the.crooked Posted June 24, 2006 Share Posted June 24, 2006 Great article. what a fucked up time to be in this country it is a little long and one sided, but yeah, its good. raises some very valid points. Miami “terror” arrests—a government provocation Sun, 2006-06-25 01:49 By Bill Van Auken – World Socialist Web Site 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. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Smart Posted June 25, 2006 Share Posted June 25, 2006 Setup. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
the.crooked Posted June 25, 2006 Author Share Posted June 25, 2006 Smart, I posted a really good article bout this. i say consolidate and close one of em. your choice. see- Great Article Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
lord_casek Posted June 25, 2006 Share Posted June 25, 2006 yes, obvious setup./ Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Smart Posted June 25, 2006 Share Posted June 25, 2006 Smart... see- Great Article Yeah, I read that off the wire. Not really sure I want to endorse the Socialists just to condem the Repulicans. They are correct about the core lack of evidence but, as much as they decry the western press is overplaying some facts, they are underplaying facts. So... Skipping the obvious arguments about this as an isolated incident, perhaps this thread could compare/contrast the real differences between this US publicity stunt and Canada's ACTUAL preemptive strike on homegrown terror. Further, is it the fact that the 'joos and demicraps rule hollyweird' which makes it SO fucking hard for the Republicans to think up credible story lines and histories? This is all so 'Koresh' except the guys that got busted didn't have any guns or children in the compound or history of actual upheaval. I doubt this 'Seas' organization isn't even recognized as a gang by any of the miami/dade/lauderdale area police depts. Look, I'm not trying to be racist and I liked the Fugees but Haitians aren't worth shit! Here they come telling me a splinter group of Xian/Muslim Haitians are gonna plan a fucking picnic and I scream 'BULLSHIT!' And when is G-Dub gonna stop crapping in his brothers back yard? I'm pretty fed up with the feds fixing elections, over-ruling 20 years of in state lobbying efforts to prevent close in off-shore drilling and faking up terror plots in my jammy! So, I guess it's gonna be 2 threads. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
The Man with the Answers Posted June 25, 2006 Share Posted June 25, 2006 yeah this shit is overblown... its just a bunch of wierdo black hatian dudes prob no worse than dawood but 100 times more stupid and confused Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
the.crooked Posted June 25, 2006 Author Share Posted June 25, 2006 i think you missed the point man with the answers. these people were coerced into saying (if they even did) that they would like to blow something up. basically the entire thing was fabricated. the government knows full well how to manipulate people, so they did, and in this instance they arrested them for it. entrapments a bitch Smart- yeah, thats why i said in the other thread, that it is one sided. I was leary that it came from the socialists... but whatev. they are right on this one. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Smart Posted June 25, 2006 Share Posted June 25, 2006 Narcisse Batiste said his son was arrested in 1993 for breaking a car window. Something happened the next year, the dad said. A charismatic man - who wore a black robe and carried a walking stick, and whose identity he did not know - converted his son to a sect that mixed Islam, Christianity, Judaism and martial arts. +++ The father of the former Chicagoan accused of plotting to blow up the Sears Tower remembers his son, Narseal Batiste, coming under the spell of a man who wore a black robe and walked with a black staff. "We went to dinner with this old guy in Chicago about six years ago," said the Rev. Narcisse Batiste, a nondenominational Christian pastor. "He was teaching Narseal the Holy Quran bible. He said, 'Dad, I would like to study this, and he is teaching me.' I think the old guy has probably misdirected him or gave him bad advice." The identity of the man is a mystery. +++ THE ringleader of the seven men accused of plotting to blow up the Sears Tower in Chicago was a “Moses-like figure” who carried a crooked cane and wore a cape as he sought to recruit followers to a religious cult called the Seas of David. Narseal Batiste, 32, a martial arts enthusiast, led his oddball group of what he called “soldiers” seeking to wage a “full ground war” against America, according to charges brought last week. The father of four, known to his followers as Prinze