Lost and found?
National Review Online has just posted an article by Clint Taylor, who seems to have identified the mystery band on Flight 327. Will have more after the kids are asleep, but it looks like Taylor has done the sleuthing that the deep-pocketed mainstream media wasn’t interested in doing (and all it took was Google and a few phone calls).
An excerpt:
For a while the blogosphere settled on a Syrian band called Kulna Sawa as a likely candidate, but the gents at Powerline received a note from that group’s tour manager explaining the band was still in Syria when all this happened. Even the mainstream media began to notice the story: New York Times reporter Joe Sharkey confirmed some of the details of the story today but admitted he, too, was unable to identify the band.
Well, I am nominally the “news director” for Stanford University’s student radio station, KZSU, and I figured I’d help the Times out. There aren’t that many casinos in southern California, so I had my research assistant, Mr. Google, take a look at some. An hour later I was talking to the nice folks at Sycuan Casino & Resort, near San Diego. Unlike most casinos where it’s all Elvis impersonators, Paul Anka, and Linda Ronstadt � oh, wait, scratch that last one � Sycuan books the occasional “ethnic music” show, too. In August, for example, they’ll have a Vietnamese night.
“Oh, do you mean Arab music?” inquired Angie, who answered Sycuan’s phone. Yes, they had had an Arab act perform on July 1, an artist named Nour Mehana. Terry, Angie’s supervisor at Sycuan, confirmed that he was there and that there was probably a backup band brought in, since there’s no house band at Sycuan. In fractions of a second, Mr. Google found a website for Sycuan’s event promoters, Anthem Artists, whose archive confirms Nour Mehana performed at Sycuan on 7/01/04…
Liberals will likely decry the suspicion and interrogation the musicians faced on Flight 327. And the principled Right will regret that that was necessary. If the band’s English wasn’t very good they might not have understood the instructions. But a polite word and some helpful gestures earlier on, rather than a guilty PC silence, might have saved them some embarrassment. In any case, the police-state parallels fade quickly: In a real police state, like, oh, Syria, you are not even allowed inside the country with an Israeli stamp in your passport.
June 29 was no ordinary day in the skies. That day, Department of Homeland Security officials issued an “unusually specific internal warning,” urging customs officials to watch out for Pakistanis with physical signs of rough training in the al Qaeda training camps. The warning specifically mentioned Detroit and Los Angeles’s LAX airports, the origin and terminus of NWA flight 327.
That means that our air-traffic system was expecting trouble. But rather than land the plane in Las Vegas or Omaha, it was allowed to continue on to Los Angeles without interruption, as if everything were hunky-dory on board. It certainly wasn’t. If this had been the real thing, and the musicians had instead been terrorists, nothing was stopping them from taking control of the plane or assembling a bomb in the restroom. Given the information they were working with at the time, almost everyone should have reacted differently than they did.
Jacobsen’s fear was quite natural under these circumstances, and she has done us a service by pointing out some egregious shortfalls in our airline security.
Quick update: I’ve sent an e-mail to Annie Jacobsen asking her to take a look at the photos and video of band to see if she recognizes them.
Update II: 8:55pm. This just in from Dave Adams, Federal Air Marshals spokesman:
Michelle:
It is the policy of the FAMS not to release the names of individuals who have not been arrested. On a side note, I was not given the name of the band.
Dave Adams
Update III: 11:06pm Annie Jacobsen responds:
“I went to the link and I do not recognize any of the men or the lead singer himself.”
Hmmm. Well, the lead singer was apparently in first-class, wearing sunglasses. Would be hard for Annie to identify him from his cheesy publicity photos. As for the other men, it’s probable that he has many different back-up musicians that might not travel with him for every gig. Clint has persuaded me, conclusively, that it was indeed Nour Mehana and his band on the flight. I agree with him that in all likelihood, it was not a dry run.
Which, as Clint notes, is “not the same as saying Jacobsen was wrong to worry. The proven existence of this band confirms one of the last details of her story, and her story confirms some of our worst fears about airline security. The mindset of passengers, of the crew, and even of the law-enforcement personnel (Jacobsen said a flight attendant reassured her husband by pointing out that air marshals were on the flight), and decision makers higher up the ladder was reactive, not proactive.”
With the exception of the sentence that refers to the dry run, I stand by my final statement on the matter. I repeat:
Better a false alarm than a flaming plane.
Update IV: The invaluable Donald Sensing weighs in, and I share his sentiments regarding the great work of Clint Taylor and National Review Online in getting the story out…
Now, there are a couple of points here. One is that the fabled New York Times apparently has no reporters who know how to use Google. The other is that the only substantive coverage of this flight and what it might mean has been done mostly by amateurs, not professional journalists (Ms. Malkin excepted, of course).
I mean, folks, that what Taylor did is, as Sherlock Holmes would say, elementary. So why didn’t I do it? Actually, the thought occurred, but I do have to work for a living, too. And I did spend a lot of time futilely trying to talk to the FBI press office about the flight. I wish I had done the Googling, though, and Mr. Taylor deserves all the plaudits that should rightfully come his way.
Ditto! It kept getting knocked off my to-do list by other column deadlines/endless day job commitments/family stuff. Huge, full-time investigative teams for major papers don’t have the same excuse. The New York Times should eschew the diversity crap and get Taylor an internship pronto. And perhaps Joe Sharkey and the rest of us in the media should brush up on Google 101 skills. 
Update V: Meanwhile, the Washington Times reports on pilots and flight crews who say they have witnessed dry runs, including a pilot who said that “on one of his recent flights, an air marshal forced his way into the lavatory at the front of his plane after a man of Middle Eastern descent locked himself in for a long period. The marshal found the mirror had been removed and the man was attempting to break through the wall. The cockpit was on the other side….There is a great degree of concern in the airline industry that not only are these dry runs for a terrorist attack, but that there is absolutely no defense capabilities on a vast majority of airlines,” the pilot said.
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That’s cool. I think everybody did the best they could do in this situation. You have a right to ask questions. You have a right to be alarmed by Syrians running around the plane as it descends to LAX. We didn’t fly airplanes into the WTC. There are people out there trying to kill us and we’ve got 46% of the country that thinks we should let the UN handle it. Oh well.
I really need to hear an explanation from the band for why they got up and assembled like they did when everyone, including the flight attendants, was belted in for final approach / landing. What gives? Did they really want to get off the plane first or what?
While I will be immensely relieved if the band in question turns out not to be terrorists, I still have questions. Does someone know that the band as identified is, in fact, comprised of the same men who were on the plane? Have Annie and her husband confirmed that these are the same guys? Also, as Annie pointed out in her original piece, terrorists learned to fly airplanes so can they not also learn to play instruments? Meaning, does one necessarily negate the other? Hopefully, the band IS just a band and nothing else. However, their behavior in this country and at this time raises legitimate questions - not to ask them would be irresponsible. Many thanks to all who continue to track down the answers.
Will anyone have the courage to admit that they overreacted now?
Great sleuthing by Taylor.
That being said, will somebody please explain to me why we are letting any Syrians–musicians or not–into the country?
Hondo–
We let in people who are dissidents, intellectuals, fun people, etc.–who get thrown out of fascist backwaters like Syria and Iran. Hell, cultural exchanges helped win the cold war when Russian and CHinese scientists saw how good we really had it.
Besides, it’s kind of touchy for the CIA to recruit people in Syria. Much easier in San Diego!
