Safer Than We Thought

These days, everyone in America is presumed guilty until proved innocent, of course. Even so, you have to admit the Justice Department's much-ballyhooed coordinated press conferences in Washington and Miami touting the indictment of "Brother Naz," "Brother Rot," and five other south Florida weirdos was way over the top.

The thing you have to know is that Florida is overflowing with crackpots, screwballs, fruitcakes, and assorted whackos. Gravity sucks them down here. Most fall all the way to Miami.

As Time Magazine describes it, these guys were "behaving more like a Hollywood B-movie version of terrorists than the real thing." According to the U.S. government's indictment --

• The alleged terrorists needed shoes -- so they measured their feet and gave the FBI's undercover agent a list of shoe sizes, and the FBI filled the order (para 5, 6).
  
• It looks like one of them had a junk car in such bad shape the FBI had to give him a lift to Islamorada so he could meet another "co-conspirator" (para. 8).
  
• These yokels couldn't afford a digital camera -- so the FBI gave them one for free (para 17).
  
• They didn't have wheels or the cash to rent them, so the FBI drove them around Miami to take photos of federal buildings (para 18-20).
  
• When the in-camera storage capacity was exceeded after taking a handful of pictures (and we'll bet the defendants were eager to skedaddle so they could sell the thing) the FBI bought them a memory chip to increase the camera's capacity and take more pictures (para. 21).

Then there's this "allegation" about how the conspiracy was "furthered":

On or about May 24, 2006, Narseal Batiste [aka "Brother Naz"] told the [fake FBI] "al Quaeda representative" that he was experiencing delays because of various problems within his organization, but that he wanted to continue his mission and maintain his relationship with al Qaeda."

Hell, yes, he wanted to maintain that "relationship." Free boots? New digital cameras? Digital camera chips? Sure beats schlepping bottles of shampoo and hair grease on the streets of Miami.

FBI Deputy Director John Pistole told the international media at his Washington press conference, "Their goal was simple: Commit attacks against America."

Simple it may have been, but has it occurred to the FBI the real goal was to score some free shit off city suckers?

Even the FBI admits these guys were "more aspirational than operational." Carl Hiassen should sue the Justice Department for copyright infringement. It looks like they've stolen some of his best characters.

If the Attorney General of the United States and the Deputy Director of the FBI have nothing more important to do on the homeland security front than spend six months acting as agents provocateur and then hold two national press conferences about the arrest of seven pathetic, Bible-thumping Miami con artists trying to run a penny-ante scam, we should all relax: we must be a lot safer than we thought.