TERROR IN THE SKIES III
I have been speaking with Brendi Rawlin of Porter Novelli (PR rep for Womens Wall Street). According to Brendi, the Washington Post has been sitting on the true story of Annie Jacobsen’s “Terror in the Skies” account since last Friday, when WomensWallStreet.com approached him. Dave Adams, the air marshal’s spokesman, not only confirmed the story, but has also apparently supplied witness statements and other corroborations of Jacobsen’s account. NBC Nightly News, ABC, and Dateline NBC are now on the story as well.
More to come…
3:24pm. Just got off the phone with Annie Jacobsen. She has been writing business reports and articles for WomensWallStreet.com and print magazines for the past two years. Recounting the flight, she told me “My legs were like rubber…It was four and a half hours of terror.” She is working on a follow-up story for WomensWallStreet.com on Monday and will appear on NBC Nightly News Monday night. I asked how she felt about suspicions that her story had been a hoax. She hadn’t heard of these suspicions and instead has been hearing overwhelming corroboration of her experience in thousands of e-mails, many from pilots and flight attendants reporting similar incidents.
She has been shocked that “for whatever reason, the story didn’t develop” in the mainstream media.
I took off my journalist’s hat and told her I thought she was a patriot for bringing the story to light.
Now, I want to know why John Mintz and the editors of the Washington Post have deemed Annie Jacobsen’s story unfit to print.
Update: Donald Sensing remains skeptical.
I asked Jacobsen if she talked with other passengers. She said no. I also asked if she had heard from other passengers from her flight in response to her story. She said she hasn’t. If anyone else out there was on Northwest Airlines flight #327 from Detroit to Los Angeles Flight on June 29, 2004, departing at 12:28 p.m., we’d love to hear from you.
Update II: Last post of the day on this. Wizbang, USS Clueless, and Spoons all have advice for airline passengers who might need to thwart potential terrorists.
Says Sarah W at Wizbang: “Be annoying.”
That we can do! 
Update III: Last, last post of the day. One of my favorite Pacific Northwest conservatives (a rare breed!), John Carlson at KVI-AM in Seattle, interviewed Annie Jacobsen. Charles Simpson live-blogged the broadcast here.
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Categories: Airline Security, Annie Jacobsen
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I’d suspect that they thought, as do many out in the “blog world,” that this smells fishy.
If it is indeed true, then we may have more to fear than many are being led to believe by Big Brother.
I’m curious as to which way the alphabet networks will spin this on their shows once they begin to unload with it…
Thanks for staying on top of this story. Frankly, we need to follow the Israelis’ lead on profiling. There is simply no way that group of men should have been allowed to board that plane without a thorough screening.
Michelle, you are doing an important service here. I fly very frequently, and though I have not experienced the same kind of on-board scare that Annie experienced, I have seen very suspicious behaviour in the past 3 or 4 months.
Unfortunately, TSA people are very ho-hum in attitude if you bring up a lapse of security, or a concern about a passenger.
Anymore, if someone looks suspicious, I keep an eye on him of her during the whole flight. I figure if nothing else, I can make his trip to the front or back more difficult by blocking the aisle.
Like I said at my blog, this story doesn’t fit “the template” of the Washington Post, et al.
Michelle, you are a real piece of work tracking down this story. Kudos.
Michelle, please stay on this Terror in the Skies story. You may literally save lives.
Denise Havard
Houston, Texas
A truly disturbing story. I appreciate your attempts to verify it, and I’ll be watching for more corroboration. Thanks again for an excellent blog.
Keep on it Michelle – this is an important story. I’ve already sent to my senator who sits on the select intelligence committee and I’ll call him next week to ensure he’s doing something about it.
The liberal left has tied our hands behind our backs with PCism – tragedy surely awaits.
Thanks!
Keep on it Michelle – this is an important story. I’ve already sent to my senator who sits on the select intelligence committee and I’ll call him next week to ensure he’s doing something about it.
The liberal left has tied our hands behind our backs with PCism – tragedy surely awaits.
Thanks!
Just so weird we haven’t heard more, but thanks for checking up on this.
