June 25, 2006
Seas of David
For the record, anyone who believed for a second that a group calling itself "Seas of David" was a violent Islamic fundamentalist group of the al-Qaeda family is officially too stupid to live. Josh Marshall fleshes out the real story here.
What was hinted at from the beginning is now more or less confirmed - these guys are basically low-grade whack jobs. Jim Henley has some pretty persuasive speculation on what, exactly, they were doing talking to an "al-Qaeda representative:"
You don’t suppose the Seas of David Cell was just trying to scam their “al-Qaeda contact” (FBI informant) out of a lot of cool shit, do you? Reading the indictment (pdf) is suggestive. We’re told that at their first meeting on December 16, the conspirators tell their “al Qaeda contact” that they want to build an “Islamic Army,” and would he please provide “boots, uniforms, machine guns, radios and vehicles” among other things. On December 22, Narseal Batiste sketches a grand vision of “wag[ing] war on the United States from within” - and then gives the “al Qaeda representative” everybody’s shoe sizes.[...]
Also on the 29th, they again “detail[] their plot to take down the United States, destroy the Sears Tower,” and submit another wish list of “necessary materials and equipment which included radios, binoculars, bullet proof vests, firearms, vehicles and $50,000 cash.”
Have you noticed that if explosives appeared on either wish list, the indictment hasn’t considered it worth mentioning?
Naturally, Vice President Cheney assures us they were a "very real threat." Slam dunk, even.
Posted by ben at June 25, 2006 04:48 AM