Agreed. Terrorism is a real threat, but we just tried and convicted the “20th hijacker,” Zacharias Moussaoui, of a crime he was not guilty of (not to say that he’s innocent). In truth, like Jose Padilla and Lyman Farris or our other al Qaeda poster boys, he was a lunatic, al Qaeda wannabe who was not involved in a major plot or global threat to America (outside his own mind). Bushco has asserted that it has thwarted at least ten real terror plots attacking the U.S. but there is no evidence of even one real 9/11 redux that has been averted.

Look at the recent terror ring that “planned” to behead the Canadian PM. They were an isolated group of confused, web-bragging teenage Jihad wannabes that were entrapped by the RCMP. It seems that when we capture and turn real al Qaeda, like Mohammed Noor Khan, we have to leak it and blow their usefulness, wrecking real WOT investigations and stupidly abetting real threats.

P.S. What happened to your post two days ago about Howard Kurtz' reaction to your Rove insult?

Larry,
Was Miami on the list of cities, that were slated to have cuts to their funding for terrorist prevention? Just like New york City, Phoenix, how about Chicago?

These guys were clearly plotting with Saddam.

Rick Santorum will likely tell us he's found WMD in Miami.

Have questions about the Cafe? Try here.

The discovery of these so-called "terror cells" will only increase as the 2006 elections approach. In the run-up to the 2004 elections there was an orange alert every time Bush's poll numbers dipped, now every week there will be a new terror cell discovered as a way to keep accusing Democrats of being soft on terror and to keep public attention off of American casualties in Iraq.

"American media were filled with pre-emptory denunciations of unpatriotic `conspiracy theorists', who not only are always with us but are usually easy for the media to discredit since it is an article of faith that there are no conspiracies in American life."

Gore Vidal The Enemy Within

Certainly the Republicans would never conspire to engage in false terror alerts, wars, lies or polemic for anything but their unselfish mission to save freedom and civilization itself.

Thanks for letting us know.

If it helps in the investigation: I was watching when it happened, because I was trying to check back on replies to a comment I made. There was a short period of time when it was unavailable -- clicking the link brought up an "access denied" screen. The link to the post lingered for awhile on the TalkingPointsMemo mother ship page, but that too eventually disappeared.

-- Ned

</threadjack>

Mr. Johnson, I'm sort of confused the premise of your post. Every article I've read so far on this has quoted anonymice related to the investigation stressing that there is no relationship to Al Qaeda here, that this is a "homegrown" thing. It's obvious to me that should this be a faulty case of some kind, one thing you cannot blame them for is hyping a relationship to Al Qaeda. If one j'accuse about anything, it would have to be something like trumping up fear about homegrown terrorism, which, given the Brits recent actual experience, and the Canadian case, is something one could easily do.

If one is to blame someone for eventually hyping Al Qaeda links, that would have to be things like talk radio and the blogosphere.

Finally, personally, I have never bought into the idea that a lot of Americans are frightened of an Al Qaeda attack. I think that what a lot of Americans are worried about is terrorism, whether by Timothy McVeigh or Al Qaeda. And before one gets all in a lather saying that "the terrorists win" if one cracks down too much because people are worried, think about whether one would say that to the Iraqi people right now. Security is the basis of civilization to many, it's not so crazy to want a modicum of it, and to want your law enforcement to be pre-empting plots, whether by a bunch of "juvenile delinquents," by "freedom fighters," by the Mob, or by Al Qaeda.

If one is to blame someone for eventually hyping Al Qaeda links, that would have to be things like talk radio and the blogosphere.

From the Times today, here's Gonzales:

"Today, terrorist threats may come from smaller, more loosely defined cells who are not affiliated with Al Qaeda, but who are inspired by a violent jihadist message, and left unchecked, these homegrown terrorists may prove to be as dangerous as groups like Al Qaeda," he said.

Place the Miami group in the same sentence as Al Qaeda.

Place Saddam in the same sentence as Al Qaeda.

What's the difference?

I think that's what LJ's driving at...

Have questions about the Cafe? Try here.