Michelle,
Unbelievable work you are doing on this. Keep it up.
Ditto to all the comments above. Michelle, you have no idea how much we, out here in the “real America” appreciate you bringing light to this story.
You are causing major blogitation today! (Blogosphere + agitation = Blogitation)
Add me to the ever-growing list of people who want to say thanks, Michelle, for digging into this story and keeping us up to date.
Last time I checked, this is what journalism was all about.
I fly, at the least, one round trip of no less than 2 hours per month, often more. Passengers are forbidden from leaving their seats a minimum of 20 minutes [some airlines have longer] before landing on all airlines.
I just flew on business the last two days, on BOTH flights, a passenger stood up after the cabin had been secured for landing and were immediately “asked” to be retake their seats over the intercome.
While I will confess that I rarely fly Northworst, it should be noted that Detroit has one of the biggest Arab communities within the US; so, the fact that Middle Eastern looking men got on a particular flight in Detroit would not be all that unusual.
Well, it’s possible that the WaPo checked it out and there just wasn’t a story here. If the band was legit, the headline is just “Syrian band behaves oddly, passengers frightened”.
AS gripping as this narrative is, the punchline is really only that it raises doubts about security and our ability to respond. Compared to the guy with the suicide note in MN, that’s nothing.
Now, there may be some PC sentiment at work here, too…an editor may have thought, well, if this were a Peruvian band acting screwy, it wouldn’t be newsworthy, so why should it be given special attention just because the musicians just happened to be Syrian?
I think that answer will be obvious to most readers of this site, but not to a member of the mainstream media.
“If it is indeed true, then we may have more to fear than many are being led to believe by Big Brother. ”
Big Brother initiated the Patriot Act to better control these people and is taking a beating from the left for doing so.
Big Brother would have NO problem with profiling passengers and orienting search sensitivity on likely suspects rather than old ladies and 15 year old cheerleaders and our rather endowed young lady from the other thread with the underwire bra.
Big Brother could absolutely shut these guys down if liberal, AMerican, non-Arab morons weren’t jumping up and down screaming to the ACLU because we tried to search a fourth Arab before he got on a plane.
Don’t blame big brother for the current state of affairs. Untie his hands and say “Go Get ‘em!” America’s worst danger is other Americans who frankly don’t care how many people die as long as nobody got their feelings hurt along the way.
At the very least, something strange went on. The details really don’t matter- it seems pretty clear that some sort of coordinated activity went on amongst a group of Syrians on a flight to a major US city- that in and of itself, minus the parts about sky marshals and such, should’ve been in the lead block of every nightly news program in America. Perhaps its nothing- but what if it is?
Thanks Michelle- we appreciate your vigilance.
Compare Michelle’s industriousness on this as compared to the lacking (and lazy) reporting by the so-called mainstream media such as the LA Times or even South Dakota’s Argus-Leader (which remains quite agnostic into investigating anything detrimental of their guy Tom Daschle.)
Michelle, why isn’t Fox onto this story? With your connections there, I would have thought that they would jump on this and hype it up?
See-Dubya:
that’s a stupid rationale. If Mohammad Atta and friends had been observed on one of their “dry runs,” in your world the story would be “Flight Schools Students Act Oddly, Scares Passenger.” Of course, no one knew to be vigilant because Sept. 11th hadn’t happened by then.
Has anyone turned up the name of the venue the ‘band’ was supposed to play at?
We’re not talking about Arab-Americans. These were men with Syrian passports. Syria, which is on the list of nations that export terrorism. Why aren’t we allowed to discriminate against the citizens of terrorist nations?
You misunderstand me. When I used the term “big brother,” it was referring more to the TSA goons that profile 85 year-old grandmothers from Topeka and leave swarthy 21 year-old Arabic men from Dearborn alone.
I’d much rather TSA pay attention to the “usual suspects” than to harassing everyone in the name of political correctness.
Having spent a few years in both federal and local law enforcement, Jacobsen’s account strikes me a highly embellished. I explain in detail on my own blog.
Jacobsen, by her own admission, was in fear, if not actual terror, before her plane even took off. And that fact colored how she understood everything that happened.