See-Dubya–
That’s a good point. Maybe we could arrange to keep the dissident, intellectual fun people and give them Michael Moore.
Liberal Avenger, you are a fool. No one “over reacted.” They acted rationally. Racial profiling should be standard policy in the war against the jihadis. Jacobsen should have never been in such a position as having to fear for her life as all anti-discrimination laws should be abolished and airlines allowed to screen passengers as they see fit. Personally, I feel it might be necessary to place Middle Easterners in separate planes. I for one don’t want to fly with them even though I know that the terrorists comprise an incredibly small number. I just don’t want to take that chance, and no rational person would.
>Taylor has done the sleuthing that the deep-pocketed mainstream media wasn’t interested in doing (and all it took was Google and a few phone calls).
Congratulations to Clinton Taylor!!!! He deserves a medal … he did what the mainsteam media — or any one of us, actually — could have done, but wasn’t interested in doing.
And, as Taylor points out, finding the band doesn’t take away from the concerns raised by Jacobsen one tiny little bit.
re KC
>Personally, I feel it might be necessary to place Middle Easterners in separate planes.
Unfortunately, such a measure wouldn’t have prevented 9/11.
Liberal Avenger Extreme,
Who over reacted? Those of us who are in favor of paying attention to patterns and watching, documenting and maybe even questioning based on our observations of patterns in the post 9/11, Cole, Embassy Bombings, WTC bombing in 1993, and many others?
I still think it is smart, prudent and reasonable to watch, document and question those who we think fit a pattern in the name of security. It is human nature and nobody’s rights have been violated or has been called on to be violated (that I know of).
Please tell us again LAExtreme why it wouldn’t be smart, prudent and reasonable to pay attention to patterns and watch, document and question people who might fit the pattern in our eyes?
Should we play dumb? Should we SQUANDER our security personnel resources that are so limited by acting like it was elderly Polish women?
Of course random searches are necessary too but some have suggested that paying attention to patterns makes us racist. Are you one of those people?
If putting them in separate planes wouldn’t have made a difference (obviously, they could fly their own plane into a building, or another plane - maybe even YOUR plane!), then why would you advocate doing it?
One reason: so you don’t have to look at them and crap in your diapers.
You hear about the car bomb that went off in Ohio (I think) this morning? I’ll give 10 to 1 odds it was a white terrorist. Yes car bombers are terrorists, no matter what the color of their skin is or language that they speak.
What are you people going to do when you can’t turn your fear on and off by guaging pigment levels or listening for accents.
Don’t be a puss-ton. Frightened people are easier to manipulate.
Baklava-
You’re right, nothing wrong with paying attention and noting patterns, but this lady’s story went way, way, beyond that.
The entire thing was written to inspire fear, to call into doubt the efficiency of the system (which ironically seems to have worked pretty well in this case), and to call for a more stringent program of profiling on zero evidence that anything was amiss…
Look how long her story was, anyway…I think she got paid by the word and needed the money, and wanted something that could keep people riveted. If she just noted patterns and kept her eyes open, she wouldn’t have had any exciting “hook” to justify all those words.
“Racial profiling should be standard policy in the war against the jihadis.”
You really think that’s going to make you safer? Has it ever crossed your mind that the bigotry that you are exhibiting is a positive and expected response by those ‘jihadis’ that you’re so afraid of. I’m sure that singling out people and boxing them all up based on ethnicity and treating them as second class citizens won’t make any more people of Middle Eastern descent think bad thoughts about America. I’m sure they’ll understand that you were doing it to protect all the ‘good Americans’ and that they shouldn’t get upset cause you don’t realize that hate has nothing to do with what you look like and has more to do with how you feel about something. I’m sure they’ll feel just fine with that.
What are you going to do if they decide your race is the next one to use in their war? Are you going to feel it ‘necessary’ for you to be lumped in with all the undesirables that you’re terrified of just so the rest of us will be safe?
In all the blog accounts I’ve read, no one has stated a possible theory for their behavior.
They hate us, and like messing with us when we are on planes.
lol… I have been reading about this hysterical story on various places and I can see the suburbanite soccer moms going all apes for having to watch 14 Arabs on the same plane they are… None of Jacobsen’s understanding as expressed in her fictitious article has any basis in logic or reason.
It is this very sort of fear mongering that perpetuates fear, fear and more fear to the point that we are all willing to give away all our liberties in order to think we can sleep in peace at night… shame to those who perpetrate fear.
>In all the blog accounts I’ve read, no one has stated a possible theory for their behavior.
At LGF in the comments section of the “Kulna Sawa” blog there were a couple of comments written by people who have flown in the middle east and it’s quite an “interesting” experience, not as regimented as we are used to. Even on El-al. And I’ve also read on more than one blog about the “prayer habits” of some Muslims — on flights, they often do their prayer rituals in the lavatory.
Why is Michelle harping on this? It’s almost like she doesn’t trust Norm Mineta to protect us. HELLO - he’s a federal official!! He took an oath!
Hmm…doesn’t seem like such an overreaction now:
“Terrorists testing jets, crews say”
By Audrey Hudson
THE WASHINGTON TIMES
Flight crews and air marshals say Middle Eastern men are staking out airports, probing security measures and conducting test runs aboard airplanes for a terrorist attack.
For the rest of the article:
http://www.washingtontimes.com/national/20040721-101403-1508r.htm
Considering the extant terrorist warning, specific for that date, and that “The warning specifically mentioned Detroit and Los Angeles’s LAX airports, the origin and terminus of NWA flight 327,” I would assert there was UNDER reaction.
These men should have been vetted before the flight and not after.
And once on the plane, considering that terror warning, and others in effect then and now, the aisle and bathroom hijinks by the men on the plane should have been prevented.
NBT,
To call her story ficticious is to ignore her perspective and just about call her a liar. Which begs the question… Were you on that plane? My guess is no.
She felt fear and that was her perspective. She was concerned and relayed in her writing the reasons why she felt fear. To many of us the reasons were pretty sound….
And why? Because patterns have been established. It’s like dogs who flinch when their owners (who have beat them in the past) raise their hand near them.
NBT, please be serious. What are you liberties that have been given away. Who is saying they want to give away ALL their liberties?
Shame to those (like you) who try to shame us for being sensible and wanting to note patterns and then watch, document and even question those people who are acting suspicious in a post 9/11 era. We are acting prudent and you are calling us shameless. Enough with the name calling.
How about understanding our concerns about people who have themselves expressed the desire to kill as many of us as they can?
Your argument is falling on deaf ears. Just like a dog who has to learn to trust that owner again, we are people who naturally want to learn to trust that they have changed their desire to hurt us. And for good reason.
Hmm, You stated - “What are you going to do if they decide your race is the next one to use in their war?”
Who is the they in your question? You show an utter lack of disrespect for all of us who are paying attention to the patterns that are being established.
The they is all of us. All of us. We are all of us. We are concerned now that we have awoken to the threats which have been born out into actual “incidents”.
If the situation changes and it seems to be a decade or two of a pattern established which culminates into a large terrorist killing of 3,000 americans by elderly Polish women the “they” (which is all of us) will consider that in order to protect ourselves we just might maybe watch, document and even question elderly Polish women. To the extent that that pattern hasn’t existed for decades and hasn’t culminated in a mass killing of Americans we more or less trust (just like dogs of good owners trust their good owners) elderly Polish women aren’t plotting to kill many of us.
