Liberty City 7 trial runs like a B-movie (Miami "terra cell" trial.)

Someday, the United States will infiltrate, disarm and prosecute a genuine terrorist cell. In the meantime, we have the Liberty City 7.

The trial of the Bumbling Jihadists in Miami federal court is a bittersweet farce for our times, a case that offers the illusion of progress in the ''War on Terror'' without actual war or terror.

That such a case even made it to court is testament to our weird, paranoid age.

Ever since the seven men were arrested in 2006, prosecutors have done their best to paint the group as fearsome warriors. Yet Narseal Batiste and his band of merry men were found with neither guns nor chemical weapons nor, for that matter, a plan that would work in this galaxy.

More than jihadists, Batiste and his followers seemed to be operating like frat boys out of a 1970s movie. Among the items seized by agents: a samurai sword, martial arts equipment and a copy of The Way of the Ninja.

This last is all about avoiding unnecessary conflict. Or was that the video game?

THE TRIAL GOES ON

No matter, the trial goes on. As if to make their own mark on the surreal proceedings, a dozen Ukrainian judges dropped in to watch Wednesday morning. They sat, listened and left almost immediately.

Show trials are organized by powerful tyrannies in a demonstration of both might and cynicism. The weak effort going on in downtown Miami hardly rises to the definition.

Prosecutors have based their case on several mind-numbing hours of FBI recordings between Batiste and informants, Brother Mohammad (Elie Assad) and Abbas al Saidi, whom Batiste considered a friend.

Batiste's foreign friends ended up conning him. Which must have come as a shock to Batiste -- because all that time he says he was scheming to con them.

Since his arrest, Batiste has consistently stuck to his story: That he was stringing the rich guy along in order to get money from him.

''I was behind a couple of months on the rent, the children had no clothes,'' said Batiste, the father of four, on the stand. ``There was no food for a couple of days. There was a lot of pressure on me at that time.''

MUTUAL SUSPICIONS

Not that con and conee didn't occasionally suspect one another. The time eventually came, Batiste testified, when he was pressed on his astonishingly low-budget plan to blow up the Sears tower.

''He saw I was just asking for $50,000,'' said Batiste. ``And he got me.''

For his part, Batiste began to have his own misgivings. Like the day at Circuit City when his handler showed up with a roll of cash but had to get on the phone to ask permission to buy a lousy computer chip.

''I watch a lot of movies, and I know how people in organized crime work,'' said Batiste, who indicated he was not impressed.

We've come to an interesting point in American arts when third-rate cons take their cues from third-rate films. Forget the cycle of violence. We're in the grips of a great cycle of mediocrity.

So far, the trial has all the trappings of a middling production: An august setting, intense lawyers and clean-cut FBI agents right out of central casting. Meanwhile, everyone else is trying to keep a straight face.

The show continues through the end of the month. It's still not clear if the jury will buy any of it.

But one senses that's beside the point.

As in Hollywood, what matters is the illusion.