Bravo, Michelle! Was John Mintz the guy who spiked this, or did his editors do it on their own?
Atta or at least SOME of his minions WERE OBSERVED. By actor James Woods.
LInk: http://prisonplanet.com/transcript_actor_james_woods.html
Thanks for all the work you are putting into this story! Keep up the good work.
Hey Chris!!
I thought you said wednesday at houseonahill that you weren’t a Patriot Act support. If you want I can go back there cut ‘n paste your own lies for you and everyone else to see! Lying loser. The more of your posts I see, the more pathetic you become.
Like the poster said above. So what if everything she said is 100% true-
1) A bunch of arab men were on the plane and used the bathroom frequently;
2) She got scared when they wouldn’t return her friendly glances;
3) At least one of them had a McDonald’s bag at one point;
4) Every last one of them was rounded up, detained, searched and questioned after the flight landed, and were found to be legit with no contraband.
Why would the regular news outlets pick that up? What’s the headline?
“Arab Has Big Mac, Diherria; Whitey Canadian Babe Freaks Out”
Get Real. You people are feeding yourselves ‘groupthink’.
Blogingham–my post was conditioned on the possibility that the WaPo had already checked out the band, and verified they were legit, and they were NOT Atta. In that case it’s really just a bunch of Syrian musicians, acting weird, scaring passengers. Which I hope is all that happened.
I can see where the Post might legitimately decide not to run that. Especially when they stand to be accused of fostering racism if they make it sound like a terorist incident, when they know it wasn’t.
It’s because we really don’t know what the deal is with these guys or who they were that the story is interesting. Maybe the Post knows. If they don’t know, I think it’s a good story. Maybe they’re still trying to figure out who htese guys were. On the other hand, maybe the Post is so busy rehashing Abu Ghraib that this real news just slipped their mind.
Corrie–I’ve sent some e-mails to two casinos in Palm Springs to see whether they’ve heard of a Syrian band playing on the night of June 29th or 30th. No response yet.
For an agency that we’re all fond of ridiculing as clueless, Homeland Security sure managed to land a lot of plainclothes Federal Air Marshalls on that flight didn’t they?
If we were to impute competence to the Department for a change, we’d probably guess that they knew a dry run was afoot and the “band” wasn’t well armed; so the air marshalls hung back to see how the rehearsal went, to be able to better target such behavior in the future.
Although Glenn Reynolds’ belief in the utter incompetence of the agency in this matter is surely more intuitively attractive both to Democrats, and conservatives distrustful of government.
Michelle -
Thanks for checking this story out. It’s so shocking, and the source so obscure (I had never heard of Women’s Wall Street before) as to strain credibility. But thanks to your efforts, the pieces are staying together.
Now we need to start asking, “Where the [insert expletive of choice here] is the press on this one?” I don’t care what political ideology one is – everybody needs to be made aware of this story.
Thanks Michelle for the due diligence. If nothing else comes out of this the rules for racial profiling need to be loosened for airline flights. I hate saying that, but don’t have a better answer that will keep passengers safe.
Michelle, you rock! My hope is that this story removes all opposition to aggressive profiling. And if the network newsmagazines kick into high gear, something good might finally happen thanks to their tabloid tactics!
PS I fly the route in question all the time, so I’m particularly concerned about how this plays out.
During a TV interview post 9/11, Jeremy Glick’s (Flight 93) widow, Elizabeth, recalled Jeremy saying via cellphone, “I don’t know why these guys were allowed on the airplane.”
Thank you for the article.
Regarding all those marshals: either they were made up by the flight attendant to calm Jacobsen down, or it had to do with a heightened alert that was in effect on June 29th. That was when they were looking for a group of Pakistanis with rope burns from the Al-Qaeda training camps.
I had linked to this in the other thread, and my link disappeared, so let me try again: http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2004/06/29/eveningnews/main626679.shtml
That is important context for this story–perhaps for Ms. Jacobsen’s state of mind. Certainly it’s interesting because this is how the system worked WHEN WE WERE EXPECTING TROUBLE in LAX AND DETROIT.