It’s common sense. Seems to be lacking by you hmmmmmm.
the other side….There is a great degree of concern in the airline industry that not only are these dry runs for a terrorist attack, but that there is absolutely no defense capabilities on a vast majority of airlines,”
“no defense”
Bull.
ARM THE PILOTS. As in firearms.
Nink, Unfortunately Norm Mineta said no.
So the men who aroused Mrs. Jacobsen’s suspicions have been identified as members of a musical group. So what? That does not explain their reported behavior. Do you expect terrorists to carry business cards identifying them selves as members of al-Quaeda? All of the 9/11 hijackers had some kind of cover. Even if these guys all played their kazoos at Sycuan Casino, their actions should have triggered a more decisive response.
Even if these guys do turn out to be full time musicians, it still doesn’t alleve all dangers. As I heard someone else say, if al Qaeda can come into America and learn to fly planes, then they come into America and learn to play instruments.
It would be a good plot for a terrorist to escape detection: Choose a profession where you are a frequent flyer, such as a musician. This fools profilers who would focus on otherwise suspicious activity of a non-frequent flyer–not just being Arab, but being a single, male one-way flyer. Instruments and their cases would also conceal weapons and fool inspectors; their use to electronics, but not to other bulky metal objects with multiple parts.
I agree with Old Timer. I don’t think we have enough information to exclude the possibility of this being a dry run. Put this in the context of all the suspicious behavior reported in the Washington Times article, the possibility of this being a dry run doesn’t seem so out there.
Like Old Timer stated, even the 9/11 hijackers had covers, and like Annie wrote, if the 9/11 hijackers could learn to fly, learning to play for a band doesn’t seem like enough of a reason to exclude the possibility of using that as a cover-up.
It’s great that Taylor uncovered the details about the band and the show, but I still have questions that irk me. In addition to all the bathroom visits, and the congregating before landing, how do you explain one of the men bringing his CELL PHONE into the lavatory?! And how do you explain another one bringing his CAMERA into the lavatory?! It just seems a bit too fishy, and I might be wrong about this, but I believe cell phones have already been used as bombs of some sort. And what’s up with the McDonald’s bag?
Anyway, I’m not going to say it was a dry run, because I don’t have enough information to confidently say that. At the same time, name of the band and all, I’m still not ready to exclude the possibility it was a dry run…
The worst part of this, now that that ‘terror’ has been PROVEN to be based on nothing more than pee breaks and an overactive imagination, is the desperate efforts to validate the fear generated by this non-event. What a lot of these posts seem to be saying is that something should have been done. Well, what, exactly? Since the men were doing nothing but stand around, what would you do? Vigorous tongue lashing? Are you suggesting something more violent was called for, in response to the Syrians’ blatant..uh..standing around? By the way, many Muslims was their hands and feet before praying, which suggests the need for a trip to the WASHroom.
No one has yet mentioned the logical reason why this incident was not a so-called dry run: it is this: if those Syrians were not on any watch list before, you can bet they are now! Does al-Qaeda truly have that many operatives in the US that they can afford to blow the cover of 14 of them on a practice attempt? Not to mention the possibility of surreptitiously tracing these guys’ movements back to al-Qaeda leadership somewhere? Or one of the 14 spilling the beans? It’d be enormous risk for little gain; the theory does not fit.
I agree with Old Timer, being one myself. Musicians can be terrorists too. Good cover I’d say. Don’t expect them to be wearing ski masks and waving black flags. And what about Jacobson’s comment about one returning from a restroom, stopping by the man sitting across from Jacobson, running his finger across his throat and saying “No”. Maybe they realized the *operation* was compromised and called it off.
That club in San Diego should forget ethnic bands from the Middle East, try Finland for a change.
Homeland Security tells us, “Be VIGILANT!” Jacobson was and is now getting flack for it. Don’t most of us look at Arab-types suspiciously everywhere we go? That’s racial profiling, too, but they brought it on themselves.
Sherlock wrote:
>Personally, I feel it might be necessary to place Middle Easterners in separate planes.<
“Unfortunately, such a measure wouldn’t have prevented 9/11.”
It might have if they had split them into smaller groups, 2 or 3 together, and on different planes.
miguel j:
“Does al-Qaeda truly have that many operatives in the US that they can afford to blow the cover of 14 of them on a practice attempt? Not to mention the possibility of surreptitiously tracing these guys’ movements back to al-Qaeda leadership somewhere? Or one of the 14 spilling the beans? It’d be enormous risk for little gain; the theory does not fit.”
The theroy does fit. Of the 14 maybe only 3 were al-Qaeda operatives. They fly with the band, have a good cover, and report back. There are probably hundreds of them in the country right now. Part of the big plan.
Shortly after 9/11, a terrorist who was part of that group surfaced in Greensboro, NC. He was immediately arrested. There are others in many cities as *sleeper terrorists* waiting for orders. In fact, there are more Mulims in the USA than in Afghanistan.
They have lost the element of total surprise, they have not lost the effectiveness of fear and shock when the attack comes. A few will slip through the net. The more they send the better their chances.
Be vigilant. Be aware of who is around you.
What’s the Dill with In-And-Out?
Re: Michelle’s Left-Coast fast-food comment: Unlike Sandy Berger, In-and-out isn’t so bad at what they do. I think we have all seen that there are several things tomato with Sandy, which is precisely why he is now in such a pickle.
I feel for his family, as we all should. Despite what the Clintonistas are saying, we all know this is no bun-wrap. But the full extent of his actions need to come to fore and I think they will. Lettuce pray…
Limit the number of ME men per flight. Just install software that does it before tickets are sold. They need adult supervision. Marshals go with them. If there are no marshals then there are no seats for ME men. Great Washington Times story. Fire Minetta. What does he thing of this stuff? Never mind, we know.
I heard on the Bill Bennett show (guest host) this morning that flight crews have reported 3 other suspicious incidents and are convinced they were dry runs. One on a Flight from San Jaun to NYC and the other 2 in Minneapolis.
Nobody has proven yet that those men on the flight were the men at the casino.
Why not just find out from the casino contact information for the band, get their names and find out what flights they were on.
Machelle–
James Cullen, the promoter I talked to, confirms that the men on flight 327 were the men who played at the casino.
So now we know who they are, but that doesn’t tell us what they are. The question remains: are these guys just here in the USA solely for the purpose of sharing their music with infidels, or is it possible that we’ll one day discover that their profession was a cover that allowed them to slip under our radar to perpetrate another atrocity?
I’m perfectly aware of how ridiculous that sounds to everyone who drew a deep sigh of relief after reading Mr. Taylor’s excellent followup. Paranoia is a horrible trap for the mind, but just because you’re paranoid does NOT mean that someone is not out to get you.
Taking Mrs. Jacobsen’s story at face value, these guys still have a lot of explaining to do for their suspicious behavior. If they truly are the “victims” of so-called “racial profiling,”, perhaps they should learn how to smile and ingratiate themselves with polite society. Same as my German grandparents did when they came through Ellis Island a few years before WWII.
Bottom line for all of this: Put this same situation aboard an Israeli flight, and then consider if anyone “over-reacted.” Anyone who considers the Jacobsen’s fears were unfounded is living in complete denial.
