Top Secret Pentagon Operation "Granite Shadow"

"Granite Power" allows for emergency military operations in the US without civilian supervision or control.

By William Arkin
September 25, 2005
Washington Post

Today, somewhere in the DC metropolitan area, the military is conducting a highly classified Granite Shadow "demonstration."

Granite Shadow is yet another new Top Secret and compartmented operation related to the military’s extra-legal powers regarding weapons of mass destruction. It allows for emergency military operations in the United States without civilian supervision or control.

A spokesman at the Joint Force Headquarters-National Capital Region (JFHQ-NCR) confirmed the existence of Granite Shadow to me yesterday, but all he would say is that Granite Shadow is the unclassified name for a classified plan.

That classified plan, I believe, after extensive research and after making a couple of assumptions, is CONPLAN 0400, formally titled Counter-Proliferation of Weapons of Mass Destruction. Concept Plan (CONPLAN) 0400 is a long-standing contingency plan of the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff (CJCS) that serves as the umbrella for military efforts to counter the spread of weapons of mass destruction. It has extensively been updated and revised since 9/11.

The CJCS plan lays out national policy and priorities for dealing with WMD threats in peacetime and crisis -- from far away offensive strikes and special operations against foreign WMD infrastructure and capabilities, to missile defenses and "consequence management" at home if offensive efforts fail.

All of the military planning incorporates the technical capabilities of the intelligence agencies and non-military organizations such as the national laboratories of the Department of Energy. And finally, CONPLAN 0400 directs regional combatant commanders to customize counter-proliferation plans for each of their own areas of operations.
When that "area of operations" is the United States, things become particularly sensitive.

That's where Granite Shadow comes in. U.S. Northern Command (NORTHCOM), the military's new homeland security command, is preparing its draft version of CONPLAN 0400 for military operations in the United States, and the resulting Granite Shadow plan has been classified above Top Secret by adding a Special Category (SPECAT) compartment restricting access.

The sensitivities, according to military sources, include deployment of "special mission units" (the so-called Delta Force, SEAL teams, Rangers, and other special units of Joint Special Operations Command) in Washington, DC and other domestic hot spots. NORTHCOM has worked closely with U.S. Special Operations Command (SOCOM), as well as the secret branches of non-military agencies and departments to enforce "unity of command" over any post 9/11 efforts.

Further, Granite Shadow posits domestic military operations, including intelligence collection and surveillance, unique rules of engagement regarding the use of lethal force, the use of experimental non-lethal weapons, and federal and military control of incident locations that are highly controversial and might border on the illegal.

Granite Shadow is the twin to Power Geyser, a program I first revealed to The New York Times in January. The JFHQ spokesman confirms that Granite Shadow and Power Geyser are two different unclassified names for two different classified plans.

In the case of Power Geyser, the classified plan is CJCS CONPLAN 0300, whose entire title is classified. According the military documents, the unclassified title is "Counter-Terrorism Special Operations Support to Civil Agencies in the event of a domestic incident." It is another Top Secret/SPECAT plan directing the same special mission units to provide weapons of mass destruction recovery and "render safe" in either a terrorist incident or in the case of a stolen (or lost) nuclear weapon. Render safe refers to the ability of explosive ordnance disposal experts to isolate and disarm any type of biological, chemical, nuclear or radiological weapon.

The obvious question is why there is a need for two plans. My guess is that Power Geyser and CONPLAN 0300 refers to operations in support of a civil agency "lead" (most likely the Attorney General for a WMD attack) while Granite Shadow and CONPLAN 0400 lays out contingencies where the military is in the lead. I'll wait to be corrected by someone in the know.

Both plans seem to live behind a veil of extraordinary secrecy because military forces operating under them have already been given a series of ''special authorities'' by the President and the secretary of defense. These special authorities include, presumably, military roles in civilian law enforcement and abrogation of State's powers in a declared or perceived emergency.

In January, when The New York Times reported on the Power Geyser name from my Code Names website, the Pentagon argued that "It would be irresponsible … to comment on any classified program that may or may not exist."

I can't see how the Defense Department can continue this line of argument post-Katrina. We see the human cost of a system of contingency planning done in complete secret, with a lack of any debate as to what should be the federal government's priorities, emphasis, and rules.

As the Granite Shadow commandos and their federal brethren go through their paces today, some inside the system will lament that I have "compromised" their work. But the very fact that nothing in my writing damages the Granite Shadow effort should demonstrate that we can have a discussion of contingency planning priorities in the United States, and debate extraordinary special authorities granted to those in uniform, without compromising the details of the plans themselves.

There's still time. The full-scale exercise of Granite Shadow's capabilities and procedures doesn’t start until April 2006.
A note to readers: Today begins a weekly feature of Early Warning, namely code name of the week. This will endeavor to discuss some secret program of the government, sometimes with an argument that the secrecy is excessive, sometime with far more questions than answers.

Adnan Khashoggi Linked to 9/11 Terrorists, Part 35: Fear and Loathing at the NSA

By Alex Constantine
Research Assistance by Team8Plus

"... civilian launch platform and satellite efforts have faltered, and the growth of the space industry has hinged upon Pentagon ambitions. Globalization of the space industry directly serves Pentagon efforts to control planetary space for purposes of political and military power projection. 'Globalization' of space has facilitated the consolidation of space control under Lockheed-Martin, Northrop-Grumman/TRW, Boeing, and Raytheon...." - Loring Wirbel, "The Space Industry," GNN

High Frontier

Rumsfeld made nerve-wracking predictions in his NMD reports. Vengeful rogue states ... an orbital Pearl Harbor ... the chilling potential for class war. The secretary of defense argued that peasants, the "have-nots," may one day rise against the "haves." In that eventuality, it's best to be prepared. The obvious solution was space-based reconnaissance and offensive weapons "to control space," but more importantly, "dominate the earth."1

One Air Force Space Command "study" called Strategic Master Plan FY04 and Beyond, stated flatly that the Pentagon intended to dominate from space. In a preface to the report, Gen. Lance Lord boasted: "As guardian of the High Frontier, Air Force Space Command has the vision and people to ensure the United States achieves space superiority today and in the future. A new space corps will fight from and in space ... the ultimate high ground of military operations.... Our vision calls for prompt global-strike systems with the capability to directly apply force from or through space against terrestrial targets. Space superiority is essential to our vision of controlling and fully exploiting space to provide our military with an asymmetric advantage over our adversaries."2

After the GOP pulled off a House majority in 1995, defense money favored them by a margin of two-to-one. And during the 2000 campaigns, Lockheed, Raytheon, Boeing and TRW forked over $2 million to 25 hard-core NMD boosters in the Senate - all of them co-signatories of a letter from Jesse Helms to President Clinton threatening to veto any arms agreement with Russia that established limits on the scope of future space-weapons plans. The same companies disbursed $34 million in lobbied financing, 1997-98.

