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I'm not American, and I am genuinely curious, why does the FBI investigate this? I can imagine the US government wanting an investigation in cases like this, a
by wwwhizz 5y ago
I'm not American, and I am genuinely curious, why does the FBI investigate this?
I can imagine the US government wanting an investigation in cases like this, and I can understand Beirut wanting (or maybe just allowing) different countries to investigate, but isn't foreign investigations a job of the CIA (or, at least, not the FBI)?
- rickeydidio 5y agoI am American and this was my first thought when reading the headline. “Why is the FBI involved?” I can understand the CIA, like you said. So weird but a sign of our times.
- refulgentis 5y agoWhen you hear CIA think intelligence (as in espionage), when you hear FBI think investigation, never failed me
- ncmncm 5y agoWhen I hear CIA, I think coercion to collect information, most usually information to be used to coerce somebody else. When I hear FBI I think coercion to instigate what will be well-publicized conspiratorial crime. Actual espionage and investigation are decidedly secondary activities. They have been that way from the start.
- dboreham 5y agoFBI is just "the police", so it's very normal and happens all the time that police experts from one country are invited to help investigate crime in another country.
- raincom 5y agoThere are multiple reasons: - Lebanese govt invited them. - USA wants to keep tab in that part of the world. - Talented investigators in FBI and others want to keep their brains sharp. - Advance knowledge about explosions, how to prevent them, etc.
- deleted 5y ago[deleted]
- pixl97 5y agoFBI has specialists that investigate fertilizer explosions. It's not uncommon for domestic terrorists to use this type of weapon in the US. Oklahoma City being a prime example.
- the-dude 5y agoMaybe they want to confirm their knowledge about nitrate bombs for domestic purposes. IIRC, the Oklohoma bombing was a simple fertilizer/nitrate bomb.
- bogomipz 5y agoAs was the 1993 attack on the World Trade Center.
- eurasiantiger 5y agoAnd the 2001 blast in Oslo.
- e12e 5y ago2011, not 2001?
- eurasiantiger 5y agoSorry, 2011 is correct. Must have been a typo.
- papercrane 5y agoFBI has expertise in the matter and was invited by the Lebanon government to help with the investigation. https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/aug/15/beirut-explosion-fbi-lebanon-investigation-us https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/aug/15/beirut-explosi...
- system2 5y agoFBI has expertise to do my taxes but they wouldn't come if I invited them. Most likely they invited themselves.
- humaniania 5y agohttps://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
- TheSoftwareGuy 5y agoI'm not sure if you are being serious or not, but I'm sure the US government is getting useful intelligence out of this as well. The US has an interest in knowing how this happened
- mey 5y agoPart of diplomacy is offering aid to those in need. Are you a potentially valuable ally?
- Forge36 5y agoWhen 2000 to tons of explosive go missing paranoia about "where did it go?" is bound to attract attention from both.
- hn_throwaway_99 5y agoFrom the article: > FBI investigators came to Beirut after the blast at Lebanon's request. > A senior Lebanese official who was aware of the FBI report and its findings said the Lebanese authorities agreed with the Bureau on the quantity that exploded.
- bredren 5y agoThe CIA is tasked with intelligence gathering and covert foreign operations. So there may have well been CIA officers around the FBI mission, they would not have played a public role. If I understand it correctly, the CIA would offer their assessment of the blast to the United States DNI and President. This report might contain unflattering information, evidence of corruption or recommendations of subjects of new or continued surveillance. Whereas, the FBI, per their publicly accepted invitation would share a classified report with the Lebanese government as an expected result of their visit. The FBI report would likely be be more consultative, the mechanism of the explosion. Sort of like a car mechanic explaining why your car is making this squeak sound. Whereas, the Lebanese government would neither have insight into the amount of CIA resources aimed at Lebanon or this particular event, nor how these intelligence conclusions affect US foreign policy in the Mideast.
- wincy 5y agoSo like the CIA agent would be posing as an FBI agent though right?
- bredren 5y agoWhile possible, I do not believe this would be very likely. FBI agents must regularly serve in a domestic capacity. That precludes availability for foreign missions. A CIA officer contributing intelligence would not be obviously investigating because the things they can learn are not so directly gleaned from visiting the site of the explosion themselves. An example of a CIA officer gathering intelligence on the explosion might be a business person who happens to have trade regularly passing through the port. Perhaps they employ many Lebanese to assist with this effort, some of whom are unwitting sources of intelligence. By conducting legitimate business, this ambient familiarity with the port, officials working there, gossip of the locals, would provide one point of insight that contributes to an overall assessment by the CIA. Information from the FBI report would likely be shared with the CIA via the DNI and / or from a direct classified briefing between the agencies. This would probably offer some information that is not shared with Lebanon. Presumably, the FBI’s opinion on the matter is valuable enough to Lebanon that they okay’d the investigation. Or perhaps the explosion was so egregious that they knew the US would be crawling all over it so Lebanon might as well let some amount of that happen with cooperation so at least they get some information out of it.
- deleted 5y ago[deleted]
- bogomipz 5y agoOne of the remits of the FBI is to protect the US from terrorist attacks. And as the 1993 World Trade Center bombing and the Oklahoma City bombings were fertilizer-based this likely would have fallen into their purview. The CIA is supposed to be concerned only with intelligence-gathering. The FBI has offices around the world. See: https://www.fbi.gov/about/leadership-and-structure/international-operations https://www.fbi.gov/about/leadership-and-structure/internati...
- jdavis703 5y agoThe CIA doesn’t really do these kinds of investigations. To be honest I would’ve expected ATF (they specialize in investigating explosions in the US) to have been the US agency lending technical assistance.
- Invictus0 5y agoI imagine it's a good training exercise for the FBI staff, given that there aren't too many giant explosions like this in the States.
- csommers 5y agoWhy wouldn’t the US want to be involved? FEST responds to vast majority of these incidents, simply because we want to know if someone was behind it.