CNN reports that seven Miami-based men “concocted a plot to ‘kill all the devils we can,’ starting by blowing up Chicago’s Sears Tower, according to charges in a federal indictment revealed Friday.”
It transpires that this information was elicited by an “FBI operative posing as a member of the terrorist network.”
I watched the sister of one of the suspects enter “The Situation Room” with Wolf Blitzer. The woman, bless her, was illiterate and probably borderline retarded. Let me tell you something: If American schools are producing the likes of this poor woman, homegrown retardation is more urgent a problem than homegrown terrorism.
Entrapment is equally worrisome. If the woman’s brother, also one of the accused, is as simple as she, then a wily and intelligent FBI agent could have a field day leading him on. The FBI is supposed to uncover existing plots, not help develop them by leading on a bunch of very simple, if unsavory, characters.
Rich Lowry has compared the hapless Miami bunch to Timothy McVeigh, who, according to Lowry, was also not very bright. This is a manifestly unperceptive observation. McVeigh was certainly intelligent. Read the interview he gave TIME and tell me it doesn’t reflect considerable intelligence. Read the interview the sister of the terror suspect gave Blitzer and tell me it doesn’t reflect extremely poor cognitive skills.
Compare this:
Asked by TIME magazine who were his favorite authors of political philosophy, McVeigh said:
“Patrick Henry, John Locke, of course many of the Founding Fathers: George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, Benjamin Franklin, John Adams, Samuel Adams. I thought those men were, at the time they were extremely well-educated. They could talk us in circles these days, we wouldn’t know what they were talking about. I really respected their observations and analyses of history past.”
To this:
Asked by Blitzer about her terror-suspect brother, Marlene Phanor said:
“Actually, he’s, um, he was, he was working and he got into this group and they started going to church, trying to help the community. But the guy, the leader, I never know where he came from, who he was. Actually, my brother and them don’t even know where he come from. But he came positive for them. He came to them where he can help them and help the community and humble their minds and humble their souls and everything.”
Morality aside, a couple of IQ standard-deviation points separate these two. To compare McVeigh’s intelligence to the likes of Phanor is a little strained, to say the least.
Provided the sister doesn’t represent a genetic anomaly (and her accused brother and his associates are bright), I’ll repeat my contention: it would have been easy for the FBI to ensnare this group.