Legitimate threat or another setup?
Six men, four of whom are described as white ethnic-Albanian Muslim “militants,” have been arrested by federal agents on charges related to an alleged plot to attack the Fort Dix US Army base in New Jersey. (The other two are a Jordanian and a Turk). According to the feds, the alleged terrorists were planning a mass shooting spree, using a pizza delivery as their method of access to the base, hoping to “kill as many soldiers as possible.” The gang had selected Fort Dix from a list of East Coast military installations which included New Jersey’s Fort Monmouth and Dover Air Force Base in Delaware. The group’s members lived in the Philadelphia area.
Ironically, Fort Dix was home to over 4,000 ethnic Albanian refugees who were brought to the United States from Kosovo in 1999, when NATO carried out an air war to force the Serbs to relinquish control of the province. Afterwards, the Albanians were allowed to choose to go back to Kosovo, now under NATO occupation, or remain in the United States. No information is available about whether or not any of the arrested militants were beneficiaries of this US largesse. A number of the alleged plotters were illegal aliens.
The media are reporting a variation on an increasingly-familiar story: the six, identified as Mohamad Ibrahim Shnewer, Dritan Duka, Eljvir Duka, Shain Duka, Serdar Tatar and Agron Abdullahu, were arrested when they went to pick up weapons from “gun runners” who were actually undercover government agents.
The arrests came after fifteen months of investigation, which started when an informant tipped off the feds to a video one of the suspects brought to a shop for conversion from VHS to DVD. The footage allegedly showed members of the nascent “terror cell” carrying out “weapons training” in the Pocono Mountains. The Philadelphia Joint Terrorism Task Force carried out the investigation from that point with the help of that other stock character, the confidential informant, who allegedly helped set up weapons purchases for the group. Federal sources admit that the plot had not gone into an “operational phase,” which of course it couldn’t have, since the whole thing was penetrated by the government, pretty much from the get-go. Nonetheless, Fort Dix and other regional installations are under near-lockdown.The indictment quotes Mohamad Shnewer, a Jordanian who is now a US citizen and one of the charged plotters boasting of his plans to the paid informant: “I assure you that you can hit an American base very easily. My intent is to hit a heavy concentration of soldiers. You hit 4, 5, or 6 Humvees and light the whole place and retreated completely without any losses.” However, at least one of the gang, Albanian illegal alien Dritan Duka, sounds like he was getting cold feet: “I got five kids so I don’t wanna go down. People catch me like they think I’m a terrorist.”
The militants are alleged to have carried out “surveillance” of potential targets with the help of at least one paid informant. Adding to the story is the news that the gang possessed “generalized messages” from al-Qaeda, which were in fact rants from Osama bin Laden and his henchmen, downloaded off the internet. In other words, the gang was not in touch with al-Qaeda at all. White House spokesperson Tony Snow admitted as much, saying the government has “no direct evidence of a foreign terrorist tie.” In fact, it appears as if the independent action of the “radicals” is limited to the video, which the feds are saying was made to “recruit” terrorists and shows the six indicted men, along with four who remain uncharged, shouting “Allahu Akbar” and praising jihad.
The Fort Dix case is similar in tone to a number of other foiled “plots” that involved no genuine threat to the United States, but appear to be carefully stage-managed stunts that seem to be intended to make it appear as if the growing power of the secret state is justified and effective in preventing terrorism.
The most egregious such case was the Seas of David “plot”: a group of Florida blacks who were not even Muslims were indicted in June, 2006 after an investigation bordering on the ludicrous. The Seas of David cult members allegedly believed that the undercover agent they were dealing with was an al-Qaeda operative, who induced them to “swear allegiance” to Osama on tape and discuss grandiose plans to “destroy” high profile targets like the Sears Tower in Chicago and the Empire State Building. (Interestingly, both the Seas of David gang and the Fort Dix plotters also supposedly considered hitting FBI offices, in Miami and Philadelphia respectively.) Not only was the Seas of David conspiracy a federal concoction, but the blacks were so poor that they begged “al-Qaeda” for much-needed footwear and had to use the municipal public bus system to get around.
