I am sure we all heard the news, two young men from New Jersey were arrested on their way to Egypt and then supposedly to Somalia for intent to commit "violent jihad" and terrorism. Boy we all breathed a sigh of relief. Another two nutjobs off the street.....

Except....

In an interview with CNN, the mother of one of these two says her son was a stupid kid, not a terrorist. And she says the whole trip was arranged by "Bassim", who they suspect is an "informant" or possibly another case of an "agent provocateur". The guy was the one to reassure her that her son and his friend were going with him to Egypt to study arabic. Further, the son was also set to marry a lady in Egypt, which would contradict the alleged plan of these two. (side note: looking at their arrest photos themselves gives you a feeling about the two(I mean c'mon denim and corduroy grey shirts ;-) ), in light of other evidence circulating the news, such as the below photo which I used to make a point in a previous blog post. BTW, Where is the PETJ to condemn this (People for the ethical treatment of juice) Also, these guys were supposedly members of the "Islamic thinkers society". Boy, what a name of an organization for someone alleged to have said ""My soul cannot rest till I shed blood. I wanna like be the world's [best] known terrorist". The organization claims to be non violent while printing posters that say "exterminate the zionist roaches))...



To me, based on the superficial data we have, it looks like another fishy case of agent provocateurs framing someone who has issues to begin with. According to the mother, her son saw 16 or 17 psychiatrists to treat his anger issues, so he was definitely not a stable person. Could he have said the things he is alleged to have said? No question, based on the profile we are seeing. Especially if he was egged on or led that way....

This is eerily similar to the tragic case of Imam Luqman. At least though in this case, the feds did not go in with their guns blazing, and left the guy to die on the pavement. If these guys needed treatment(which is pretty obvious), they should be institutionalized other otherwise dealt with appropriately. But to take someone with such issues, and lead them on/set them up to make them seem like terrorists to make a splash of a supposed terror is just plain wrong. Lets see how the facts line up....