Something about the story of the “Miami Seven”, who were allegedly plotting to blow up the Sears Tower in Chicago, always stunk to me. Here you have a bunch of guys without a nickel to rub between them and without the expertise to pull of an attack being treated like some national security threat.

Now, obviously, you have seven people who, collectively, are not that bright. They supposedly vowed allegiance to al Quaeda. But, beyond that, this all seems flimsy. For example, check out the following excerpt from MSNBC.com:

Prosecutors say they discussed blowing up the Sears Tower and destroying FBI offices and other buildings in Miami, Los Angeles, New York, Chicago and Washington. Authorities have said their purported plot never moved beyond the preliminary stages and the group never possessed explosives or other weapons to carry it out, but insist the men were serious about their intentions.

But, even more interesting is the following:

Members of the group would often go paintball shooting as a form of military training, and once used a U.S. flag for target practice, defendant Burson Augustin, 22, told the FBI.

In other words, they didn’t have real guns to train with so, they used paintball guns. Anybody else questioning whether or not these guys were for real or just a bunch of dudes trying to be tough? I think that there are some real terrorist threats in the country, both domestic and foreign, but hyping up cases like this makes me question if we are serious about battling terrorism or if it’s more like our war on drugs — just occasionally bust a few people to make it seem like something is really being done and keep you political office for another term. I really believe that the latter is true.

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