I Wish

I wish that my trust in my government had not been so corroded by the behavior of the Bush administration, so that I could greet the news of arrests in Miami with relief instead of distrust.

I wish that the record of the administration with loudly trumpeting terrorism arrests that later turned out not to be much hadn't trained me to respond with cynical suspicion.

I wish that Robert Mueller and Alberto Gonzales had repeatedly demonstrated forthright honesty, so that I didn't feel that I had to go over any of their statements with a fine-tooth comb.

But that is not the way it is.

This morning, Americans are hearing that a group of men have been arrested for plotting with al-Qaeda to blow up the Sears tower in Chicago. Across the country, people are being frightened by the memory of the World Trade Center horrors, and getting the impression that an active al-Qaeda cell has been arrested in Miami, before Chicago fell victim to a similar tragedy.

But is that true?

Preliminary news reports are incomplete, but already there is enough available to think that the above impression may be wrong. Yes, a number of men have been arrested, who had talked about blowing up the Sears tower, and apparently believed in violence and talked about wanting to do some. Some of them also appear to be part of a religious, apparently Christian, cult, 'Seas of David'.

Were they part of al-Qaeda? In their dreams. Their 'connection' with al-Qaeda was telling an FBI informant, who they thought was an al-Qaeda representative, that they wanted to go to a training camp. In front of this man, from whom they thought they could get weapons and support, they swore allegiance to Osama. But they were not, in fact, dealing with al-Qaeda, nor were they being directed from abroad by any Islamist radicals.

How much of a threat were they? They apparently had no guns, nor explosives. Given the ease with which guns can be acquired in this country, I have to wonder about that. A 'terrorist' group that has no weapons? How serious can they be? I also notice that they didn't have a small cell structure, but seemed to meet as a group, with the FBI informant participating. How smart can they be?

Even the government calls their plan 'more aspirational than operational.' Alberto Gonzales admits, at a press conference held after the morning's headlines have already been read, that there was no immediate threat, and they didn't have the materials required.

So far, I'm thinking that a more accurate headline might have been 'Group of crazy wannabe's arrested, with much hype'. So far, I see seven men, in the poorest part of Miami, one or more of whom may have a tenuous connection to reality, who wanted to strike at the 'devils', but who seem to have been incapable of getting very far on that. They've been indicted for wanting, singly or as a group, to do bad things, but no reports suggest that they could actually have done any of them.

I'm wondering why the Attorney General needed to appear at a press conference about this case. You'd think he be busy working on the Jose Padilla case.

You remember Jose Padilla, right? Originally, with much fanfare, accused of planning to detonate a radiological 'dirty' bomb, thrown into a cell as an enemy combatant, held for 3-1/2 years with no charges? Only handed over to the legal system when his case was about to reach the Supreme Court, which would have forced the administration to justify their innovative readings of the Constitution? When they dropped any claim involving a radiological bomb? Yeah, him.

How's his trial going?

A federal judge ordered prosecutors Tuesday to turn over more detailed evidence to back up allegations that Jose Padilla and two codefendants conspired to kill, injure or kidnap people overseas as part of a global Islamic terrorist network.

U.S. District Judge Marcia Cooke said she agreed with many of the claims made by defense attorneys that the federal indictment against Padilla and the others is ''very light on facts'' that would link the defendants to specific acts of terrorism or victims.

Hmm. How is it, if the accused is someone so clearly bad that he's already been held for years, that the feds make a case so poor that a US District Judge says outright that it is 'very light on facts'?

Since we started with the Attorney General making an announcement (from Russia, since it was so important) that they had captured a 'known terrorist' disrupting "an unfolding terrorist plot to attack the United States by exploding a radioactive "dirty bomb"," and we're now down to 'very light on facts', I think I'll wait before getting too wound up over this development in Miami.

Update: Talking Points Memo has posted the indictment to the web. Interesting reading. It mentions the alleged ringleader presenting a shopping list of requirements to the 'al Qaeda representative' including boots and uniforms. As Josh Marshall wonders, "terrorist uniforms?"

Update II: Juan Cole has some interesting comments.