Maybe it wasn’t a dry run maybe it was. Who is to say all or some of those musicians aren’t part of terrorist group. It would be good cover wouldn’t it, giving them the opportunity to travel around the country with a plausible story. They could mix a few in with the band to avoid detection. It just all seems too strange to me. Mrs. Jacobson wasn’t the only person on board who thought their behavior was threatening. If they are traveling musicians from Syria they must fly all the time. Surely they know proper behavior on a plane. The most disturbing thing about this story to me was the fact that nothing was done during the flight. Why did not the captain make an announcement telling all passengers to remain seated and not to congregate in the aisles. Then if orders were disobeyed the air marshalls would have had grounds for immediately subduing any who disobeyed orders.
Even if this wasn’t a dry run potential terrorists learned something from it.
I’m no journalist, but I *did* google up Noor Mahana, but when I saw his name I thought he was a single act. I did not trouble to put in variants of his name, which would have revealed a performance at a So Cal Casino at the right time…
One thing I would NEVER have done, since I am chicken, is cold-call the Casino to find out more about the act. I think if I had, the Casino would have blown me off anyway.
Clint Taylor did REAL research and follow-up - he did it in the most effective order… he’s a good reporter.
He can’t get an internship?!!!
The Times could use someone like him.
First, hats off to Clint Taylor for his excellent “old journalism”, and to Annie Jacobsen for bringing the issue of airline security some greater public attention.
I have one question. In her original article, Annie Jacobsen wrote:
“Knowing what we knew, and seeing what we’d seen, my husband and I decided to talk to the authorities. For several hours my husband and I were interrogated by the FBI. We gave sworn statement after sworn statement. We wrote down every detail of our account. The interrogators seemed especially interested in the McDonald’s bag, so we repeated in detail what we knew about the McDonald’s bag. A law enforcement official stood near us, holding 14 Syrian passports in his hand. We answered more questions. And finally we went home.”
Clinton Taylor’s article relates that some of the musicians were out of Lebanon, and others out of Detroit. Let us assume the possibility that Annie Jacobsen mistook Lebanese passports for Syrian passports. She still states she saw fourteen passports. Now, some of the Detroit-based musicians may have been Lebanese or other Arab nationals, who still use foreign passports. However, I would think that at least some of the Detroit musicians were US citizens or Green Card holders.
The question arising: Where did the number of fourteen passports come from?
Michelle,
Thanks so much for keeping us informed. Keep up the good works
Doesn’nt anybody figure that a singer would be a good cover for getting a crew of hijackers on to the plane? When they do sieze the plane, the fact that they may be poor bell ringers will be irrelevent.
I just read Audrey Hudson’s article in the Washington Times. I must say that I am more than just a little concerned that there still are those out there willing to roll over, press the snooze button, and dismiss those of who are concerned as racist, bigoted, nut cases, who are terrorized only by our over active imaginations.
To: Liberal Avenger, hmm,
What you are really talking about are feelings: if we pursue this course of action (racial profiling), will it hurt anybody’s feelings?
I, for one, could not care less if somebody’s feelings are hurt, or if they are offended. My safety, your safety, hell, even their safety, is what is paramount here.
Let’s say that it is their custom to wash in the restroom and then pray in there also. Great. But they aren’t in the Middle East, they are here, and when in Rome…. It’s not about being tolerant of cultural differences. I have lived on (years at a time) or traveled to 5 of 7 continents. I LOVE cultural diversity; I think it’s awesome. I am an ardent Germanophile (right word?) I was born in Japan, spent Grammar School in Frankfurt & graduated from HS in the Philippines. Cultural diversity is the nectar of the Gods, but safety, prudence, objective thought, call it whatever you wish, will trump tolerance EVERY. SINGLE. TIME.
What happens when they are up out of their seats when the aircraft just starts it’s initial decent and it hits some especially strong turbulence? A person becomes a 175 lb projectile. Again, your safety, their safety, my safety.
Profile me all you want. I am of Italian/Native American decent, and I am as dark skinned as almost any Arab. If I have to put up with some extra hassles at the airport, then I suck it up. It is my civic duty to put up with it so that nobody else dies. It is my responsibility. I know it’s not personal; it’s for our SAFETY. I cannot understand what you don’t get about this point of view.
Ever had the hair on the back of your neck go up?
Ever been is a situation that you know is:
a. Immediately perilous or likely fatal to you and/or your family/friends with you?
b. The peril (insert Monty Python joke here) is emanating from one person or group of people, with all the foibles and follies associated with humanity, and not some problem with an inanimate object?
c. With the gut churning knowledge of a. & b. in mind, also well beyond any control, or even influence, of yours?
What Annie Jacobsen did, I would submit, is EXACTLY what any other person who is alive in America after 9/11 would do. The adrenaline flows & your mind records every last detail that your extraordinarily heightened senses provide it with.
To me, she was incredibly calm. I would have been standing in somebody’s face laying down the law well before her husband got out of his seat to talk to the stewardess’. I also, as soon as I got home, would have been setting up housekeeping in my two Senators’ asses about this.
There’s no hate, no racism. It’s simply about probabilities.
What’s more probable?
1. That the terrorists will try to use the same platform that they had their largest success ever with again?
2. It’s all just a VRWC to hurt people’s feelings?
Suspend your emotions and just use cold, hard logic. Put yourself on that plane, and your choice: either with or without the cultural knowledge of Arab airline behavior. What seems more likely, as Occam would ask?
It is my contention that the vast majority Americans will continue to try to understand and accommodate cultural differences with every other culture on the face of the planet, even those cultures that are actively trying to destroy ours. That’s us, the Melting Pot, and damn proud of it. Why can’t they do the same? That’s all we’re asking. Just reciprocity.
If 9/11 had happened in say, Japan, and it was perpetrated by Norwegians, all blonde and blue-eyed, and you happened to be traveling in Japan as an American who was also blonde and blue-eyed, wouldn’t you reasonably expect to get checked out a bit more thoroughly than somebody from Nepal or Brazil at the airport. That isn’t a stretch, is it? I damn sure would. In fact, if I didn’t, I’d be looking around incredulously at all the Japanese wondering how the hell they could be employing the Ostrich National Security Technique after two Norwegians who look just like me used a couple of 747’s as Lawn Darts and killed 3,000+ of my fellow Sake lovers. Yeah, it’s all great and awesome that they are so enlightened and tolerant and stuff, but what good is that when you don’t exist as a culture or country anymore. Hell, that doesn’t do anybody any good…even you.
“…on flights, they often do their prayer rituals in the lavatory.” –
I am sorry. As a Christian, I am offended at prayer in the lavatory, I do not have any Muslim’s that I can ask, but I find it hard to believe ANYONE would pray in the TINY lavatory on a plane.
BTW, Why did the “band” have one-way tickets on seperate airlines?
I forgot to add the bit about the McD’s bag. Who actually eats in the lavatory? It smells and would ruin any normal persons appetite.
Who prays and eats at the same time? If I am wrong, I apologize, but I cannot see it. The lavatory on a plane is small, smelly and there is NO WAY I would put my precious prayer rug on the floor of ANY lavatory.
Please! Won’t somebody think of the children?!
what proactive thing would we have the air marshalls break cover and do?
There was probably a fighter jet a little behind and above should things have gone wrong waiting for the politically correct moment to act.
Mr. Taylor, in his article, brings up a good point:
Why didn’t anybody try to talk to these guys on the plane? A few seconds of conversation with the supposed terrorosts would surely have been more preferrable to four and a half hours of panic.
Even just a Hi, how are you, nice tracksuit you’ve got there, so what’s the deal with the McDonald’s bag.
Would’ve saved some people alot of aggravation.
