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Part III: Terror in the Skies, Again? [Update!]
WomensWallStreet.com ^ | 7-30-2004 | By Annie Jacobsen

Posted on 07/30/2004 2:04:45 PM PDT by johnny7

It's been two-and-a-half weeks since the first "Terror in the Skies, Again?" article was posted on WomensWallStreet.com and subsequently set off an international debate.  From the cockpit to the coffee shop, from the water coolers to the halls of Congress, countless numbers of people have been talking -- and shouting -- about this article.  It seems that anyone who reads the article develops a strong opinion, which in turn creates more questions.  Flight #327 has opened Pandora's box.

Last week, when the name of the band was revealed (Syrian singer Nour Mehana) one side shouted: See, we told you so!  Then, when we learned that 13 of the 14 Syrian musicians were traveling on expired visas (which no one from the FBI, the TSA, the LAPD, or the JTTF noticed), the other side shouted: No, we told you so! I watched the two sides rally back and forth all week until finally, to borrow columnist Michelle Malkin's words, Flight 327 Landed on Capitol Hill.  And this is exactly where it should be.  This week, I spoke at length with the United States House of Representatives Judiciary Committee on the matter.  It was an honor and a privilege, and I believe things are finally in the right hands.  It seems to me that the highest-ups don't like having to get information that involves national security from articles written by yours truly -- and I don't blame them.  Thanks to all of you from both sides of the argument who have been so boisterous, the heart of the matter -- which is to investigate exactly what happened on flight #327, how it was handled or mishandled, and how to improve airline security in the future -- has gotten to members of Congress.

I've kept quiet about numerous matters that have surfaced over the past few weeks.  But there is something I must share because I find it so telling.  Yesterday, I had a conversation with Dr. Imad Moustapha, the United States Ambassador of Syria.  Earlier in the week, Dr. Moustapha wrote this letter to the Editor of The Washington Times.

"I am responding to Audrey Hudson's article 'Scouting jetliners for new attacks' (Page 1, Thursday).  We are shocked by this article. It only reflects paranoia verging on the point of hysterics. The woman mentioned most prominently in this article, Annie Jacobsen, is an advocate of ethnic profiling who survived a horrendous ordeal: a flight with 14 harmless Syrian musicians. "After this ordeal, and despite the fact that she reached her destination safe and sound, she 'spread 3,000 bigoted and paranoid words across the Internet,' as Salon.com put it. "Your reporter failed to mention that the only 'crimes' these professional musicians were accused of committing were going to the lavatory, eating McDonald's food and talking to one another. "The fact that they have performed in the past six months in places such as the Kennedy Center, the Lincoln Center and the Juilliard School did not prevent Mrs. Jacobsen from saying, 'Couldn't 14 terrorists learn to play instruments?' "The reporter for The Washington Times should have informed her readers that the whole story was a case of a group of talented musicians going to Los Angeles to play music, as simple as that."

-IMAD MOUSTAPHA Ambassador of Syria

I called Dr. Moustapha to ask him if he had some kind of specific information about the "harmless" men on my flight.  Perhaps, he, of all people, could clear some things up. What an opportunity! I thought.  I've always maintained that if these 14 Syrians showed up on my doorstep and serenaded me, I'd still have some serious questions about their behavior at 30,000 feet.  Remember, they themselves admitted to law enforcement in Los Angeles that they "acted suspiciously." Maybe Dr. Moustapha -- of all people in the United States -- with his long list of credentials and his diplomatic pull, might actually be able to get me in touch with these 14 members of Nour Mehana's back-up band.  Maybe he could help put the lid back on Pandora's box. I mean, could it all really be as simple as reporter Joe Sharkey from The New York Times says it is -- that these Syrian individuals simply confused how to act on a 757 jet in America with how one might act on a bus in Damascus? The same way that someone from the North Pole might think it's OK to wear a ski mask into an American bank?  Certainly Dr. Moustapha, a member of the Syrian team responsible for drafting reform strategies for the ministries of Culture, Education, and Higher Education, might be able to account for the behavior that I, other passengers, the flight crew and the federal air marshals found so disturbing.

