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| when will we hear the truth about dry runs |
tropicalstorm |
03/19/07 |
I keep hearing stories of dry runs like the other day the latest one I heard is a guy carrying metal bomb making devices in his rectum
and today the Pittsburgh airport found threatening letters
http://warroom.com/ )
ABOUT THOSE IMAMS
By RICHARD MINITER
THE notorious case of U.S. Airways Flight 300 gets stranger by the minute, as more facts emerge about why six traveling Muslim clerics were asked to deplane. A passenger on that flight - I'll call her "Pauline" - has inadvertently publicized some facts via a much-forwarded e-mail; she gave me more details in an interview this week. The airport police report confirms some of her claims and holds more revelations of its own. And U.S. Airways spokeswoman Andrea Rader also confirmed much of Pauline's account.
One detail that's escaped most reports is that other Muslim passengers were left undisturbed and later joined in a round of applause for the U.S. Airways crew. "It wasn't that they were Muslim," says Pauline. "It was all of the suspicious things they did." Sitting by Minneapolis-St. Paul's Airport Gate C9, she noticed one imam immediately. "He was pacing nervously, talking in Arabic," she said.
As the plane boarded, she said, no one refused to fly. The public prayers and an Arabic phone call triggered no alarms. But then a note from a passenger about suspicious movements of the imams got the crew's attention. To Pauline, everything seemed normal. Then the captain - in classic laconic pilot-style - announced there had been a "mix-up in our paperwork" and that the flight would be delayed.
In reality, the crew was waiting for the FBI and local police to arrive.
Contrary to press accounts that a single note from a passenger triggered the imams' removal, Captain John Howard Wood was weighing multiple factors.
* An Arabic speaker was seated near two of the imams in the plane's tail. That passenger pulled a flight attendant aside and, in a whisper, translated what the men were saying: invoking "bin Laden" and condemning America for "killing Saddam," according to police reports.
* An imam seated in first class asked for a seat-belt extender - the extra strap that obese people use because the standard belt is too short. According to both an on-duty and a deadheading flight attendant, he looked too thin to need one. A seat-belt extender can easily be used as a weapon - just wrap one end around your fist, and swing the heavy metal buckle.
* All six imams had boarded together, with the first-class passengers - even though only one of them had a first-class ticket. Three had one-way tickets. Between the six men, only one had checked a bag.
And, Pauline said, they spread out - just like the 9/11 hijackers. Two sat in first class, two in the middle and two back in the economy section, police reports show. Some, according to Rader, took seats not assigned to them.
* Finally, a gate attendant told the captain she was suspicious of the imams, according to police reports.
So the captain made his decision to delay the flight based on many complaints, not one. He also consulted a federal air marshal, a U.S. Airways ground-security coordinator and the airline's security office in Phoenix. All thought the imams were acting suspiciously, Rader told me.
One more odd thing went unnoticed at the time: The men prayed both at the gate and on the plane. Yet observant Muslims pray only once at sundown, not twice.
"It was almost as if they were intentionally trying to get kicked off the flight," Pauline said.
While the imams were soon released, Pauline is fuming: "We are the victims of these people. They need to be more sensitive to us. They were totally insensitive to us and then accused us of being insensitive to them."
The flight was delayed for some 31/2 hours. Bomb-sniffing dogs swept the plane, and every passenger got re-screened.
"I think it was either a foiled attempt to take over the plane or it was a publicity stunt to accuse us of being insensitive," Pauline told me. "It had to be to intimidate U.S. Airways to ease up on security."
So far, U.S. Airways refuses to be intimidated, even though the feds have launched an investigation. "We are absolutely backing this crew," Rader said.
Tucked away in the police report is this little gem: One imam had complained to a passenger that some nations don't follow sharia law and had said his job in Bakersfield, Calif., was a cover for "representing Muslims here in the U.S."
What are the imams really up to? Something more than praying, it seems.
Some argue that these Imans behaved this way in hopes that they would be deplaned. Once deplaned, they could yell discrimination. Others, like contributor to "The Aviation Nation", Annie Jacobsen, would argue that it is distinctly possible that they were practicing a dry run. That they may have wanted to see just how much they could get away with for a jihad attempt further on down the line. Annie makes a good argument for dry runs; the jihadists have been known to make several attempts on one target before they get it right. For example, Annie sites; "The recent dry run or probe on American Airlines flight 63 occurred on a flight that has already been saved once from a terrorist attack by the heroics of flight crew and passengers. If you recall, it was American Airlines flight 63 that "shoe bomber" Richard Reid tried to take down with explosives hidden in his shoes, in December of 2001". Click here to read her article
When it comes right down to it, I think that both arguments are quite right. While the Imans could have been hoping to make a cry of discrimination -- it doesn't negate the idea that, on it's own -- that, too, is a form of a dry run. It really is the perfect plan isn't it? Cry discrimination now on a "dry run" so that later, when they are fully prepared to execute another attack -- they are assured that their plan would go uninterrupted because we have become conditioned to be sensitive. We are learning that a Muslim passenger can do what the rest of us can not -- make those around us uncomfortable. Remember the story of the woman who became "claustrophobic" on the British flight? She had to be overcome by her fellow passengers and escorted off of the plane.
The reason she was escorted off the plane was because she made others on the plane uncomfortable by her behavior. That was o.k. because she was a white female. But, if an Arab-looking, loudly praying, Muslim who's behavior is questionable, should make you uncomfortable, you'd better just shake that feeling off as a discriminating thought.
While shaking it off -- we've once again made ourselves easy targets. Or, as "Pauline" would say; "we are the victims". |
Clarification/Follow-up by ETWolverine on 03/20/07 4:07 pm:
>>>when will we hear the truth about dry runs <<<
Not sure what it is, but it sounds unpleasant. I hear they have medicine for that now. Clarification/Follow-up by tropicalstorm on 03/20/07 8:09 pm:
etw dry runs is the terrorists seeing what they can get away with on the planes.
Clarification/Follow-up by ETWolverine on 03/20/07 8:40 pm:
Trop, see my prior answer. This clarification was my lame attempt at humor. I guess it didn't work.
Elliot Clarification/Follow-up by tropicalstorm on 03/20/07 8:44 pm:
sorry ETW
I just took a few minutes break from my spring cleaning and should have read through the other reply to refresh my memory to catch the context.
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