[Roberts]

Does ABC News seem especially eager to downplay a potentially significant arrest? How newsworthy is it that a criminal defense lawyer questions whether entrapment occurred?

[Ursus arctos horribilis]

"One would have to ask yourself, would this have occurred at all without the government?"

Ask for Randy Weaver's opinion, I am sure he has some insight into such doings.

[Joe Bonforte]

It doesn't matter. The whole point of this operation was not to nail the perps. It was to cause every terrorist to be suspicious of his suppliers, and less likely to buy his materiel. The terrorists will always be wondering if that guy who says he has that missile launcher or whatever is really a government agent.

[SES1066]

My personal response to this story is this; What would ABC's reaction have been if this guy had been contacted by a genuine terrorist and had made a different contact in Russia that end-resulted in a downed US commercial aircraft?

My guarantee is that the criticism would have been rampant and valid! What this sting has done is at least two-fold. First a willing enabler of terrorism and his group has been taken out of circulation. Second and potentially more important, the publicity from this sting makes everybody in the terrorism process more suspicious and more cautious. This slows the conspiracies and the means for confirming identifications and bona-fides may make these easier to discover and break.

As usual ABC has made the grand effort to denigate and belittle a real success. The reason for this rush to do this just makes me shake my head!

[sjersey]

These people need to watch "Kudlow & Cramer" on CNBC to get a different outlook!

[ladyinred]

What in the Hell is the matter with these people? What part of BOMB don't these liberal idiots understand? My God we live with a bunch of crazies in this nation who are hell bent on destroying us!!!

[caisson71]

First of all, I would not expect ABC to have a positive report about anything. But, how is it that we have cooperation from the Russians and British when EVERYONE hates us, when our FBI, CIA, etc. are soooo bad. And, isn't President Bush to be praised for this by the same measure that he is personally blamed for everything else. What is it, "when did he know and what did he do about it"? Those guys at ABC are a bunch of pukes.

[fish hawk]

A "sting" IS a setup. Cops do it all the time with drugs and crimes of all sorts. Sounds good to me as I or someone I love could have been on the plane they were going to take down. In the words of a great man: "bring em on!!!"

[DPB101]

military analyst Pavel Felgenhauer.

Who just happened to be an employee of Media-MOST and Vladimir Gusinsky--one of Bill Clinton's mafia oligarch "friends." Felgenhauer is no friend of the USA. Or of Russia.

[jackbill]

Brian Ross is a Peter Jennings wannabe. He sucks.

That said, I have had two questions today:

1. What did the 20 months investigation cost?

2. Why don't we hear much about the other two guys who were arrested? From one AP report: Officials also announced money laundering charges against Yehuda Abraham, 76, of New York City, whom Christie said had handled the funds for the initial missile purchase.

[LS]

An article appeared earlier today that they wanted to turn this guy, but the BBC (!) found out about it and leaked the story, forcing them to arrest him.

[Wild Irish Rogue]

The one time a year I watch ABC News and it was tonight. Brian Ross said this whole sting was, basically crap, a set up, just a PR stunt. However, last night on Nightline, I think major news was broken and so far,it seems to have been ignored. Topic was the possibility of a SAM taking out a commercial airliner. Rep. Mica, R Fla heads the Aviation Subcommittee. He said that last April, his committee was given a top security briefing on the dangers of a missile bringing down a commercial jet. Based on the info they were given, which he declined for obvious reasons to expound upon, Congress hustled through some emergency funding and the President signed the directive to award contracts to 2 companies so they can develop technologies immediately to deal with this. He said the info was so alarming,that he has never seen money appropriated so quickly and without any fighting, in all his years in Congress. The 3 expert panel gave their opinions on the possibility of a SAM taking out an airliner in the US within a year- 20 % to 50 %,higher overseas.. When Stephanopoulos said that Gore was aware of the possibility of a SAM strike and had included it in his post TWA 800 report,Mica responded-but,that administration did nothing,this administration is dealing with the problem.

[PA Engineer]

"Here we have a sting operation on some kind of small operator … who's bought one weapon when actually, on the gray and black market, hundreds of such weapons charge hands," said military analyst Pavel Felgenhauer.

Yeah, everyday planes are falling from the sky from these "hundreds of such weapons"[/sarcasm]

[Musket]

All Bull Crap.

[Your Nightmare]

Jane Intelligence Digest has an article on this issue.

http://www.janes.com/security/international_security/news/jid/jid030813_1_n.shtml

Missile smokescreen in Moscow

When the history of this week's 'breaking story' about the alleged smuggling of a Russian Igla surface-to-air missile into the USA is finally written, the subtitle should run as follows: 'State set-up; no relevance to terrorist threat'. JID sheds some light on a much hyped tale of stupidity, greed and political spin.

Despite the plethora of over-excited media headlines earlier this week, the classic 'sting' operation, which was organised by the Russian secret service (FSB) and the USA's FBI to entrap an alleged arms dealer allegedly seeking to sell an Igla missile to what he apparently believed was a group of Islamic terrorists in the USA, revealed little beyond the intelligence services' insatiable desire for positive publicity. Put bluntly, there was no realistic prospect of this sort of advanced weapon being supplied to anyone without the active collusion of the Russian state authorities.

Above all, most reports missed the main points. The real threat to the USA and its allies - and there is a genuine risk - comes less from hi-tech weaponry of the Igla variety than from the committed militant willing to commit suicide, which was demonstrated by Al-Qaeda on 11 September 2001. Moreover, Russia became involved in this 'sting' because its military has a well-deserved reputation for selling anything to anyone.

[End of non-subscriber extract]

[medscribe]

Ah yes, the Anti-American Broadcast Corporation at it again. And they sit in the airy towers in Manhattan and wonder why the vast Bush country between the 2 coasts are tuning them out faster than Saddam can run from one hideout to another. Gee...no wonder FoxNews is beating the pants off all of them. By this time in 2005, these network dinosaurs will be extinct. Anyone know if we can kick Peter Jennings out of the country?

[Fresh Wind]

Somehow, I don't think this particular "sting" was the first time this arms dealer sought to supply arms to terrorists. If it took a sting to put him out of business once and for all, I'm all for it. This could save many lives in the long run, in spite of ABC's hate America whining.