Strike up the band
The New York Times ran a piece today by Joe Sharkey purporting to report on “What Really Happened” on Flight 327 with the 14 Syrian passengers observed by writer Annie Jacobsen. The piece skews toward the Nothing Happened camp and concludes with a quote from Federal Air Marshal spokesman Dave Adams saying: “They gave their little performance in the casino and two days later they flew out on a JetBlue flight from Long Beach to New York.”
One reader doesn’t buy the band story. Mark Powelson, a former PBS executive and San Francisco magazine editor familiar with the world music scene, cc’ed me a copy of his letter to the Times’ Joe Sharkey. He makes some interesting points, especially with regard to the lack of any complaints by the ethnic grievance whiners who usually come out of the woodwork when they’ve been unfairly harrassed. Here’s the letter in full. Would love to hear Joe Sharkey’s response:
Something still doesn’t add up. There are indeed a few–but only a few–Syrian musicians and groups of the kind of reputation in the world music world that give them the opportunity for actual music tours…the big WOMAD fest last year bemoaned the fact that the large group called Whirling Dervishes from Syria couldn’t get travel visa’s ok’ed in time for the festival. But it’s hard to name or find a large ensemble (ten or more) Syrian group with a rep big enough for someone to pay their travelling $$ beyond Whirling Dervishes.
And there are a number of noted and recorded individual artists including Sabah Fakhri, who is also in Syria’s great Sufi tradition. Having tried a couple of years ago to develop a PBS program dealing with world music, I can tell you that it is always the case that when a ‘world music’ group travels, they’re doing a concert tour with as many stops as possible. (No self-respecting Middle Eastern group with any reputation would pass through NY without playing in Brooklyn, for example).
I don’t think you’ll ever hear of a case of a ‘mid level’ or lower group flying to one city for a one or two day stint…at an LA area Indian casino??? It would have made sense if the group had played in Detroit with that city’s very large Arab American community…but searching the Detroit News on Lexis-Nexis (and the Detroit News has a very very extensive arts/entertainment calendar), I see no mention at all of any Syrian or “Damascus” based group performing over the past 60 days. But why ‘no name’, for heaven’s sake?
But since you yourself were not able to ‘report’ your way to the actual name of the group…I don’t think your column can accurately be called a “what really happened” story.
If this were some terrible case of harrassment in the nation’s entertainment capital, Los Angeles, it is extremely odd that none of the myriad of activist-oriented groups involved in world music heard about the fracas. (You should read the kind of heat that the visa problems that blocked groups from last year’s WOMAD triggered.) This is not a media-shy community. In fact, the silence in this respect is stunning, even if it is a case of Sherlock Holmes ‘dog that did not bark.’ Musical groups touring from Cuba and other countries that have faced perceived excessive scrutiny have ALWAYS had US-based supporters who have gone to the media…including the Times. The Arab American community is relatively tightly knit and it would be very odd that a popular music group would be subjected to apparently prolonged “grilling” with any of the major (and again hardly silent) Arab American civil rights organizations speaking out, and not just in response to a call from the Times.
A telling fact against the ‘paranoia’ theory may be the very fact (if it is a fact) that the gentlemen were carrying Syrian passports. It is very difficult for Syrian passport holders to get travel visa’s to the U.S. And a Syrian passport is not a very good way to travel clandestinely. Also, the 14 person group is larger than what we would see in a typical ‘training’ excercise…based on what we’ve seen in “cell based” organizations over many decades.
On the other hand, the fact that none of the names shows up on a ‘watch list’ means only that. Every candid intelligence agency estimate whether from the US, the Brits, the Israeli’s, gives very large estimates of both trained terrorists not yet ‘activated’ as well as “sleepers.” (U.S. intel from inside Syria would make our inside intel of pre-war Iraq look positively rich. At least in Iraq the CIA had long, intimate involvement with the Kurds in the north and to a lesser extent the anti-Sadaam regions in the south. Police state Syria is perhaps one of the most impervious nation’s on earth to US intelligence beyond ‘elint’)
But the “racial profiling” aspect is a complete canard. You are ‘profiled’ every time you apply for a credit card or a mortgage, you ‘profile’ people you invite to an intimate dinner party or any time you arrange a blind date. FBI ‘profilers’ are celebrated on national tv every time a major criminal case is being investigated. Profiling is simply a formal or informal use of statistics drawn from the past in an effort to predict the future. If 19 out of 19 men on September 11th were between 20 and 40 and of Arabic extraction, that’s fact-based profiling and for better or worse, it passes for a science, that is, it is a body of knowledge and experience proven useful in the real world and based on verifiable principles and suppositions. It’s time we just bit the bullet on that unhappy fact.
(We are all reminded, of course, of actor James Woods perception of very disturbing behavior of 4 young men of ‘middle eastern appearance’ on the American Airlines Boston to LA flight on the morning of August 1, 2001. No action taken, of course, because no crime committed. )
Perhaps someone will get to the bottom of this one, but whoever wrote the ‘what really happened’ headline to your piece was stretching it a bit.
Mark Powelson
Update: Many people have raised the possibility that the band was Kulna Sawa. A representative passes along the following message (also sent to Power Line):
I am Manager of the Kulna Sawa/Together Concert for Peace Tour which will take place in November. The group is currently in Syria and is not in any way involved with the recent incident referred to on your web site. The Concert for Peace Tour is designed specificially to counter this kind of misunderstanding which is so prevalent today in the United States.
Mel Lehman
Concert for Peace Tour
New York City
ML9612921@aol.com
Well, that clears things up. Sort of. Not.
See what others have said
Note from Michelle: This section is for comments from michellemalkin.com's community of registered readers. Please don't assume that I agree with or endorse any particular comment just because I let it stand. A reminder: Anyone who fails to comply with my terms of use may lose his or her posting privilege.
