Chancelucky

Friday, June 23, 2006

Would it be Wrong of Me to Ask Why Now? (Miami Terrorist Arrests)


First, I want to make clear that if there were a terrorist cell of any kind, I’m very glad and grateful that our government has the capacity to find it and break it up.  Now that I’ve said it, I have to bring up some of the peculiar aspects of this most recent arrest.  First, five of the suspects are American citizens.  Second, while they may have tried to contact Al Qaeda, it doesn’t appear that any of the seven are Moslem.  The local Mosques deny that any of these men were members of the Moslem community.  Third, they didn’t have any weapons or explosives.  

For those advocating profiling of terror suspects, these facts pose a few problems.  First, it’s one thing if those living outside the United States allegedly hate the United States and freedom and democracy so much that they want to kill us.  What am I supposed to make of the fact that five Americans are angry or crazy enough to plot to blow up the Sears Tower?  They also don’t simply appear to be thugs or at least not simple ones.  One of the reports suggests that members of this group were actively involved in providing food and clothes for the poorest people in perhaps the most impoverished area of Miami, Liberty City. I guess I shouldn't mention that Congress recently refused to raise the Federal minimum wage from 5.15/hour.   

The party line has been that terrorists are jealous of America, so they want to blow us up.  The actual terrorists who have gone to trial have tended to be individuals like Moussaoui and Richard Reid who managed in any number of ways to appear too insane to be a reliable part of an intricate plot that would call for months of secrecy, careful planning, and demand that a number of elements of the plot be executed competently.  In fact, the closest this group appears to have gotten to Al Qaeda was to contact an FBI undercover agent posing as an Al Qaeda operative.  This is the biggest domestic terrorist arrest in two years?  With all due respect to the fine agents who worked this case, if this is the most tangible evidence of the effectiveness of the Department of Homeland Security and terrorism is that real and big a threat here….well you castch my drift….

I pair this with Rick Santorum and Peter Hoekstra’s announcement of intelligence data of the 500 WMD found in Iraq.  It turns out that they were found in 2004 and it’s 500 shell casings that may have contained sarin and/or mustard gas from before the 1991 war.  In other words, they’re not proof that Saddam had an active WMD program of any kind on the eve of the war.  Or that’s the best you’ve got after three years of occupation to show that Saddam was an imminent threat?

Can I ask a question?   Why don’t either of these news items make me feel either safer or more confident in the people running this country?  





6 Comments:

At 6/24/2006 07:05:00 AM, Anonymous Anonymous said...

What is funny is that this week a court told the government that they need to produce more evidence on Jose Padilla. It is like they are going to try anything to make arrests just so they look good.

I heard another interesting argument yesterday about this. Aren't we suppose to be fighting them over there so we don't have to fight them here? If these guys were truley wanting to plan something then I guess we are fighting them here now.

 
At 6/24/2006 10:55:00 AM, Blogger Chancelucky said...

Jamie,
yes, I agree. The flypaper may not be working.. I know that real flypaper doesn't elminate flies at all if you don't get rid of things that attract flies in the first place. The administration's domestic policies are doing lots of things that will create flies at home. Chancelucky: The Mysteries of Flypaper

 
At 6/24/2006 05:38:00 PM, Anonymous Anonymous said...

Obviously you people don't know when to be scared out of your socks. This was clearly Our Government at its finest. I feel so safe now whereas before I stayed up all night huddled in the corner with my false teeth chattering.

You can tell that this was a group of desperadoes who imperiled the American Way of Life. They were trying to raise an army after all.

 
At 6/25/2006 07:11:00 PM, Blogger Chancelucky said...

I noticed that one of the headlines suddenly changed from trying to raise an "Islamic" army to just trying to raise an "army".

One of those little things that makes me wonder how complicit the press is in some of this at times.

 
At 6/26/2006 01:02:00 AM, Anonymous Anonymous said...

We're not even a serious country any more, CL. We used to be able to at least pretend we were a beacon, but we are just drunkenly and recklessly squandering credibility, shreds of nobility, vast sums of money. Mr. Bush has projected-manifested his old profligate, whiskey-bum habits on the country as a whole. If you ain't really scared, y'ain't been payin' attention.

When I look in our national GuantanAbuGHalliburtoNoHealthInsurKatrIraq Mirror, I shudder.

 
At 6/26/2006 06:18:00 PM, Blogger Chancelucky said...

I loved the distinction Tony Snow made today between Democrats looking for a withdrawal plan from Iraq and the Pentagon actually proposing one to the White House.
I just can't imagine having a serious discussion in that sort of frame.

 

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