The Arms Trade Resource Center reported in May 2000 that ranking arms manufacturers have stuffed the campaign accounts of "key members of Congress and invested tens of millions of dollars in their already formidable DC lobbying operations in an effort to ensure a 'soft' (and profitable) landing during the inevitable cutbacks that accompanied the end of the Cold War." Missile "defense" is highly profitable: "The nation’s Big Three weapons contractors, Lockheed Martin, Boeing, and Raytheon, are looking to missile defense as a medium-to-long term source of revenues and profits to help them recover from recent management and technical problems that have slashed their stock prices in half and reduced their profit margins. In FY1998-99, the four largest missile defense contractors (the Big Three plus TRW) have shared over $2.2 billion in Pentagon research and development funding for research projects. These four firms completely dominate the missile defense program at this point, accounting for 60% of total missile defense contracts issued by the Pentagon in FY1998-99."3
The rise of globalism, the the detriment of Rumsfeld's "have-nots," would be impossible without the “hidden iron fist,” Thomas Freidman's repetitious admonition, of the Pentagon.

In January 2003, GNN's Loring Wirbel warned of "the intimate connection between commerce and the military." Example: Peter Teets, former CEO at Lockheed-Martin. "Teets now serves as the director of the National Reconnaissance Office (NRO), undersecretary of the Air Force, and chief procurement officer for all of military space, controlling a budget in excess of $65 billion, a figure that includes $8 billion a year for missile defense and $7 billion annually for NRO spying. Teets is a firm believer in the conclusions of the Rumsfeld Commission’s January 2001 report on the military in space, which warns of a 'space Pearl Harbor' if the U.S. does not thoroughly dominate all aspects of space. In addition, key lobbyists for Lockheed-Martin, Bruce Jackson and Stephen Hadley, played central roles in developing space policy, and Hadley later took a post within the Pentagon..."4

Defense giants like Northrup underwent a shape shift when the Cold War ended. From its inception, Northrop had been a major producer of military aircraft, but in the early 1990s, the company "saw the need to transform itself into a premier defense electronics and systems integration company." Northrup made several strategic acquisitions. In early 1994, the company expanded its electronics business with the purchase of Grumman Corporation. In 1996, the newly-named Northrop Grumman picked up the Electronics Systems Group of Westinghouse. The following year, it purchased LOGICON, Inc., a leading defense information technology company. In 2001, the company acquired LITTON Industries, creating a global electronics powerhouse. Also in 2001, Northrop Grumman merged with Newport News Shipbuilding.

Early on, LOGICON figured prominently in the NSA's "Trailblazer," but there were other projects sharing the code-name, says 9/11 researcher Nico Haupt: "Symbolically the name 'trailblazer' represents an enourmous paradigm change. TrailBlazerTM was also the name for the first commercial lunar mission. Trailblazer was the name of one of the first high speed modems in the 80s. Trailblazer is also the name of one of the most succesful SUVs of General Motors. Ironically on board of General Motors you will find one of THE powerbrokers of military industry: Kent Kresa from Northrop Grumman. Kresa brokered the most important aquisitions of Northrop Grumman.... He brokered the merge with TRW.

"Kresa was also involved in Grumman's Logicon TASK, which developed NSA's 'Project Trailblazer,' together with Booz Allen Hamilton Inc., the Boeing Co., Titan Corporation and some smaller shell companies, including EDS (e-voting machines) or Veridian (Neil Armstrong, ex-NASA missions).

"When officially "launched" in 2000, a team led by Science Applications International Corp. (SAIC) of San Diego won yet another NSA $280 million contract for Trailblazer, again including the same players: Boeing Co., Booz Allen Hamilton Inc.,Computer Sciences Corp., Northrop Grumman Corp. and former SAIC subsidiary Telcordia Technologies Inc.

"The aim was from the beginning to handle surveillance of cell phones, e-mail, fiber-optic telephones and other modern communication technologies. Trailblazer not only collects but also aids in analyzing the information."

A LOGICON TASK force was set up to assemble Trailblazer. It included "Veridian (in 2003 aquired by General Dynamics), Advent Systems Inc., Mountain View, EDS, Advanced Engineering & Sciences, RDR Inc., SRS Technologies. Veridian had also close ties with AMS (in 2004, two different parts got acquired by CGI and CACI). AMS is a NASA contractor. On their board is Neil A. Armstrong (Apollo 11), Dr. Joseph P. Allen (Apollo 15 and 17), Steven C. Beering (Eli Lily) and Dr. Sally K. Ride (mission specialist on space shuttle flights in 1983 and 1984)."

Haupt finds SAIC "most obvious," and "some of the real perpetrators of 9/11 are also hiding at SAIC." The San Diego engineering conglomerate is "controlled by at least two former CIA bosses, John Deutch and Robert Gates. SAIC is meanwhile connected with one anthrax suspect, the 'maintenance' of e-voting machines, former OEM-Director Jerome Hauer." Not to mention "the audition of Venezuela's oil company PDVSA, plus equity partners like Bechtel, Danet, Saudi SAI, DigiLens or VeriSign."5

Michael "Hitler" Hayden's overhaul of the NSA appeared to go smoothly enough, but by the time he bailed to take the position of DCI at the CIA in 2006, several employees had gone public with allegations of illegal spying under Hayden, who retaliated in his fashion:

NSA Accused of Psychologically Abusing Whistleblowers
By Sherrie Gossett
CNSNews.com Staff Writer
January 25, 2006

(CNSNews.com) - Five current and former National Security
Agency (NSA) employees have told Cybercast News Service that the agency frequently retaliates against whistleblowers by falsely labeling them "delusional," "paranoid" or "psychotic."

The intimidation tactics are allegedly used to protect powerful superiors who might be incriminated by damaging information, the whistleblowers say. They also point to a climate of fear that now pervades the agency. Critics warn ... the "psychiatric abuse" and subsequent firings are undermining national security.

A spokesman for the NSA declined to comment.... The accusations of "Soviet-era tactics" are being made by former NSA intelligence analysts and action officers Russell D. Tice, Diane T. Ring, Thomas G. Reinbold, and a former employee who spoke on condition of anonymity....

Among those coming forward is a former NSA linguist who worked with the NSA for almost three decades. The former
employee spoke on condition of anonymity as he is currently employed by another federal agency. He is referred in this article simply as "J."

"J" is a "hyperpolyglot" or a person who is fluent in an unusually high number of languages. Former colleagues described him as a brilliant man possessing critical skills that were "amazing."