My wife called and told me the cops were crawling downtown. She seemed to get the idea that they were actually responding to something a lot more threatening, specific and local, but then I told her the guys were actually 1000miles away in Miami - not to mention in jail as we spoke.

I noticed some of the CPD's spankin' new SUV squads near the Wilson Edens exit - that's no surprise because they block the exits so no one can enter the highway while the limos and Secret Service trucks drive by.

I wonder if Cheney's visit wasn't somehow coordinated with the arrests? I wonder if my wife's impression that the police were saving us from immediate danger (rather than just insulating Cheney from the hoi poloi) wasn't just a coincidence.

Maybe all this sounds hyper paranoid. But then again most of us here at TPM accept that Bush milks stuff like this to manipulate the public - and it's a view that, due to hard won experience with these guys - is probably a lot more mainstream than we could ever imagine six years ago.

AP headline right now on my "My Yahoo" page:

"Terror suspects sought ties with al-Qaida"

So it goes...

Have questions about the Cafe? Try here.

Certainly not our ethically and intellectually challenged Republicans. They would never do anything like that:) Yuk! Yuk!

Actually they almost never do anything except things like that.

Tom

I was in college during the HUAC/McCarthy hearings. Then it was links, however remote, to communists that might spell your doom. Now it's links to Al Qaeda, however remote, that may spell your doom. At least in those days you were charged, maybe did some time, and were released. Now you don't get charged, you go to Gitmo and there you stay indefinitely - if you live through it long enough to die a natural death. People look back in horror at the McCarthy era and say how could it have happened. Now I keep saying how can this be happening.

I think the main problem is that you're not seeing the lack of interest in the majority populace in "getting al Qaeda." They've gone way past that. They see Iraq. They get that terrorism, no matter who is behind it, is the problem. So your fear that dredging up Al Qaeda bogeymen is going to cause problems, based on what some claim is the reason for early support of the war (something I don't totally agree with, BTW) is beside the point, sort of irrelevant, even just getting into semantical problems. Nowadays, your average non-news-junkie might use the word "Al Qaeda" to mean anything like this case. Things have changed, don't go looking for people to make the same exact mistake they made before according to liberal historical record; chances are very high they won't, they'll make another mistake instead. I just don't buy that this administration is going to try to scare on the basis of the old meaning of the word "Al Qaeda," they are smart enough to know it won't work. Who cares what you call it? Either people are plotting to do nasties in the U.S. or they are not. Find me someone who believes Osama bin Laden directed this group and I'll take your worries more seriously; I think you are fearing a level of dumbness in the populace that is not there and that will make you look clueless and elitist at the same time if you harp on it.

For one example, here's what I am getting at: the idea that there are a lot of homegrown groups are out there plotting might tend to make people supportive of more leeway for NSA spying on citizens (not coincidentally, some EU countries with a longer history of terrorism on their soil have far fewer qualms about some related civil rights), not another war with another country like Iran because of "al Qaeda."

I second that request: where did the post go? We don't need to have things hidden from us; if it was pulled, please explain.

I understand the hackers have been linked to al Qaeda! If not, then it must have been Ann Coulter...

Artappraiser: I think the main problem is that you're not seeing the lack of interest in the majority populace in "getting al Qaeda." They've gone way past that. They see Iraq. They get that terrorism, no matter who is behind it, is the problem.

Here, you are absolutely wrong. Where have you been the last five years? Of course, authorities are trying to paint a broader picture of homegrown Jihadists and independent cells instead of just al Qaeda. That way they can entrap and break up terror rings (of a few nutcases) like this one or the one in Canada and play it up for months.So ex-Baathist insurgents who are targeting Shia in Iraq are the major threat to Joe Blow in Kansas?

Early on, Bush began moving the target from the war on global terrorism (basically al Qaeda only) to the global war on terror (any Muslim radicals, like Iraqi insurgents or Hamas). Look at how quickly the Pentagon has appointed the new leader of Al Qaeda in Iraq after Zarqawi’s death. There were news reports the same day that the two beheaded servicemen were found that“the Egyptian” himself personally beheaded them in spite of the fact that some intelligence people are saying “the Egyptian” doesn’t even exist. They have to tie the Iraqi insurgents to al Qaeda to justification our invasion as part of the WOT (it is not).