NYT learn to Google? Here, here! I wish they would have prior to this Iraq debacle… they might have learned not everybody thought it was a “slam dunk”.
I find it sort of funny that some people would point fingers at Ms. Jacobson on her observations of simple musicians, yet are these the same people who look at the vids just released of the 9/11 hijackers going through security and NOTHING being done with them?
Just curious. Wouldn’t it fit in character that the libs should be “Proud” that the ME terrorists got through security without much extra scritinization? That just proves to the world that we are a country of pure PC justice.
Its more than “feelings being hurt.” Its rabid fearmongering based on ignorance.
You “we hate the rest of the world because it is too complex for us to understand” types are incapable of competently managing any sort of profiling policy, because you don’t know where to stop.
Look at you… We know now that the Syrians were indeed members of a band, we know the casino they played at, we have heard from people who saw them perform… Its all been explained, yet your reaction is to turn on more fear and hate…
Comments from THIS THREAD:
“I really need to hear an explanation from the band for why they got up and assembled like they did…”
They had to take leaks?
“…terrorists learned to fly airplanes so can they not also learn to play instruments?”
Musicians usually learn how to play instruments.
“…will somebody please explain to me why we are letting any Syrians–musicians or not–into the country?”
Because we are a free country?
“Personally, I feel it might be necessary to place Middle Easterners in separate planes.”
That’s terrific. Should black folks drink from a separate water fountain from you? Should they swim in a different pool? Should they ride at the back of the bus?
“And, as Taylor points out, finding the band doesn’t take away from the concerns raised by Jacobsen one tiny little bit.”
It doesn’t? We should be celebrating. Hooray - the scary Mediterranean-types were just musicians, not killers. Hooray!
“They hate us, and like messing with us when we are on planes.”
Yeah! They hate FREEDOM, too! You know how I know? Because GEORGE W. BUSH and DICK CHENEY said so!
“… the aisle and bathroom hijinks by the men on the plane should have been prevented.”
This one is golden. OK - we’ll start giving SWARTHY PEOPLE different bathroom privs on all flights. Great idea!
“…their actions should have triggered a more decisive response.”
Like what? Should we have stripped them naked, placed hoods over their heads and made them climb into pyramids? Maybe we should have shot them. Another great idea.
“That club in San Diego should forget ethnic bands from the Middle East, try Finland for a change.”
And I thought it was WE LIBERALS who like to tell other people what to do? We should outlaw Middle Eastern entertainment? How about banning Middle Eastern food, too? PUT THAT HUMMUS DOWN! Tastes like FREEDOM FRIES to me!
“Of the 14 maybe only 3 were al-Qaeda operatives. They fly with the band, have a good cover, and report back. There are probably hundreds of them in the country right now. Part of the big plan.”
You should work for HOMELAND SECURITY. If you were on the case, we could have had the THREE AL-QAEDA OPERATIVES arrested upon arrival in LA. Good sleuthing.
Frightened, ignorant Freedom Fry Eaters. If it looks funny through my God Given American Eyes then it MUST BE WRONG.
You people are destroying our great nation. Your baseless fear, your hatred of all things foreign, all things UN-AMERICAN. You are turning us into a jingoistic, isolationist hell where diversity and dissent are VERBOTEN.
Three years ago a bunch of lunatics hijacked 4 planes and killed 3000 people. Absolutely terrible… We all wept. Its a tragedy across the board. Now what?
How about we keep fanning the fires of fear indefinitely? When will it end? How much time needs to pass before we let up on the rest of the world?
Take a good look at yourselves before you start making suggestions about “special treatment” for people you perceive as the enemy.
P.S. I just got up from my nap, y’all!
P.P.S. In Spain they take “siestas” - little naps in the afternoon. Hmmm… What country does Spain share a border with? FRANCE? Taking naps in the afternoon is PRACTICALLY FRENCH! The French HATE FREEDOM! They HATE AMERICA! The Liberal Avenger is an AMERICA HATER! Call Homeland Security!
After further reflection I am with the folks here and over at LGF who think this could still have been a dry run. These guys come from a police state. And they were acting like terrorists who are practicing. Why does MM say she doesn’t think it was a dry run? What evidence is there for this? The group has very thin cover. One concert and they left? That lends itself to the dry run argument.
Liberal Avenger: Hooray! The video of the terrorist getting through security with box cutters is a monument to tollerance! Hooray!
“Personally, I feel it might be necessary to place Middle Easterners in separate planes.”
while we’re at it, how about we place african-americans in separate train cars and schools? i mean, blacks commit more crimes than whites, right? I for one don’t want to ride a train or send my kids to school with them even though I know that the criminals comprise an incredibly small number. I just don’t want to take that chance, and no rational person would. it’s just common sense, right?
it’s racism pure and simple. i am absolutely shocked and disgusted that someone - particularly someone with a conservative mindset who probably claims to value “freedom” - would actually advocate a segregationalist policy in 2004. you are sick, argive99, and you’re an embarassment to all americans.
“Hooray! The video of the terrorist getting through security with box cutters is a monument to tollerance! Hooray!”
You Freedom Fry Eaters just don’t get it, do you?
9/11 was three years ago. Its time to get on with our lives. The rest of the world has picked up the pieces… Why can’t you?
The Arab world has been around for a thousand years. Its likely to be around for a thousand more. Deal with it.
There are more than a billion muslims out there. We can’t kill them all. Some of them may actually be decent folks! (Remember the flower waving people of Baghdad who we ‘liberated’ last year? Remember your hero Chalabi?)
I want to say that its OK for you personality to live a stilted life in fear and ignorance, but it really isn’t OK. You folks are ruining the rest of this wonderful world for those of us who embrace what is offered outside of the Good Ole Red, White and Blue.
I like Paris in the Springtime - and so do millions more like me. Unfortunately, you xenophobes are wearing out America’s welcome wherever we wish to go.
You wonder why the French [supposedly] dislike us? Look in the mirror!
Michelle:
I don’t understand the confusion over the alleged Syrian band and the flight in question.
Presuming for a moment that the band members were the Middle Easterners on the flight, what’s to say that that by itself would rule them out as suspects?
As 9/11 Chair Keane and co-Chair Hamilton, the enemy is more imaginative then we generally are. To rule these fellows out on the basis of being band members would be comparable to ruling out Atta’s trip to Prague on the basis of his cell phone being in Florida at the time.
Well, gee . . terrorists’ own websites and publications say they want to kill, in approximately this order: 1) Jews, 2) Christians, 3) Hindus, 4) Buddhists, 5) all the remaining non-Muslims, and 6) all the muslims that aren’t muslim enough.
And they have successfully killed other people, before.
So I don’t see what’s unreasonable about expecting them to continue trying to do that which they want to do, and are capable of doing - kill people.
Any American who still hasn’t grasped that he or she is a walking, talking military target is letting ethnocentricity block reality. Just because the arbitray killing of civilians isn’t the American way, that doesn’t mean there aren’t other cultures that embrace the idea.
“9/11 was three years ago. Its time to get on with our lives.”
Learning from 9/11 evidently not being part of “getting on with life”. Let’s just forget that it ever happened, and certainly not think that it could ever happen again. Yep.
Liberal Avenger:
Do you come to Michelle’s site to engage in constructive dialog or debate? If so, ending the name-calling and bomb-throwing might be a good place to start. Or is “tolerance” only for those with whom you already agree?
Capt Smythe, et al, I agree that the actions were a bit odd and I was not saying that questioning them was irrational. I was mainly saying that such over the top responses as ‘putting them on their own plane’ was not a good way to deal with something you consider to be a threat.