"I believe the abuse is very widespread," said J. "The targeted person suddenly is described as 'not being a team player,' as 'disgruntled,' and then they're accused of all sorts of bizarre things. Soon they're sent to the psych people...."

"It's like the Nazis have taken over," an officer currently working at the NSA said.6

[TO BE CONTINUED]
-----------
NOTES

1) Ruth Rosen, "Arming outer space," San Francisco Chronicle, November 13, 2003.
sfgate.com/article.cgi?file=/c/a/2003/11/13/EDG11308KV1.DTL

2) Ibid.

3) William D. Hartung and Michelle Ciarrocca, "Tangled Web: The Marketing of Missile Defense 1994-2000," ARMS TRADE RESOURCE CENTER, May 2000.
http://www.worldpolicy.org/projects/arms/reports/tangled.htm

4) Loring Wirbel, "The Space Industry: Supporting U.S. Supremacy," GNN, January 15, 2003. http://gnn.tv/articles/604/

5) Nico Haupt, "The other Hayden: Why 'trailblazer' was the real codeword for 9/11," May 9, 2006.
http://team8plus.org/e107_plugins/content/content.php?content.13

6) Sherrie Gossett, "NSA Accused of Psychologically Abusing Whistleblowers,"
CNSNews.com, January 25, 2006.
http://www.cnsnews.com/ViewSpecialReports.asp?Page=\SpecialReports\archive\200601\SPE20060126a.html - The "Nazi" comment in context: "Agent X, a current NSA officer, confirmed the allegations and told Cybercast News Service that psychiatric abuse as a form of retaliation was 'commonplace' at the agency. 'A lot of people who work there are going through the same thing. People live in fear here. They run it like some kind of Gestapo,' Agent X said. Those targeted are 'yelled at, badgered and abused,' X added.... Agent X also alleged that the NSA plants false evidence in personnel files as part of the intimidation campaign. The agency also maintains a "dirt database" of inconsequential but potentially embarrassing information on employees.... Agent X said that an 'underground network' has developed to discuss these issues. 'It's like the Nazis have taken over....'"





 

SPOOKS at Mt. Holyoke College

http://p216.ezboard.com/frigorousintuitionfrm13.
showMessage?topicID=142.topic

Teddy K almost died in plane crash in Holyoke, MA in 1970s ...
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Holyoke's "Understanding Government Project"

http://66.102.7.104/search?q=cache:V3ONKlnMJ1MJ:
www.tcf.org/Publications/AnnualReport2000.pdf+holyoke+
college+and+%22intelligence+community%22&hl=en&gl=
us&ct=clnk&cd=41

A series of magazine articles about the CIA, the U.S. Forest Service, and the Immigration and Naturalization Service aimed at promoting improved journalistic coverage of federal agencies, prepared under the guidance of Washington Monthly editor Charles Peters.
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John W. Gardner

John W. Gardner, 89,
Founder of Common Cause and Adviser to Presidents, Dies

John W. Gardner, an eloquent voice for citizen participation who founded the Common Cause lobby, championed campaign finance reform and introduced Medicare as secretary of health, education and welfare in the heyday of President Lyndon B. Johnson's Great Society, died Saturday at his home on the campus of Stanford University in Palo Alto, Calif. He was 89.... In the late 1930's, Mr. Gardner taught psychology at the Connecticut College for women in New London and Mount Holyoke College in Massachusetts. He worked briefly for the Federal Communications Commission in 1942, then joined the Marine Corps. During World War II, he was assigned in Europe to the Office of Strategic Services, the forerunner of the Central Intelligence Agency, and left the service in 1946 as a captain. After the war, he went to work for the Carnegie Corporation of New York, one of the nation's oldest private philanthropic foundations, whose grants to colleges and research and educational institutions helped shape educational policies in America.

... Mr. Gardner was the only Republican in the Johnson cabinet. The Democratic-dominated 89th Congress had passed no fewer than 189 major domestic laws, with many falling under Mr. Gardner's sprawling agency, which touched the lives of almost every American, from preschoolers to the elderly. With characteristic wit, Mr. Gardner described his mission as "a series of great opportunities disguised as insoluble problems."...

JOHN GARDNER CIA MIND CONTROL HISTORY
FROM THE SEARCH FOR THE MANCHURIAN CANDIDATE
http://www.druglibrary.org/schaffer/lsd/marks1.htm

ore than 30 years after the war, Murray remains modest in his claims for the assessment system, saying that it was only an aid in weeding out the "horrors" among OSS candidates. Nevertheless, the secret agency's leaders believed in its results, and Murray's system became a fixture in OSS, testing Americans and foreign agents alike. Some of Murray's young behavioral scientists, like John Gardner,[9] would go on to become prominent in public affairs, and, more importantly, the OSS assessment program would be recognized as a milestone in American psychology. It was the first systematic effort to evaluate an individual's personality in order to predict his future behavior. After the war, personality assessment would become a new field in itself, and some of Murray's assistants would go on to establish OSS-like systems at large corporations, starting with AT&T. They also would set up study programs at universities, beginning with the University of California at Berkeley.[10] As would happen repeatedly with the CIA's mind-control research, OSS was years ahead of public developments in behavioral theory and application.


FOOTNOTE 9: Gardner, a psychologist teaching at Mount Holyoke College, helped Murray set up the original program and went on to open the West Coast OSS assessment site at a converted beach club in San Juan Capistrano. After the war, he would become Secretary of HEW in the Johnson administration and founder of Common Cause.
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Jim Cavanaugh, Theater Dept.

http://66.102.7.104/search?q=cache:uXo-kS4TkTAJ
:theatreschool.depaul.edu/pdf/tsn/TSN9-3.pdf+holyoke
+college+and+%22intelligence+community%22&hl=en&gl
=us&ct=clnk&cd=110

JIM CAVANAUGH (BFA, Directing, ”67) lives on an island off the coast of Georgia. In 1970 he founded the summer theatre program at Mount Holyoke College in South Hadley, MA, and now spends his time working regularly as a role-player for the Federal Law Enforcement Training Center in Georgia
------------

Mount Holyoke Mourns the Loss of Peter Viereck
Posted: May 16, 2006
http://www.mtholyoke.edu/offices/comm/news/obit_viereck.shtml
 
Peter R. Viereck, professor emeritus of history

The Mount Holyoke community is mourning the loss of one of its most distinguished members. Peter R. Viereck, professor emeritus of history, passed away Saturday, May 13, after a long illness. He was 89.
Born in New York City in 1916, Viereck is likely the only American scholar who has received Guggenheim Fellowships in both poetry and history. A member of the Mount Holyoke College faculty since 1948, Viereck retired in 1987 but continued through 1997 to teach his survey of Russian history. The recipient of many major awards, including a Pulitzer Prize for his first book of poems, Terror and Decorum: Poems 1940-1948, Viereck is the author of numerous articles, essays, and books of history, cultural and political analysis, and poetry. Among his books are Metapolitics: From the Romantics to Hitler; Conservatism Revisited: The Revolt against Revolt, 1815-1949; and Strict Wildness: Discoveries in Poetry and History.