Maybe we got a lot of marshals on the right plane. Maybe that discouraged some terrorists from doing what they had planned to do. On the other hand, as Hugh Hewitt asked, why wasn’t the plane set down at the first sign of trouble? And if they really were assembling a bomb in the lavatory, would it have done any good?
Ah, bb you decided to come to more intelligent site. but by your post I would say you are not qualified.
I never said I was a Patriot Act supporter. If you read more than what you want to read you might see that.
In response to a post that “Big Brother” said we are safer than we are, I said…
“Big Brother initiated the Patriot Act to better control these people and is taking a beating from the left for doing so.”
Which is absolutley true. No lie. Retard.
Does not mean that I agree with all of the provisions set forth in the Patriot Act. Or did you not know that there was more than one part to it? It is pretty long and has a lot of big words and no pictures so it may be beyond you.
See, it also gives the government too much authority to sieze my property and funds if they just think I was somehow invovled with terrorists. That is too much power for the government to have unchecked. It gives them too much power to look through email and phone records without what I consider to be sufficient cause, and if in the course of checking those email records they find information about someone else, that has nothing to do with the specific investigation they are conducting, they can use it as evidence against them even though it violates right to privacy.
I could go on and on about what parts of the Patriot Act are not good policy for Americans, but you are simply not worth it, because you are a nutcase.
And if your stupid bullet point post above is an accurate representation of all you got out of the entire article than you are even a bigger idiot than you make yourself out to be.
A few thoughts:
(1) 14 seems like an awfully large number for a “band,” unless Syrian bands are the size of bands from the Big Band era.
(2) These days, if you want to take over an airplance, you’ll need more than the 4 or 5 guys they used on Sept. 11. I’d say 14 is more realistic.
(3) Even if these guys really were musicians with a gig, they STILL could have been performing a dry-run for Osama & Co. In fact, they would have the perfect cover; if stopped and questoned (as they were) their story would check out (as it seems to have), and the bad guys assigned to the real attack wouldn’t get caught or ID’ed (as indeed they weren’t). This is concistent with Al Queda’s habit of meticulous preparation.
This sounds TYPICAL if you read Military Studies in the Jihad Against the Tyrants.
I analyze those sorts of documents and they match up with the “dry run theory.”
But what is the IMPLICATION of this, other than raising public awareness that terrorism is still a very REAL threat?
Law enforcement is simply not enough to counter the threat.
I posted on that:
http://www.terrorismunveiled.com/athena/2004/06/why_law_enforce.html
But Erik, didn’t you see bb’s post? Obviously if these guys were terrorists they would have ridden up to the airport on camels, carrying AK-47’s and said
“Hello, we are the terrorists here to blow up infidels on flight #37 to LAX, by the way, what movie will be playing?”
They would never do anything covert.
While it is disturbing – very – it brings home just how vulnerable we are, and always will be, because we are a free and open society. Americans are going to have to make some choices: do we want ‘no lines, no waiting, no inconveniences’ at the airports, or do we want stringent double-checking. Do we want to feel politically correct and pure or do we want to seriously start looking at ME men and women (as many as there are, not only TWO) and saying, ‘to hell with feel-good rhetoric about racial profiling”. Mineta seems more interested in making sure no one’s delicate sensibilities are offended in ‘profiling’ and that is going to cost lives. My husband is olive skinned and in the winter he raises a beard. He travels often – globally – on business and is often pulled aside for additional scrutiny – particularly when he is in the UK, because he looks like he could be Middle Eastern. He does not MIND the profiling. He’d rather be singled out and cleared and know that every other olive skinned guy is being looked at too, than ‘feel good’ about diversity and our pc lack of profiling.
This story tells us ‘SOMETHING MUST BE DONE BEYOND WHAT WE ARE DOING’. And that begs the question that maybe your readers will take a shot at answering: What more can we do?
I suspect lots of folks will tell you that they really don’t KNOW what more can be done. There is a fundamental shift in thinking which needs to take place…Americans have to start thinking: WE ARE AT WAR, and that involves some inconvenience and sacrifice and yes, it may even involve – gasp – racial and gender profiling!
