Miami “terror” arrests—a government provocation ~~ ( View from the Marxists Left....Barf Alert)

Asian Tribune ^ | Sun, 2006-06-25 01:49 | Bill Van Auken – World Socialist Web Site

[Ernest_at_the_Beach]

There are many incongruities surrounding the arrest of seven men from the impoverished Liberty City neighborhood of Miami on charges of conspiracy to “wage war on the United States” that suggest it, like so many previous “terrorist plots” announced by the Bush administration, is a government-inspired provocation mounted for reactionary political ends.

None of the claims made by the government and repeated uncritically by the media concerning the arrest of these young working-class men can be accepted as good coin. Both the flimsiness of the criminal indictment and the lurid headlines surrounding it mark this event as an escalation in the anti-democratic conspiracies of the Bush administration.

There is every indication that this latest purported terrorist threat—described by some media outlets as “even bigger than September 11”—was manufactured by the FBI, which used an undercover agent posing as a terrorist mastermind to entrap those targeted for arrest.

While the Justice Department declared that the arrests had foiled a plot to blow up the tallest building in the US, the Sears Tower in Chicago, authorities in that city assured its residents that there had never been any threat to the structure.

The four-count indictment presented by the Justice Department in a Miami federal court on Friday contains not a single indication of an overt criminal act or even the means to carry one out. The brief 11-page document consists almost entirely of alleged statements made by the defendants to the FBI informant, referred to in quotes throughout the indictment as “the al Qaeda representative.”

The government chose to consummate its entrapment plan by unleashing dozens of combat-equipped federal agents, dressed in olive drab fatigues and carrying automatic weapons, on the predominantly African-American Liberty City neighborhood, one of the poorest in the country. Liberty City was the scene of riots that broke out in 1980 after the acquittal of white police officers for the beating death of a black motorist.

On Thursday, the government’s paramilitary squads confronted residents with pictures of the accused, demanding to know their whereabouts. The seven defendants are representative of the impoverished working class population of Miami, including Haitian immigrants.

It appears they were targeted by the FBI because they had formed a religious group, calling themselves the “Seas of David,” which reportedly incorporated elements of Christianity and Islam. One of their crimes, according to the FBI’s deputy director, John Pistole, was that the Seas of David “did not believe the United States government had legal authority over them.”

According to some residents of the neighborhood, the group lived together in the warehouse that was raided by the FBI, using it for religious worship and as a base of operations for a construction business.

Elements of the federal indictment are so self-incriminating as to border on the ludicrous. Among the charges are that the defendants “swore an oath of loyalty to al Qaeda.” Who administered this oath? The “al Qaeda representative,” AKA, the paid informant of the FBI.

Aside from this “loyalty oath” solicited by the FBI, only one of the seven defendants is accused of any overt act, outside of driving the FBI informant to meetings.

The only action with which this one individual is charged—all else is words—is taking pictures of the FBI headquarters in Miami. Who supplied the camera? The “al Qaeda representative”—i.e., the FBI agent provocateur.

The indictment further charges two of the accused with driving “with the ‘al Qaeda representative’” to a store in Dade County, Florida to purchase a memory chip for a digital camera to be used for taking reconnaissance photographs of the FBI building. The document does not say who paid for the chip, but there is hardly room for doubt.

In one of the more curious sections of the indictment, one of the accused, Narseal Batiste, is accused of asking the FBI informant to provide various items for his group, including footwear, for which he provided a “list of shoe sizes.” Apparently the FBI delivered the shoes.

Pistole, the FBI deputy director, admitted that the supposed plots to blow up buildings had been “more aspirational than operational.” In the raids carried out by the FBI squads, no weapons and no explosive substances were found.

“We preempted their plot,” declared Pistole. But the indictment and the facts of the case indicate that the alleged plot would never have existed had the government not planned and instigated it in the first place.

At a Washington press conference, US Attorney General Alberto Gonzales acknowledged that the alleged plot had posed no actual danger. He claimed this was because the authorities had intervened “in its earliest stages.
”
So “early” was the preemption that officials associated with the supposed targets of the plot dismissed the government’s indictment. Barbara Carley, the managing director of the Sears Tower, told the press, “Federal and local authorities continue to tell us they’ve never found evidence of a credible terrorism threat against Sears Tower that’s ever gone beyond just talk.”

Her remarks were echoed by Chicago Police Superintendent Phil Cline, who said, “There never was any credible threat to the Sears Tower at all.”

In his press conference, Attorney General Gonzales asserted that the Miami group represented a “new brand of terrorism” created by “the convergence of globalization and technology.”