Trackbacks
- Ramblings' Journal
- The Pink Flamingo Bar Grill
- Blogs of War
- asian ass big asses teen tight ass ass traffic best ass hot teen ass
- 2-way-radios 4923
- furniture bedroom
Comments
You must be logged in to post a comment.
Categories: Airline Security, Annie Jacobsen
protein wisdom
» A Nannystatist Emily Litella moment [Darleen Click]
Ed Driscoll
» The University ArchipelagoNewsBusters.org
» The War on Terror Made Him Do ItEd Driscoll
» First We Take Chicago, Then We Take BerlinNewsBusters.org
» Matthews on Ft. Hood Suspect Warning Signal: 'That's Not a Crime to Call al Qaeda, Is It?'Pundit & Pundette
» Westboro haters have enough to go around for everyoneTigerHawk
» Abortion and health care "reform"Weekly Standard
» The Federal Bureau of Non-Investigation
If those of us who are suspicious about the government’s line on this are correct, I wonder why the coverup?
Is something big in the works, and the government doesn’t want to let on that they’re onto it?
Or did we do a shoddy investigation and let a bunch of terrorists escape, and now everyone’s playing CYA?
Stay on it Michelle.
I’m very glad that you are still researching this story, Michelle. I have e-mailed this to a particular radio talk show host, but he hasn’t linked it yet. (He could be waiting on more confirmation of the validity; he rants about this all of the time–the lax security even after 9/11/01)
If this is true, (and I think it is) I was struck by the seemingly “lambs led to the slaughter” mentality of the other passengers. I doubt I would’ve gotten on that plane had I seen 14 Middle Eastern men, without wives or families. I think we are too cowered by political correctness to say anything in this situation. People were criticized for this AFTER 9/11/01 (refusing to ride on the same plane with even 1 Middle Eastern-looking male)
Does the reaction of the passengers on this flight (including the author herself) scare the bejeezus out of anyone else?
Well, I think for much too long the US intel policy has been playing “CYA” instead of CIA. More than the expected Times poo-poo, I think we need to begin focusing on what I think Mark Powelson’s most powerful point was: we lack substantive intel on the ground far more often than we should. As some recent reports have mentioned, the CIA has relied too heavily on electronic surveillance and far too little on putting people on the ground. What to me is worse is the institutionalization of this ideal over several decades even in the face of failure after failure directly attributable to this policy. Since even before the CIA was founded, it seems.
From surprises about German technology in the 30’s and 40’s to the Korean War and the Soviet era and beyond, we have been left scrambling time and time again. 9-11 happens to be the biggest one that bit us.
Of course our intelligence agencies hands are tied, so while I am pinning some blame to them, a larger chunk has to go to elected officials who have repeatedly tied their hands, putting their own political agendas ahead of well, their own heads!
I’m not a conspiracy theorist, but somebody sure seems to be hiding something. Ms. Jacobsen’s story has been verified, but there are too many strange responses by government employees to other’s questions.
Has anyone checked with JetBlue to see if they had a flight with a bunch of Syrian ‘musicians’ on it between June 30 and say July 4th? It would be interesting to find out if they even made their return flight.
Keep up the good work Michelle.
It makes sense to me.
And they were probably using the restrooms for their praying. If commercial airlines were required to accomodate muslim passengers with special on-board prayer rooms, incidents like this would never happen.
Larry, the reply to that is just too obvious and nasty to say. (Oh, the temptation…) ;o)
If Ms. Applebaum and her husband overreacted or read too much into innocent behavior, then why was the FBI and security waiting for the Syrians when the plane landed at LAX? Obviously the behavior was abnormal enough to alarm the flight crew and pilots so that they radioed ahead, and they are experienced with all sorts of airline passenger behavior. This is highly suspicious and the original story totally credible. As someone recently wrote, political correctness kills! Now that George Tenet is gone it’s time for Norm Mineta to take a hike as well.
Well, what do you expect? Would they be calling themselves a group of 14 Syrian terrorists? … A group of 14 Syrian student pilots?
Please color me still skeptical. And I DO profile. If I see something or someone in the boarding area that doesn’t sit right with MY concept of safety, I make myself heard. I will also take a different flight.
My apologies, I meant Annie Jacobson. I saw her and her husband on Joe Scarborough last night and they were both totally credible.
If independent sources have said that there were no arrests that day, and the government plays up every supposed victory in the war on terror, which a slew of arrests that day would have been, then I think we can assume that the Syrians were not arrested.
Given that, then what’s the implication of saying there’s a coverup regarding the purpose of the Syrians? If they were indeed musicians, then there’s no problem, and just a lot of healthy paranoia (I don’t think this hypersensitivity by the public is necessarily a bad thing).
If they were not musicians, then the US government is either grossly incompetent or complicit. What are the coverup theorists implying?
One might almost wonder if someone was trying to train us that groups of ME men frequently do weird, but harmless, things on airplanes, so it’s no big deal.
*These are not the droids you’re looking for*
Very significant that nobody “CAIR”s
I am in the dry run camp. And I have had another day to think about all this. It’s possible that the Syrians were not arrested because the publicity would have led to them being freed soon afterwards. Maybe they were picked up later and are now being held somewhere indefinitely. Maybe Guantanemo is just the tip of the iceburg. I hope so.
I was suprised to hear in the account of this incident that there were so many air marshals on the flight. Maybe they make it a practice to get on flights with groups of Syrians. And, if they start their drills, they witness it and take action later. Perhaps when they get off the plane the FBI follows them to see if they will lead them to others. Then they arrest them. Are there reports out there of missing Syrians who disappeared while in the US? Again, I hope so.
The alternative is that our law enforcement agencies are still incompetent. This is also a strong possibility.
Don’t let up, Michelle.
I started out skeptical, but the more I hear and read, the more I am concerned that lives may depend on what you find.
Thanks and God bless you…
Props to DANEgerus.