Terrorists commit their acts to “terrorize” us, to make us change, to make us fear to live our normal lives. Reveling in these speculations and ‘giving counsel to our fears’ is exactly what THEY hope for.
If Ms. Jacobson’s fears DID have any foundation, there may be many reasons why the government would investigate quietly.
If the concerns DID NOT have any foundation, then we’re really playing into the terrorists’ hands.
With all due respect, this is “playing their game.” In contrast, the Israelis insist that bus bombings get cleaned up right away, then they ride those buses and stand at those bus stops like nothing happened. THAT is how we should respond.
I keep seeing people say that “they were found to be innocent with no contraband.” I have seen ABSOLUTELY NOTHING to support this. I have seen that reports that they were questioned, but nothing about what happened AFTER they were questioned. These guys might be in Gitmo and DHS might have parts of a mock IED right now. The certainly wouldn’t tell us if that was the case (and rightly so.)
Why did the WaPost sit on the story? Obviously they’re looking to gather the maximum amount of ‘information’ that will reflect badly on the President.
Either that, or they’re pursuing a Halliburton connection!
Check out this FBI document on concealable weapons. It also shows actual x-ray images as they appear at the security checkpoint. The crucifix knife and carbon fiber knife/hair brush are particulary devious and virtually invisible to x-rays.
http://datacenter.ap.org/wdc/fbiweapons.pdf
After looking at this, I think it’s pretty obvious that someone motivated and clever enough could get a weapon past security and on board. Alternatively they could get tools through and create a sharp weapon out of plastic during the flight.
In following the story for the last two days, no one has checked into this:
“The 14 Syrians had been hired as musicians to play at a casino in the desert.”
Has anyone checked into which casino it was, and if so, what did they do there? Did they actually play anything, or did they sit in their rooms for two days? A very, very curious story indeed–thanks for staying on top of it. –Washington, DC
One other thought: We all need to take a breath and calm down. Rod Dreher and others are revealing through their own contacts that many domestic hijackings have been thwarted, with no reportage. The gov’t cannot afford to tell us everything that’s going on and keep us in a state of perpetual breathlessness…the economy couldn’t stand it.
But perhaps the gov’t SHOULD give us a rundown of some of the successes they’ve had, so we don’t read a story like this and think: OMG! NOTHING IS BEING DONE! WE’RE DOOOOOOMED.
Clearly, things ARE being done. The US hasn’t been attacked since 9/11. Just as clearly, we WILL be attacked sometimes in the future…there is no way a country as large, open and free as ours will go unmolested; there will always be weak links. But let’s keep our heads and contact the government to say: Okay – we think you’re sort of on the ball here, but how about STEPPING THINGS UP?
And then, of course, we have to get the left to come to terms with the reality that pulling a pasty-faced 200 lb mom of three in Iowa off a security line for extra screening because we have to be ‘fair’ and make sure no one feels ‘profiled’ is really, REALLY not a serious way to protect ourselves.
When Pablo Escobar blew up an Avianca flight in 1989, he didn’t use any of his own men. He gave a trapped briefcase to a stranger to carry on the plane.
Searches should be both random and targeted. Random, because bombs could be introduced to a confused granny’s luggage by a cabdriver or a teddy bear given to a little girl by someone in the lobby. Random checks fight unknowing bombs, targeted checks fight Sept. 11 scenarios.
Here is what I emailed Michelle and Annie last night via the contact link after the article.
Some valid questions that would need to be asked.
+++++
RE: Terror in the Skies, Again?
Dear WWS,
Thanks for the great article by the way.
Here are some questions I would appreciate you forwarding to Annie Jacobsen.
1) Did the authorities find out where the musicians playing in the desert and follow up at that hotel?
2) Did they send agents to observe them at that venue in the desert?
3) Did they find out where they were supposedly playing in New York City, follow up and send agents there to observe as well?
4) Did they put Marshals on board the Jet Blue flight as well going to NYC to observe them?
5) Did the FBI and co and Air Marshal on board the flight feel these gentlemen were probably suspicious and worth following or that it was a “misunderstanding” in their final estimation.