"Professor Viereck excelled in many fields. He was an excellent poet, a superb historian, and an extraordinary teacher who touched the lives of generations of Mount Holyoke students," said Mount Holyoke President Joanne V. Creighton. "He was a profound thinker who helped influence the course of American culture and political life. His contributions will not be forgotten--they have become part of the fabric of this institution. The Mount Holyoke community joins together in mourning his loss."

Viereck was educated at the Horace Mann School for Boys in New York City, graduated summa cum laude with an S.B. from Harvard University in 1937, performed graduate work at Christ Church, Oxford, as a Henry Fellow, and received both his M.A. (1939) and Ph.D. in history (1942) from Harvard. At Harvard he was one of few students in history to receive both the Garrison Prize for the best undergraduate verse and the Bowdoin Medal for the best prose.

After serving in the U.S. Army during World War II in Africa and Italy in the Psychological Warfare Intelligence Branch, earning two battle stars, Viereck taught German and tutored history and literature at Harvard University. From 1946 to 1947, he was a member of the Smith College faculty.

At Mount Holyoke College, Viereck was an associate professor from 1948 to 1955 and professor of history from 1955 to 1965. He held the Alumnae Foundation Chair of Interpretive Studies from 1965 to 1979, and from 1979 to 1987 was William R. Kenan, Jr., Chair of History. Upon his retirement from Mount Holyoke in 1987, he was lauded for his imagination, grace, discipline, and spirit and for teaching "generations of Mount Holyoke students all that is humane about the humanities." Around campus, Viereck was known during his many years here for his lengthy debates about politics and poetry in academic halls and his daily swim at the College's Kendall Sports and Dance Complex.

Viereck's interest in Soviet rebel writers made him instrumental in bringing Nobel prize-winning poet Joseph Brodsky to Mount Holyoke. In 1995 Viereck's work Tide and Continuities opened with a rhymed foreword by Brodsky.

Recently, Viereck was the subject of a lengthy profile titled "The First Conservative: How Peter Viereck Inspired--and Lost--a Movement" in the October 24, 2005 New Yorker magazine. The piece was written by noted author and journalist Tom Reiss.

According to Reiss's article, Viereck was a seminal figure in the birth of American conservatism in the second half of the twentieth century, but he soon moved apart from mainstream conservatism. For example, he was a vocal critic of Senator Joseph McCarthy and his excesses.
Reiss wrote:

"Viereck became a historian, specializing in modern Russia, and a Pulitzer Prize-winning poet. But, in a series of books published during the late nineteen-forties and early nineteen-fifties (which have recently been reissued by Transaction), he continued to develop his political philosophy. He gave the conservative movement its name and, as the historian George Nash, the author of The Conservative Intellectual Movement in America, says, he 'helped make conservatism a respectable word.' Moreover, Viereck's belief that the United States could be a moderating influence, confronting the forces that threaten freedom and democracy without succumbing to liberal optimism, became a central tenet of conservative thought and, with the arrival of neoconservatives in positions of power in Washington, beginning in the nineteen-eighties, of American foreign policy.

"Yet Viereck never became a rallying figure. Conservatism remained largely an intellectual movement during its first several decades, from the late nineteen-forties to the late nineteen-seventies--a loose affiliation of scholars and writers who had little more in common than a hatred of liberalism and Communism, which they increasingly saw as indistinguishable. Even in this context, Viereck was an anomaly, insisting on a moral distinction between the moderate and the totalitarian left, and, as conservatives began to attain political influence, denouncing what he perceived as the movement's demagogic tendencies."
Viereck is survived by his wife, Betty Falkenberg Viereck; his son, John Alexis Viereck; his daughter, Valerie Viereck Gibbs; three grandchildren, Sophia Gibbs Kim, Stephanie Viereck Gibbs Kamath, and Jonathan Lowell Gibbs; and his great-grandson, Micah Kim. Viereck was predeceased by his first wife and mother of his children, Anya de Markov.
The date of an on-campus memorial service will be announced.

The family invites written remembrances about Dr. Viereck for presentation at the service; these can be mailed to the Office of the President, Mount Holyoke College, 50 College St., South Hadley, MA 01075.

Related Link:
New York Times Obituary, May 19, 2006
Boston Globe Obituary, May 19, 2006
Peter Viereck Profiled in New Yorker
-----------------
JANE GARVEY (head of the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) on 9/11)
She holds a Bachelor’s degree from Mount Saint Mary College and a Master’s degree from Mount Holyoke College.... She holds several honorary degrees from institutions including Mt. Holyoke College and Cranfield University in England....

http://www.9-11commission.gov/hearings/hearing7/witness_garvey.htm

Statement of Jane F. Garvey to the National Commission on Terrorist Attacks Upon The United States
January 27, 2004

Seventh public hearing of the National Commission on Terrorist Attacks Upon the United States ...
----------------
Secretary of Labor Elaine Chao

http://www.iraqtimeline.com/bushcab.html

Chao's family, which moved to Taiwan in 1949 to flee the Maoist revolution, is closely tied to two of China's most powerful business families, the Tungs and the Hsuis, both particularly influential in Hong Kong. In 1958, her father came to the US, not "with nothing," as she likes to tell audiences, but as an assistant to a Tung shipping company. She is a beneficiary of the 1964 National Civil Rights Act, as was her father, who immediately opened a shipping company called Formost. (Chao is known as a vocal opponent of the 1991 Civil Rights Act.) As the US moved to normalize relations with China, the Chaos profited, moving to toney Westchester County and sending Elaine to one of America's most exclusive colleges, Mount Holyoke. (Persistent rumors of plagarism from her Mount Holyoke days have dogged Chao for years; the school refuses to discuss the matter, but Chao's name does not appear in the 1975 commencement program, the year that she graduated.) After attending Harvard Business School, she went to work for Gulf Oil, which had a Taiwan-based subsidiary, and then for Citicorp. Chao will lead the new administration's fight to roll back overtime laws, a proposal that, if enacted, would see police officers, nurses, firefighters, and tens of millions of American workers forced to work longer hours without overtime benefits.
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ALICE VAN ESS BREWER

http://www.dacorbacon.org/Bulletins/2006/April/April%20Bulletin.htm

ALICE VAN ESS BREWER, a former member of the Foreign Service and the wife of retired Foreign Service Officer and Ambassador William Dodd Brewer, died in on February 26, 2006, in Weymouth, Massachusetts. She was 86.