Cole: In today’s climate, I would wager a group of terrorists could call themselves “a group of terrorists, plotting to blow up the plain over (insert target) and kill as many infidels as possible” and the groupthink would be: “well, they are just angry because they were victimized as young people”, besides how dare we judge them simply by their choice of speech”. I can see it now. The only time the Left supports cracking down on assaults on a country is when it is a Leftwing country. They have their agenda and we have ours, I guess.
sic: plane
or plain if they have a WMD… need coffee
Stay on this Michelle. I am reading everything I can find on this. One source suggested (your blog?) that if confronted with the situation in the airget yourself and other passengers to go into the bathrooms and refuse to come out until the plane lands safely.
I will not get on a plane that has more than four ( what is a good number?) young arab appearing men or a group of males and females. I will certainly speak up to a gate agent…..and yes…to those of the “pc” persuasion…I am a bit paranoid about this.
Further, I am not prejudiced against those of the brown hair, brown eyes likeness for when I look into the mirror that is what I see looking back at me….maybe, however, a bit more “Italian” than middle eastern.
I have begun to pray about this often. The “Serenity Prayer” seems to help me the most by giving me strength and hope.
I heard they were coming out to audition as Linda Ronstat’s back up band.
Perhaps, these 14 were playing an old game — a favorite of junior thug wannabes — SCARING PEOPLE.
They simply wanted to act suspicious to put a scare into the passengers. I’ve seen this done often by wannabe gang types, putting on a persona that they might be the real thing. It feeds their hatred, sense of importance and sadistic pleasures.
It’s free entertainment to them. And it can’t be challenged — or should not be — by the sheep of sensitivity, the modern Americans.
Something really doesn’t add up. So the band is back in NY now? Doesn’t anybody think that the left would have a field day with this one if they could? All they have to do is produce the band and presto, we are all racist idiots. Except, apparently the band did it’s gig in LA that nobody knows about and flew back to NY. By now, they have probably left NY and are back in Syria having dinner with their families and talking about those odd Americans with the big eyes on the plane that never blinked.
Or, maybe not.
Just to show how widespread this entire question has become, I found a site that has posted a picture it say might be the group. I doubt it, but it’s good social studies recon. It also might have a few Disparate leads.
http://www.powerlineblog.com/archives/007180.php
Seriously Ladnek. LOL.
How many Indian Casino’s are there? 10? 20? That’s only 10 or 20 calls to ask if they had a band in the last month that was from Syria that did a one night show. Don’t know if they were Syrian? Okay, there were 14 of them. One night only. Director of Entertainment or similar position would know instantly these easy to answer questions.
Voila.
ms heather is right. Why should people be cowed by the presence of some middle eastern male on a plane? Fact is I would get up and deplane. The first right of a citizen is the right to defend themselves or remove themselves if at all possible from the target zone.
What would be the appropriate response? Well how about a these two:
1) It will be required of any airline that upon being asked they must disclose prior to boarding the number of foreign nationals preparing to board the plane, and their country of origin.
2) It shall be the sole discression of the passenger(s) that upon entering the plane, that at any time prior to taxi away they be permitted to deplane and that either their tickets be refunded in full or full faith and credit be applied to said resevations and they be honored elsewhere at full face value.
Those two provisions should be enforced by the FAA across the board. The People have a right to assemble which also means they have the right to not assemble at the time and manner of their choosing without loss of their monies. A plane with ONLY 14 Syrains on it is not as tempting a target as a fully loaded plane. (A little wimsy — It would be a odd irony — 14 Syrains and 10 air marshalls all staring at each other on a long boring flight. Would serve them right.)
How about a petition folks! If the TSA cannot manage the skies the least We can do is act in our own behalf. I don’t care about the PC crowd. My life is more important than a social/political attitude by a bunch of bureau ‘girlie men’. (Thanks for that one Arrrhnoldd.)
I don’t get it though. If these people were suspicious, why aren’t they being checked out right now? Maybe they are being watched? A lot of questions have been left hanging.
Of course, their behavior during landing was utterly unacceptable. I am AMAZED that this has not been investigated. I would love to hear the explanation, from either the skeptics or the authorities, for what they were doing. Also, why didn’t flight attendants make them sit down?
Powerline blog, referenced above, recieved email from the band they noted on their site:
“We have received a gracious message from a man in the know regarding the whereabouts of Kulna Sawa and information regarding its upcoming American tour:
I am Manager of the Kulna Sawa/Together Concert for Peace Tour which will take place in November. The group is currently in Syria and is not in any way involved with the recent incident referred to on your web site. The Concert for Peace Tour is designed specificially to counter this kind of misunderstanding which is so prevalent today in the United States.
Mel Lehman
Concert for Peace Tour
New York City”
So it must be some OTHER Syrian band, huh?
CBK
Sorry. I failed to post the pertinent link.
http://www.powerlineblog.com/archives/007218.php
CBK
And David2 mentions a band in NY. Did I miss something somewhere where some actually identified this band?
CBK
Oh, cool! Comments! I hadn’t noticed them on this website before.
Michelle, I’m with you on this one. I think the Jacobsens are telling the truth. It’s quite possible it was a ‘dry run’ or it could have been a ‘wet run’ that didn’t work. Who knows. Please do be vigilant while on all your flights. As for me, I’ll drive, thanks.
ALso, it could be that these men ARE being investigated and we just don’t know about it. High priority secret “for the president’s eyes only” kind of investigation. I’m sure it’ll get figured out eventually.
I spent 10 years in the casino business, including 3 years as casino manager at two different properties. The idea of booking a bunch of Syrian musicians for entertainment is simply preposterous. Tony Orlando and Dawn, maybe, but not these guys. Just check any casino web site and see the kind of schlock we book for entertainment. But no Syrians, ever.
F/U on Scarborough tonite. Good discussion last heard at parade of Emporer with no clothes. Annie did the right thing. Everyone be vigilant.
But NO ONE asks about the identity of the group or their whereabouts. This would be funny if it wasn’t so serious.
It is comforting to know that if multiple Syrians are going to run plays on our airliners they will have air marshals for company. And, hopefully, the fact that there is no more Syrian band gathering flight miles means they have been put away somewhere under Guantanamo. I think THAT was the unspoken message tonite.