In another similar “Muslim terror” plot, Christopher Paul, a black Muslim in Ohio, was recently charged with terror offenses after a confidential informant told the feds that Paul had considered attacking tourist targets in Europe back in 1999 and 2000. Whatever plans Paul may have had were long abandoned, according to the feds, but he was arrested with great fanfare, which included such tangential information as the fact that Paul had “watched videos” with other Muslims and had appeared angry about how Muslims were maltreated — Constitutionally-protected behaviors which, in the context of a terror indictment, become proofs of guilt. Paul also knew karate.
The Fort Dix plot will no doubt raise questions among civil libertarians and others concerned with the growth of the post-911 secret state. The “weapons training” the Muslims carried out consisted of target practice with pistols and rifles, something that goes on regularly across the United States but, when called “weapons training” and added as padding to a federal indictment, sounds ominous. Also ominous is the fact that the gang was turned in by a civilian: why would hard-core terrorists take an incriminating video to a commercial enterprise? How much of the “plot” was encouraged or simply invented by the government? In fact, the group was arrested as they met with undercover agents to purchase AK-47s and M-16s, which would seem to indicate that they did not even possess the means to carry out the carnage without federal help.
The Fort Dix Albanians may actually have been only in the wrong place at the wrong time. The media is reporting that the Albanians were born in “former Yugoslavia,” which strongly suggests they are Kosovars. The Kosovo Liberation Army was on the US State Department’s terrorist group list until they became useful to the neocon agenda to dismember what was left of Yugoslavia in 1999, when they suddenly became US/NATO allies. Providing front-line aid to the NATO aerial attack campaign, the KLA used the outside intervention to ethnically cleanse Serbian civilians and then were named as the new “police force” for the province, where they continue their ethnic cleansing of Serbs. Meanwhile, the US is leading a charge to give “independence” to Kosovo, part of a “Greater Albania” project that has destabilized the Balkans. Congressman Tom Lantos, a Zionist neocon, spoke for the US government when he bragged: “just a reminder to the predominantly Muslim-led governments in this world that here is yet another example that the United States leads the way for the creation of a predominantly Muslim country in the very heart of Europe. This should be noted by both responsible leaders of Islamic governments, such as Indonesia, and also for jihadists of all color and hue. The United States’ principles are universal, and in this instance, the United States stands foursquare for the creation of an overwhelmingly Muslim country in the very heart of Europe.”
In other words, Albanian Muslim terrorism is “okay” — so long as the targets are acceptable to the US government.
The Albanians are racially Europeans, but given their geographical position have often played a role in anti-European actions. Their historically Muslim faith has also given them a form of political schizophrenia. While some heroic Albanians such as Skanderbeg in the 1400s led resistance to the Ottoman Turks, others, like Muhammad Ali (1769-1849), served the Turks, who ruled Albania from 1385 until 1913. The long Turkish occupation stalled Albanian social development, which is still firmly rooted in Medieval clan-based networks. (Three of the Albanians charged in the Fort Dix conspiracy are brothers). The immediate post-Ottoman government of Albania was a kleptocracy, replaced in 1944 by a Stalinist government so savage that even Kim Il Sung was a pussycat in comparison. The 1992 collapse of the Communists opened a floodgate of emigration and reversion to feral civil conflict that spilled across the region. Given their role in the region, Albanians continue to serve outside interests against their “historical enemies” in Greece, Serbia and other parts of the region, many of which have huge, fecund Albanian populations.
Islam is a major demographic danger to the West, and pro-Israel foreign policy gives many Muslims an excuse to hatch terror plots. But if, as George Bush maintained, Osama and his ilk hate America “for our freedom,” then government erosion of that freedom in the name of “fighting terror” is also a serious danger. Phony, jerry-rigged “plots” for cheap publicity and political points is un-American and a threat to us all.
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