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I feel like you are being intentionally obtuse.
Material furnished is exactly what it says, if a nation or any other organization gifts or sells that material outside normal channels they are on the hook for how it is used.
I also dont understand your preoccupation with deniability, we're not talking about citizens with consitutional rights, we're talking about sovereign nations. "Drop the act, we know it was you" is a perfectly valid realpolitik response to such behavior.
"Outside normal channels" what does this mean? Can a terror group just host a raffle that NutJob McGee just happens to win for a free missile?
Outside of what the other comment said about framing, it also means "what if we can't really track it well to begin with?". The exact amount, if any, involvement of Saudi Arabia involved in 9/11 is still contended to this day.
21 years after, we still don't seem to know if a single guy Al-Bayoumi had knowledge of the attacks beforehand, and if they were an intelligence agent working for the Saudi government. This of course is despite the initial reports in 2004 concluding there was no connection.
Did they know? Were they involved? I don't know! There's apparently 50% chance that this guy, who may or may not have been an intelligence agent (and if he was may or may not have been doing it under orders from above) might indicate Saudi involvement. Maybe.
And they found circumstancial evidence for it! Just no smoking gun of direct links.
Under your argument where presumably we should respond to vague traces of government involvement despite layers of deniability, should we have gone after Saudi Arabia too or not?
And maybe the FBI does know the answer for sure and just won't tell us plebs, but that's an assumption. Intelligence apparatuses have been known to make plenty of mistakes, either on accident or "on accident". How do we trust them to be this mystical source after multiple decades in the middle east based largely off (in good faith) a huge mistake and (in bad faith) a lie about WMDs.
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A hostile nation could make a genuine effort to frame another nation, though.
They could, and the nation being framed would be highly motivated to expose any such act.
Motivation might not be enough if it's a big, resourceful country framing a much weaker one - picture China framing some tiny Middle Eastern shithole. Does the latter reliably have the means to expose the plot? Even if they did offer what most people would find credible evidence, wouldn't the US be motivated to buy China's bullshit rather than precipitate a clash of superpowers? I think you'd run a significant risk of scapegoat countries being glassed for no good reason.
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