Regards,
Larry
Makes one go “hmmm”, doesn’t it. It certainly seems to warrant closer inspection. I predict we drop “PC” from Homeland Security after the next “hit”. I pray otherwise.
Incidentally, I just discovered a French campaign poster that seems to suggest that John Kerry’s slogan “A Stronger America” as at best, borrowed. The Chirac slogan reads, “Une France Forte”. Please, do not feign shock
A point to ponder and maybe just a coincidence but the story line for the Syrians is strangely reminiscent of a story I read about a wedding in the north country of Iraq about a month ago where a famous Iraqi wedding singer and lots of musicians died.
Anyway, not the first thing of interest but I do wonder if the Fed’s asked them to play their instruments and, if so, were they any good? Also, could they play a song completely or just the beginning of one?
Corrie’s question about where their gig was is a good one and could lead to many more.
Whether he wants it or not Norman Mineta is personally responsible and if we have another aircraft incident with lives lost due to terrorist activities, he better leave the US forever.
Donald Sensing wrote:
“Having spent a few years in both federal and local law enforcement, Jacobsen’s account strikes me a highly embellished. I explain in detail on my own blog [www.donaldsensing.com]”
I think that Donald’s analysis does a fair job of reconciling Dave Adams’ confirmation of a few key details with the overall fishiness of Jacobsen’s account (in short, he suggests that pehaps Annie really did see a group of Arab men being detained at the LAX gate, but that much of the remaining story was embellished by memory). A question that might be asked is: If Annie and her husband had been delayed in getting off the plane, and therefore hadn’t observed the Syrians being led away by guys in dark suits, would she have *still* recalled the Syrians’ in-flight behavior as being spooky and suspicious?
One of my neighbors is a pilot, another an air marshal. They told me stories of holes being poked from the forward lavatories into the cockpit to see what was going on. Apparently only the cockpit doors have been strengthened, not the area around them.
So….
I’ve read Annie Jacobsen’s piece completely.
I’ve read Michelle Malkin’s background checks and verifications and her writings on it.
I’ve read Donald Sensing’s skeptical analysis and …
I’ve read all of the comments posted by individuals at Michelle and Donald’s site’s.
I pride myself at being highly analytical and being able to see the big picture.
My take?
I believe Annie mostly. I also wonder why nobody has really talked much about the text that Annie writes about United and American Airlines having to each pay 1.5 million after settling with the Department of Transportation.
I also believe that there are “dry runs” happening in airlines and “casings” of nuclear power plants happening more than we hear about.
It is understood that the 19 hijackers planned for more than one year and had dry runs. In fact the length of time planning the 9/11 attack was incredibly long. Because of that fact and the recent reports of terrorists that might try to affect the election like they did Spain, we all should understand that this WAR IS NOT OVER. The terrorists are still ready, willing, able to cause us harm. Countries like the Phillipines are “enabling” and encouraging the terrorists.
Why is no one asking the basic question: What are 14 Syrians doing in this country at all? Seriously, aside from diplomats, we should not be issuing visas to any Syrian nationals for any reason. Same goes for Iranians, Saudis,Lebanese, etc. Without foot soldiers in this country, Bin Laden and Co. are just a bunch of freaks in a cave; they can’t hurt us. We need to start expelling citizens of these countries en masse, and pronto.
Too bad Iyad Allawi wasn’t on that plane.
RE: Thad’s comments,
“Why is no one asking the basic question: What are 14 Syrians doing in this country at all? Seriously, aside from diplomats, we should not be issuing visas to any Syrian nationals for any reason. Same goes for Iranians, Saudis,Lebanese, etc. Without foot soldiers in this country, Bin Laden and Co. are just a bunch of freaks in a cave; they can’t hurt us. We need to start expelling citizens of these countries en masse, and pronto.”
Well, yes I think most Americans would agree that is reasonable in times of war with exceptions only for verifiable cases of asylum. But presently we’re too frozen by the PC crowd (even within US foot soldier culture) that nothing will happen to this effect until after the next event— unless we all stop being brow-beaten by traitors and start screaming bloody murder with an intelligent, coherent and unifying argument on the political frontlines. It’s time for some political Minute Men.