Michelle-
Why havent we heard anyone advance the distinct probability that they are an actual band, but its just a front for terrorist activities- either gathering information for the actual terrorists, or conducting their own “dry run” before the real “show”. If the feds can’t see this possibility, we really are in trouble.
http://www.rightnation.us/forums/index.php?showtopic=45498&st=130&
How would a yell of “There are air marshals aboard!!” do for a full airplane load of Americans and suspicious men?
Maybe that is the magic sentence to get your comrades aware of their surroundings and the possible suspicious men alert to their behavior?
Look, there could be 14 Syrians shooting automatic weaponry in downdown NYC, and people would still be afraid to report them all in the name of tolerance and political correctness. I make this extreme example to make the point that the fear of profiling will do us in.
Heard you today with Gregg Knapp on KLIF. You sounded great on the radio!
The fact that Jacobsen kept a photo of one of the unfortunate WTC jumpers reveals that she is “fear involved.” There are people who carry visions of plane crashes and 9/11 with them everywhere they fly – and there are people (most people) who don’t. The former group is going to be more prone to finding the boogeyman.
The call from the right for more aggressive profiling of “swarthy people” is troublesome. You are right about the flawed logic in the argument – “evildoers” come in all shapes, sizes and colors.
As a society we must stand firm against race-based profiling in any arena. If we allow it to happen at airports, one might fear that subways and bus terminals wouldn’t be too far behind. If its OK to profile for transportation, then why not movie theaters, stadiums, schools and universities? One can see how second-class citizen restrictions might have evolved from this sort of fear in other times and places.
I am sympathetic to Jacobsen and spouse for the fear they put themselves through – it sounds like they probably emerged from the experience with some new white hairs. Fortunately, it appears that they were running on paranoia and adrenaline.
While 9/11 understandably lives on to some extent in everyones’ minds, its probably wise not to forget FDR’s catchphrase, “we have nothing to fear but fear itself.”
Maybe not nothing, but certainly not a band of merry musicians.
Liberal Avenger, that’s all fine and dandy for you hiding behind a computer screen. But put yourself in Annie’s place, and you’d be freaking out just as much, if you saw this type of suspicious behavior from 14 Middle Eastern men. This PC crap has got to stop.
I know others have said this, but apparantly libs are fairly dense, so these types of things need to be repeated. Who hicjacked planes on 9/11? Blonde, nordic looking dudes? No, 19 MIDDLE EASTERN men were the hijackers.
Who attacked the USS Cole? Middle Eastern Men.
Who attacked U.S. embassies in Kenya? Middle Eastern Men.
Who attacked WTC in 1993? Middle Eastern Men.
I can keep going like this for a long time.
Do you see a developing pattern here? Well that’s what profiling is. Looking for patterns. So get of your high horse, remove whatever object you have obstructing your rectum, and wake the f&*(k up!!!
It’s people like you who obstruct improvements in our national security. If another 9/11 happens, I will first blame the terrorists, and second I will blame the liberal appeasers who allowed it to happen again.
As someone whose wife is a flight attendant and has a brother who’s an air marshall, I read Anne Jacobsen’s story with interest. My intention is not to criticize or endorse what she says happened, just to add some information that may be useful.
1) There can’t have been a bunch of marshalls sitting all around the writer and her family. Air marshalls work in pairs, so there would have been 2 at most, probably none since there just aren’t enough marshalls for the volume of domestic flights.
2) Both my wife, who’s a flight attendant, and I have real trouble believing that the stewardess on the writer’s flight would do the thing she’s supposed to have done. FLIGHT ATTENDANTS ARE NOT SUPPOSED TO DROP BOMBSHELL INFORMATION LIKE THIS ON CIVILIANS, especially a father with a small kid who might decide to try and take out the suspicious people himself. Contrary to what people think, American flight attendants are as calm and disciplined a bunch as you’ll ever meet. They have to be, to survive the physical stress of flying all the time, not to mention the psychological. THEIR PRIORITY IS TO MAKE SURE NO ONE PANICS, and they know how to do that job well.
And, the part about asking civilians to write down a description is downright kooky. Like someone’s who’s trained to be observant can’t remember a simple thing like height, build and clothes? Or why not just see which seat this guy’s in, check the passenger manifest? It’s just not believable. When a worried passenger calls my wife over, she listens and does her best to calm them down. She says as much as she and her colleagues fear another terror attack, they think it’s more likely that passengers will go berserk with panic over nothing while the flight is in air. And they really don’t want that to happen.
The flight attendants keep their eyes peeled for bad guys, and will pass on anything important to the flight crew, ground control and the marshalls. (Remember, the cabin crew is your best friend. There’s nobody who’s as dedicated to making sure the flight is safe, and they’ve had a lot of practice sizing up people.) Since 9/11, my wife’s come home with some interesting stories about people freaking out on flights because they’re convinced there are terrorists on board. A lot of them don’t even involve Middle Easterners.
One time, it was a bunch of surgeons in business class headed to a medical conference (there were a lot of Indian Americans). A lot of Hispanics and Italian Americans too. And once, a group of kids from an Indian reservation that had never been on a plane and was kind of hyper.
What struck me was how much people exaggerated what they saw as a threat. She’s heard a snoring, drooling cardiac surgeon described as ‘obviously faking being asleep, must be planning to attack’. People waiting 5 minutes for the bathroom ‘have been there for an hour’. Signaling, repeated nodding, she’s heard that a lot. I asked her why she didn’t seem to think it was that weird. “You’ve never had people yell at you and insist that their vegetarian meal OBVIOUSLY has meat in it, have you? What about, ‘it’s been 5 hours, why aren’t we landing’ 1 hour and 20 minutes into a flight?”
