Short version: the feds arrested one Matthew Aaron Llaneza for attempting to blow up a bank for the Taliban; as is the FBI’s wont, they got him via a sting operation that was kept up right up to the moment where Llaneza pulled the remote trigger on the ‘bomb.’ Which is, obviously, fine by me: I want the FBI out there actively trolling the fringes for people who really, really want to blow up Americans. It saves a lot of time – and, of course, lives.

OK, do we all understand each other on the basics? Yes? Great. Moving on then… well, isn’t this just spiffy.

According to the affidavit filed in support of the criminal complaint, on November 30, 2012, Llaneza met with a man who led him to believe he was connected with the Taliban and the mujahidin in Afghanistan. In reality, this man was an undercover FBI agent. At this initial meeting, Llaneza proposed conducting a car-bomb attack against a bank in the San Francisco Bay Area. He proposed structuring the attack to make it appear that the responsible party was an umbrella organization for a loose collection of anti-government militias and their sympathizers. Llaneza’s stated goal was to trigger a governmental crackdown, which he expected would trigger a right-wing counter-response against the government followed by, he hoped, civil war.

Glenn Reynolds notes – in his characteristically terse fashion – that the media would have been all up for that. And I agree, not least because the first link above references Llaneza’s felony conviction as being for transporting an “assault weapon.” An AK-47 is a selective-fire automatic weapon, which is Llaneza was arrested for transporting one; it’s perfectly legal to transport, say, an AR-15. But much more useful to set that narrative, eh? Particularly considering this bit:

Llaneza originally targeted the Federal Reserve Bank in downtown San Francisco but rejected it because he figured there would be too much security, FBI Special Agent Christopher Monika wrote. In a Dec. 7 follow-up meeting with the undercover agent, he settled on the BofA branch on Hegenberger Road, “reasoning that the name of the bank and Oakland’s location as a center of protests made it an appropriate target,” the complaint stated.

…Good job there, Occupy movement. Good job. Have a cookie.

Moe Lane (crosspost)