Post by peterd on Jul 3, 2006 12:27:47 GMT -8
Here is an interesting article from Time magazine.
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Were the consequences of underestimating terrorists neither so grave nor so fresh, it would be tempting to look at the seven men indicted on conspiracy charges for plotting to blow up the Sears Tower and laugh. Not so much at the suspects--five American citizens, a legal immigrant from Haiti and an illegal Haitian national, all of whose hardscrabble bios make them seem more sad than sinister--but at those who considered them a real threat to wage, as Attorney General Alberto Gonzales put it, "a full ground war against the United States." FBI deputy director John Pistole conceded that the men, part of a Miami group called Seas of David, were "more aspirational than operational," and its aspirations reeked of ineptitude. When alleged ringleader Narseal Batiste, 32, presented an FBI informant he thought was an al-Qaeda operative with a list of materials necessary for jihad, it did not include explosives. Instead Batiste asked for $50,000, radios, uniforms and steel-toed boots. Was the plan to blow the Sears Tower up or kick it down?
Time Magazine
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Were the consequences of underestimating terrorists neither so grave nor so fresh, it would be tempting to look at the seven men indicted on conspiracy charges for plotting to blow up the Sears Tower and laugh. Not so much at the suspects--five American citizens, a legal immigrant from Haiti and an illegal Haitian national, all of whose hardscrabble bios make them seem more sad than sinister--but at those who considered them a real threat to wage, as Attorney General Alberto Gonzales put it, "a full ground war against the United States." FBI deputy director John Pistole conceded that the men, part of a Miami group called Seas of David, were "more aspirational than operational," and its aspirations reeked of ineptitude. When alleged ringleader Narseal Batiste, 32, presented an FBI informant he thought was an al-Qaeda operative with a list of materials necessary for jihad, it did not include explosives. Instead Batiste asked for $50,000, radios, uniforms and steel-toed boots. Was the plan to blow the Sears Tower up or kick it down?
Time Magazine