There are 20 to 30 attacks on abortion clinics, sometimes causing deaths, in the U.S. every year. How many have you heard about? Small cells or individual “homegrown” terrorists commit these attacks. Are these the terrorists that you’re afraid of? The FBI doesn’t even prosecute them as terrorists. Or perhaps it is the animal rights and tree-huggers (ALF or ELF) that only target buildings that keep you awake. Funny thing, these guys are prosecuted as terrorists and were called our biggest terror threat by the FBI. But, if you’re not torturing kitties or dumping toxic waste in your backyard, you can go back to sleep.

J. McCutchen "JmacSF"

San Francisco. CA

I love a turruhiss in a uniform. 

Excuse me. I'm calling bullsh*t

Too cynical? I was hearing this theory from REPUBLICANS at my office today.

J. McCutchen "JmacSF"

San Francisco. CA

WOOPS

Friday, June 23, 2006 Informed CommentCAIR: Miami Cult not Muslims

I just saw the spokesman for the Council on American Islamic Relations on CNN saying that the Miami cult members just arrested are not Muslims. I'd say that is a fair statement.

For one thing, they are vegetarians!

It seems pretty obvious that they are just a local African-American cult which mixed Judaism, Christianity and (a little bit of) Islam. It seems to be a of vague offshoot of the Moors group founded by Dwight York. I heard on CNN that one of them talked of being Moors. And Batiste, the leader, called whites "devils" in the tradition of the original Nation of Islam and York's Moors. Now CNN is saying one member said they practiced witchcraft [likely meaning Haitian voodoo or perhaps Santeria-like rituals]. One former member is called Levi-El, suggesting he might be associated with the Black Hebrew movement or an offshoot. Now a relative of one of the members, Phanor, said that they wore black uniforms with a star of David arm patch and considered themselves of the Order of Melchizadek. I wonder if it is "Seas of David" or "C's of David", with "c" meaning commando or some such?

I define cult as a religious group that has values that put it in a high state of tension with the norms of mainstream society, and that has a leadership that imposes high levels of discipline and demand for control of adherents' lives.

This Seas of David group primarily seems to have been studying the Bible. The mother of one insisted that he is a Catholic. Then there is all that Jewish symbology and terminology, even in their names. Islam was nothing more for them but a set of symbols they could pull into their syncretic local culture. The group drew on poor Haitian immigrants and local indigent African-American youth. If this were the 1960s, they'd have been Black Panthers or Communists.

American folk religion, pursued in small groups with charismatic leaders, is replete with such groups, from Father Divine to Jim Jones of the People's Temple to David Koreish.

The group never got past the stage of talking big, and violently. They talked dangerously, and some sort of intervention was warranted. Since they begged the FBI informant for "shoes," they weren't exactly a well-heeled group that seems very dangerous in actual practice. And, to what extent did the FBI informant press an al-Qaeda connection on these otherwise clueless but imaginative zealots?

But contrast the grandstanding of Alberto Gonzales on this group of poor unarmed ghetto folk with the way in which the Robert J. Goldstein case was treated. He actually had the bombs in his house and was going to blow up Floridians. No press called him a "Jewish" terrorist and no questions were ever raised about his possible international links.

Imagine the horror of an urbane Arab-American professional with university higher degrees, steeped in Islamic culture and contributing to American society, at being lumped in by the American press and officialdom with these cultists who appropriated his religion for their violent religious fantasies.

The other thing to say is that American law is soft on cultic practices, of dirty tricks against and smearing of critics, enforced third-party shunning, manipulation, and group coercion. These things are not protected by the First Amendment and I think one part of our counter-terrorism strategy must be to develop legal strategies to make it easier to disrupt the workings of cults before they accumulate a critical mass for violent action. The practice of just letting the head of the Internal Revenue Service decide if a group is a tax-free religion should also be revisited. In the past, some IRS heads appear to have been blackmailed by cults into granting them that status, which allows them to accumulate more wealth.