Point taken. Anyway, I hope everyone who read the story thinks about the 2 points I raised. I firmly believe that terrorists are plotting against us as we speak (though I don’t see why they’d make it easier for us by going for planes again), but I can’t ignore what to me is pretty clear indication that the writer maybe exaggerated a little, added some details for drama.
To be honest, I probably would have been afraid, however, the fact that some of them were wearing jackets with Arabic on them probably would have assuaged my fears.
I have been on dozens of flights where there have been “Arabs on the plane.” Arabs fly every single day, both within the US and abroad. They even fly in groups!
Have you ever been on a long international flight where a group of high school students or a church group from Texas is in the same cabin as you?
They climb up on their seats, they ignore the fasten-your-seatbelts sign, they throw food, they get up to visit one another, they congregate in the aisles and they wait outside the lavatory together… In the context of high school students or a church group this appears to be innocent behavior. If they happened to have been Arabs – or even simply “swarthy” or “mediterranean looking” the exact same behavior could be misinterpreted by some.
Everybody needs to remember that we are all one “Family of Man” and the Arab sitting across the aisle from you loved his or her parents, recalls his or her first kiss, adores his or her children and is probably as uncomfortable about flying as you are.
Look ‘LA’, I buy the “family of man” thing just about as far as I can throw it….
What about all the families of the 3000 people plus that were killed 9/11. Do their families mean more or less to the mothers that want their babies to grow up to be Martyrs.
But I’m not saying that the screeners can’t use their judgement. People give off different vibes, and obviously, the folks on the plane were giving a distinctly hostile vibe. People contemplating a fun trip, or a family vacation give off generally happy, to slightly annoyed vibes (if you’ve ever been in a long line at the supermarket, you can see the “annoyed” vibe at work). People committing crimes, or perhaps contemplating turning your plane, and everyone on it, into flaming bits might just be a little less happy.
Oh, and when did a class of Texas church goers blow up 3000 anyones in a terrorist attack. Try comparing apples with somethng more reasonable, like Ferraris next time.
And if you’re fears are assuaged by the way a terrorist dresses, ask the Israelis that got on the bus with a couple of Hassidic Jews. Only to be surprised when those very Hassidic Jews suddenly blew themselves, and the bus, to smithereens. Oh wait, those people are dead right now, they won’t answer.
JF:
A certain church-goer from Texas is responsible for the “collateral damage” deaths of more than 3000 innocent civilians in Afghanistan and more than 10,000 innocent civilians in Iraq. This is indisputable.
Dehumanizing the enemy makes it easy to hate them. More mutual understanding on BOTH SIDES would go a long way towards making the world a safer and happier place.
In the meantime, those of us with Arab friends and neighbors must remind those of us who have never left Peoria (or Texas) that Arabs are people, too.
A few thoughts:
Given the situation as described on the flight in question, telling an obviously distraught passenger that there are, “… air marshals sitting all around you,” strikes me as the sort of thing one would say to reassure an extremely nervous person in an attempt to prevent their doing anything rash. Same goes for asking them to write down descriptions of one or more of their fellow passengers: get them involved, make them feel like they’re playing a role, keep them occupied.
That said, something odd obviously happened on the flight because one doesn’t earn a few hours questioning by federal agents randomly and completely without cause. But neither does the fact that the gentlemen were released after questioning indicate that our government has determined that they pose no threat. I’m a bit surprised that no one has pointed out that this little stunt on the plane has likely landed these gentlemen on a watch list of some sort and the obvious fallout there is that warrants will probably come relatively easier now should they be deemed necessary what with probable cause having already been established. That’s likely also true for their social & business contacts for the remainder of their stay in the US. There are lots of shades of gray here and I’m certain our people investigating this further.
Having been a musician myself, I can attest to the fact that musicians love publicity. Why hasn’t this apparently unknown Syrian band come forward to claim their 15 minutes of fame? A short apology for any inconvenience they might have caused their fellow passengers would be seized by our liberal media and used as another way to blast the political right’s seeming intolerance, and the blasting would be done loudly through the major outlets. If the press spun it the other way it would also draw a huge amount of attention to them (and probably guarantee bookings throughout Europe for years to come). It’s clearly a win/win situation for the band to talk to the media about this. Very curious that they haven’t done so.
Almost as curious is that the press hasn’t managed to dig up the pilot or a flight attendant from this flight on even a not-for-attribution basis yet.
B, the fact is that the Federal Air Marshal spokesman was on MSNBC last night and admitted there were multiple marshals on board that flight.
LA,
“Indisputable”? Your other browser window is on Democratic Underground, isn’t it? Or MoveOn.org? Nowhere near 300 innocent civilians were killed in Afghanistan (once we started the war, that is). And the only innocent civilians in Iraq that died (in anything greatere than double digits) did so during Sadaam’s murderous reign.
Try to focus a little on the topic on this thread.
(Should be 3,000 innocent civilians in Afghanistan. Forgot to preview.)
Afghanistan Casualties through May, 2003:
http://pubpages.unh.edu/~mwherold/AfghanDailyCount.pdf
30,000 was a typo – the number is 13,000 in Iraq:
http://www.iraqbodycount.net/bodycount.htm
I’ve been on a flight with hundreds of Arab men…wearing religous garb to boot.
Now that I think of it, alot of them went to the bathroom. Some of them were congregating together…
Air Emirates, London to Dubai.
God, Americans are morons.
Keep on digging. A week’s digging has produced much more information than was available when the story came out, albeit with several gaping holes that still need to be filled.
On CAIR’s silence, can we be sure that they are even aware of the story? Has anyone gone to them for comment? I see that the reporter from the NYT went to the local Michigan equivalent.
We shouldn’t let this story go until we get the full story on the band.
+ Which casino did they play?
+If they only played once, is this something the casino does often or completely out of the ordinary?
Froma business point of view, I really don’t see paying the expense of 14 airline tickets twice plus a fee for the band itself, etc, for just one show -unless the band is a big draw to the casino. If they were a big draw, I’d expect that someone would have been able to find some evidence of promotions/advertising surrounding them.