Mrs. Brewer was born into a family of American educational missionaries in Basra, Iraq. She was educated in India, Switzerland, and the US. She earned her BA from Mount Holyoke College in 1941. As a lieutenant (j.g.) in the US Navy during World War II, she served in the Supply Corps in New Orleans and San Francisco. In 1947, after joining the Foreign Service, she was assigned to Dhahran. In 1948 she was transferred to Beirut, where she met her husband. They were married in Basra in 1949.

Mrs. Brewer accompanied her husband and managed their household on his assignments to Jeddah (1949-1951), Damascus (1951-1955), Kuwait (1955-1957), and Kabul. She stayed in the Washington, DC area during his two tours of duty there. She served as his hostess during his service as Ambassador to Mauritius (1970-1973) and then as Ambassador to Sudan. He retired in 1978.

Ambassador and Mrs. Brewer settled in Los Angeles in 1978. Eight years later, they moved to Falmouth, Massachusetts. Last year they moved to Hingham, Massachusetts.

In addition to her husband, Mrs. Brewer leaves three children and five grandchildren.
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Professor Catherine McArdle Kelleher

http://66.102.7.104/search?q=cache:RzFBJrKxqzgJ:php.dev.isn.ch/conferences/PreviousEvents/2004_newport_bios.pdf+holyoke+college+and+%22intelligence+community%22&hl=en&gl=us&ct=clnk&cd=60

Professor Catherine McArdle Kelleher is Professor and Director of Faculty Programs, Strategic Research Department, Center for Naval Warfare Studies. U.S. Naval War College, Newport, Rhode Island. She came to that post after three years as the Director of the Aspen Institute, Berlin. She is also a Research Associate of the Watson Institute of International Affairs, Brown University, Providence, Rhode Island....

In the Clinton Administration, Professor Kelleher held posts as the Personal Representative of the Secretary of Defense in Europe and as Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense for Russia, Ukraine, and Eurasia. Her other governmental posts include a position on the National Security Council staff during the Carter Administration and a series of consulting assignments under Republican and Democratic administrations in the Office of the Assistant Secretary of Defense for International Affairs, the Arms Control and Disarmament Agency, and the Department of the Army....Director of the Center for International Security Studies at Maryland (CISSM), as well as a Professor in the School of Public Affairs at the University of Maryland. She has been a research fellow at the Institute of Strategic Studies in London, and a Kistiakowsky fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences; and has received research grants from the Carnegie Corporation of New York, NATO, the Council on Foreign Relations, the German Marshall Fund, and the Ford Foundation. She is the founder of Women in International Security program, a non-governmental organization dedicated to developing career opportunities for women in this field. Professor Kelleher has served as consultant to the Ford Foundation, the Volkswagen Foundation, and the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation Program in Peace and International Cooperation.... She is Vice-Chairman of the Committee on International Security and Arms Control of the National Academy of Sciences. Professor Kelleher holds degrees from Mt. Holyoke College (A.B. and D.Litt) and from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (Ph.D.).
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Advocate/Greenwich Time article about Kim Hynes and the Howard Dean "Dozen"

http://www.blogforamerica.com/archives/004460.html

Some of the endorsed candidates share the distinction of having volunteered for Dean's unsuccessful bid for the White House, including Hynes, 37, a mother of four from Stamford.... A New Haven native who graduated from Mount Holyoke College and worked for Bayer Pharmaceuticals Corp. as a molecular biologist, Hynes singled out three issues to anchor her campaign platform -- campaign finance reform, universal preschool and doing more to solve the state's transportation problems. The political newcomer hopes to increase the size of her war chest from a "couple of thousand" dollars to $20,000 over the course of the race, enlisting the help of Dean's brother, a Fairfield resident, as a member of her fund-raising team.
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ARA WILSON

http://66.102.7.104/search?q=cache:03xVOUuFIl4J:www.aaanet.org/ballot/images/AAA_candidates_book.pdf+holyoke+college+and+%22intelligence+community%22&hl=en&gl=us&ct=clnk&cd=150

ARA WILSON (PhD, City University of
New York, 1997) Positions Held: Assis-
tant Professor (1997-2003) and Associate
Professor (2003-present), The Ohio State
University; Research Associate, Mt.
Holyoke College (2005-06); Interests
and/or Activities: gender and sexuality in
relation to globalization and transnational
flows; Rockefeller, NEH fellowships; Sig-
nificant Publications: The Intimate
Economies of Bangkok: Tomboys, Tycoons and Avon Ladies in the
World City, University of California Press 2004

http://archives.econ.utah.edu/archives/m-fem/2001m12/msg00034.htm

In 1999-2000 she was a Rockefeller Fellow at the Institute for Research on Women at Rutgers University. Among her publications
are articles on Avon/Amway in Thailand (_Critique of Anthropology_) and an article on sexual rights in the forthcoming anthology, _Truth Claims: Representation and Human Rights_ (Rutgers).
------------
THE RESIDENTS OF HOLYOKE DO NOT EXACTLY SHARE THE WORLD VIEW OF MANY AT THE COLLEGE

http://www.google.com/search?q=holyoke+college+and+%22intelligence+community%22&hl=en&lr=&start=140&sa=N

HOLYOKE, Mass. -- To drive through the mill towns and curling country roads here is to journey into New England's impeachment belt. Three of this state's 10 House members have called for the investigation and possible impeachment of President Bush. Thirty miles north, residents in four Vermont villages voted earlier this month at annual town meetings to buy more rock salt, approve school budgets, and impeach the president for lying about Iraq having weapons of mass destruction and for sanctioning torture.
-------------
http://usinfo.state.gov/journals/itps/0798/ijpe/bios.htm

SUSAN J. KOCH

Dr. Susan J. Koch is Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense for Threat Reduction Policy. Her responsibilities include nonproliferation policy, multilateral and bilateral arms control, and the Cooperative Threat Reduction/Nunn-Lugar Program with the new independent states of the former Soviet Union.

Before assuming her present position, Dr. Koch was deputy head of the Defense Policy and Arms Control Directorate on the White House National Security Council Staff, from December 1991 to February 1993. There she worked on the full range of defense policy and arms control issues, with special emphasis on nuclear questions. From March 1990 to December 1991, Dr. Koch was Assistant Director of the U.S. Arms Control and Disarmament Agency for Strategic and Nuclear Affairs, responsible for arms control issues related to strategic and theater nuclear forces and strategic defense.

Dr. Koch was with the Office of the Secretary of Defense from December 1982 until March 1990. From October 1988 until March 1990, she was the Principal Director for Nuclear Forces and Arms Control Policy in the Office of the Assistant Secretary of Defense for International Security Policy.