After introductory pleasantries, I asked Dr. Moustapha why his letter suggested that these 14 Syrians played at the Lincoln Center, the Kennedy Center, and the Julliard School, when according to my research, that's not at all the case. Dr. Moustapha said Nour Mehana and his back-up band had not played there, but that other Syrian musicians had.  I told Dr. Moustapha that his letter to The Washington Times was at best misleading, and at worst, completely misrepresenting the facts.  I added that I didn't consider doing so either diplomatic or fair. Dr. Moustapha told me that I was a paranoid racist. I asked Dr. Moustapha if, by suggesting that all Syrian musicians are innocent (not to mention talented) just because they are Syrian, wasn't that the same kind of gross generalization he'd accused me of? Dr. Moustapha told me again that I was a paranoid person and that the men did nothing wrong.

I reminded him that it was the in-flight behavior of the men (which has now been corroborated by other passengers) which caused alarm, not their Syrian heritage. He said a few more things that aren't fit to print. I suggested to Dr. Moustapha that we focus on a diplomatic solution, that perhaps he himself could help to locate the 14 Syrian musicians in question so that they could share their side of the story.  I waited for an answer, but instead, Dr. Moustapha hung up on me.

Sounds like Dr. Moustapha won't be helping us find the band.  Sounds like this matter is going to be left up to The Hill.  


TOPICS: Editorial; Foreign Affairs; Government; News/Current Events; War on Terror
KEYWORDS: airlinesecurity; anniejacobsen; det; dhs; dryrun; enemywithin; fam; fbi; flight327; ice; imadmoustapha; jacobsen; jihadinamerica; koranimals; lax; mehana; musicians; northwest327; nourmehana; nw327; nwa327; probe; syrian; syrianband; terror; terrorintheskies; terrorists; waronterror; yougogirl
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This Annie Jacobsen is one tough monkey!
1 posted on 07/30/2004 2:04:50 PM PDT by johnny7
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To: johnny7

What I don't get is why acting like those guys did on the plane isn't enough to get you picked up and deported, regardless of your visa status. Anyone who acts like that on a commercial airline flight and scares the hell out of the other passengers ought to be, at the least, asked to leave our country and put on a do-not-admit-ever-again list. After I read the letter in the Washington Times, I decided that jerk should be deported too. He has NO RIGHT TO BE HERE.


2 posted on 07/30/2004 2:10:16 PM PDT by 3AngelaD
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To: johnny7
I like her more and more. I've sent some information to the editors of that paper and they were very complimentary and said - "keep the information coming."

I think they've handled this story really well.

3 posted on 07/30/2004 2:11:46 PM PDT by Solson ("Ugly knows ugly though." - WorkingClassFilth)
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To: johnny7

Moustapha's lies darken the whole episode.


4 posted on 07/30/2004 2:13:38 PM PDT by per loin (This tagline has not been censored!)
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To: johnny7

Reference bump.


5 posted on 07/30/2004 2:17:26 PM PDT by Rocko
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To: johnny7

Bump for Annie Jacobsen.


6 posted on 07/30/2004 2:17:39 PM PDT by ride the whirlwind ("I will never relent in bringing justice to our enemies..." - President Bush)
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To: johnny7; 3AngelaD

This story gets wierder and weirder...(if that's a word.) Those "gentlemen" -- and I use the term loosely -- are here because we ALLOW it, not because they have a RIGHT to be here. Their visas can and should be yanked. And I'd say the same thing if they behaved in this manner and were whitebread looking folks from New Zealand...so again, it's not the heritage, it's the actions. The RIGHTS afforded these folks on visas are a GIFT, not something they are born into, unlike the natural and naturalized US citizens.


7 posted on 07/30/2004 2:18:45 PM PDT by StarCMC (It's God's job to forgive Bin Laden, it's our job to arrange the meeting.)
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To: per loin

I have a suspician: (1) these guys were muscians; (2) they know people were afraid of them; and (3) they decided to have a little "fun" with the Americans by acting REALLY suspicious (e.g., chorigraphed going to the bathroom, leaving McDonald's bag behind in the lavatory); and (4) things spiralled out of control.

