The Miami indictments: Manufacturing “terror” as a means of intimidation

[IndianaGreen]

The Miami indictments: Manufacturing “terror” as a means of intimidation

By Bill Van Auken
28 June 2006

Within 48 hours of the US Justice Department’s startling announcement Friday of the round-up of a “home-grown” terrorist cell in Miami, the media had all but dropped the story.

Its initial response, particularly that of the broadcast news outlets, was to amplify the government’s lurid charges, warning of a conspiracy “even worse than September 11,” including a supposed plot to blow up the nation’s tallest building, the Sears Tower in Chicago. The television news channels carried live shots of the building, as if hijacked airplanes were about to plow into them.

As details of the supposed plot and the identity of the alleged conspirators came more sharply into focus, however, the media backed away. Not only was the Chicago skyscraper in no danger, there also existed no plot, much less the means of carrying one out. The entire government case was so manifestly bogus that not even the right-wing fabulists at Fox News could sustain it.

Nevertheless, the initial sensationalism and fear-mongering had an effect. By the time public defenders were appointed for the seven men indicted in the case, the attorneys’ protests that their clients were victims of blatant government entrapment received a minute fraction of the attention given the government’s “terror” charges at the outset.

http://www.wsws.org/articles/2006/jun2006/miam-j28.shtml

[HysteryDiagnosis]

1. If you have a bomb..... or if you are thinking about getting/making

a bomb..... but you don't have an air force..... you could be a terrorist.

[Judi Lynn]

2. Bush and Gonzalez couldn't have chosen anyone less likely

to wreak havoc in this country:

Posted on Tue, Jun. 27, 2006
LIBERTY CITY
Accused terror plot leader was once a Guardian Angel

The alleged ringleader of the Miami gang that authorities say wanted to blow up Chicago's Sears Tower grew up in a family of ministers and volunteered for a time as a Guardian Angel, family members say.

BY CHARLES RABIN AND SUSANNAH A. NESMITH
[e-mail]

PETER ANDREW BOSCH / MIAMI HERALD STAFF
FEDERAL FORCE: Agents swooped down on a warehouse in Liberty City last week and arrested several men accused of planning terrorist acts, including alleged ringleader Narseal Batiste. No explosives or weapons were found.

As a child, his life was orderly, some close to him say, full of music and art and religion in big-city Chicago, and on a rolling, animal-filled farm near a tiny town in Louisiana.

In his teens, Narseal Batiste wore a red beret, his father said, riding trains and buses in Chicago as a member of the Guardian Angels, the volunteer group that does public-safety patrols in several cities.
(snip)

A Bible, a saxophone and a drawing board were always near. In elementary school in Marksville, Narseal Batiste would model clothing at a local mall, his father said. In high school he played the sax and drew prints.

''We use to take him out on Lake Michigan when the sun was rising. He would draw the reflections,'' Narcisse Batiste said.

The Morning Star Worship Center, a little nondenominational church on the family farm, had once been the home of Narcisse Batiste's parents. He said his mother's deathbed wish was to resurrect it, so he did. Today, Narcisse Batiste has seven parishioners. Like their father, three of Narcisse Batiste's children are ministers. So was Narseal's mother.

Narseal Batiste always carried a Bible, his dad said.
(snip/...)

http://www.miami.com/mld/miamiherald/14908435.htm

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They are expected to appear Friday before a judge to determine whether or not they can be released on bond before the trial.