Posted on 07/16/2004 6:28:10 PM PDT by quidnunc
What do you make of this story about 14 Syrian musicians whose in-flight bathroom use was more coordinated than a synchronized swimming routine? It sounds a lot like the kind of dry run James Woods witnessed and which I recounted in this excerpt from The Face Of The Tiger. The other point it seems to confirm is the sheer constraints under which an advanced western society can wage war in an age of political correctness. It’s not just the weediness of Norm Mineta but, as I note below, a broader unwillingness to speak the truth about who it is who’s trying to kill us. I don’t see why, for example, US Immigration would refuse entry to a harmless British novelist Ian McEwan on the grounds that the honorarium for his speech in California was too much – a law they invented on the spot, by the way – but wave through bands of Syrian musicians to tour the land. America barely has diplomatic relations with Syria. Is it really so necessary to maintain open access for Syrian “artists”?
When political correctness got going in the Eighties, the laconic wing of the conservative movement was inclined to be relaxed about it. To be sure, the tendency of previously pithy identity labels to become ever more polysyllabically ornate (“person of colour”, “Native American”) was time consuming, but otherwise PC was surely harmless. Some distinguished persons of non-colour, among them Sir Peregrine Worsthorne, even argued that conservatives should support political correctness as merely the contemporary version of old-fashioned courtliness and good manners.
Alas, after September 11th, this position seems no longer tenable. Instead, we have to ask a more basic question: Does political correctness kill?
Consider the extraordinary memo sent three weeks ago by FBI agent Coleen Rowley to the agency’s director Robert Mueller, and now all over Time magazine. Ms Rowley works out of the Minneapolis field office, whose agents, last August 16th, took action to jail a French citizen of Middle Eastern origin. Zacarias Moussaoui had shown up at a Minnesota flight school and shelled out 8,000 bucks in cash in order to learn how to fly 747s, except for the landing and take-off bit, which he said he’d rather skip. On investigation, he proved to have overstayed his visa and so was held on an immigration violation. Otherwise, he would have been the 20th hijacker, and, so far as one can tell, on board United Flight 93, the fourth plane, the one which crashed in a Pennsylvania field en route, as we now know, to the White House. In Mr Moussaoui’s more skilled hands – Flight 93 wound up with the runt of Osama’s litter — it might well have reached its target.
Ms Rowley and her colleagues established that Moussaoui was on a French intelligence watch list, had ties to radical Islamist groups, was known to have recruited young Muslims to fight in Chechnya, and had been in Afghanistan and Pakistan immediately before arriving in the US. They wanted to search his computer, but to do that they needed the okay from HQ. Washington was not only uncooperative, but set about, in the words of Ms Rowley’s memo, “thwarting the Minneapolis FBI agents’ efforts”, responding to field-office requests with ever lamer brush-offs: How could she be sure it was the same guy? There could be any number of Frenchmen called “Zacarias Moussaoui”. She checked the Paris phone book, which listed only one. After September 11th, when the Minneapolis agents belatedly got access to Moussaoui’s computer, they found among other things the phone number of Mohammed Atta’s roommate.
-snip-
(Excerpt) Read more at steynonline.com ...
tribal primitive behavior?
Even love is not a necessity. I would be happy with absence of resentment and active hate.
Well you will never see that either. I was being a bit light hearted with the love or leave it comment. I'd be happy if our important personalities in politics didn't trash their own country. Hate is a very old human emotion. I think it may well be more powerful than love.
It's not "innocent fun" such as my having a fake cigarette in my mouth in non-smoking places.
it's more about the political correctness ... we know who hijacked the aircraft ... sure if you screen everyone then it seems nothing can get through ... but if there is another September 11-type incident, I doubt it will be an old man like the one in the picture ...
you'll be safe on El Al ... I'm sure of that ...
You must not get out much.
Yeah. Tribal primitive behavior. Like "Who you looking at "cracker?" or "Call me my new name of the week, or I'll hurt you".
As for choosing their own group name as opposed to accepting the one the world gave them? Understandable. But not every 5 years. That's attempt at control over the majority.
2 of them were better looking than the podium girls in the Tour de France.
I think that explains it.
Actually I do get out, and I'm not old. I'm thirty and other than to be a smartass I'd not call anyone negro or colored. I have not been granted the same respect by some of the people I live around but I don't try to start anything either. I take it you have personal experience in this area.
Oh, yeah, I forgot about that kid who got a TOY PLASTIC G.I. JOE RIFLE confiscated by airport screeners. I think Boortz brought it up, a good year ago.
What is a kid going to do with a 2" long plastic gun? "Fly this plane to, uh, Disneyland! And I want some candy! Death to girls and their cooties!"
Jeez.
These people are now government union employees. "Screening them out" won't work, when all they have to do is whine to the press that Bush is trying to take the food out of their kids' mouths.
No wonder Daschle used that line "You can't professionalize unless you unionize". It won the libs a whole new crop of voters and a pile of union-due money to the DNC.
As for another 9/11... if that happens, the least of our worries will be union thugs. We'll be in a police state.
Wouldn't you know, I fire off a quip about this, and THEN read the link.
What stupidity! No wonder our kids are screwed up.
These people are now government union employees
Like you (I'm sure) I was concerned about that.
As for another 9/11... if that happens, the least of our worries will be union thugs. We'll be in a police state.
I think it depends on how the persident handles it. And what the attack is.
I fired that off without thinking, but the most likely scenario is, in the highly-undesirable event of a Kerry win, followed by some sort of attack, THEN we'll have a police state, and Hillary will be able to wear the lovely brown shirts she's been keeping in her closet, right next to Nancy Pelosi.
Bump for a conservative Arab. Not too many of you around, I'm glad you're with us.
I fired that off without thinking,
OK THAT'S IT! Now I'm going to have to report you to the Viking Kitties!
I ddo worry about what happens when the next attack hits. And I believe we will get hit again, the terrorist only have to get lucky once. That's why it's so important that we take the war to them.
Noooo! Not the Viking Kitties! Have mercy!
BTW, does the Homeland Security staff know about these kitties?
The NWO has its priorities, indeed.
"Hmm... The bag was full, then it was "almost empty," then it was gone. Sounds like what happens to my McDonalds bag when I finish eating. "
So you take your my McDonalds' bag into the toilet to eat while you take a crap?
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