FBI Grooming Terrorists

The conspiracy theory that the government was behind terrorist attacks/spree shooters is actually much older than you'd think. I'm certain most of you are aware that the Men in Black movies are based on comics right? Well, the comics, which only lasted six issues in the early 90's, are vastly different from the movies and only two of them deal with aliens.

The fifth issue is about a human headed bird monster that kills a kid for getting too close the abandoned house it lived in, when Jay and Kay are sent to investigate they come across another kid who dared the dead kid witness who dared the victim to go up to the house, being beaten by his dad for causing such trouble. After interviewing the boy, Jay and Kay do the neuralyzer thing, with Jay brainwashing the dad never hurt his son again…while Kay brainwashes the kid to shoot up a place on his 18th Birthday, with Jay never knowing what his partner is up to.

The comic has a more cynical depiction of the MiB, showing them as a somewhat sinister organization who don't really have the world's best interests at heart and that's one of the bigger moments that shows the reader that. The comic references a lot of old conspiracy theories, so the whole 'government is behind shooters' conspiracy must be an old one to be included in it.

It's not entirely conspiracy theory either though. The leaked documents in the intercept article above do show a case where the FBI basically entrapped a paranoid schizophrenic guy who was an extremist but had no way of actually organising a bomb plot into becoming a "terrorist". The guy wanted to kill people but had no real knowledge of how to get explosives on the black market, how much they would cost, no money to even buy them, or no concept of how to plan his bombing campaign, so they had to help guide him through that to create a more convincing case on him for a jury.

I think it wanders into more conpsiracy theory territory when it starts to become "the FBI actually caused attack X". In reality for stories like that, they set a guy up as a terrorist so they can arrest him and look like they're doing a great job, and informants are willing to go along with this because they get paid well for it.