From 1975 to 1982, Dr. Koch held a series of analytical and supervisory positions in the Directorate of Intelligence, Central Intelligence Agency, concerned with the study of NATO, European Community, and West European domestic political issues. She taught international and comparative politics at Mount Holyoke College and the University of Connecticut between 1970 and 1975.
------------
Marvin Ott
http://www.aei.org/events/contentID.20060518104912211/default.asp

Marvin Ott is a professor of national security policy at the National War College of the National Defense University. He served as a civilian in Vietnam (Banmethout, Darlac Province) in 1965. His professional positions have included associate professor at Mount Holyoke College, senior research and management positions at the Office of Technology Assessment (U.S. Congress), senior analyst at the Central Intelligence Agency, senior associate at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, consultant at the National Academy of Sciences, southeast Asia chairperson for the Foreign Service Institute, and deputy staff director for the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence. He is the author of numerous articles and book chapters as well as over a hundred op-eds, principally on east Asian and intelligence topics. He appears as a regular commentator on CNN's Business Asia.
----------
Joseph J Ellis

Ideas & Trends: Past Imperfect; The Untold Links Between Biographer and Subject
By EMILY EAKIN

Comment on relationships between biographers and their subjects, particularly in realm of history, discussed in light of revelations that Pulitzer Prize-winning historian Joseph J Ellis embellished lectures at Mount Holyoke College with lies about serving in Vietnam war; Ellis's explanation of his affinity for Jefferson and his writing about Jefferson's duplicity to achieve political ends quoted; photo
June 24, 2001
http://topics.nytimes.com/top/reference/timestopics/
organizations/m/mount_holyoke_college/index.html?
query=ETHICS&field=des&match=exact
----------
Stephen F. Jones
Professor of Russian Studies 
Chair, Ru

ssian and Eurasian Studies
Specialization 
Russia; Caucasus (Georgia, Armenia, and Azerbaijan)
Stephen Jones has been a member of the Mount Holyoke College faculty since 1989. He is an expert on post-communist societies in the former Soviet Union and Eastern Europe and regularly briefs the CIA and U.S. State Department on developments in Caucasia and the North Caucasus. He has briefed a number of U.S. ambassadors to Georgia.
http://www.mtholyoke.edu/acad/misc/profile/sfjones.shtml
---------


ON THE MT. HOLYOKE BOARD OF TRUSTEES ...
http://www.mtholyoke.edu/cic/about/trustees/
454.shtml

Anthony Lake
2005-2010

Anthony Lake is Distinguished Professor in the Practice of Diplomacy at the Edmund A. Walsh School of Foreign Service at Georgetown University. He served from 1993-1997 as Assistant to the President for National Security Affairs. From 1981-1992 Mr. Lake was Five College Professor of International Relations at Amherst and Mount Holyoke colleges. Mr. Lake joined the State Department in 1962, where he served until 1970 as a Foreign Service Officer, with assignments in Vietnam and on the NSC staff. After work with the Muskie Campaign, the Carnegie Endowment and International Voluntary Services, Mr. Lake returned to the State Department in 1977 to serve as Director of Policy Planning for President Carter, a position he held until 1981. In 1961, Mr. Lake received an A.B. degree from Harvard College. He read international economics at Trinity College, Cambridge and went on to receive his Ph.D. from the Woodrow Wilson School of Public and International Affairs at Princeton University in 1974. Mr. Lake is the author of a number of books.

Mr. Lake’s board and advisory memberships include the U.S. Fund for UNICEF (chair) and the Marshall Legacy Institute (chair).

From 1998 to 2000, as a White House Special Envoy, Mr. Lake facilitated the agreement ending the conflict between Ethiopia and Eritrea.

Susan Bateson McKay '76
2005–2010

Currently, Ms. Bateson McKay serves as senior vice president, human resources, and as a member of the management committee of Human Genome Sciences, Inc. (HGS). She joined HGS in 1997. Ms. Bateson McKay served as director of human resources and administration at Finnegan, Henderson, Farabow, Garrett & Dunner, L.L.P., a law firm specializing in intellectual property, from 1994 to 1996. From 1983 to 1994, Ms. Bateson McKay was employed by J.P. Morgan & Co. Incorporated, where she was appointed vice president, human resources, in 1985 and worked in Morgan's offices in New York City, Wilmington, Delaware, and London, England. Prior to J.P. Morgan, Ms. Bateson McKay worked for Citibank, N.A., and Bankers Trust Company.

Ms. Bateson McKay is a member of the Board of Advisors of the Universities at Shady Grove, a regional higher-education center in Montgomery County, Maryland, and serves on the Biotechnology Steering Committee of the Governor's Workforce Investment Board (Maryland). She is an active member and lay leader of the Church of the Holy Comforter, an Episcopal Church in Vienna, Virginia. Ms. Bateson McKay also serves on the Major Gifts Committee of the greater Washington, D.C. area for Mount Holyoke. Ms. Bateson McKay grew up in Connecticut; she and her husband, Art McKay, reside in Vienna, Virginia.

Audrey A. McNiff '80
2002-2007

Audrey McNiff, Mount Holyoke Class of 1980, is a Managing Director and co-head of Currency Sales at Goldman Sachs in New York City, where she a member of the Fixed Income, Currency and Commodities Division's Career Development Committee and a founding member of the Division's Women's Network.

Ms. McNiff is the Goldman Sachs' firm-wide recruiting captain for Mount Holyoke and the women's champion for Yale recruiting. Ms McNiff joined Goldman Sachs in 1992 and became a Managing Director in 1997. Prior to Goldman Sachs, Ms McNiff worked in the financial markets at Nat West, Irving Trust and HSBC .

She received her AB in Economics from Mount Holyoke in 1980 and her MBA from NYU in 1989. Ms McNiff grew up in Massachusetts and resides in Greenwich, CT.

Margaret L. Wolff '76
2005-2010

Margaret L. Wolff is a Partner at the law firm of Skadden, Arps, Slate, Meagher & Flom LLP. She concentrates in domestic and international transactional matters. She has extensive experience in both negotiated and contested acquisitions and divestitures. She also devotes significant time to general corporate and securities matters. Ms. Wolff includes among her clients Alcoa Inc., Cooper Industries, Inc., DaimlerChrysler AG, Chocoladefabriken Lindt & Sprüngli AG, and The May Department Stores Company. In addition, she regularly handles matters for several of the firm’s investment banking clients and provides legal services to the National Down Syndrome Society.

During the last few years, Ms. Wolff has represented Alcoa in its successful unsolicited acquisitions of Alumax Inc. and Reynolds Metals Company as well as its negotiated acquisition of Cordant Technologies Inc. and the subsequent buy-out of the public minority in Cordant’s subsidiary, Howmet International Inc. Ms. Wolff also assisted Alcoa with the purchase of The Fairchild Corporation’s fastener business and the sale of Latasa S.A. to Rexam plc and Alcoa’s Thiokol propulsion systems division to Alliant Techsystems Inc.

