Posted on 01/03/2002 6:01:18 AM PST by veronica
ON CHRISTMAS DAY, Wallid Shatter, an Arab-American member of President Bush's Secret Service detail, was ordered off American Airlines Flight 363 from Baltimore to Dallas. He was on his way to join the president at his Crawford, Texas, ranch.
According to the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR), which has lodged a complaint with American Airlines, Shatter had already gone through the paperwork required of armed federal agents. It was the flight's captain who first raised concerns about him. Then, according to CAIR spokesman Ibrahim Hooper, "when the agent asked to go back on the plane to retrieve his jacket, the captain said, 'I don't want him back on that plane.'" The flight was delayed 75 minutes, and took off without Shatter.
CAIR has demanded both an apology and a clarification of policy from American Airlines. The Secret Service has launched an inquiry. And President Bush, by his own account, is irate. "If he was treated that way because of his ethnicity," Bush said, "that will make me madder than heck."
The president is trying to score cheap p.c. points off the incident, because this is malarkey. Consider the position of American, which has of late, let us not forget, seen a good deal of its personnel and clientele blown out of the skies by people who fit Shatter's profile.
Or, if you don't like profiling, let's ignore Shatter's profile for a moment. Christmas would have to be a high-alert day--a day on which a bomb or a hijacking would have especially great news value, and on which both security and in-flight personnel were likely severely understaffed. Some guy who claims to be going to see the president tries to get on a plane--with a gun--and the captain doesn't like the look of his paperwork.
Specifically, Shatter was taking Flight 363 because he had been bumped from an earlier flight. According to the captain, the information he gave on the form for the second flight didn't match the information he'd given on the same form for the first.
Then, to top it off, the guy tries to get back on the plane. Have you ever left a sweater or a cell phone on a flight and tried to get back down the jetway? Being a forgetful person, I have. What happened, even before September 11, was that everyone standing near the gate surrounds you. If you show the slightest hint of insisting ("Aw, come on . . . that sweater's got my return ticket on it"), they get ready to call the cops. I was never (up until September 11) a big fan of this kind of draconian security on airlines.
But the point is, the airlines have a longstanding record of not messing around when it comes to access to their planes--no matter what the passenger's color is. When American Airlines spokeswoman Laura Mayo says the incident was not about racial profiling but about "confirming that an armed individual is who he says he is and that he is qualified to travel," we ought to believe her.
According to Ibrahim Hooper, "If [Shatter] had had the name John Smith and hadn't been of Arab-American background, there wouldn't have been a problem." Hooper is wrong. "John Smith," trying to board the flight with the same gun and the same iffy paperwork, would have been booted unceremoniously, and you'd never have heard another word about it, because Smith has no "civil rights" groups to agitate for kid-gloves treatment.
In fact, if Wallid Shatter had been named John Smith, American Airlines would now be demanding an apology from him, rather than vice versa.
Pilot: Ejected Secret Service Agent Was 'Very Hostile'
An Arab-American Secret Service agent on President Bush's security detail allegedly appeared "anxious and nervous" and became unruly when asked to verify his credentials before he was ejected from an American Airlines flight last week, the pilot of the flight says.
In internal American Airlines documents obtained by CNN the pilot claims the agent "became very hostile" after being told that initial documents he submitted during a pre-flight security check were inadequate.
"The form (submitted by the agent) was unreadable because it was a carbon-copy and there were missing items," the pilot told American Airlines. "I then had the agent come back and re-check his credentials" and fill out a new form, which, he said, the agent "filled out improperly."
"I was given a third improperly filled out (form). This had no signature of the (law enforcement officer), no phone number," the pilot told the airline. "I absolutely felt correct in having this individual's identification validated," the pilot wrote in his report. "After three improper (forms) and the behavior of this individual, I needed to be 100 (percent) sure of his credentials."
The American Airlines pilot said he was "acting in the best interests" of his crew when he decided to eject the agent from the flight, which was scheduled to fly fromWashington, D.C. to Texas, where the agent had been assigned to guard President Bush.
