Last week, a story made headlines across America. An 18-year old Somali-American named Mohamed Osman Mohamud had been arrested in a bombing plot. The teenager had intended to detonate a bomb at the Christmas tree lighting ceremony in Portland, Oregon. Thousands of deaths were averted by the quick actions of the police.
At first glance, the incident seems clear-cut, black and white. A terrorist, bent on efficiently taking as many lives as possible, came up with a plot to do just that. Authorities stopped him Unfortunately, the actual story is stranger.
It turns out that the FBI were heavily involved before Mohamud even got to the square where the ceremony was taking place. Actually, they might have been involved before he even had the idea to kill American citizens. The truth is, the FBI trained him, gave him a van full of fake explosives and persuaded him to carry out the attack.
You could argue that he could have walked away at any time. You could say Mohamud must have already harbored radical ideologies and he would have done something like this eventually. You would be wrong. Had the FBI not launched their sting operation and pressured him into doing what he did, there's no way to know if he might have eventually cracked. Essentially, he was tricked, coerced into something he might not otherwise do.
But I need to make it clear where I stand. There's a word for the person who could look at a crowd of families and other revelers enjoying the holiday festivities, then push a detonator. That word is “monster.” But I firmly believe that monsters are made, not born. Is it possible the FBI made Mohamed Osman Mohamud into the kind of monster he is now?
