Tall stories: The plot to topple Chicago's Sears Tower was not all that it

[lindisfarne]

Tall stories: The plot to topple Chicago's Sears Tower was not all that it seemed
The plan uncovered by the FBI last week proved little more than wishful thinking. But could it be a sign of worse to come? By Rupert Cornwell
Published: 25 June 2006
http://news.independent.co.uk/world/americas/article1096208.ece

The alarming news flashed across America's TV screens on Thursday evening: government agents had thwarted an al-Qa'ida plot, using home-grown American terrorists, to blow up the Sears Tower in Chicago in a ghastly repeat of 9/11.

When the dust had settled barely 24 hours later, a rather more modest version of events had emerged. The seven young black men arrested at a warehouse in Miami and Atlanta had never been in touch with al-Qa'ida, and had no explosives. Their "plan" to destroy America's tallest building was little more than wishful thinking, expressed by one of them to an FBI informant purporting to be a member of Osama bin Laden's terrorist organisation.

Even the FBI admitted as much. John Pistole, the bureau's deputy director, described the plan on Friday as "aspirational rather than operational" and admitted that none of the seven (five US citizens and two Haitian immigrants) had ever featured on a terrorist watch list.

In essence, the entire case rests upon conversations between Narseal Baptiste, the apparent ringleader of the group, with the informant, who was posing as a member of al-Qa'ida but in fact belonged to the South Florida Terrorist Task Force.

At a meeting "on or about 16 December" according to the indictment made public as the men made their first court appearance in Miami, Mr Baptiste asked his contact to supply equipment including uniforms, machine guns, explosives, cars and $50,000 in cash for an "Islamic Army" that would carry out a mission "just as good or greater than 9/11".
<snip>

[cornermouse]

1. Other things not all they were cracked up to be:

The Canadian plot that, what 10 or 12 people could storm the Parliament, capture the Canadian Prime Minister, hold off the Royal Canadian Mounted Police, SWAT teams, and military till they could behead the Canadian Prime Minister and do whatever else they thought they wanted to. It seemed to me that neither the "so-called" terrorists and police were thinking clearly on this one.

I'm going to take a wild shot in the dark here and guess that the real terrorists wouldn't have anything to do with either of these groups of would-be terrorists.

[xchrom]

3. lol -- i think your wild shot would hit a bullseye.

[LostinVA]

6. My mom said that to me last night

That the Boy Scouts wouldn't get involved with these people, let alone AQ!

[smaug]

7. Uniforms?

Narseal Baptiste sounds like a wanna-be Mussolini or Franco, using a home made religion as his tool (shades of super leg presser Pat Robertson). In my personal opinion, this deluded individual belongs in a mental institution instead of a federal prison. If the Bush-swooned crackheads in the US-RETHUG controlled media took a look, they would begin to figure out that this is part of the ReTHUG Rovian 2006 campaign strategy. Unfortunately, because the right-wing Bush-Butts-Kissers can't be bothered to look behind the curtain (horrors! voters might think in the polling place!) we won't find out from our press, but the British press (who've become very suspicious of these arrests, the ones in Canada, and the preceding arrests in London).

"Details matter."

[CJCRANE]

12. ..or the London raid

involving 250 police officers to arrest two men (one of whom was shot), based on a tip-off from an MI5 informant with an IQ of 69.

[cornermouse]

13. That too.

[bklyncowgirl]

14. Good suicide bombers are hard to find.

Remember the guy who tried to blow up the World Trade Center the first time and tried to get his deposit back on the rental van that carried the explosives. The FBI broke that case in record time thanks to this guy's stupidity.

I have a feeling, though, that Al Queda and its affiliates have gotten alot smarter and very wary of these wannabes. I also wonder if these clowns thought they could scam some Arabs out of the $50,000.

[TheCowsCameHome]

2. Maybe they meant topple a dumpster off a Sears loading dock.

These clowns couldn't even afford a good haircut and a bath.

[itzamirakul]

4. If these guys were ambitious enough to have plans to destroy the

Sears Tower, seems to me they would have had enough ambition to move themselves and their families out of the slums and ghettos they seem to be living in.

What kind of army can you build for $50,000? Hell, one of our mercenary contractors in Iraq earns that amount in a month or two.

To call these men "Americans" without disclosing how long their families had lived in America and how much American history (especially black history) they had studied has a lot to do with the way these men would think.

I personally think that the informant was like a police officer who had been told by his boss that he must issue a ceertain number of traffic and parking tickets. This informant probably had not found any real terrorists so he helped "make up" a gang. It would be comical if it wasn't so stupid.

Edit: typo

[kurth]

5. But our Attorney General said they were DANGEROUS!!!

If Alberto "Speedy" Gonzales said it, it's true, ya know...

[marmar]

8. And why isn't this type of follow-up everywhere in the U.S. media?

I so wish we had an "Independent"-type publication in the U.S. (I guess there's The Nation, but it's a weekly newsmagazine with a limited, like-minded audience). Thank goodness for the Internet and the blogosphere.

[iamahaingttta]

9. Just a bunch of idiots...

...trying to act like "Fight Club."

[havocmom]

10. Question for folks in Chicago: How's Sears Tower doing financially?

Would the owners be making more dough with a newer, taller, posher building on the same piece of ground?

Saw one of the owners of the WTC, a year or so ago, state those buildings had never lived up to the financial expectations the investors had for them. There were plans in the works to replace them with buildings which would bring in more income.

So, how do the folks cashing rent checks from Sears Tower occupant feel about their income? They thinking it could be more, if only things were tweaked?

[elehhhhna]

11. Dunno, but would YOU rent there?

I wouldn't. It's the BA's favorite target.

[IndianaGreen]

17. Isn't the Sears Tower owned by Silverstein of WTC?

and hasn't he made a fortune out of insurance settlements on his properties?

[Lindacooks]

15. Well, since everything this misadministration says is a lie...

I'm not surprised.

[dogman]

16. Entrapment?

For both the group and the public. Who picked the target? Possibly the informant. Citizens of Chicago haven't really fallen under the Bushco "security" spell. Maybe this was intended to get their attention. How many times have groups, that could not be taken as credible, been under the direction of Fed informants?

[catmother]

18. almost looked like they took some of the script from the

showtime special "sleeper cell".