There’s stupid, and then there’s really, truly, knuckle-dragging, mouth-breathing, cross-eyed “Duh” stupid. Rezwan Ferdaus, the Model Bomber, was arrested this week for a feat of stupidity guaranteed to go down in history as one of the dumbest terrorist plots in history. Ferdaus’ planned attack on the Pentagon and the Capital involved strapping (what he thought was C4 explosives) into some high-dollar model airplanes. Nuts? Oh, yea. Somebody’s got a screw loose, that’s for sure!
The 26-year old Rezwan Ferdaus had become convinced that America was evil through a number of extremist websites that he was tracked visiting. The Model Bomber then contacted who he thought were like-minded individuals to procure the explosives he’d need to carry out his plot. Big surprise, the like-minded individuals were informants, who passed the details of the plot on to authorities in Washington.
For those of you seeing a spy-VS-spy thing here, or perhaps a Wile E. Coyote/ Roadrunner gag, You wouldn’t be alone. Authorities, however, have charged Ferdaus with (attempting to) provide material support to Al-Quada for attacks on U.S. soldiers overseas. While there’s likely to be a laundry list of additional charges that the feds are cooking up as you read this, that one by itself is more than enough to put this nut up for good. That is, if the judge can stop laughing long enough to pass sentence.
Seriously, though. Model airplanes? One of those suckers might weigh all of what- twenty pounds? Fifty tops. The biggest one I’ve ever seen on Youtube was pretty big, I’ll grant you, but even with a plane that size, how much damage did this quack think he’d cause? He could’ve loaded that thing down with C4, and it might’ve potentially helped clean some of the dust off the pentagon’s windows. But, here’s the tricky part- How the hell was he supposed to fly the thing in? Just walk up to the front gate of the pentagon or the capital, say “Hi” to the armed guard with a huge model airplane (no word as yet on whether the plane was an ACME product) and a radio transmitter and stroll out on the lawn to play? Someone just wasn’t thinking.
If anything, Rezwan Ferdaus is worth a good laugh- maybe some would say it isn’t nice to laugh at another’s expense, but really, this guy deserves it. The would-be Model Bomber set off all the triggers that the FBI and Homeland Security had set up to net people like this, stumbling his way through them and right into prosecuter’s waiting hands. It couldn’t be simpler. Strangely enough, he’s got a physics degree from Northeastern University in Boston, a testament to the principle that not everyone with a degree is a genius. So, what does this prove? Yes, ladies and gentlemen, it does indeed prove that one can be educated and still be dumb as a box of rocks.