Also the point that I think got missed was the people who hate us want more people to hate us. By playing up our fears and doing wrong to people who may not hate us and making them not like us or eventually hate us, as a result of our treatment of them, we would be helping the people who hate us. By making others hate us you are working for, not against, those who already hate us and want to do us harm.
If the war you are fighting has a limited amount of enemies who want to destroy you then it makes sense to destroy or contain that limited amount of people, however we are not in a traditional conflict and by our very actions we are increasing our enemies’ numbers and turning more people against us.
Assume that overnight America decided and was able to obliterate every living person in the Middle East and of Middle Eastern descent, do you think that our problems would be over? Would we be safe then because there would be no one left to hate us? Don’t you think that by that very action we would incite a whole new enemy, from different countries, that would attack us because of what we did? Even if you decided that all Muslims should be removed from the planet and you were able to destroy every person who was currently a member of that faith overnight. Would America then be safe? Would the rest of the world applaud us for ridding our planet of this great evil? Or would then people previously indifferent or agreeing with the US, decide that we were the great evil and band together to provide us with a new enemy to destroy?
Do you know why I know the Islamofacists want to kill us?
Ding, time’s up.
THEY SAY THEY WANT TO KILL US!!!!!!
For goodness sake, some of you, please extract your heads from the sand!
Now having said that I, completely disagree with some of the opinions above. Some are rather frightening. However, I don’t think that it is unreasonable to expect that no one should be allowed to terrorize others on a flight for ANY reason.
I do concede that the 14 Syrians were indeed a group of musicians traveling to a gig in San Diego and that what Annie Jacobsen witnessed may not have been a “dry run.” However, the fact remains that they WERE acting suspiciously enough that they were taken into custody and questioned for some time upon landing at LAX.
If you believe that the Jacobsens were merely over-reacting, then you must also believe that the entire flight crew as well as the air marshals and FBI. After all it wasn’t the Jacobsens who first radioed and alerted the authorities.
I urge all of you, especially those of you who don’t believe that there are indeed “dry-runs” going on out there, to please read Audrey Hudson’s article in the Washington Times. I truly believe that her article is very eye opening.
Badger:
Constructive dialog and debate is AOK as far as I am concerned.
Feverish racist vitriol is not.
The paranoid rhetoric in Michelle’s postings & visitors’ comments PRIOR TO full disclosure regarding the identity of the band was bad enough… After we discover the identity of the band you folks are still out for blood!
Maybe you people need a voice to let you know when you are going overboard. “Ze Germans” stood by idly while the Nazis handed out their yellow stars. You do realize that your calls for “putting middle easterners on their own plane” is quite reactionary, to put it mildly. Somebody needs to knock you on the head and tell you to wake up!
Vigilance - important.
Caution - a modern fact of life.
Awareness - natch.
Xenophobic Paranoia - let’s stop before we get there.
Nobody is going to “get you” while you’re driving the kids to soccer practice in Peoria…
Here’s a NEWS BULLETIN for you:
Most muslims love their children and don’t wish ill will towards anyone! Can you believe that? Its true!
Further alienating large groups of the world population is going to get you the terrible scenario you fearmongers are apparently looking for.
Its time to stop the hate!
Can’t we all just get along?
Audrey Hudson’s article is pure drivel. The Washington Post should be ashamed for printing it. If the article appeared in print today, it should have appeared on the Op-Ed page.
Hudson is feeding you fear-mongers precisely what you want to hear. The fact that it is nonsense doesn’t stop her from trying to pass it off as journalism. Why should it? Neither Michelle nor Fox ever let TRUTH get in the way of their opinion pieces…
“Flight crews and air marshals say…”
“…an air marshal said.”
“…a pilot said.”
“The pilot confirmed Mrs. Jacobsen’s experience was “terribly alike” what flight attendants reported on the San Juan flight… He said there is ‘widespread knowledge’ among crew members these probes are taking place.”
“A second pilot said…”
“…a flight attendant reported…”
“…said a second air marshal…”
This isn’t journalism, kids. This is amateur-hour. It is engineered to fan the flames of fear and hatred that apparently reside in your own hearts and minds.
Don’t take the bait! Don’t let them spoonfeed you fear.
Your own world is as safe and fear-free as you make it. Choose life!
Jill & Liberal (copy-paste, copy-paste, copy-paste) Avenger,
I think you might not understand. No one here is saying that blacks, who do in fact commit crimes at proportionally higher rate than whites, are terrorists. You certainly seem to be making that point well though. If I were black I would certainly be getting tired of being compared to the troublemakers of every other group. It’s typical that as liberal thinkers you have this tendency to transpose groups of people onto one another (i.e. gays deserve civil rights like blacks, gays deserve to marry like straight people, Muslims are criminally the same as blacks…blah, blah, blah).
There is a difference. When a black criminal walks into the local 7/11 and holds the place up I’ll guarantee that he or she has no intention of killing anyone in 99.999% of cases. That being said, 7-11 and many other convenience stores, located in black neighborhoods, have wrapped their employees in a box of bullet-proof glass, steel sheeting, cameras, and alarms. In the white areas of town this is not the case. Is this racist? No. It is simply a precaution based on a very small number of actual “deadly” crimes. Put an Islamist “criminal” in a store full of people and he’ll let all the other Muslims go and kill everyone else. Hell, he probably won’t even steal the cash register.
You see, Islamists don’t commit crimes, as liberals like to call them, and allow infidels to walk away unharmed. They want 100% lethal success on every occasion. The 9-11 terrorists were not the equivalent of a black kid trying to steal fifty bucks from his local mini-mart. When a black guy, who is dressed like one would imagine a drug dealer may dress (you can thank Hollywood for that image, liberals.), gets on a bus full of non-black people, those people don’t automatically think, “oh my god, he’s going to blow us all up” do they? Take that same black guy and put him on a bus or train and the reaction would be the same. They aren’t going to think, “the brother is going to hijack the plane and dive it into some buildings”. It’s not the same thing but you don’t seem to get it.
I don’t walk around all day thinking, “ I wonder if that black guy wants to kill all of us white people” every time I see a black person. I damn sure think that every time I see a Middle Eastern male. Sorry kids, those are the breaks. You may not find that kind of thinking rational but I personally don’t find flying planes full of innocent people into buildings very rational. If Chinese looking guys start blowing themselves up in buses, trains, and airplanes around the world you can bet that Chinese take-out isn’t going to be so popular.
Middle Eastern male acting weird on an airplane?? Could be a Middle Eastern terrorist but he sure isn’t going to rob the 7-11.
Gmac:
When a Middle Eastern male walks onto an airplane, I’ll guarantee that he has no intention of killing anyone in 99.999% of the cases.
There is no difference whatsoever between 19 thugs murdering 3000 civilians, and 140,000 American military thugs murdering the same in Iraqi and Afghani civilians (”an eye for an eye,” I suppose. Americans and the Islamists have much more in common than you would think).
“Assume that overnight America decided and was able to obliterate every living person in the Middle East and of Middle Eastern descent, do you think that our problems would be over?”
This may be a shock to some of you, but the rest of the world (save for Britain, Australia and, ummmmmmm, Palau)believes the utter opposite to be true…”our” (i.e., the world’s) problems would be over if every living American was obliterated. As said so astutely before, them’s the breaks.
But, you’re missing the point entirely.