Whereas most terrorism is a form of educated, middle class politics, this particular group clearly grew out of the grievances and resentments of race and class inequality in the United States.

The sister of one was just on MSNBC saying that he deeply resented Bush spending money to drop bombs on poor people who could not defend themselves, while depriving the poor in the United States of any support. "We are not capable," she said. This is a theory of class war, connecting the poor of Kut with the poor of Miami's inner city. The city, by the way, has horrific levels of unemployment.

The position of the poor and workers in particular is deteriorating in the US, as more and more of the privately held wealth is concentrated in the hands of a white, privileged, few. The unions have been gutted, the minimum wage is inadequate, and racist attitudes are reemerging on a worrisome scale. Cities such as Detroit, New Orleans and Miami continue to witness enormous strains coming mainly from racist attitudes. In this case, the best counter-terrorism would be more social justice.

I just got an email that lists the apparent facts of the case which read as follows:

"...most if not all 'evidence' obtained by the government was given to them by this informant:

* No weapons were found.
* No explosives were found.
* Whatever was spoken was spoken in general terms.
* All discussions were commenced by the informant.
* The informant suggested joining 'Al Qaeda', then gave the 'oath'.
* Informant then gave this information to his/her FBI handlers.
* Informant provided van to go take pictures.
* None of these guys had any money.
* One of them only had $10.00 in his bank account.
* None of them had any involvement with any 'international terror organization'.
* All pictures taken were requested by the informant.
* All cameras used were provided by the informant.
* All cameras used were given to the informant by the FBI.
* Illegal pictures were taken of these guys living quarters through a hole in the wall (invading their space).
* All of these guys had their pictures and names put out in the international media (slander & libel).

Man are these guys are going to be rich!!!"

In other words, the correspondent is saying that these guys were nutcases who were set up by an "informant".

No surprise - this is how most Federal drug cases get "solved". They find some asshole who needs money, he sells out all his friends and relatives on phoney drug charges, the Feds threaten all of them with life sentences unless they rat on all THEIR friends and relatives - and we end up with a prison population of over two million.

Now we do it all over again with "terrorists."

Prison - a growth industry. Call your stock broker today.

Well, today I logged on this afternoon and ALL of the comments were missing! Not only that, there was no provision for even entering comments on any article! There was a message which said something about "the module needed the comment system to be enabled" or something like that.

Obviously they either had severe server or software issues today, or they were doing something to recover from something else.

The INFORMANT was the ONLY alleged "tie" to "Al Qaeda". He initiated the suggestion and performed the "oath".

Total setup.

This is on a par with the Israelis trying to recruit some Palestinians to set up an "Al Qaeda" cell. The Palestinian police arrested the Palestinians and their Israeli handlers.

I suspect if Bush were running for office again in November, you'd hear a lot of support expressed for him by the right and old loyalists, but the vote count would show he's gone down in flames long since. As for the Sears Tower "terrorists," my impression is that people who follow the news are fed up with the Administration's narratives -- to use Rove's concept.

I will wait and see if MSM gives the same degree of analysis to all the facts in this case for days on end as we get for those other cases that have great national importance like the Duke Lacrosse team vs Black stripper case, the runaway bride, and a plethora of missing White women.
If this is just a weekend + Monday case, it will verify the collapse of the MSM and the permanent status of the infoentainment system at the news networks.
Detailed analysis of why these seemingly inept, unarmed, and poverty-stricken guys became a "threat" would be welcome. How much was real and how much was government?
Attention to questions surrounding the Miami 7 would partially justify the lack of ongoing questioning of why the Justice Dept and now Treasury feels justified in obtaining communication and banking information on US citizens without true Congressional or judicial oversight. If the government can do it to "them" (suspected terrorists), why wouldn't they do it to "us" (traitors who probably read the NYT and aren't in lockstep with GW's war in Iraq).
I won't hold my breath waiting for the MSM missing White female/Duke rape case style probe into the Miami 7 or Constitutional issues raised by Justice Dept programs.

Sami Al-Hussayen was a graduate student in computer sciences at University of Idaho in Moscow, Idaho.