Perhaps the affair is meant to be a distraction…
Commissar said:
With all due respect, this is “playing their game.” In contrast, the Israelis insist that bus bombings get cleaned up right away, then they ride those buses and stand at those bus stops like nothing happened. THAT is how we should respond.
Uh, NO. They respond by taking gunships and blowing up terrorists in the west bank and gaza. They respond by closing their borders by building a wall. They respond by searching and profiling everyone on a plane. Which of those things are we doing?
There, there now, Foo. As I understand it, Transportation Security are actively conducting regular searches of old ladies in wheel chairs and U.S. Senators…
I’m live blogging her interview with John Carlson… KVI 560 Seattle.
http://www.blogingham.blogspot.com
I was going to comment on your site, Blogingham, but there is nowhere for non-members to post. You should checkout flooble.com for a workaround. At any rate, way to be on it
I wanna hear this band’s music. If it is any good, I’ll turn a blind eye to terrorist tendencies.
Interesting. Although I have no specific knowledge of this event, obviously, I will say that as a professional writer (for over thirty years, if that matters) I did not sense the article to be faked. But all that is is hunch.
Oh man, I wish I hadn’t read this at all. I’m going to be flying from LAX to Indianapolis on 3 September and flying back on the 12th…
Now I’m gonna be super nervous until then! It’s almost enough to make me want to cancel my reservations…
1. Detroit has the highest concentration of Arabs in the U.S.–maybe that’s why there were 14 Arab men on board.
2. Any article that quotes Ann Coulter is suspect.
3. They didn’t blow up the plane, now, did they? Maybe the system does work.
4. I agree–the system is busy getting my 13 year-old’s nail scissors out of her bag, but not target suspicious behavior. It sounds though that they did target this suspicious behavior.
5. Racial profiling is illegal–maybe it’s better not to surrender our rights.
something, Syrian musician relevant.
http://www.rightnation.us/forums/index.php?showtopic=45498&st=60&#entry682406783
Eljay, you can’t be “Syriaus”…
Let’s don’t forget about the Syrian who was arrested last week at the Minneapolis Airport carrying a suicide note and Jihad DVDs. Ridge warning came out the very next day.
http://www.kstp.com/article/stories/S1124.html
LOL @ Jihad DVDs… I wonder if those have previews for other Jihad movies on them…
Damn,
I’m glad I’m not of middle eastern descent in this country. Everybody’s friggin’ PARANOID.
Get yourselves together.
Sandy
“Everybody’s friggin’ PARANOID.”
1) Using that adjective before the word paranoid shows your limited use of the English language.
2) Yes. When you have a very intent mass of islamofascists ready to try to do as much destruction as possible and who did disregard the lives of what they thought was over 10,000 plus people in the World Trade Center (they only managed to kill 3,000), I would call it prudent and reasonable thinking to protect ourselves from these people by at least watching them, maybe documenting their moves and questioning them when the do something ’suspicious’.
Eljay,
First, of all they’re Syrian nationals. Hence, my concern for their “rights” in this country is basically limited to ensuring they don’t suffer any physical harm.
More importantly though, we really have to get past the mindset that asking people a few harmless questions as a result of the fact they fit a profile that includes – but is not limited to – their ethnicity is somehow equivalent to throwing them in an internment camp.
“Maybe it’s better not to surrender our rights.” Yeah and the best way I can see to preserve my right to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness is for someone to ask a few questions instead of standing idly by while a group of yahoos rig up some fireworks in the lavatory. Wake up. You need to start worrying about people’s fundamental right to stay alive and not the minor inconvenience of a few simple questions.
I don’t mean to sound so negative or condescending, because the principles you are attempting to protect are certainly worthy ones. Unfortunately, at this point in history, there are bigger concerns that trump our desire to be fully sensitive to every potential slight.
Even if this is a hoax or, more likely, exaggerated so as to be grossly misleading, the bigger issue remains: what should be done if the situation described does unfold? And, should we be doing more to make sure that such a situation never occurs?