More than likely, though, these guys are never going to go to trial.  The administration is going to pull a Padilla with them. Or they are going to go to trial and we are going to be told that the evidence is classified.  As a "plot" it sounds pretty pathetic:

"Law enforcement sources told CNN that the arrests disrupted what may have been the early stages of a domestic terrorist plot to attack the Sears Tower in Chicago, Illinois, the FBI building in Miami, and possibly other targets."

Sounds pathetic.  Especially when the one leading the plot was an FBI agent.  No weapons found either.  

My thought: it's an election year and the Republican's war on terror policy needed some puffing up.  It's a bust of some ethnically challenged guys who can then disappear before the election to get the rightwing bloggers roiling and to start the rumor mill.  

Not to say that they didn't need watching.  Sleeping in a warehouse and standing guard at night.  Probably inspired by "Fight Club."  

 

-- Modified on 6/22/2006 8:04:13 PM

closer expect more of the same to scare the daylights out of the lemmings to keep them in power.OTOH,the congressional Dems are'nt doing a good job countering these fear tactics and allow the pubs to frame the debate as "stay the course or a timetable to bring the boys home"....instead of asking what are we doing and what we expect to accomplish there and how long will it take!

American politics now is the mendacious vs. the gutless.  It's terrible waiting for the Democratic politicians to gain a soul and some fire.  

Let's face it: they are almost as dependent on corporate donations as Republicans.  To put it simply, they are paid off and guaranteed a jobs to be weak.  If they go too pro-worker and pro-union, their funding will dry up.

Didn't the WTC topple because of 19 guys with knives and a couple of piloting lessons?  Wasn't the Oklahoma City bombing masterminded and executed by 2 or 3 good ol' boys without any money?  Doesn't it take only one 15 year old Palestinian boy with an explosive to kill dozens of Israelis?

These terrorists aren't criminal geniuses.  All it takes is the WILL to do it.  They obviously weren't going to topple the Sears Tower but they were plotting to obtain(easily) the same chemicals that made the OK City explosives.  How can you take such a cavalier approach?  When would you prefer us to capture them, when they are lighting the fuse?

we would have heard about them.  It does fly in the face of claims that the Bush administration has done anything really stopped any terrorists attacks.

However, I agree with you that they should at least be investigated.  I have said that all you need to have terrorists are two pissed off guys and some saltpeter.  I said it was arguable whether you even needed the saltpeter.  These guys didn't even have that.  

It's turning out, though, that they weren't even Islamic.  They were a local African-American cult that mixed Judaism, Christianity and a little Islam.  They wore black uniforms with a Star of David armpatch.  Not very Islamic.  

But they were willing to accept help from al-Qaeda nontheless.  For that alone they ought to be put on trial even if there are questions of entrapment, they were criminals.

They'd be a good thing, any way you look at it.

From how you are describing them they may be "Black Israelites".  Or maybe another extreme off- shoot from the Balck Muslims.  They are the guys you see preaching in the street about the impending "Revolution" and race wars.  Black Muslims and Nation of Isalm are different but they both share the same God and a hatred of the USA.

This does not prove anything about greater threats being thwarted.  The Bush admin will not report anything that may compromise anyone undercover or ongoing missions.  These guys got caught because they had a mini Al Quaeda training camp in their back yard.  A neighbor reported them and a very basic FBI sting took them down.  They weren't exactly calndestine and they had no other info to give us.  So reporting their capture to the press doesn't compromise anything.

This is proof of Al Qaeda weakening.  Most of their cells were broken up right after 9/11.  It seems like a bunch of "wannabes" with a loose affiliation (at best) are now trying to take up the war domestically.  Unfortunately, one of these  quassi-terrorists with a bomb is just as deangerous as Al Qaeda.