The Sears Tower Terrorist Plot: A Racial Tie In? (UPDATED)
Booker Rising (one of TMV’s favorite centrist sites) has an intriguing post by Shay who notes in part:
Seven men concocted a terrorist plot to “kill all the devils we can” – starting by blowing up Chicago’s Sears Tower in the name of Al Qaeda – according to charges in a federal indictment…(That) devil language sounds oh-so-Nation of Islam-ish. Now Arab Muslim jihadists like Al Qaeda have black folks trying to do their dirty work for them. I guess the fact that Chicago – my hometown – is 40% black meant nothing to them. Nice going, “brothas”.
Make sure you read the comments under the post, which explores this issue a bit more. Read the whole post and comments section.
It’s a touchy issue, yet an issue that (if it is a valid one) can be subtly thrown out there and linger. All of this is indicative of how far the country has fallen in what citizens think government really means; when government opens up its mouth these days, many people of all political ideologies want to say “yeah, right.”
As the always-thoughtful Shay suggests, Al Qaeda can do its dirty work by finding home-grown American surrogates. The debate will go on as to whether these roped-in guys were wannabes or real surrogates-in-the-making. But the issue is out there. Meanwhile, the key political tidbits to watch in an election year will be:
(1) Whether it pans out that this was a legit threat or something thrown out because the elections are drawing near. Americans of all parties need to ask themselves why it seems that over the past few years some key threats or talk about threats surfaced around summer, right before November elections. Is this truly coincidence? Because terrorists get more active near election time? Or is there political manipulation? (The counter question becomes: are charges that it’s manipulation indicative of massive political paranoia?) The question has been raised by the Left and it’s a legitimate one. If we suddenly see a spate of terrorism-related threat announcements and stories the closer we get to November, it will become even more legitimate. Is the timing all happenstance? The next few months are worth watching (particularly August/September/Oct)….as are the months after an election to see if the threats are still being reported or have seemingly vanished.
(2) Whether there is any kind of overt or covert suggestion that any specific ethnic group is connected or cooperating with Islamic terrorists (it could be any group, although it’s probably not going to involve many Jewish organizations at this point — but then, some will say THEY control the media and blogs such as this). In fairness to the government, yours truly doesn’t see any of that on the terrorism issue and those who say that talking about Islam and terrorism is racist are practicing the Ultimate PC. Sorry: we don’t see many of bin Laden’s followers baptizing their kids or bar mitzvahing them. But send us a link if you see a story on that.
The tragedy is that these days people look at the terrorism issue and many consider it politicized. Even if not true, it’s a tragedy. The stakes are too high for all Americans. We get emails all the time asking us to do posts on why it is that the terrorism threats, color codes, etc., revelations seem to come around summer, right before elections (if you remember, that’s when the clamor for going to war about Iraq came up as well).
Why is government believability on terrorism news being 100 percent valid without any political motives imporant? Because, after 911, there was incredible and genuine American unity. If a similar tragedy happens again, calls for unity by administration leaders may generate some skeptical raised eyebrows instead of a unified nation with stiffened backbones.
UPDATE: Time Magazine looks at whether this threat should be taken lightly or not.
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11 Responses to “The Sears Tower Terrorist Plot: A Racial Tie In? (UPDATED)”
Hey baby, once you get busted lying, there goes your credibility.
A passion for declaring everything…and I do mean everything secret doesn’t help.
Occams razor baby, occams razor.
As a bunch of wingnuts once said (but didn’t really believe), charactor matters.
I agree that the extent to which this to me fairly minor operation has been ballyhooed is interesting. However, Joe, there’s an explanation for that other than political machinations by the Bush Administration. The FBI itself may be overhyping the story for much the same reasons as your local police department touting speeding tickets issued as the murder rate rises.
I think it is fairly obvious, now, when you add this incident (or non-incident) to the Oklahoma City bombing, that the two most dangerous groups are white Americans and black Americans.
I say we round ‘em all up and put ‘em in camps. Let the Asian-Americans, Native Americans, and Hispanics run the country for awhile.
They couldn’t do any worse.
yeah, this whole Sears Tower threat doesn’t seem to really be sticking. Not at this point.
When i say the mugshots of the guys who got busted and realized they are black i thought, “Oh lordy, here we go again. nothing fires up the GOP like gays and blacks.”
As the guy on CNN said: “This is a prime opportunity to build a defense base on entrapment”. Oh what a way to divide the nation on racial lines to add to the completely polarized political division we now injoy. I can hear faux news and talk radio even now.
Looks like the FBI went out and rounded up boyz 2 men’s bastard cousins
Holy crap..they busted a clown show. The asked the informant to provide them with guns, vehicals, explosives, and uniforms?
Did the AQ spring line come out? Why was I not told?
And is there bling acessories with those cammies?
Smells as bad as the Detroit terror cell prosecution. I wonder how much the informant was payed or if he acted as in informat to avoid charges against himself. The media came out screaming “Black Muslim”, I have yet to hear what NOI or mosque these associated with these wackos. The prosecutor in Detroit is in trouble for his actions, I am waitng to hear more detail on the informant.
Soon as I heard this story come out I had a funny feeling. Karl’s off the hook with the grand jury, and BAM! we got our first terror threat of the year. Smells like the lobster tank, at the local grocery store to me.
Could it be that there are an uncountable unknown number of U S Citizens, including U S Black’s that joined the Islamic faith are just plain fed up with the crap going on in our nation, and stricking out, striking back, no matter how stupid or illogical it is against U S corporations and government.
Instant condemnation and retaliation, in every imaginable form, seems to be the name of the game anymore and the first things that comes to mind in many people and such in this issue is just a step or two higher on the stupid/illogical scale from “road rage.”
Do I get pissed when someone going 80 miles an hour cuts me off on the freeway? You bet I do…just like most people do….but only for a moment.
I know myself and know I have a temper that turned violent more than once in my life. So I don’t try to retaliate against that other driver because over the years I’ve managed to adjusted myself with reason and thinking…and some bit of assumption that keeps me sane.
I assume the person that just cut me off, as illogical and stupid it may seem to me, could be a person acting in panic because he/she was just notified and is on the way to a hospital because another road raged person shot his/her family member and is near death.
In this same manner I will keep my opinions in reservation and not suppose or prejudge a thing about these “Black Muslims” and let law, law enforcement, and the judicial system run its course.
My two cents worth would mean zip at any rate.
I hope this story is just the FBI being overzealous with our safety. But I am cynical about anything that the Bush administarion touches, I wonder what shade of “Islamo-Clown-Orange” this threat would be. If the FBI source was an infiltator who observed the cult and not a “paid ?” informant you posed as AQ, I would believe that this was a serious group. Sounded more like a group who could even buy good boots. Maybe the Black Hebrew Mossad was involved (sorry tin foil snark!!) in the infiltration.