The Freedom Tower

The media farce over the deadly sins of the alleged Miami seven terrorists whose crimes we are now told were “more aspirational than operational, according to the FBI have drawn parallels that range from the “Gang that Couldn’t Shoot Straight,” to a recent trend among contemporary Irish-American writers.

Hell, aspiriational must be one of those Justice Department words because it isn’t an English word, never mind a criminal act unless, they’re trying to find a clever way of spelling the entrapment or morons down south.

“The new face of the terrorist enemy in America, Attorney General Alberto Gonzales conceded that the men had no weapons or explosives and represented “no immediate threat,” Writes Robert parry in commentary for the Baltimore Chronicle “But Gonzales warned that these kinds of homegrown terrorists “may prove to be as dangerous as groups like al-Qaeda.” [NYT, June 24, 2006] For longtime observers of political terrorism in South Florida, the aggressive reaction to what may have been the Miami group’s loose talk about violence, possibly spurred by an FBI informant posing as an al-Qaeda operative. We reported the arrests of the Miami seven on this blog, a report that stemmed from a news conference in which the lead prosecutor touted the action as a major action to thwart a threat to our Homeland Security, the latest oxymoron in the American lexicon.

A visit to any local barbershop in the Miami neighborhood where the Miami seven were known widely as local losers, might have spared the FBI and the nation this latest assault on our intelligence. Agents who swooped down and arrested the Miami seven, must now figure out if the men were actually capable of mounting attacks. Several sources described them as homegrown wannabes with no known connection to foreign terrorists. No explosives or guns were found, sources told the Miami Hearld. What was Gonzales and his gang thinking, or more precisely, not thinking.

Professor Ed Hagan, a literary scholar at Western Connecticut State University in the English Department, offered some insight to a growing credibility problem the Bush administration and their gangs have had with not been able to shoot straight when it comes to the facts since the start of the Iraq war. What is happening in Washington and American on this front reminds Dr. Hagan of a recent trend he had noticed in the novels of many contemporary Irish-American novelists. The way the world is tending, Hagan said, America and the world can no longer absorb the details of so many real tragedies, so the farce is the only way left for us to understand what is happening to us.

Well Gonzales and his boys certainly seem ready willing and able to provide us with all the fodder any budding novelist will need, if Jon Stewart and his gang on Comedy Central doesn’t beat them to the punch line.