H. Jay Sarles
2004-2009

H. Jay Sarles is Vice Chairman of Bank of America Corporation and a special adviser to the CEO. Previously, he was Vice Chairman and Chief Administrative Officer of FleetBoston Financial.

Sheryl Y. McCarthy '69
2001-2006

Sheryl McCarthy was elected to the Board for a five-year term as an Alumna Trustee. She is a columnist for Newsday, the New York City/Long Island newspaper, and writes a twice-weekly opinion column on a wide variety of issues in the news....

Daniel Goldin: Creature from the Black Vault, Part One

By Alex Constantine

Daniel Goldin - touted widely by the press, denounced coldly by critics within and without NASA - has been making public appearances since his resignation in 2001, of course:

ASTROBIOLOGY: LIFE AMONG THE STARS
May 13, 2005
Schoenberg Hall Auditorium, UCLA
...
DANIEL S. GOLDIN (Intellisis Corporation, San Diego, CA) Discovery of Life on Other Worlds: What Will it Mean? ... Prior to his
nearly ten years of service as NASA’s Administrator, Mr. Goldin oversaw the development the Compton Gamma-Ray and
Chandra X-ray Observatories while he was also Vice President and General Manager of the TRW Space and Technology Group.
Today, he is a Senior Fellow at the Neurosciences Institute in San Diego, where he is engaged in the development of biologically inspired robots and computers, and is founder of the Intellisis Corporation, which focuses on high tech
consulting and biologically based technologies...

And all this on a Bachelor's degree. This is same man who oversaw a doomed, hopelessly incompetent string of Mars missions, and now he's creating biological robots.

Goldin's been making political contributions, too:

SAN DIEGO, CA Political
Contributions by Individuals -
$250 to FRIENDS OF DUKE CUNNINGHAM
on 08/09/04, Goldin, Daniel S.
Mr. (The Intellisis Corp./Engineer),
(Zip code: 92130)1

More speeches ...

Daniel Goldin Addresses MIT Class of 2001

"In his commencement address to 2,122 graduates of MIT, Daniel S. Goldin, NASA's Chief Administrator, suggested that they would be responsible for 'perhaps the most dramatic revolution in the history of humankind.'

"In the next 50 years, the nano-revolution will make it possible to control technology at the atomic scale, cure diseases, solve
global climate change, make sustainable development a reality, and replace traditional technology with systems that mimic biology or integrate biology.

"Computers will behave more like the human brain. Airplane wings will adapt to different flight conditions. Systems will be self-sensing and self-correcting," he said. He exhorted the graduates to go forth "with imagination, ingenuity and audacity. Explore, discover, change the world, and have fun while you're doing it."

He has bonds to criminalized intelligence officials, particularly at the NSA, corrupt lobbyists and political lowlifes, and these date to his roots at TWR where he was employed on black budget programs. At NASA, he worked closely with the NSA and Jet Propulsion Laboratory (another key element in the series of failed Mars missions). JPL director Lou Allen once ran the NSA. Before leaving NASA in November 2001, Goldin let on that the JPL falls under the direction of its Oversight Committee at Caltech. Admiral Bobby Ray Inman, the former NSA director, was the head of the oversight Committee.

Leuren Moret of the San Francisco Bay View made the connection in September 2004: "Criticism of NASA/JPL Mars mission failure problems in the Thomas Young Report released on March 28, 2000, revealed that the supposedly public space program had been hijacked into secrecy and that the military was calling the shots." Goldin divulged on March 29, 2000, "the day after release of the report, just who was in control and the existence of an oversight committee that nobody at JPL knew existed: 'I'd also like to acknowledge Admiral Inman, head of the JPL Oversight Committee at Cal Tech. He couldn't be here today, but I talked to him by phone. His commitment to the team here is also unwavering. And I thank him for that.'"3

Goldin has long curried favor with Inman. Moret described Inman as "the center of the spider web. A look at his social network helped put the ‘puzzle palace’ together, and I discovered he was national security advisor to five Presidents, Director of the NSA... president of SAIC, Chair of the 1985 Congressional ‘Inman Commission' on Terrorism, affiliated with the Carlyle Group, on the advisory boards of Tufts and the University of Texas, represents SBC Communications Corporation at Cal Tech, Chairman Dallas Federal Reserve Bank, and a member of both the Council on Foreign Relations and the Trilateral Commission.... One could say he is a dangerous man."

Goldin is also a dangerous man. His tactics are subtle, but the results of his corrupt management of Cleveland's NASA Glenn Research Center were often explosive.

And there were the conflicts of interest ...

New Year's day, 2001 - Cleveland, Ohio's SecureState announced in a holiday press release that it had been awarded "a multi-year contract with NASA Glenn Research Center to provide technical security services..." That's funny... SecureState (SS) had little to show in the way of a track record. The firm's web site states: "From its beginning in 2001, SecureState has consistently delivered innovative information technology and technical services solutions to its customers." Clearly, NASA wasted no time contracting with the computer security firm - the bidding process and security checks must have taken place in the blink of an eye.

Perhaps it was the mega-competence of SS management that led to the contract.

Scott M. Angelo, an SS founder, "began his security career as a commissioned officer in U.S. Army Military Intelligence." He has been retained by most of "the major Aerospace companies within the US, including McDonnell Douglas, Boeing, Pratt & Whitney, Northrop Grumman, Lockheed Martin, TRW ..." He has held senior security leadership positions at "NASA Special Project Office, Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA), Ernst & Young LLP, and Andersen LLP."

SecureState's CEO is M. Jean Dixon (not the "psychic"). Her company bio boasts, "Ms. Dixon has held Senior Management positions [including] senior member of the Enterprise and Health Solutions consulting practice for SAIC, delivering security solutions to clients."

