I suspect that this is absolutely, positively a result of the Flemish part of the country, not the French part.

Unfortunately, it usually takes awhile for key details to float up or leak out.

I wager a case of good German beer that the story looks much shakier next week this time.

Unfortunately…. all that will be necessary is for the government to announce some new arrests.

I have not looked at all the stories on the NYC case - but my hunch is that most of them have not mentioned how the Miami case has become a farce.

Yesterday, all I heard and saw were images of the Holland tunnel, scenarios involving the financial district under water, and Stoic statements from “security” officials at the NY/NJ and Fed level recounting their internet sting and reaffirming their commitment and dedication to our safety.

Thanks to antiwar.com this morning, CBS has a very interesting story on the suspect arrested in Lebanon. http://cbs2chicago.com/seenon/topstories_story_188081817.html

Wow, this is turning into a real game of one-upmanship. Did this coincide nicely with 7/7 (London) much like the hysteria surrounding the first couple of anniversary celebrations of 9/11?

On the first World Trade Center bombing - here is what I wrote in Terrorism & Tyranny (St. Martin’s, 2003):
The FBI initially appeared to have a strong case, buttressed largely by evidence provided by informant Emad Salem. In July 1993, the media learned that Salem had been inside the conspiracy a year before the attack.23 Rep. Charles Schumer (D-NY), chairman of the House Subcommittee on Crime and Criminal Justice, complained to FBI director Sessions that the FBI’s failure to act on Salem’s information could represent “an extraordinarily disturbing development
in this case—and for counter-terrorism in general.”24
After the bombing, the FBI quickly rehired Salem and promised to pay him
a million dollars to develop evidence of additional terrorist plots. Because Salem did not trust the government to pay up, he secretly recorded his conversations with FBI agents. In August, as the case was heading for trial, news leaked that
Salem had made tapes of over a hundred hours of his conversations with FBI
agents and handlers.25 The tape transcripts were not helpful to the prosecution.
In a call to an FBI agent shortly after the bombing, Salem complained that “we was start already building the bomb, which is went off in the World Trade Center. It was built, uh, uh, uh, supervising, supervision from the Bureau [FBI]and the DA [district attorney] and we was all informed about it. And we know
that the bomb start to be built. By who? By your confidential informant. What a wonderful great case. And then he [the FBI supervisor] put his head in the sand and said, oh no, no, no that’s not true, he is a son of a bitch, okay.”26 After
the bombing, Salem anguished to one FBI agent: “You were informed. Everything is ready. The day and the time. Boom. Lock them up and that’s that. That’s why I feel so bad.”27 On another tape, Salem asked an FBI agent: “Do you deny your supervisor is the main reason of bombing the World Trade Center?”
The agent did not deny Salem’s charge.28 Shortly after the bombing FBI
agent Nancy Floyd confided to Salem that her supervisors had botched the
case: “I felt that the people on the squad, that they didn’t have a clue of how to operate things. That the supervisors didn’t know what was going on. That they hadn’t taken the time to learn the history.”29 It was never clear how much Salem instigated the bombing, as opposed to simply reporting on the plot to
his FBI controllers.
Before the bombing, Salem offered to do a switcheroo on the bombers, substituting a harmless powder for the deadly explosives and thereby preventing any potential catastrophe. The FBI spurned his offer.30 The New York Times October 28, 1993 article with this revelation was headlined “Tapes Depict Proposal
to Thwart Bomb Used in Trade Center Blast.”31 Salem complained to one FBI
agent that an FBI supervisor “requested to make me to testify [in public] and if
he didn’t push for that, we’ll be going building the bomb with a phony powder and grabbing the people who was involved in it. But . . . we didn’t do that.”32
Salem was not the only person on the inside whom the FBI could have used
to stop the attack. As Newsday reported on October 29, 1993:
In addition to Salem, New York Newsday has learned that the FBI had
a second confidential informant who infiltrated the Jersey City mosque
where the sheik preached. According to law-enforcement sources, two
months before the Feb. 26 Trade Center bombing, the informant was
on a military-style training exercise in a New Jersey park with other suspects
when he was asked to obtain dynamite for an attack. After the informant
told FBI officials, they met for nearly an entire day to consider
providing the suspects with inoperative, counterfeit dynamite. But, to
avoid the possibility of an entrapment charge, FBI officials instead
pulled the informant off the assignment the next day, sources said.
“Instead of trying to stop it they just waited for it to happen,
then swooped in and arrested everyone,” said an investigator. “It was
incredible.”33