A false terror alert was built on a smuggler’s fabricated evidence.

Evidence

One of the five terror suspects, the individual identified as Mustafa Khan Owasi, was in fact Muhammad Ashgar, a jeweler from Lahore, Pakistan. Ashgar claimed he had never set foot in the United States but had attempted to travel to Britain two months earlier using forged documents. He was stopped at the airport in Dubai, where his false documents were detected, and was immediately deported to Pakistan. — Junaid Rana, Terrifying Muslims, 267 (#exemplifies, via linked claim)

The fact that the Protocols were a forgery was irrelevant for propaganda purposes. The Russian publicist S. A. Nilus who published the second Russian edition in 190S was already well aware of the doubtful character of this “document” and added the obvious: “But if it were possible to show its authenticity by documents or by the testimony of trustworthy witnesses, if it were possible to disclose the persons standing at the head of the world-wide plot …then…‘the secret iniquity’ could be broken…” Translation in Curtiss, op. cit. Hitler did not need Nilus to use the same trick: the best proof of their authenticity is that they have been proved to be a forgery. And he also adds the argument of their “plausibility”: “What many Jews may do unconsciously is here consciously made clear. And that is what counts” (Mein Kampf, Book I, chapter xi). — Hannah Arendt, The Origins of Totalitarianism, 2636 (#complicates, via linked claim)

Categorization

• XREF: connects to: A terror-alert suspect was actually a Palestinian jeweler misidentified by forged documents — Junaid Rana, Terrifying Muslims: Race and Labor in…, 267; A terrorist taint makes any incidental detail count as confirming evidence — Sherene Razack, Casting Out: The Eviction of Muslims…, 133; Specific fabricated detail confers surface plausibility on conspiracy claims — Michael Barkun, A Culture of Conspiracy: Apocalyptic…, 381 (+4 more)

Broader Connections

• A terror-alert suspect was actually a Palestinian jeweler misidentified by forged documents #exemplifies (0.92) — Junaid Rana, Terrifying Muslims, 267
• Proving a conspiracy document a forgery only strengthens its propaganda value #complicates (0.76) — Hannah Arendt, The Origins of Totalitarianism, 2636