While there, he volunteered to be a webmaster for the Islamic Assembly of North America (IANA). I am unaware of any terror related prosecutions secured or charges filed against IANA.

Al-Hussayen was charged with three counts of providing material support to terrorist organizations largely due to four tracts not of his authorship found on IANA's website, which advocated suicidal attacks and also charged with several minor immigration violations, one being that over a several year period as a webmaster of IANA, he'd accepted $300 in renumeration.

During the trial one of the government's 'expert witnesses', Rita Katz, admitted to receiving more than $130,000 for her work for the government, which some government employees have claimed was badly wasted. She also admitted to working in violation of her visa when she had first emigrated to America, and to earning a sum vastly greater than Al-Hussayen's $300.

Another expert government witness, Reuven Paz, testified that the published doucments did indeed offer material support to terrorism, and then under cross-examination admit that some of the documents in question were published on his own website.

Al-Hussayen was detained without bail for 1 1/2 years awaiting the trial. The Idaho jury acquited on all terror charges and hung on the immigration violations.

After the trial, the prosecuting US Attorney, Terry Derden, seemed to admit that the prosecution had been a governmental overreach:

"I don't think anybody ever thought the case was airtight...The attorney general asked us to go out and disrupt terrorism and material support wherever it occurred. We were unsuccessful in the terrorism charges, but ultimately we thought we were successful in disrupting what was going on."

(Source: Seattle Times - cited at end of post)

For those who think this kind of selective prosecution is justified during the GWOT, consider this:

Many natural rights were violated in this prosecution. Whether you believe in the existence of natural rights or not is irreleveant. What is relevant is that rights which are enumerated as natural have been constitutionally placed out of the government's legitmate reach. This is not something that is conferred upon citizens only, for then they are not liberties possessed by the people, but rights extended by the will of a magnamimous state, and are insecure. The rights of humans were violated by the government in this prosecution, therefore, it engaged in tyrannical acts.

Notes

• Maureen O'Hagan, "A terrorism case that went awry", Seattle Times, November 22, 2004
• The Idaho Spokesman Review's Sami Al-Hussayen trial article archives

"He that would make his own liberty secure must guard even his enemy from oppression; for if he violates this duty he establishes a precedent that will reach to himself."

--Thomas Paine

Artappraiser, I think you missed the big picture with this statement:

You are betting on Americans not being able to understand the word "not."

Not at all!  You really didn't GET IT!  Read this again:

"Today, terrorist threats may come from smaller, more loosely defined cells who are not affiliated with Al Qaeda, BUT who are inspired by a violent jihadist message, and left unchecked, these homegrown terrorists may prove to be as dangerous as groups like Al Qaeda," he said.

 The word "not" isn't Gonzales' point!  His whole point is in the word,"BUT."  His message was: 

OK, these guys aren't Al Qaeda, ----->      ----->     BUT!!!!

they are influenced by Al Qaeda's ilk and unless we (the government) can do whatever we want to, they will GROW and GROW and get to be just as bad as Al Qaeda.

In other words, BE AFRAID.  BE VERY AFRAID.  (Your only hope is to give up all your Constitutional rights and TRUST US!)

 It is the Bush administration that is banking on Americans not being smart enough to parse their wordsmithing.  I am surprised that you, as a "cultural historian" are not aware of this phenomenon, which has been used to death by the Bush administration. 

And what is your point with this?  It's fine if you want to believe that they are not able to, but be aware that that pushing that puts you in the elitist camp for many.  

Well, maybe for you, but since you completely misunderstood the comment, and your snarky response is not helpful.

Jan Knaus

With all the assaults on our civil liberties; the ones our forefathers felt compelled to insist in the Bill of Rights.

Would the Minutemen of of the1776 period be labeled patriots or terorists?

