Agent provocateur

This is the second time the police in the US has arrested a bunch of dimwitted, supposed terrorists with few, if any, ties to radical Islamism. The way these (1, 2, 3) articles make it sound the four guys imprisoned in this case would have been unable to even try to commit any act of terrorism on their own. The informant planted into the group (or the informant that initiated the group?) organized all their weapons, bombs and the such. He drove them around in his car. For god's sake, he helped them buy a digital camera in order to take pictures in preparation of the attacks.

This reminds me eerily of Peter Urbach without whom the militarization of West Berlin left wings groups would possibly not have occurred in the first place (or in any case less easily). For the US, what does this mean? There apparently are agents provocateurs trying to pick up youngsters willing to employ radical rhetoric after a life wasted with petty crimes (a crack addict? indicted for pick-pocketing?) and help them fulfill their - rhetorical in any case - desire to attack Jews, or other Americans in general. All this only to ensure their dramatic arrest in a situation that according to the police 'was at all times under control.' How is that not condemnable? Not sure what this war on terror is doing to the US as a just political system (domestically or abroad), but it sure (and still) doesn't look good.

UPDATE: As I was saying in my last phrase. A just system this is not. (NYT