Matthew Llaneza (Part 11)

Fragments of a future narrative

I once heard Howard Zinn speak. It was 2006; I lived in New Haven. The government is not your friend, he told us, again and again.

What he meant: the invasion of Iraq was not to prevent another 9/11; the police officer patrolling the neighborhood does not protect you; your legislator does not care if you get healthcare.

For cases discussed in the Endless Book, that raises the question: What was the point? If cases like Matthew’s were, at heart, manufactured crimes—involving men enticed into violence—what did the FBI achieve in arresting them?

Inventing Terrorists, the 2014 Coalition for Civil Freedoms (CCF) report, suggests some answers. Perhaps “government agents and prosecutors wanted terrorist convictions to advance their careers”; maybe “agencies needed to justify the enormous budgets that were allocated for security and crime prevention.”

“FBI spending almost doubled” in the decade after 9/11, as the Bureau “shifted its focus from organized crime to drug trafficking and terrorism”—and “broadened its operational guidelines to reflect its new counterterrorism mandate.” The Bureau proceeded to launch investigations on the thinnest suspicions—working to align the world with its budget, instead of the reverse scenario.

CCF argues that “the amount of money and resources devoted to preventing terrorism threats is far greater than the resources devoted to other more common dangers.” Because there is a “relatively low level of danger to the public from a terrorist attack, the amount of money being expended to prevent an attack is difficult to justify.”

Hence Matthew.