I guess the next step is for someone to get a phne book for the LA area, turn to “Casinos” and start calling……
LA,
Those sites are even less balanced than MoveOn. I don’t think too many folks here are going to buyu your snake oil.
So, if those guys were playing a gig at a California casino, exactly which one was it?
It would seem to be simple to determine which casino employed that purported musical group if that were the case.
The facts that the location of this alleged show has never been reported indicates to me there’s probably no truth to the casino story.
Mike in Los Angeles
More moral equivalence being pedalled by the Leftist Avenger. As others have said: “We ain’t buying it”.
Here’s the difference:
Mohammed Atta and his “crew” deliberately targeted civilians. D-E-L-I-B-E-R-A-T-E-L-Y. And their paymasters were delighted at the carnage that they wrought. D-E-L-I-G-H-T-E-D.
The unfortunate civilians killed in Iraq and Afganistan (and every other place devastated by war) were not deliberately targeted. The President, the military officers and soldiers, indeed all decent people, were saddened by and regretted their deaths.
How many civilians do you think were killed in Afghanistan and Iraq?
Delighted murderers or remorseful murderers – their victims are still dead.
What does Compassionate Conservatism have to say about the death penalty for delighted murderers vs. remorseful murderers?
LA:
A lot fewer than my grandfather killed flying B-29s over Japan. Newsflash: civilians die in wars, even “good” or “just” wars. The benefits of not living under a Hitler, Hirohito, or Hussein just might outweigh the cost in civilian lives – not that that is any consolation to those killed and maimed and their families. Still, grownups have to make decicions about when to go to war and deal with the carping from the peanut gallery stateside as a matter of course.
List of casinos with entertainment.
http://www.casenet.com/concert/casinoinfo.htm#morongo
LA,
If a child steps out into the street and is run down by a patrol car in pursuit of a vicious killer, would you characterize the policeman as a “murderer”?
Your silly little attempts at moral equivalence are nothing more than a distraction from the real issue: protection of American citizens from those who are bent on our destruction. Stick to the point, please!
Liberal Avenger and Sean can start their own airline for the “Family of Man”.
I prefer to book my flights on my imaginary airline that pre-screens passengers, does background checks, thoroughly searches bags with bomb sniffing dogs and checks each boarding passenger with a bomb sniffing pig. My imaginary airline also allows ex-military pilots to pack heat and has automatic bathroom lockouts. My airline actually has in-flight security agents instead of the often absent Federal Air Marshals – who, by the way, are spelled with one ‘L’, are NOT on every flight, and do not always travel in pairs.
Until my airline is up and flying, though, I’ll support any kind of terror profiling the airlines want to do.
If there were, in fact, ‘multiple air marshals aboard’, why were they aboard in such number? Who radioed ahead for the welcoming committee and were the passports real? Is there confirmation these men were released? Hmmm. . .
How many civilians do you think were killed in Afghanistan and Iraq?
As few as possible as that is why smart weapons were employed.
But, why ask when you can google the answer yourself?
Numbers from iraqbodycount.net are highly unreliable and speculative as it is an anti-war site very invested in inflating the numbers.
Ah, L.A.’s best moral equivalency comes shining through: “Delighted murderers or remorseful murderers – their victims are still dead.” The “all deaths are immoral as they’re still dead” principle. Well, there are evil murderers. Here’s a partial list, just from recent history: Himmler, Heidrich, Eichmann, Pol Pot, Mao-tse Tung, Stalin, Tojo, Saddam, Khomeini, Bin Laden, et.al. To L.A., the deaths they caused are no different than a flood drowning victim, after all dead is dead. Why quibble over the particulars? I only hope, after reading such insipid tripe, that the soldiers and civilians who died in the Revolutionary War, a war fought that allows you to grow up so damn ingnorant, have enough room to roll over in their graves.
There is a certain “religion,” whose followers take the words of its manifesto to heart, and want to kill us. Profiling? Do whatever needs to be done to protect flights within the US, passengers in the air, and on the ground. Some people’s feelings might get hurt? They’ll get over it; they’ll still be alive. Or does being alive not matter to a morally equivalent idiot like L.A.?
I call bull cookies on the “Syrian Band” thing for the exact reason that B stated above. No musician(s) I know wouldn’t have already shown up for their 15 minutes of fame. And if for some reason the musician(s) didn’t know the clock was running on their 15 minutes, any booking agent worth his salt would have scoured the Earth to find this supposed “band” to get his cut of the bookings.
They were a Syrian band alright; “Achmed and The SkyJackers”.
- Normie
Look, LA
I know I said “Class of texas church goers” committing “Terrorist” killings. As for having Arab friends, I said you can feel the Vibe coming from certain people. Certain… That is, unless, you’re saying that ALL Arabs are giving off Hostile vibes, or are terrorists? I don’t think you’re saying that…. are you?
And Sean, as for the “London to Dubai” flight, I would certainly feel safe on that plane, too. I think that on the list of “planes to blow up” that would rank very low, at least until the war on the West is done, so the Militant Islamic fundamentalists can get back to the real work… the “Sunnis versus Shiites” war…
And I certainly don’t think a President making the deciion to go to war, and facing the possibility of killing innocents is equivalent to terrorists deliberately murdering civillians. The blame for the innocent deaths lies, not with the President, but on those that put the civillians in danger in the first place. It’s not Jacobsen’s fault she looked with suspicion on this very strange, no-named band, It’s the fault of the Millitant mullahs that choose 20 to 40 year old Arab men as their Martyrs, and send them off to do the mullah’s own bidding, not Allah’s bidding.
This is supposed to be a discussion of Flight 327. Do Ms. Malkin a favor and do not feed the trolls. A troll will post off topic, and even supply links to websites full of easily-discredited off-topic information.
