing) logic of "Total War" in the service of his government, a not-exactly-radical line of business.
(I don't particularly mean to pick on the British, relatively staid people who execute what are unambiguously terror tactics aren't especially uncommon, or confined to any particular nation, he just happened to be a good example that I hit on quickly.)
Re:Supremely Irresponsible Reporting. Shame on /. (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:A conspiracy... (Score:5, Insightful)
Do you seriously expect something refined from a KKK member? Their sole existence seems to be oriented towards being used for parody.
It's kind of a nuisance that the biggest fans of the 'white race' tend to be walking arguments against it. Why don't they try the "Ha! I'll show the mud races what's what by being a successful human being!" a bit more often?
Re:weeeeak (Score:5, Insightful)
I was really hoping that no one would think of portable radiation generators for this. The only way to stop this is to control some very broadly useful technologies - high voltage generators, vacuum equipment. The basic problem is that a clever person can do a huge amount of damage with readily available, difficult to regulate equipment. Unless we eliminate the situations that motivate terrorists (politically very difficult), we will either need ever increasing security and monitoring, or we will need to accept that a fair number of people will die. I'm willing to accept the deaths, but I don't think most americans are.
Re:A conspiracy... (Score:3, Insightful)
Paul Ross Evans: attempted bombing of an abortion clinic.
Kevin W. Harpham: attempted bombing of a civil rights parade.
Marie Mason: firebombing of a Michigan State University research lab.
Muslim terrorists are in the minority in the US. It's just that the others don't usually get more than regional coverage.
Re:A conspiracy... (Score:4, Insightful)
Easy mistake. I made the same mistake when I first read it. Had to go back and read it a couple times before I saw it. Yeah, we all know know that not all terrorists are Muslim. But we're not used to it.
Short memories. I remember when a large proportion of terrorists were Catholic.
Re:Every pro-israel is a terrorist by default (Score:4, Insightful)
Fascism combines elements of both the right and the left while being moderate on few, if any, aspects.
Re:A conspiracy... (Score:5, Insightful)
Bitch, please. Muslim terrorists build bombs out of pressure cookers. These Jewish terrorists wanted to build a fucking death ray.
Except that the terrorists are not jewish. They were trying to get funding by jewish organizations by promising to target enemies of Israel.
Instead of funding them, the jewish organizations contacted the FBI.
So no, the jews in this story are not the terrorists, in fact, they are the heroes.
It lookes like the slashdot editor (samzenpus) is either trying to discredit the jews on purpose or is too stupid to write a decent summary.
Re:Supremely Irresponsible Reporting. Shame on /. (Score:3, Insightful)
How were you modded informative? From the article:
"Crawford approached Jewish organizations last year looking for funding and people to help him with technology that could be used to surreptitiously deliver damaging and even lethal doses of radiation against those he considered enemies of Israel."
How are they not pro-Israel? Not everything that you disagree with is anti-semitic. Really the only bias evident is your own.
And if they wanted to request funding from Iran they would have offered to use their weapon against the enemies of Iran.
Would that mean they are pro-Iran?
I don't know if you are anti-semitic or not, but an anti-semitic would jump to the same conclusion you did without a really thinking about it. Perhaps you are not anti-semitic, you just don't really think.
If what you say is true ... (Score:3, Insightful)
This is just CIA/NSA propaganda. Grocery store celeb news mags for people "afraid". Something "terrible" is gonna happen one day if we don't justify our fucked society.
If what you say is true, not long from now they will arrest some "terrorists" from China, some other "terrorists" from Cuba, from Russia, and from North Korea will be arrested too, and their "weapon of choice" will be ranging from "portable gamma knife" to "dirty bombs" and everything in between
Yep, NSA is here to save the United States of America, and they will catch the "terrorists" and parade them in front of all of us to gawk at
Re:A conspiracy... (Score:5, Insightful)
Except that the terrorists are not jewish. They were trying to get funding by jewish organizations by promising to target enemies of Israel.
Instead of funding them, the jewish organizations contacted the FBI.
So no, the jews in this story are not the terrorists, in fact, they are the heroes.
It lookes like the slashdot editor (samzenpus) is either trying to discredit the jews on purpose or is too stupid to write a decent summary.
There is nothing like THE Jews in this story. Some Jews were heroes.
But what other kind of terrorists would ask Jewish organizations for funding? Muslim terrorists? definitly no. Anti-Gouvernment homegron style terrorists? No, don't think so. Neo-Nazis as "pro-Israel"? Aeehmm.. most definitly no.
Re:A conspiracy... (Score:4, Insightful)
Except that the terrorists are not jewish.
Has anyone said they're not Jewish? Or that they are Jewish?
It lookes like the slashdot editor (samzenpus) is either trying to discredit the jews on purpose
How? By not implying that they're Jewish? The only person who's stated that they're Jewish is FatLitteMonkey.
or is too stupid to write a decent summary.
a) samzenpus didn't write it b) samzenpus probably didn't read it
Re:A conspiracy... (Score:4, Insightful)
The summary does imply that they are Jewish,
Where? It says they're pro-Israel, that's all. One can be pro-Israel without being Jewish.
Re: A conspiracy... proving you wrong (Score:5, Insightful)
No, the reason they stopped calling him a terrorist is because they decided they were not going to be terrorized or give him a platform. They didn't want him to be seen as a soldier fighting a war or on some kind of crusaded. They demoted him to a simple criminal, a deranged murder.
We could learn a lot from that.