Posted on 08/11/2004 10:32:23 PM PDT by sockmonkey
This is Part V of the ongoing series entitled Terror in the Skies, Again?
A few days ago, WomensWallStreet.com received an important email. It was from Billie Jo Rodriguez, another passenger who was on Northwest Airlines flight 327 from Detroit to Los Angeles on June 29. Billie Jo is a Certified Public Accountant living in Oxnard, California. She had some additional, disturbing information about flight 327 that she felt someone needed to know. She had been so terrified by what happened on the flight that she sent two emails to the Department of Homeland Security telling them about the experience, but she hadn't heard back from them. Then, through a series of events, she heard about my article, "Terror in the Skies, Again?" She and I have had numerous conversations and she is willing to share her story on the record. The following interview is based on conversations Billie Jo and I have had, as well as a discussion she had with my editor.
ANNIE: Where were you sitting on flight 327?
BILLIE JO: I was in seat 21-C. Three of the Middle Eastern men were sitting right near me --- the man in the jogging suit [with Arabic writing] was in the aisle seat right behind me (22C), another man from the group sat right next to me (21-B) and another man from the group sat one row in front of me (20-E).
ANNIE: Tell me what the men were doing that was out of the ordinary?
BILLIE JO: It was when we were up in the air and they started walking up and down the aisles. And the eye contact. The thing that really got me was the eye contact. It was so subtle. If you know somebody, you look at them. You nod your head.
(Excerpt) Read more at womenswallstreet.com ...
See my Post #79.
And John Kerry recalls being in Cambodia on Christmas Eve 1968.
"chased down by cops" well yeah somebody driving down the highway has to be "chased down" if the cops want to stop him.
"i.e., they didn't just stop when asked) "just Asking is not possible until after they are stopped"
"and went through a toll booth during the chase" and they they were so law abiding they paid the frelling toll while being chased
The mens lawyer, David Kubiliun, said Collier Sheriff Don Hunter notified him Wednesday that authorities had voided the ticket after reviewing a videotape that showed him paying the toll. Its conclusive that Mr. Butt did not run that toll plaza,
Bottom line is a lot of hysterical females are at loose ends with the decline in popularity of Recovered False Memory Therapy.
Sure these aren't Syrianbux? The casino's Web site lists only $20-$40 ticket prices for the usual run of washed up acts and enthic acts nobody has heard of. The ethnic acts are usually the cheapest.
So unless the Syrian Wayne Newton is 10X the draw of the Phillipine Madonna, I don't think that number can be right. Maybe for a table, if they take our the seats?
I'd bet almost all their acts rent a truck and drive up from L.A.
Hey, Mohammed, go back to the Al Jazz-your-rear-a website.
They are "swirly men".
There are two revealing aspects about this story. The first one is that Homeland Security didn't respond to the citizen's E-mail message. After the 9/11 Commission has reported that D.C. recalcitrance and bureaucratic red tape has as much to do with our vulnerability as anything else, and nobody responded to this woman's frantic message with fearful details from the flight. They should have called her or even sent someone out to ask her about it in person.
The second issue is that it doesn't matter if these guys were dangerous or not -- the sense that several passengers were worried that nothing was being done is a clear sign that Americans are on edge, and they're going to stay on edge. We neither feel safe nor do we feel as though the right steps are being taken to tighten security. If we did, we wouldn't overreact -- if indeed the citizens here are, and I doubt.
I think we're being cased. And the most stupid thing about it is that we're powerless as a society to stop it.
PC is going to kill us.
Search through all the FR threads about Americans "worrying" about seeing ME types videotaping bridges, dams, etc.
Now we find hundreds of CD-ROMs at the AQ geek's apartment, filled with recon data.
And the constant message from Homelame Security is... be "vigilant" and maybe we'll read our email someday.
DC is like a deer in the headlights. They need to snap out of it. PC America will holler and whine while the rest of us batton down the hatches. When the storm hits, they'll be clinging to our coattails.
This is not an accident or coincidence! Only flights into DC always get an air marshal, and only a small fraction of other flights ever get even one. This indicates that the Syrian band DID get extra attention prior to takeoff, and the DHS decided to add extra security for the flight.
I don't know what you do when you want to rid yourself of trash on a plane. I don't make a special trip to the restroom to dispose of it; I give it to the flight attendant.
I've given trash to the FAs, especially when they're rolling the cart by. I got a dirty look from one who was carrying a sealed trash bag, and have also given it to one with her hands free.
I've dropped it in the galley trash on the way to the lav and in the trash bin in the lav too. I've even tucked it into the pocket on the seatback in front of me with the magazines when the carts were blocking the aisle and I wanted my hands free without having to wait half an hour for the aisles to clear. (I later retrieved it and gave it to a FA.)
In this case, I'd be torn between two options. I'd hesitate to give it to the FA because there is food in there I want to save, meaning she'd have to root through my trash to seperate the good from the bad. I'd hesitate to seperate it in my seat, because from experience, the wrappers or boxes are a pain to control if there's a lot of them, and you risk getting catsup on you, your seatmates or the seats. I'd also hesitate to do it in the lav because the trash bins are tiny, many times filled to overflowing, and the general...atmosphere usually isn't pleasant.
Not sure which way I'd go, but I can't rule out the option I presented, which leaves it on the "possible" list.
Anything is possible but I seriously doubt their intentions were as innocent as you theorize.
bttt
I don't think they were innocent either. I included the opposing (innocent) POV to show that by giving them the benefit of every possible doubt, the numbers say they were still dirty. Looks like other respondents got that, but if you re-read the original and still can't see my ultimate conclusions, I'll go back and clean it up so as to remove any ambiguities.
ping
I agree. How often do we hear that Al Qaeda goes through several dry runs before they make a move. Obviously this was one.
Suppose that the U.S. knew, for 100% certain, that this was going to be a dry run. I would think there might be some advantages to letting the terrorists "get away with" things on the dry runs that would not succeed in reality.
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