These guys were just guilty of having dark skin, too? Right?
Posted on 07/15/2004 1:12:48 PM PDT by big gray tabby
On June 29, 2004, at 12:28 p.m., I flew on Northwest Airlines flight #327 from Detroit to Los Angeles with my husband and our young son. Also on our flight were 14 Middle Eastern men between the ages of approximately 20 and 50 years old. What I experienced during that flight has caused me to question whether the United States of America can realistically uphold the civil liberties of every individual, even non-citizens, and protect its citizens from terrorist threats.
On that Tuesday, our journey began uneventfully. Starting out that morning in Providence, Rhode Island, we went through security screening, flew to Detroit, and passed the time waiting for our connecting flight to Los Angeles by shopping at the airport stores and eating lunch at an airport diner. With no second security check required in Detroit we headed to our gate and waited for the pre-boarding announcement. Standing near us, also waiting to pre-board, was a group of six Middle Eastern men. They were carrying blue passports with Arabic writing. Two men wore tracksuits with Arabic writing across the back. Two carried musical instrument cases - thin, flat, 18 long. One wore a yellow T-shirt and held a McDonald's bag. And the sixth man had a bad leg -- he wore an orthopedic shoe and limped. When the pre-boarding announcement was made, we handed our tickets to the Northwest Airlines agent, and walked down the jetway with the group of men directly behind us.
(Excerpt) Read more at womenswallstreet.com ...
So do I.
OK, I am officially shaken. I just made a couple of flights out of LGA and Dayton. The security checks were the most thorough since my Thankgiving flight in 2001.
I'm thinking the arab suiciders are thinking to blow up an airliner with an infligh assembled bomb during landing over a city is not only easy to pull off,it's unexpected at this point.
From the sound of that, I can only assume you are the product of a New York style multicultural white male bashing education. Actually, though new to South Carolina, I found it a rather refreshing change from the PC lunacy of the big city and most of Europe. And folks here are proud to show the American flag, including transplants.
But in answer to your question, it's not Indian attacks we ward off here, but idiot attacks. And for that we use computers quite handily.
Here's what Seymour Hersh discovered about terrorist planning and practice prior to 9/11: "Woods's flight was not the only one the F.B.I. looked into after September 11th. The bureau found other evidence that the terrorists from the four different planes had flown together earlier, in various combinations, to "check out flights," as one agent put it. The F.B.I. now thinks that the hijackers flew on perhaps a dozen flights, together and separately, in the summer of 2001."
The New Yorker June 3, 2002
I got the hackles while reading this woman's account. She sounded credible, and expanded her viewpoint with background on other recent travels.
My alternate explanation is that TROP types really enjoy frightening anyone not like them. FOURTEEN?
I don't scare easily, but that would have been enough to get me right off that plane.
How do you know when you're staying in a South Carolina hotel?
When you call the front desk and say "I've gotta leak in my sink"...
...and the person at the front desk says "go ahead".
67 - "How do you know when you're staying in a South Carolina hotel?
When you call the front desk and say "I've gotta leak in my sink"...
...and the person at the front desk says "go ahead"."
OK - open your mouth up wide.
These Syrians dudes may have nothing to do with terrorism at all, but to call their behavior on the plane strange would a major understatement. It seems to me almost as though they were looking to provoke some kind of incident or reaction from others on the plane, to see just how far they could go.
Every once in a while some a-hole goes into a bar some place looking to get his ass kicked so he starts insulting strangers and acting like a prissy little thing and every once in a while some a-hole jumps anonymously on a computer and does the same thing. Difference? You gotta have at least some respect for the a-hole in the bar. The a-hole playing with his keyboard is like a 10 year old ringing a doorbell then hiding in the bushes.
Knock off the personal attacks
I tink dot's irregull...
Maybe a good solution but I think the lady was being a bit alarmist and a Syrian Band playing in the desert?
I don't know but they may have had a gig at Area 51.
jj, I liked your joke but I once stayed in a hotel in Lycoming PA where the toilet and shower were in the original closet and you stood over the toilet to shower...and the best part was the fact that the blanket on the bed was the warmest wool blanket in the world...stamped with Property of the USMC...$9 bucks 'marecun (circa 1960).
...and not nearly as romantic as the 400 gallon bathtubs at The Compleat Angler on the weir in Marlow. (Just trying to make you homesick, a little.)
Not white? Surely you jest. Arabs are essentially white.
Believe it or not there are Arab families whose ancestors arrived here a century or so ago to raise date palms.
The ones I know are from families with serious representation in the top levels in Jordan, Syria, and Lebanon.
well,
jj i wish i read what you were reading but sorry i dont see the innocence you do, i am afraid i appear to have lost that at around 9.30 on september 11.
perhaps i could ask you one further thing before you go back to your homepage of moveon.org
did you actually read the article and feel no concern?
if you have absolutely no issue, perhaps you are on the wrong website and best just leave us paraoids here to worry about the toilet activities of middle eastern men in groups. for the record, i dont feel the need on planes to wait and goto the toilet with groups of other irish men i apparently dont know.
i think you are trolling here looking to pick a fight and nothing more and for someone who appears to be 'concerned' about all minorities, whats your view on christian minorities in muslim countries??
if this is the pinnacle of your day...perhaps you need get out a bit more
still, the views here expressed are a freedom of expression (one i might add is not available in syria), one that everyone on this board would gladly fight for, even one as poorly opinionated as yours. I am sure you will have some slick one liner of a response, a typical headline grabber, but the facts remain...
the planes on september 11 did not (as some french person thinks) guide themselves into the building on their own..perhaps you will have to good grace here to admit that you have actually heard about the twin towers?
You have a HUGE chip on your shoulder. I fly ALOT. The actions of these men as described by the author are NOT normal. If your just trying to stir things up with your childish quips, go back to DU.
Great response! You definitely did "getitright".
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