When our 1776 Leaders gathered in secret, and financed the purchase of arms, so that our forefathers could defend against a tyrant, could this be why we were guaranteed the right of privacy from treasury so that in case our form of government turned tyrannical we could defend the ideals of American Liberty.
Who said it was government that would defend that right.
It was We the People.
Bring our troops home, get our nose out of foreign involvement. and we wouldn't have enemies or terrorists trying to influence us, or retaliate against, what some in the world view as tyranny, or meddling.
I love America, but its leaders have failed the Constitution.
I'm afraid that the homegrown, Patriots or whatever you want to call them, are out there,and they truly feel they are rendering a sacred service to their country, and peace loving people, myself included, are getting swept up to a day of violence. Who can stop this madness? Who'll be the scapegoat, when the worst case of hatred, and violence, fear is unleashed? Fratricide,genocide,annilation

The Bible say's "Unless those days were cut short, no flesh would be saved."

It's easy to see, the finality.

The "Terrorists" in Miami are Orlando Bosch and Luis Posada Carriles, both of whom are protected by Bush. Robert Parry's reminder at Consortium News....

Terrorists in Miami? Oh My!
http://www.consortiumnews.com/index.html

Thanks Larry, another great column.

I realise that your question was largely rhetorical, but there should be no doubt on where the founders would be standing, were they alive today.

Our president claims that Constitutional war powers give him the right to act outside of the Constitution's boundries. He claims the right to act contrary to the only thing which legitimises his political power. The Federal Bench has to a great degree been acquiescent to this tyranny. Congress has aided and abetted him.

Congress has stripped away the right of habeas corpus from the Guantanamo detainess without first securing convictons against them in a tribunal process that adhered to constitutionally mandated due process of law. Habeas corpus was expressedly removed from governmental control. It is a natural right that predates the American Revolution, and Blackstone's common law tomes.

What has been done, and is being done to the Dreamtime America is antithetical to the foundation of our country, yet smug prevaricating Republicans claim 'original intent' as theirs. Contemporary Conservatism plunges into the pit of moral relativism, they destroy liberty, they steal it from humans, all the while claiming it is necessary to preserve it. There is not one amongst them presently worthy of claiming the same ideology as Barry Goldwater. Extremism in defense of liberty, is a virtue. They offer up equivocational homilies to the darkness interspersed between non sequitur and ad hominem attacks upon those who will to stand and resist. These are acts befitting ticks which exist in the fur of sewer dwelling rodents.

Everytime a politician claims that a natural right is not something the government owes to non-citizens, they commit an act in opposition to the constitution; they stamp their boots upon it. There is no terror exception to the US Constitution. This cowardice and apostacy to the Dreamtime is rampant and openly embraced by our politicians. We have tortured humans, detained them unlawfully , created a gulag of prisons to squirrel them away.

These detainees should be charged, and taken into a public courtroom for prosecution. Even the devil would have these rights in America.

When America proclaimed its independence from England, many of the rationales were based upon these same injuries, and were fomented by a man named George.

Yet America sleepwalks;
And the Dreamtime fades away.

• "Equal and exact justice to all men, of whatever state or persuasion, religious or political; peace, commerce, and honest friendship with all nations,—entangling alliances with none; the support of the State governments in all their rights, as the most competent administrations for our domestic concerns, and the surest bulwarks against anti-republican tendencies; the preservation of the general government in its whole constitutional vigour, as the sheet anchor of our peace at home and safety abroad;…freedom of religion; freedom of the press; freedom of person under the protection of the habeas corpus; and trial by juries impartially selected,—these principles form the bright constellation which has gone before us, and guided our steps through an age of revolution and reformation."
  --Thomas Jefferson, First Inaugural Address. March 4, 1801.

• "Perhaps it is a universal truth that the loss of liberty at home is to be charged to provisions against danger, real or pretended, from abroad."
  --James Madison, letter to Jefferson, May 13, 1798. W.T. Hutchinson et al.,

• "If the representatives of the people betray their constituents, there is then no recourse left but in the exertion of that original right of self-defense...."
  --Alexander Hamilton, The Federalist Papers No.28

• "Guard with jealous attention the public liberty. Suspect everyone who approaches that jewel. Unfortunately, nothing will preserve it but downright force. Whenever you give up that force, you are ruined."
  --Patrick Henry, Virginia's Convention to Ratify the Constitution (1788)