FBI Agents Concoct Bomb Plot, Claim Credit for Foiling It

Mohamed Osman Mohamud did not "plot to set off a bomb at a Christmas-tree-lighting ceremony in downtown Portland." He had only a vague daydream of terrorism until some FBI agents found out about his violent fantasies and offered to supply him with a car bomb. He was no threat to anyone, because he had neither the money and knowledge to make a large bomb nor the connections to get one from anyone else. He was the victim of an FBI trolling operation; apparently these days they have agents around all the radical mosques dangling the possibility of terrorist help in front of angry young men, seeing who will bite. Nothing wrong with that, but there is something wrong with describing this as a "foiled plot," as if there were any danger that anyone would actually die.