Arab news at http://www.beiruttimes.com/events/index.phtml?screen=past has one Lebanese entertainer in the area: Garden Grove, CA – Transtour Express Proudly Presents Star Singer Nour Mehanna Friday July 2nd 2004 At The Embassy Suites, 11767 Harbor Blvd., Garden Grove, Ca 92840 tel. 714-539 3300 Tickets: $100 / $125 / $150 / VIP Including Dinner
No event listed for June 30 or July 1 on the Levantine Cultural Center calendar http://www.levantinecenter.org/pages/calendarJune04.html
There was an event June 13:
“Al-Andalus to Jerusalem: Levantine Festival”
A concert for peace and coexistence, featuring Arab and Middle Eastern Jewish, Persian and Armenian world music performers: 25 musicians, vocalists and dancers.
Achmed and the Skyjackers!! That’s very funny Normie. And you make very good points. Achmed and his merry band of music makers have vanished from the face of the earth!
TD – Thanks, I wasn’t able to catch the interview but the point still stands regarless of whether there were air marshals on the flight. The flight attendant’s actions WRT Annie Jacobsen are still precisely the sort of thing one would do to keep a frightened passenger from acting out. Whether the statements made to the passenger are true or not is irrelevant in that light.
Oh jeez, Lib Avenger, mutual understanding on both sides? Are you kidding? You obviously have no understanding of the enemy we face in this Islamist-facist war! Jeez! Singing ‘Kumbaya’ while you weave hemp into lanyards might make ya feel good as you try to arrive at mutual understanding with the other kids at summer camp but it won’t do a bit of good in this war. And we are at war. Have been, tho we realized it a bit late. Refer to the post about who we are at war with: middle eastern men. Altho now that list has expanded a bit with other converts to the same cause as the middle eastern men.
Tink aluded to a thought I’d had: “If there were, in fact, ‘multiple air marshals aboard’, why were they aboard in such number?” It could be that they were well aware of this group and wanted to monitor their activity directly, increasing the usual number of agents.
An associated question then is, may agents have gone to the restrooms after these guys? They may have interfered with the activities of these men such that they aborted their activity (i.e., the throat-slash & “No”). E.g., if these guys were assembing a bomb in a compartment of the restroom, an agent may have sabotaged the effort.
Hey gang! I just got up from my nap!
“Islamo-fascists?” How are you defining fascism?
Do you think that Americans are capable of differentiating between Arabs and other “swarthy people” ?
Can Americans tell Farsi from Arabic?
Do Americans understand the relationship between Pakistan and India?
The only actual threat that we are aware of in the sky since 9/11 was The Shoebomber – and he was an English citizen – English mom ad Jamaican dad.
The moment we start rounding up Middle Easterners for “special treatment” is the *real* day that America ceases to be the land of liberty that it is.
Liberal or not, I gotta agree wholeheartedly with this guy, on the idea of racial profiling:
“My own feelings on passenger profiling are mixed, and I’m not as liberal on the issue as you might expect. However, I do think singling out a specific ethnicity for extra screening is less a racist idea than a wasteful and ineffective one. Does it not occur to people that Muslim radicals come in all complexions and from many nations — from the heart of black Africa to the archipelagoes of Southeast Asia? (Many Syrians, no less, are fair-haired and light-skinned.) Does it not occur to people that terrorists are clever, resourceful and, in the end, bound to outwit such obvious snares? The notion that 14 saboteurs, replete with silk-screened track suits effectively advertising themselves as such, would obviously and boisterously proceed in and out of an airplane lavatory, taking turns to construct a bomb, is so over-the-top ludicrous it deserves its own comedy sketch. Indeed, Jacobsen is trying to portray a scene of angst and fear, but she inadvertently scripts out a parody. I half-expected her to tell me that one of the men wore a cardboard sign labeled “TERRORIST.”"
http://www.salon.com/tech/col/smith/2004/07/21/askthepilot95/index1.html
http://www.casenet.com/concert/casinoinfo.htm
I looked at web sites for all those casinos, also night clubs and concerts. Some web sites are way out of date, some show no events before today, but those that show entertainers for June 30 and July 1 have been checked. No Syrian or Middle Eastern names. The closest I found was Ozomatli of Los Angeles.
“September 11 really pushed us to delve into North African and Arab music.”
There’s another casino listing at
http://california.casinocity.com/
or you can get nearest casinos to LA
http://casinocity.com/maps/?Nearest=OK&PropertyId=307000
“Hey gang! I just got up from my nap!”
So what.
Syrian musicians in the US: Dialogue in Concert, at MIT March 1, 2004
http://archnet.org/calendar/item.tcl?calendar_id=24900
One blogger on Judicious Asininity suggested it could be this group which toured in 2003:
http://abcnews.go.com/sections/world/2020/iraq030226_music.html
On his latest U.S. tour, al Sahir will be accompanied by a 15-piece orchestra composed of Egyptian, Lebanese, Palestinian, Jordanian and Syrian musicians, many of whom have heard of but never played with the Iraqi musician before.
NWA flight 327 from Detroit to Los Angeles departs at 12:22 p.m. EDT and arrives at 2:01 p.m. PDT. Translating into PDT, that’s 9:22 a.m. to 2:01 p.m. PDT. The second daily prayer in Islam, Dhuhr, fell at around 1 p.m. PDT during that flight. It is a requirement that Muslims wash before prayer.
I think the prayer theory is being given short-shrift. Practicing Muslims would *have* to go to the bathroom at about the same time near the end of the flight in question.
I’d also like to observe that Ms. Jacobsen’s time-frame for the bathroom visit in her original article (4 minutes each, during final approach) is mathematically impossible.
Finally, I’d like to point anyone who thinks profiling is a good idea to this paper by two MIT graduate students, who give an algorithm that defeats any search method that relies on profiling rather than random searches where the profiling provides feedback to those being searched (which is certainly the case with racial profiling):
http://www.swiss.ai.mit.edu/6805/student-papers/spring02-papers/caps.htm
Looks like Clinton Taylor at National Review got to the bottom of all of this:
http://nationalreview.com/comment/taylor200407211921.asp
You’ve done it, Tim. Thanks for clearing this up.