Naz, sometimes wore a bathrobe when entering the shabby warehouse in Miami that FBI officials claim was the base of the would-be terrorists. +++ A close friend [of Batiste] said his teachings came from the Moorish Science Temple of America, an early 20th century religion founded by the Noble Drew Ali, a wandering African-American circus magician who claimed to have been raised by Cherokee Indians and to have learnt “high magic” in Egypt. Ali went on to style himself an “angel” and prophet of Allah. +++ Neighbours of the warehouse described it as "a military boot camp". "They would come out and stand guard. They seemed brainwashed. They said they had given their lives to Allah," said Tashawn Rose. Another neighbour said: "They dressed all in black, wrapping a turban-like cloth around their heads so that only their eyes were showing." +++ Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
the.crooked Posted June 25, 2006 Author Share Posted June 25, 2006 that is fucking rediculous... what a fantastical story. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Smart Posted June 25, 2006 Share Posted June 25, 2006 I find it sublimely appropriate that the church that these 'terrorists' claim to represent, which is understandably distancing itself from these men, was founded by a "circus magician"... too crazy for circus folk is a bad kind of crazy. Also, they were playing ninja in the hood but still nobody seems to have thought they were terrorists or much of a threat... well, except the FBI. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
CACashRefund Posted June 26, 2006 Share Posted June 26, 2006 theyre black case. closed. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
nino1 Posted June 26, 2006 Share Posted June 26, 2006 good looking on those article segments.. you did a good job of pointing out inconsistencies in the story.. ELECTION YEAR POLITICS AS USUAL. WHAT ABOUT THOSE FUCKING WEAPONS OF MASS DESTRUCTION? CAN I EVEN GET SOME CHEAP GAS??? i mean fucking seriously?? these guys didn't even have any guns, explosives, or concrete plan. of all the niggas in liberty city to set up they grab the 7 who don't even have a pistol??? 1. 9/11 2. Afghanistan 3. Iraq II (3 billion EVERY MONTH... its up to like the 200 billion mark now I think) 4. WMDS?? 4.5 ENRON?? (sorry about all those thousands of employees/stockholders who were planning on retiring, thought about suicide?) 5. illegal wiretaps 6. CIA leak -karl rove 7. KATRINA (1 building in New York(granted a tragedy of incredible proportion)= 10x$$$$ more than ENTIRE CITY OF NEWORLEANS???) 8. economy (fucking sucks) 9. militarized the border.. sorry mexico! 10. the list goes on and on and on ...... impeach all those crooks already but wait. dont forget. TERROR. and. GAY MARRIAGE. and ILLEGAL IMMIGRANTS. and.. wait.. what else am I supposed to be scared of? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Weapon X Posted June 27, 2006 Share Posted June 27, 2006 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
WORDISM45 Posted June 27, 2006 Share Posted June 27, 2006 good looking on those article segments.. you did a good job of pointing out inconsistencies in the story.. ELECTION YEAR POLITICS AS USUAL. WHAT ABOUT THOSE FUCKING WEAPONS OF MASS DESTRUCTION? CAN I EVEN GET SOME CHEAP GAS??? i mean fucking seriously?? these guys didn't even have any guns, explosives, or concrete plan. of all the niggas in liberty city to set up they grab the 7 who don't even have a pistol??? 1. 9/11 2. Afghanistan 3. Iraq II (3 billion EVERY MONTH... its up to like the 200 billion mark now I think) 4. WMDS?? 4.5 ENRON?? (sorry about all those thousands of employees/stockholders who were planning on retiring, thought about suicide?) 5. illegal wiretaps 6. CIA leak -karl rove 7. KATRINA (1 building in New York(granted a tragedy of incredible proportion)= 10x$$$$ more than ENTIRE CITY OF NEWORLEANS???) 8. economy (fucking sucks) 9. militarized the border.. sorry mexico! 10. the list goes on and on and on ...... impeach all those crooks already but wait. dont forget. TERROR. and. GAY MARRIAGE. and ILLEGAL IMMIGRANTS. and.. wait.. what else am I supposed to be scared of? excellent post Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
TheOh Posted July 1, 2006 Share Posted July 1, 2006 Re: Great article. wow. just wow. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
lord_casek Posted July 20, 2006 Share Posted July 20, 2006 http://cbs4.com/topstories/local_story_195154748.html hmm. an informant...... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Obvious Posted July 20, 2006 Share Posted July 20, 2006 lol. that's what i was thinking. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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