And Macon Sims, Jr., a key advisor to SS, was the founder of Knight Protective Services in 1988. "Prior to starting the company, Mr. Sims, a Vietnam veteran, was one of the top non-commissioned officers in the Army. As Sergeant Major, Mr. Sims worked closely with the U.S. Secret Service, designing and executing contingency plans in support of security for the President of the United States."4 (In October 2002, Knight Protective Services signed $17.3 million, five-year contract with NASA Glenn. Since 9/11, security has been beefed-up considerably. Currently, security contracts at NASA Glenn Research Center are held by Knight ((security, guard, and visitor control)), Booz-Allen Hamilton ((financial and Accounting Support Services)), SAIC ((Environmental Analyses) and Lockheed Martin (hardware and software acquisition)), among others.5)
---
NOTES

1) See, http://www.city-data.com/elec/elec-SAN-DIEGO-CA.html

2) http://alumweb.mit.edu/clubs/capecod/jseth/mit49.htm

3) Leuren Moret, "Nuclear Weapons Stealth Takeover -
Five Admirals, U.C. Regents, Carlyle Group and Rand," San Francisco Bay View, September 16, 2004.
http://www.mindfully.org/Nucs/2004/Moret-Nuclear-Carlyle16sep04.htm

4) SecureState web site, "Key Leadership," http://www.
securestate.com/page.aspx/id/

5) NASA Glenn Research Center, "Prime Contractor List,"
http://www.grc.nasa.gov/WWW/Procure/ContractorList/On-siteServiceContractorListing.htm

SEAS OF DAVID CULT ("MUSLIM TERRORISTS") ATTENDED CHRISTIAN CHURCHES

Time Magazine: "The group indicted for terror plans appears to have had more in common with homegrown cults than al-Qaeda terrorists...."
---
"Not one of them is a converted Muslim. ...
--------------
mordacpreven..wrote:
> Their families were on TV saying they study the
Bible, not the Koran.
> The families gave the name of the churches the men
attended.
> One mother showed her son's Bible with notations
written in it in his ?> own handwriting.
> Not one of them is a converted Muslim. ?

The arrested men appear to be part of a cult organization proclaiming itself to be Muslim - although a member of the same
religious group says it is, in fact, based on a homebrew of Islam and Christianity, and calls itself "Seas of David."

Time to start rounding up the followers of Falwell and Robertson.
---------
http://www.islam-online.net/English/News/2006-06/23/04.shtml
...
Conflicting

There were conflicting reports about the identity of the arrestees.

Law enforcement sources told CNN that the seven suspects were Muslim extremists.

But another enforcement official denied that the group had any links with Al-Qaeda or other foreign terrorist organizations.

"These people were not related to Al-Qaeda," he told the American all-news network.

Residents said the arrested men appeared to be part of a CULT of at least a dozen people.

They said the men were sleeping in the warehouse, dressing in military-like clothing and doing exercises.

A man identified as a member of the "Seas of David" religious group told CNN on Thursday that five of his fellow members were among those arrested and that they had no connection to terrorists.

"We are not terrorists. We are members of David, Seas of David," said the man, identified as Brother Corey.

"We study and believe in the word of God," he told CNN.

"This is a place where we worship," he added.

Brother Corey said the "Seas of David" blends the teachings of Christianity and Islam.

"We study Allah and the worship of the regular Bible."

He said his group had connections in Chicago.

"We have soldiers in Chicago," he said clarifying that by soldier he meant: "We train through the Bible... not only physical but mentally."
---------------
http://www.time.com/time/nation/article/0,8599,1207412,00.html

The Miami Seven: How Serious Was the Threat?

The group indicted for terror plans appears to have had more in common with homegrown cults than al-Qaeda terrorists. Which doesn't mean they weren't dangerous

By TONY KARON

Posted Friday, Jun. 23, 2006
The Federal government has indicted seven men arrested in Miami on charges of conspiring with al-Qaeda to conduct terror attacks inside the U.S. Among the ostensible targets named in the indictment was Chicago's Sears Tower. But was this a credible terror conspiracy? As the story unfolds, here are four skeptical questions worth pondering.

Was this an al-Qaeda-linked plot, or were these men simply wannabes?

From initial reports and the contents of the indictment, the latter seems most likely. The arrested men appear to be part of a cult organization proclaiming itself to be Muslim — although a member of the same religious group says it is, in fact, based on a homebrew of Islam and Christianity, and calls itself "Seas of David." Its members, mainly Americans and Haitan immigrants, clearly have an enthusiasm for emulating and following al-Qaeda. But their only "connection" with al-Qaeda appears to have been the fact that a government informant who had infiltrated their ranks had apparently convinced the alleged conspirators that he was, in fact, a Qaeda operative. The oaths of allegiance to the organization alleged by the indictment to have been taken by the accused were administered not by any representative of the organization, but to a U.S. government agent posing as a Qaeda operative.

Were they behaving as professional terrorists?

No, at least not according to the initial flood of reports that portayed them as strutting around a poor black neighborhood in military-style uniforms, wearing turbans, standing guard around the abandoned warehouse in which they lived and conducting late-night exercise drills, while telling neighbors that they had "given their lives to Allah." The basic habit of trained terrorists is secrecy and stealth; they do their utmost to fit in with their surroundings rather than stand out. The Miami seven, according to reports thus far, seemed to have been doing the exact opposite, behaving more like a Hollywood B-movie version of terrorists than the real thing.

Can amateurs and wannabes pose a real terror threat?

Yes, very much so. The London bombings last summer were carried out by a self-taught group of British-born men who had no direct connection with al-Qaeda, yet sought to emulate it. But that grouping, perhaps having learned from the Qaeda terror manuals widely available on jihadist web sites, seem to have observed many of the same principles of secrecy that a
group like the 9/11 plotters would have . Friends, family and neighbors were shocked to learn that young men in their midst who seemed no different from any others turned out to be terrorists. The extent of the danger represented by such groups depends on their capacities: Are they able to operate undetected? Do they have the means to carry out attacks? Do they have
workable plans for such attacks?

Was this really a plot?

The indictment accuses the men of plotting to blow up FBI offices and the Sears tower. They apparently gave the government informant, whom they believed was their Qaeda contact, photographs of FBI and other law enforcement facilities in Florida, indicating that they had done some surveillance. The indictment refers to a desire by the group's leader to attack the Sears
tower, and a request for a video camera in order to conduct surveillance mission to that end, although it doesn not suggest such a mission actually took place. From the indictment it is clear that the men had no shortage of ambition, asking for al-Qaeda training to wage a "full ground war" to "kill all the devils we can." To his end, the group asked the undercover agent
for a wish-list of equipment that included boots, uniforms, machine guns, bullet-proof vests, radios and vehicles — as well as $50,000 in cash. The group's leader also provided the government agent with "a list of shoe sizes for the purchase of military boots for his 'soldiers'." The idea that these seven men could wage a "ground war" in the U.S. seems to have more in
common with the fevered thinking behind various deadly cults over the years than with the operations of international terror networks.

Fevered minds can be very dangerous, of course. But the threat they present is quite different from that of transnational terror groups. After all, the government appears to have had no problem infiltrating and exposing this group, which was hardly making itself inconspicuous or impregnable — unlike the New York subway plot reported in TIME this week, whose
perpetrators slipped into the U.S., conducted their surveillance, prepared the operational details of poison gas attacks, then aborted them on instructions from al-Qaeda leaders and departed America, all with U.S. security none the wiser.