Miami Terror Plot

In case you haven't heard yet, a group of 7 'terrorists' have been charged for plotting to destroy the Sears Tower.  From the moment this story hit the pavement, it didn't make much sense.  Mostly because the terrorists were reported as being al Qaeda members, al Qaeda supporters, and completely detached from al Qaeda.  At first it seemed no one could make up their mind what they were, but in looking into this I found the indictment, which cleared up a few of the questions, it's on the Chicago Sun-Times' homepage (can't give a direct link since it's a java pop-up, it's also a PDF), and at findlaw.com (not a PDF).

In the indictment it states that the terrorists were not al Qaeda members, but were seeking support from al Qaeda.  In seeking al Qaeda support, they contacted an al Qaeda representative that was actually an undercover agent.  The terrorists pledged support for al Qaeda, and gave the agent a few shopping lists over time.  In the end, the terrorists recieved boots, body armor, radios, firearms, binocluars, a rental vehicle, a digital camera,  a memory card, and $50,000 cash.

Outside of the Sears Tower in Chicago, the terrorists were also plotting to destroy the FBI Building in North Miami Beach, and were conducting reconnaissance on the James Lawrence King Federal Justice Building, various federal courthouses, the Federal Detention Center, and the Miami Police Department all from the Miami-Dade area.  In all, there are 4 counts of conpiracy: 1. Conspiring with a foreign terrorist organization. 2. Conspiracy to comitt a crime. 3. Conspriacy to destroy a federal building, and a center of commerce. 4. Conspriacy to levy war against the USA.

Directly from the indictment:

Narseal Batiste told the [operative] that he wanted to attend al Qaeda training, along with five of his soldiers, during the second week of April and further detailed his mission to wage a "full ground war" against the United States in order to "kill all the devils we can," in a mission that would "be just as good or greater than 9/11," beginning with the destruction of the Sears Tower.

Hold up a sec, so we are to believe 7 terrorists (6 of which will be trained), were planning on waging a ground war against the US? A ground war?   Unless that was some hellacious body armor, something tells me they wouldn't get very far at all.  And this was supposed to be bigger than 9/11?  They didn't even order explosives, how were they going to blow up the Sears Tower?  I guess the case could be made that they hadn't gotten that far, but wouldn't you order the more hard to get items first, and leave the boots until later?  Boots are easy to come by, bomb parts are not.  I don't believe these guys were seriously a threat, if they were a threat, they would've made sure thier al Qaeda contact was really in al Qaeda, and not an operative from the US Government.  Terrorists are supposed to be smart, not a bunch of idiots.

This whole thing has sham written all over it, dumb terrorists are planning the biggest terror plot since 9/11 involving the Sears Tower and a number of federal buildings, and they don't even have bombs.  This is just a stunt (looks awfully close to entrapment)  performed on a group that may or may not have been seriously considering a terror attack, just to raise the level of fear across America.  We've become complacant with our lack of terror plots lately, so one had to be brewed up to make us afraid again.

Or was this generated to direct our attention away from this: AP -- US Gets Access to Worldwide Banking Data.  Rember our phone records, and how they claimed it was only international calls at first?  It wouldn't surprise me if this SWIFT system is also looking at domestic banking.