Bullet-proof glass at the 7/11 is AOK - as are metal detectors, x-ray machines & random profiling at airports.
What’s not OK is saying that a group of people, identified by “race,” is going to officially receive different treatment than the rest of us.
The idea that we should officially isolate a group of people by race is absolutely, unquestionably anti-American.
No society, particularly one as ignorant as ours, is capable of suspending rights for one segment of the population and letting it simply stay there.
One hundred and forty years after The Emancipation Proclamation, “the system” in the United States still institutionally and socially discriminates against people of color.
In Germany in the 1930s Jews were forced to wear yellow stars. Within 10 years more than 6 million of them had been murdered, along with countless Gypsies, homosexuals and other “undesirables.”
In South Africa a set of laws governing only people of color turned that nation into one of the most violent in contemporary Africa.
In Zimbabwe, laws restricting the rights of WHITE citizens have lead to vigilante mobs running European farmers off of their land.
If we start INSTITUTIONALLY treating Arabs differently when boarding planes, before long the policy will extend to airport terminals then airport parking facilities. But why stop there? Since we’ve keep the skies safe by rousting Arabs at the airports, why not make ALL forms of transportation safe and force Arabs to undergo a search at train stations, subway stops, bus terminals & ferry piers?
Kids should be safe, right? Well, heck, we need to protect our children! We’ve done a remarkable job keeping our transportation infrastructure safe by screening Arabs, we should screen Arabs at our public schools and universities.
In fact, we should screen Arabs at all public buildings.
Simply because we’re American and “modern” does not exempt us from repeating the failures of history.
Never, ever, let this happen here.
LA,
You seriously believe 9/11 is something we should just get over? This is why this country is so divided the left wants to pretend 9/11 never happened and the right wants to make sure it doesn’t happen again. These points of view are irreconcilable. Nothing you can post will convince me to come over to your side and nothing I say will sway your opinion either. We live in two different worlds, and will never understand one another.
Here’s a news flash for you, LA. The Islamofacists declared war on us on 9/11.
I don’t think that it is over the top to be suspicious when we see suspicious behavior. I also don’t think that it is unreasonable to expect that a group of Middle Easterers (or anyone for that matter) not act in a manner that frightens the heck out of a bunch of innocent people.
You did state your position very clearly when you wrote;
“9/11 was three years ago. Its time to get on with our lives. The rest of the world has picked up the pieces… Why can’t you?”
Apparently you have forgotten that 3000 of our fellow Americans were MURDERED by a disgusting bunch of human debris.
How can we forget? How do we just let that go?
You seem to be more concerned with how our enemies feel about us than avenging the deaths of 3000 innocent men, women and children.
I wonder if your ilk would have acted after Pearl Harbor. I can just see President Roosevelt standing up there saying some thing like “December 7th was a horrible day but it is important we move on. We need to just let it go. We could respond with all the force we have available, but it is more important that we figure out why they hate us. Can’t we all just get along?”
I will never understand that type of thinking.
To the Syrian Wayne Newton;
If you hate America so bad then:
TRERE’S THE DOOR DON’T LET IT HIT YOU ON THE WAY OUT!!
GO BACK to that bastian of freedom (Syria) where they chop off heads for the fun of it! GO BACK!!!
>Mr. Taylor, in his article, brings up a good point:
>Why didn’t anybody try to talk to these guys on the plane? A few seconds of conversation with the supposed terrorosts would surely have been more preferrable to four and a half hours of panic.
Hmmmm, just remembered: Jacobsen DID try to be friendly with the guy in the yellow t-shirt … and he responded with a look of cold hate, she said.
Yes, I do seriously believe that 9/11 is something we should just “get over.” Does that mean that we should cease being vigilant? Absolutely not. Should we “smoke ‘em out” of their caves in Afghanistan? Yessir. Does that mean we should forget about those who would do us harm? Nope.
“Islamofascists?” What does that mean, exactly? Are you schooled in fascism? I don’t think you know what fascism means.
Yes - a very bad group of people attacked us on 9/11.
Yes - there remains a very bad group of people who would love to do something to us again. We should keep our eyes peeled for them!
How do you reconcile your fear of another attack against the civil liberties of 14 wandering minstels from Syria?
You don’t. You let the Syrian musicians fly and be done with it.
You see, with a billion muslims in the world, its a bit tricky to separate the wheat from the chaff. Its so tricky, in fact, that you can’t actually do the separating based on the fact that they are muslim. It simply won’t work.
Let’s forget about our all-American value system of tolerance of religion for a moment…
Two hundred years ago a very important group of people got together and worked out a document that included the following text:
“We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.”
Look at it closely:
‘We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights…’
Understanding why you people frighten the daylights out of us liberals starts with you setting aside the very spirit of ‘all men are created equal.’
You can eat your Freedom Fries and you can fly a flag from your SUV’s radio antenna and you can support your President, right or wrong, but the moment you start treating any group of people as unequal, you are as unamerican as Osama bin Laden, Saddam Hussein or Karl Marx.
Our nation starts and ends there! Self-evident rights, endowed by our Creator. All men are created equal! Who are you to set that aside? I thought you were a God-fearing, church-going American!
It never ceases to amaze me that the folks who make the most noise about PATRIOTISM and AMERICA and TRADITIONAL VALUES and DIGNITY are always the first ones to start tearing down the very foundations upon which our great country was built.
Liberal Avenger – what can I say? I’m just so thankful that you have decided to be the cannon fodder between me, my family, and those who want to kill us. If that’s what you want to do for us, all I can say is, thank you and may all your dreams come true.
100% of Islamists are Muslims. Of those Muslims the Islamists do not in fact walk on planes and want to kill in 99.999% of cases. It’s more like 100%.
Syrian Wayne – now your talkin’!!! It is as you have stated it. We are at war and you are on the other side. You can sugar coat it with your “19 thugs” qualifier but you obviously think that Islamic nuts are equivalent to our soldiers. I have no problem with that what-so-ever, but please don’t’ throw that biblical eye-for-an-eye crap around because the only side killing because they think their corrupt religion tells them to is your side. When an American soldier prays before he enters battle he is praying to survive. The Mohammedan, on the other hand, prays for death….don’t let us dissuade them of this credo.
Muslims have killed far more Muslims in Iraq than we could ever dream to. We spent millions of dollars to use the most accurate and advanced weapons we have in order to spare innocent Iraqis during the war. How do your heroes operate? Completely indiscriminate truck bombs and innocent families (deliberately targeted) on aircraft, trains, and buses. The problem you’ve got on your side is that, granted, you may want us all dead but you have to do it and there’s the rub. Some of us can be lulled to sleep with this “hey, don’t ask me what my intentions are, racist” stuff but unfortunately for you it seems that there are plenty of us still watching.
Don’t you find it strange that there were a bunch of air marshals on a plane with 14 Syrian “band members”? Don’t worry, we’re profiling. And, them’s the breaks!!
you guys give me the creep
one must not be in the ivy league to know about ritual ablution before prayers. attendants are aware about religious preferences (meals, prayer times, etc.) hence “lack” of reaction.
anyway, it really is scary to see the kind of reactions we can read here - I just hope we have a good sample of fox network brainwashed viewers here.
you are afraid, you close yourself, you are getting really dangerous to others.
you may try for a second thinking about you being driven by only two feelings all the other ones are a mix of these two main ones : LOVE and FEAR
what drives you ?
Well there you go, overstating my position just a wee bit.