The agent claims he was a victim of racial profiling and has retained a lawyer with an eye towards possible legal action against the airline.
Lawyer Christy Lopez said Wednesday night that her client "never did anything that could be construed as causing a legitimate security concern."
President Bush told reporters last week that he would be "madder than heck" if racial profiling was a factor in the agent's removal from the flight.
If he was already on board with gun and he was a terrorist, what good would telling him he had to leave do? Do you really think he would leave at that point or take over the plane. Some biggoted Captain wasnt thinking and apparently neither is The Weekly Standard.
Much better to decide on a course of action while on the ground than when you are 35,000 feet in the air.
Sounds like very poor judgement on the part of the captain. When you have an armed individual claiming to be a Secret Service agent in your cockpit, it does little good to refuse him the right to board if he is really a terrorist. For God sake, he's already on board and in the most sensitive spot. Whats this captain use for brains?
It will be intersting to see the results of this investigation. If I were Bush I would have called the CEO of American to remind him that they were still in business thanks largely to the largess of the American government.
But.....they are still on the ground, not 30,000 feet up. In my mind, there is quite a difference.
The airport had already checked the agents credentials with the Secret Service before he went through security and before he boarded the plane. If the captain really believed the guy was a threat and the agent was really beliggerent, why didnt he call the airport police or the FBI to arrest an armed intruder?
YOU DON'T FLY A LOT DO YOU?
How does the pilot, the LAST line of security, know if this one individual is NOT a security check plant?
A SS agent needs to have the "i's" dotted and "t's" crossed.
How long does it take to shoot the pilots, close the plane door, lock the cockpit door and move the plane away from the building. Ten seconds? How much longer to attempt a take off or to ram the plane into the airport, atleast killing the individuals on board? I would say a lot faster than you are going to get a swat team to the gate.
So it makes sense that the final check on security would be immediately before the pilot calls for the push back. It was then that the individual was finally determined to be insufficiently cleared and he was removed from the plane. Until that time, they gave him three (3) chances to get it right. He never got it right, so he had to go.
Once he has been tossed, there is no way on God's Green Earth that anyone is going to let him back down that jetway. The pilot has made the determination, and that determination is final. The pilot has the ultimate authority and responsibility for the safety of his aircraft, passengers and crew. End of story. Nobody is allowed back on an aircraft, even under the best of circumstances. After being ejected as a security risk, there is just no way. The flight crew would have tackled him at that point if he attempted to reboard.
I do not understand why the Secret Service is not a uniformed law enforcement service. It is not against the law to put on a dark colored suit, wear sunglasses, put an earpiece in your ear, stick a bulky radio in your pocket, wear a shoulder holster, and do everything short of wearing a badge to impersonate a Secret Service Agent. If they were uniformed, then it would immediately be illegal to impersonate them. So how does having the Secret Service out of uniform improve security for the President?
What it does do is invite abuse and lead to confusion, as in this case. If the person involved had been a uniformed officer or a uniformed United States Marine, I don't think there would have been quite the same level of uncertainty.
As for inviting abuse, suppose a certain unscrupulous politician is entitled to Secret Service protection. And suppose that this unscrupulous politician wants to keep protesters, for instance, at a distance. Would it not be the easiest thing to do to dress up some thugs in dark suits with sunglasses, stick earpieces in their ears and have them intimidate people? Not to suggest that this as happened. I don't think we have any politicians entitled to Secret Service protection who are that unscrupulous. Certainly not in the United States Senate, anyway.
BRING BACK THE PRESIDENT'S OWN. BRING THE UNITED STATES MARINES CORPS BACK TO THE WHITE HOUSE
Okay Leadpenny how was he trying to buffalo anyone? He is a secret service agent. He was ordered by the Secret Service to fly to Crawford TX to serve on Bush's security team. He had proper SS credentials. They had been checked and rechecked with security and with SS headquarters. He had a valid ticket and a valid boarding pass. What kind of con was he attempting?????
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.