What these words mean is anyone’s guess. There is no indication that those charged, who were living in a warehouse in the poorest city in America, had access to any technology, and their supposed contact to the wider world was an informer planted by the FBI. The suggestion that the seven men were a “home-grown” terrorist group inspired by contact with Al Qaeda elements over the Internet is supported neither by evidence nor the charges contained in the government’s own indictment.

R. Alexander Acosta, the United States attorney in South Florida, told the media that the defendants had “lived in the United States for most of their lives, but developed a hatred of America.” This is presented as though it constituted evidence of a crime.

It is hardly surprising for someone living in Liberty City to hate the poverty and oppression that prevail there, or for Haitian immigrants to despise the imprisonment and repression that Washington metes out to those attempting to escape the brutal conditions imposed by US imperialism upon their homeland.

What is highly noteworthy is that the federal government decided to intervene in this situation to concoct a phony Al Qaeda connection and trumped up “terror plot.”

What is the government’s motive in manufacturing such a plot? Whose interests are served? Under conditions in which the majority of the American people have turned against the Iraq war and support the withdrawal of American troops, the Bush administration is desperately attempting to once again link its neo-colonial venture in Iraq with a supposed “global war on terror” waged to defend the American people against another 9/11.

To sustain such a fiction, fresh evidence of terrorist threats is periodically required. And it has been forthcoming on a regular basis. Every several months another “conspiracy” is unveiled, invariably involving an FBI informant and hapless individuals ensnared in a plot orchestrated by the government.

Until now, these “sting” operations have been targeted at Muslim immigrants. Last month, for example, Pakistani immigrant Shahawar Siraj in New York City was found guilty of plotting to blow up the Herald Square subway station in a “plot” that the evidence indicated was based entirely on suggestions from an FBI informant.

The FBI agent provocateur taunted the defendant with photographs of Abu Ghraib torture victims and demanded to know how, as a Muslim, he could fail to take action.

Similarly, in Albany, New York two years ago, the FBI recruited a Pakistani immigrant, promising him leniency on minor fraud charges, to ensnare two other immigrants in a fictitious scheme to help a non-existent person buy a weapon for a fake terrorist plot.
These provocations and conspiracies are symptomatic of a government that is both ruthless and desperate. Confronting a population that is increasingly hostile to its political agenda of reaction at home and war abroad, it is driven to manufacture an endless series of terrorist threats aimed at disorienting and intimidating public opinion.

- World Socialist Web Site -

[AntiGovernment]

Summary: A Muslim can do no evil. Only the US government can.

[JustaDumbBlonde]

Wow. Delusional.

[Barte45]

I couldn't even go past the 2 paragraphs. Incongruities? C'mon...

[Sometimes A River]

Debbie Wasserman-Schultz was parroting this line on the radio this morning.

And she is in Congress.

[muawiyah]

What's strange is these guys don't seem to be Moslems ~ rather they are part of a quasi-Christian cult (and if the truth be known, Islam itself is also a quasi-Christian cult based mostly on a misunderstood missionary's manual for converting Arabs).

On the other hand, they like what they saw AlQaida do and they want to get some themselves.

[Ernest_at_the_Beach]

There is a book,:

Unholy Alliance : Radical Islam and the American Left (Hardcover)

*******************************

And a review:

****************************************

Communism is dead. Long live Islam!, September 30, 2004

Reviewer:

Kevin Beckman (Sacramento, CA) - See all my reviews

It sounds absurd: why would Leftists make common cause with a religion that is diametrically opposed to everything the Left stands for? David Horowitz explains that it is really quite logical given the Left's first principle: America is evil and anything or anyone opposed to America is good.

Part I of the book is a brief history of 9/11 through the end of major combat operations in Iraq, and the Left's behavior during this time. Horowitz includes the reaction of Katha Pollitt of The Nation magazine: "The flag stands for vengeance, and jingoism, and war." Anthropology Professor Nicholas De Genova of Columbia University said he hoped for "a million Mogadishus." His colleagues objected, not to the despicable sentiment, but because of the bad publicity it brought their "teach-in." Our tax dollars at work!

Part II is the heart of the book: a history of the American and international Left. Horowitz calls them Neo-Communists or Neocoms. The Neocoms of old believed in the Soviet Union the way religious people believe in God. Those who spied for the USSR didn't see themselves as traitors to their country, but rather loyalists to humanity and an ideal of America that's never existed. When the Soviet Union fell, a few of them stopped for some introspection but most pressed on as if nothing happened. Communist historian Eric Hobsbawm put it nicely: "Without the Revolution, my life and my work are meaningless."