JMHO


8 posted on 07/30/2004 2:19:16 PM PDT by MeanWestTexan
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To: johnny7
Wow. I guess she doesn't like being called hysterical and racist - go figure :-)

I can't believe the gall of this guy making up out of whole cloth something like "they have performed in the past six months in places such as the Kennedy Center, the Lincoln Center and the Juilliard School". Kudos to Mrs. Jacobson if only for exposing that lie.

A lot of people have taken it upon themselves to amateur-psychoanalyze Mrs. Jacobson and (without evidence at all) declare her to have been simply panicky and hysterical on this flight and thus not reporting anything accurately. But the more her concerns are waved away with cries of "racist", sloppy thinking, and out and out lies, the more I think something really was fishy on that flight.

It's never been at all clear to me why the discovery that these 14 men really did play music at a club in Los Angeles, precludes them (or at least some of them) from having been terrorists performing a dry run. For some reason the concept "maybe it was both" seems to be lost on a lot of people.

(A lot of whom are the same people who think that "Saddam sought uranium" and "such-and-such document was a forgery" can't both be true at the same time, either.)

When will a sufficient number of us grow up from this sloppy-ass thinking? When it's too late? Or sooner than that? Let's hope the latter.

9 posted on 07/30/2004 2:21:22 PM PDT by Dr. Frank fan
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To: johnny7

Too bad no one will probably ever even try to find them, because we don't seem to have any tough monkeys left in Congress, the Justice Department, or the INS. If they have all disappeared now, they may well have been terrorists.


10 posted on 07/30/2004 2:24:04 PM PDT by Iconoclast2
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To: 3AngelaD

i agree, angela. and i wonder if fighter jets were sent to escort the flight.


11 posted on 07/30/2004 2:25:43 PM PDT by phxaz
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To: johnny7

Bump for later.


12 posted on 07/30/2004 2:28:37 PM PDT by Springman
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To: johnny7

Dr. Imad Moustapha, the United States Ambassador of Syria


the Syrian Ambassador to the United States....

not very diplomatic was he?


13 posted on 07/30/2004 2:30:34 PM PDT by rolling_stone
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To: MeanWestTexan
I share you're suspician and I'll add you a question: Do you think these guys would have acted the same way had they be on an Israeli El Al flight?

Perhaps, another: would they have even been allowed on an Israeli El Al flight in the first place?

14 posted on 07/30/2004 2:38:49 PM PDT by KriegerGeist ("Only one life to live and soon it is past, and only what was done for Jesus Christ shall last")
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To: MeanWestTexan

Yep, knowing *sshole musicians, and knowing Arabs, I think your theory is the leading contender.


15 posted on 07/30/2004 2:41:05 PM PDT by headsonpikes (Spirit of '76 bttt!)
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To: Dr. Frank fan
The 9-11 commission cited a "failure of imagination" as a reason we were unable to prevent the attack from succeeding. Mrs. Jacobson does not suffer from this failure, so the Muslim apologists try to smother her with cries of racism and hysteria. You can't have it both ways. You can't be imaginative and politically correct. If we are to use our imagination we cannot limit it by looking away every time someone might yell racism, especially when they yell it every chance they get.
16 posted on 07/30/2004 2:41:57 PM PDT by Old North State
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To: Dr. Frank fan
As others on this forum have stated: If THEY are getting on my flight; I am getting off.

I expect that this behavior, done with any frequency amongst fliers, would produce changes in airline policies.

17 posted on 07/30/2004 2:44:57 PM PDT by doberville (Angels can fly when they take themselves lightly)
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To: johnny7

Bump!


18 posted on 07/30/2004 2:52:22 PM PDT by PatriotGirl827 (God Bless America!)
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To: Old North State

Political correctness will be the death of this country.


19 posted on 07/30/2004 2:54:41 PM PDT by Serb5150 (God Bless Ronald Reagan.)
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To: johnny7

Yet naive if she thinks anyone on "the hill" will actually DO anything!


20 posted on 07/30/2004 2:58:25 PM PDT by tuckrdout (Grant Teri Schindler (Schiavo) her wish: A DIVORCE!)
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