Do we still need to interrogate all Middle Eastern Looking men before they get on flights?
Jack Burton wrote:
“How effective could a hijacking plan be, involving multiple personnel if all of them spoke different languages?”
To paraphrase Annie Jacobsen, if the terrorists could teach 19 men to fly planes, they could teach men of different nationalities to all speak Arabic.
By the way, I am SHOCKED that there was a rational explanation to all this. You all seem like such clear thinking, reasonable people that I was sure that your right wing xenophobia must have been the way to go.
Phil, last time I checked all 19 didn’t know how to fly planes. You’re so smart, I’m sure you knew that.
I was responding to the dumbass who said hijackers wouldn’t be of the same nationality, and despite my xenophobia, I can’t recal posting anything about this particular bunch of musicians/hijackers.
Wow, you must have had a down moment from your towering intellect and utopian world vision. Don’t worry, there’s plenty of people like me who have yet to be saved.
Keep at it sugar.
Regardless, would the moron who noted that the only threat we’ve faced since 9-11 is the one guy who got caught please come for your beating?
Jack,
Yest, I am smart, thanks for noticing. But that’s beside the point. I can’t believe I have to explain my post, but I’ll go step by step so you get the point.
In the article by Annie Jacobsen that started this whole mess, she closes by saying, “So the question is… Do I think these men were musicians? I’ll let you decide. But I wonder, if 19 terrorists can learn to fly airplanes into buildings, couldn’t 14 terrorists learn to play instruments?”
Then someone here said something about how the terrorists would use people of different nationalities (I assume that was the point, because I didn’t feel like looking for the post).
You responded by saying that such a plan couldn’t work, because they wouldn’t speak the same language.
I responded to that by using Annie Jacobsen’s own analogy (OK, I messed up the phrasing. I didn’t go back and look it up) to point out why you are mistaken. I found that to be very clever on my part, and I promptly patted myself on the back, as I do every time I outwit a conservative, because all liberals do is bask in our intellectual superiority. The point was that men of different nationalities could be trained to speak the same language. Whether or not all 19 hijackers were trained to fly was her mistake, not mine. Regardless, my point still stands, and yours doesn’t.
I actually laughed out loud at that, Jack. What in holy hell are you talking about? Did you not read what I wrote, or are you just messing with me?
In case you are this dense, I’ll try it one more time. Annie Jacobsen said nothing about languages. I did, in response to you. I simply borrowed her analogy about training people to play music to make the same point about teaching people a new language. YOU’RE the one who said that people of different nationalities wouldn’t be able to communicate.
Also, I know they were all Syrian and they all spoke Arabic. I’m not talking about this group of people in particular, but rather a hypothetical group of terrorists of diverse nationalities, which YOU said would be impossible.
That’s it — you’ve given me a headache. I’m done here for now, although a part of me can’t wait to see what you come up with to top the SAT line.
Phil, have you ever tried to learn arabic? You make it sound so easy that I wish I had taken that in 8th grade instead of spanish.
Also, do you think that people might get a wee bit suspicious of 5 or more guys or different ethnic backgrounds on an airplane all happen to be speaking arabic?
Once again, using Annie Jacobsen’s analogy to back up your own argument is a little weak, to say the least.
Maybe Sandy Burgler stuck the documents down his pants and in his socks because he didn’t have pockets?
Sweet dreams, where you can live in a world where all people, muslim and all, sit by the campfire and sing songs and toast smores.
Of course, you’ll be the first one crying about Bush when someone you know goes down in the next terrorist attack. He knew, he knew, he knew!!!!!!!
Good night Wesley, good work, I’ll most likely kill you in the morning.
OK, I lied about being done with this. I couldn’t resist.
I’ve never tried to learn Arabic, but believe it or not, people actually do learn to speak it. But you’re actually right about the suspiciousness of it. French would probably be a better choice, because that’s a commonly spoken language around the world by people of many different ethnicities.
I’d agree with that, although I’m also suspicious of anyone speaking French.
I know that everyone loves to throw around the xenophobe comment but I just don’t care. All the hijackers on 9-11 where young arab males (which of course also means muslims). Most of the remaining terror attacks of the past 20 years (against us) were also carried out by young arab males, with the sole exception of akmed mcveigh. Take out a few local africans for the embassy bombings and they’re all arab males. I will not put my head in the sand and pretend that there isn’t a pattern worth noting.
I don’t think I’m a xenophobe, but if I am, who cares? I’m protecting my family, myself and my way of life. If I was truly a xenophobe, I wouldn’t like all the mexican nations living and working where I am. However, they work hard, are polite and do jobs lazy Americans won’t. More power to em. As long as they don’t threaten to blow us up, live and let live.
I do have one racist complaint. If you can’t speak english, you shouldn’t be allowed to man the drivethrough at Wendy’s.
By the way, I knew you’d come back
BTW, I didn’t mean to direct the xenophobe comment at you in particular. There are a lot of other posters here who fit the bill, and I was directing it at the whole group, many of whom seemed to be ready to jump out of a plane at the sight of an Arab. That’s just silly.
I see nothing wrong with being vigilant. There is nothing wrong with using nationality as a factor in evaluating someone’s likelihood of being dangerous. But that’s a whole lot different from assuming that they’re all terrorists. Once a person is exonerated, as these musicians were, they should be thanked for their patience and understanding and sent on their way, not written about in some inflammatory hack job of an article that spends countless words talking about a flight where nothing happened.
The problem with xenophobia with regard to this issue is that it’s both overinclusive and underinclusive. On the one hand, you’re mentally implicating billions of innocent people. On the other hand, you’re disregarding a whole host of others simply because they don’t fit your idea of what a terrorist looks like, yet they may be the ones to fear. It’s understandable to want to feel like you know the enemy, but the truth is that it’s much more complicated than that.
These men could be taking parts of a device, like a bomb, and assembling it at the last minute in the lavatory.