Now that they no longer have to defend an indefensible regime, modern Neocoms are simply nihilists. They know what they oppose but they have no plans for the aftermath of the revolution which they still believe will happen. They don't know what they want, but they know what they hate: the United States, capitalism personified.

So why are they allying with radical Islam? Horowitz says that the Neocoms still believe in Marx's dictum that "religion is the opiate of the masses." Once private property is abolished, the need for religion will vanish, and Islamic radicals will stop being Islamic and radical. The only thing standing in the way is the United States.

Sound insane? It is. They are. I highly recommend this book. Horowitz makes the insanity understandable.

[Ernest_at_the_Beach]

I think we will see these points from many of our Leftist Congress Critters.

[muawiyah]

In order to make sense of these guys I abandoned the idea ages ago that there can be any truly meaningful subdivisions within the class of totalitarians. What that means as a practical matter, for example, is that the folks at the New York Times, the leadership of the Democratic party, and AlQaida need not be considered separately.

[Rome2000]

This article is obviously a knee jerk reaction by a liberal Bush hater but the idea that a couple of Haitians from Liberty City could blow up anything is pretty far fetched.

These guys are lucky if they can get their brown Toyota Corolla started in the morning so they can drive 50mph in the fast lane on I95 on their way to the jobsite.

This whole episode makes the feds look ridiculous.

[Sometimes A River]

Once Islam becomes involved, all bets are off.

Remember, John Mohammed thought he was doing Jihad, and he wreaked havoc for a couple of weeks in a very large area.

And that guy probably has a hard time putting his pants on front side forward.

[DemforBush]

"Liberty City was the scene of riots that broke out in 1980 after the acquittal of white police officers for the beating death of a black motorist."


And exactly how is a 30 year old, unrelated crime relevent?

What a bunch of morons.

[hsalaw]

One of their crimes, according to the FBI’s deputy director, John Pistole, was that the Seas of David “did not believe the United States government had legal authority over them.”

Well, contrary to the sneering scepticism of the article, I see this as a little bit of a problem. Maybe they'd like to be pushed out to international waters in a rowboat. Then nobody would have "legal authority" over them.

[Richard Axtell]

Note all the false distortions intended to blacken the image of the US government. The authors aren't too worried about readers checking up on their rather altered facts. For instance...

"What is highly noteworthy is that the federal government decided to intervene in this situation to concoct a phony Al Qaeda connection and trumped up “terror plot.”

All the reports I have seen have been matter of fact about the basic "entrapment" of these wanabees, and have assured everyone that there was NO Al Qaida contact, and NO threat of any terrorist actions from these people, as they were caught in the earliest stages of a rather improbable conspiracy anyway. Commies just can't let the truth do their talking, they are by nature incapable of it. They fear that their readers might come away with a different interpretation, if just the facts of a story were printed, so they tell you what to think about it to fix that problem.

[OldFriend]

May I repeat an earlier post.

The '93 WTC bombers were under surveillance by the FBI. They were known to be cooking up bombs in a garage in Queens, NY

For some unknown reason the head of the task force determined that these men were harmless and called off the surveillance.

Only by the grace of G-D did the bomb laden van not bring down the tower that day.

The authorities knew immediately who had done the deed. The story about Kallstrom just happening to find the vin # in the debris is so much bull.

When the police went to the retal company there they were, trying to get their rental fee back by saying their van had been stolen.

The FBI agent who called off the surveillance was fired from the FBI...he was hired by Christie Whitman as the Superintendent of Police for NJ

The entire story stinks to high heaven and there is much much more to the story than we can know.

Perhaps some peole would rather have waited until these miscreants in Florida had built their bomb and were ready to destroy the building and the people inside.........

[oyez]

young working-class men

Correction: young non-working-class men.

Give me a break.

Its a new proletariat. Non-workers of the world unite!

[holden]

It is hardly surprising for someone living in Liberty City to hate the poverty and oppression that prevail there, or for Haitian immigrants to despise the imprisonment and repression that Washington metes out to those attempting to escape the brutal conditions imposed by US imperialism upon their homeland.

Gee, good to know the author(s) aren't biased! < /s >

HF

[Copernicus]

With all due respect, the FBI may have created another one of their famous cluster foxtrots in this case.

At least these guys did not have the faceless Lon Horiuchi take up position with his Remington 700.

Of course, it is always possible they will end up at Club Gitmo as declared "enemy combatants"

Realistically, it sounds like a bunch of homeboys concocted a scheme to shake down 50 grand from the Arabs.

How that would have worked out is anyone's guess.

Best regards,

[greccogirl]

U.S. Imperialism against Haiti? Sometimes I think the people that sprout this stuff are certifiably insane.