I am certainly NOT one of the people who were advocating limiting the number of arab-looking men on a flight. I also completely disagree with putting them on a separate plane. I agree with you that that is blatant racism and that would be abhorrent.
I also agree with your point that our founders were briliant in writing;
“We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.” As a Christian, I do not take these words lightly. However, we are dealing with a foe whose holy books the Qur’an, the Hadith and the Sura instruct the followers of Islam to kill all nonbelievers.
Granted not all Muslims are this radical, but how are we to know? Unfortunately, the only way to determine if a person poses a threat is by observing their demeanor and personal behavior.
In the post 9/11 world, we don’t have the luxury of simply desregarding the bizarre behavior of 14 Middle Eastern men on an airplane.
Yes Tao, perhaps someday we will all be simple Koi swimming about our pond with nothing to do but nourish ourselves on the algae and the occasional insect, which finds itself unable to escape the pull of the waters surface tension. No thoughts of love or hate will intrude upon our shimmering dreamy view of the world. We will be happy little fish with no cares, no worries, no thoughts. Yes, who needs the leagues of ivy because we will be STUPID FISH!!!
Survival is what motivates the sane TAO.
I will LOVE my enemy the day he is a resident of GITMO!! I will FEAR him while he is unencumbered by rational supervision.
“Jacobsen spins her experience into a not-so-veiled call for racial profiling of airline passengers. Help me out with this one: If only those musicians had been interrogated prior to boarding, it would have been revealed they were, in fact … musicians. (They had, of course, endured the same concourse X-ray and metal detector rigmarole as everyone else, and were in possession of valid passports and visas.)
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
Very on point in my view…
Notably Blank Thoughts
Absolutely right…we must watch those Muslim hijackers from the Philippines.
I mean we’ve seen the same scenario over and over again. Those Filipeno muslim hijackers taking a TWA plane and forcing it to land in Jakarta where those Indonesian hijackers take over and fly it to Entebbe where some of the, “heart of black Africa”, terrorists fly it to Pristina, Next those insane Kosovar Muslims fly on and crash into the Eiffel tower killing thousands of Muslims who unfortunately are there protesting the ban on the Hijab.
The horror….the horror…..
Has anyone noticed that everyone assumes these men were Muslims, even though there’s nothing in the original story to indicate this?
Almost 10% of the Syrian population is Christian, and the percentage among Syrians who live in or visit the U.S. is a lot higher.
Strange how things like this get overlooked. It’s usually forgotten that ‘the Palestinians’ include the entire native Christian population of the Holy Land - including the descendants of the first converts to Christianity.
Hey Gates;
You gonna’ take those odds in Vegas? The payoff is huge but the risk….??….out of the game!
As for the Christians in the PA sector…they ain’t Jews and they are great for propaganda. Don’t kill em’ yet!
Ask the Druze how well “like” they are in the PA sector.
Sorry - “liked”
Discrepancies
Jacobsen wrote she saw fourteen Syrian passports in an offical’s hand. David Adams - the FAMS spokeman - was quoted in the NY Times article as saying it was a Syrian band, that all fourteen were questioned, and that they returned home via New York.
Clinton Taylor in NRO wrote he was advised the band members came in from Lebanon and Detroit, on Flight 327.
Quaere why these discrepancies in the public reports? Were the band members from Syria, or not (i.e., Lebanon or Detroit)? Did they all return to Syria via New York, or did some go to Detroit? Were there fourteen Syrian passports? Were some of the musicians (especially the Detroit-based) US citizens or Green Card holders? If so, why were they questioned?
Everyone is missing the most IMPORTANT part of this story. Here’s the quote:
She leaned over and quietly told
my husband there were federal air
marshals sitting all around us.
I ask everyone… WHY WOULD THAT BE?
I think I know: They had PRIOR KNOWLEDGE and assigned more than one marshall “just in case”.
The fact that the US Government is willing to even ATTEMPT such a gamble instead of stopping it at the gate is shocking and shows a lack of concern for American life.
This sounds like they were going to try to “sting” them.
But what if they were practicing how to identify a MARSHALL by acting OVER-THE-TOP-EVIL and then watch who appears calm while watching their every move. That’s something a marshall would have to do.
Oh well, I guess I’m the only one thinking like the bad-guys. Too bad the “good guys” trying to help America don’t even try to do that.
GJJ,
If fourteen Syrian passports were in fact used then it would be a pretty good indicator that there were no green cards among the group. Why would one use a passport on a domestic flight if they had a driver’s license, and a green card?
Lebanon is a de facto province of Syria so it wouldn’t be a surprise to see Syrians flying out of Lebanon.
As usual, we’ll never know the complete story but the Jacobsens are not the rabid racist some would have us believe just because they reacted to a situation and have a forum to relay their experience to others. If Annie had no outlet for her experience, and that of her husband, we would not be discussing this and she would not be a “racist”.
Actually I have a lot of sympathy for those of you terrified at the thought of travelling with Muslims. Since Oklahoma City and Columbine, I won’t go near anyone from Boulder or upstate NY. And Christians? Tim McVeigh was a Christian, KKK? 100% Christians. Who builds the most land mines, weapons of mass destruction, assault weapons..wait for it…Christians. Forget Muslims, if you are going to be murdered, 99.9% it will be a Christian. Isn’t someone planning to move them all to NC? Gets my vote.
Thanks for your kind and reasoned response Capt Smythe. By ‘limited’ I meant that if the conflict we were engaged in could be won by the complete removal of all of one side’s combatants then it could be ‘winnable’ by their total destruction.
However the conflict we are in now does not have a limited amount of combatants, i.e. people who hate us and want to cause us harm, and that if through our own well meaning but misguided actions of attempted self preservation we are not careful, then the very people who are most concerned about our safety will be working to further our enemies plans by encouraging _more_ people to hate us and want to cause us harm. This is not a conventional conflict, and fighting it as such only strengthens our enemies’ ranks. The more we kill, abuse and manipulate large groups of people in the name of our safety the less safe I fear we will be.
El Capitan:
“I could not disagree with you more on your ’slippery slope’ argument.”
Can we find an example of wholesale, institutional abuse of a particular race that didn’t emerge from what probably felt like a “good idea” once upon a time?
9/11 is our Reichstag. Because the Reichstag was burned by a someone who was both Communist and non-German the abrogation of German Constitutional rights protecting freedom of opinion, speech, belief for Communists must have felt like it “made sense.” In hindsight we know that it did not, and that the abrogation of Constitutional freedoms in Germany were the beginning of its rapid and total descent into heinous amorality.
Don’t think it couldn’t happen here in our fair nation.
Using our Reichstag as cover, our nation has already engaged itself in conflicts overseas that have resulted in the deaths of thousands of people. If we can accept the wholesale slaughter of human beings in our name abroad, what are we willing to accept at home?
The self-deluded see compassionate heroes in Bush, Cheney & Rumsfeld. These men could sell anything to those that follow them blindly. Thank God there has been some degree of restraint within the administration.
Read the comments on this and other conservative sites. There are marginally intelligent people out there who apparently have some grasp of the English language and may even be able to read maps who would cheer the curtailing of civil liberties of our swarthy brethren from the East.
Intellectually you and I can both agree that given power and authority, we wouldn’t allow the suspension of civil liberties to get out of hand - but neither you nor I are in charge, and we both know that human nature corrupts power.
We’ve seen the decay of the wholesome values we as Americans embody through the prison abuse scandal in Iraq. Those