June 23, 2006 – 8:29 p.m.
One can only thrill to the sneer Kiefer Sutherland would have worked up over the mokes uncovered in the Miami “terrorist plot,” had it been presented to him in his role as Jack Bauer, counterterrorism superhero, in the weekly Fox thriller “24.”
“Leave it to DHS,” he would’ve snarled — if I were writing his lines.
Indeed, the FBI’s arrests of seven men in Miami on charges of planning to blow up the Sears Tower and other landmarks “in support of al Qaeda” didn’t seem worthy of all the hullabaloo Attorney General
“Knuckleheads,” a senior FBI official privately described them to me. Mokes, in cop slang.
Training in a warehouse in Liberty City, a poor part of Miami where everybody knows everybody’s business, with equipment supplied by the government’s undercover agent, the men seemed less “homegrown terrorists,” as Gonzales put it in a dramatic Washington press conference, than al Qaeda “wanna be’s,” as some headlines had it.
Even Gonzales had to admit “there was no immediate threat” from the group.
The collar was “probably not really the [kind of] case which would or should generate an AG press conference, but the administration needs some positive publicity now days,” said Harry B. “Skip” Brandon, a former FBI assistant deputy director for counterintelligence. “Good work by Miami, but don’t exactly put it up there with the big ones.”
Notably absent at the big splash was Homeland Security Secretary
Chertoff, as it turned out, was a block away from the Justice Department, speaking at a forum entitled, “ ‘24’ and America’s Image in Fighting Terrorism: Fact, Fiction, or Does it Matter?,” sponsored by the conservative Heritage Foundation.
Chertoff pronounced the wildly popular show, in which Sutherland’s Bauer battles terrorists plotting to set off nuclear bombs, steal Stealth fighter jets, shoot down Air Force One and so on, “very thoughtful” in the way it portrays real “unsung heroes who put themselves at risk every day.”
Early devotees of “24,” which coincidentally debuted only weeks after the Sept. 11 attacks, were particularly amused by the way Bauer kept in touch with his family by cell phone as he went about foiling plots in high-speed chases.
That was about as realistic as the way Bauer got a captured terrorist to give up names by shooting him in the leg — an interrogation method that sent a palpable frisson of excitement through the crowd of 500 or so attendees of the panel discussion, emceed by Rush Limbaugh.
“Jack Bauer succeeds by torturing people, breaking the law and circumventing the chain of command,” one of the panel members reminded the crowd.
Not that there’s anything wrong with that, of course, in the minds of a lot of Americans who believe, against all evidence, that torture works just like that: break a leg, get the facts.
If only. A study sponsored by the Homeland Security Department and scheduled for release this week by the University of Maryland says that, over all, just the opposite is true.
“Get tough counterterror measures have historically enhanced rather than deterred the cycle of violence, based on an analysis of terror incidents in Northern Ireland,” a news release says.
Chertoff was asked to compare DHS to “24.”
Chuckling, he said he wished his “ops center” was as sleek and efficient as the one in “24,” and that “we do not get involved in activity that breaks the law.”
For sure, the agencies Chertoff commands are mostly involved in screening passengers, tracking cargo and screening immigrants.
But guess what? Most of the plots uncovered or carried out in recent years would not make the cut with the writers of “24.”
The plots of the past few years originated not with Saudis or Yemenis who trained in Afghanistan with Osama bin Laden, but dead-ending South Asian or North African immigrants who found meaning in their pitiful lives by associating themselves with the cause of al Qaeda, now less a tightly knit terrorist organization than a global spiritual movement.
Anybody can join — and has, evidently, by the looks of the London, Madrid, and now Miami plots.
There may have been no immediate threat from the Miami crew, but by now it’s common knowledge that anybody can build a devastating weapon, whether from ammonia nitrate and fertilizer, like the one that flattened the federal building in Oklahoma City, or vans full of TNT laced with nuclear waste, which many experts think is the next big thing.
The Miami Haitians and others who fell into the FBI’s trap — in which an undercover operative offered military equipment, guns, money and encouragement, by the sound of the indictment — followed in the footsteps of the London subway bombers.
“Violent mokes, who if they got their hands on weapons would have caused serious mayhem, harm,” says one FBI source, who freely talks about issues only on a basis of anonymity.
“This kind of group is my biggest fear. Homegrown angry people,” angry at their “meaningless” lives, open to the siren songs of al Qaeda to take up arms against the Bush administration’s muscular Christianity, he said.
He went further, blaming Bush’s broader domestic and economic policies for “breeding angry people who have no where else to go in society.”
It is a kind of talk rarely, but increasingly, heard among FBI officials.
“I could go on,” he said, “but I will be accused of being a blathering liberal.”
For sure, back at the Reagan Building, Russ Limbaugh proclaimed “24” a conservatives’ program, where the good guys dispatch the Islamic bad guys, end of story.
But to the men and women who go to work at the real counterterrorism centers nights after days, reality is more complicated. Real terrorist plots are underway, and real Americans are working hard to prevent them from attacking again.
The just don’t look like the ones on “24.”
“In the 21st century, we’re going to have to worry about the wackos in the basement,” said James J. Carafano, a retired army officer who is one of the Heritage Foundation’s leading homeland security experts.
“They’re my real worry. The danger is not the enemies we know about, but the ones we don’t.”
Jeff Stein can be reached at jstein@cq.com.