Posted on 08/17/2006 8:08:11 AM PDT by shhrubbery!
(CBS4) BOSTON Criminal charges could be filed Thursday against a Vermont woman who caused a disturbance aboard a London-to-Virginia jet that was diverted to Logan Airport.
59-year-old Catherine Mayo is being held by federal authorities in Boston.
Investigators say she was a claustrophobic passenger who became upset and interfered with the flight crew on United Airlines flight 923 Wednesday morning. The pilot declared an in-flight emergency and landed the plane at Logan. The Boeing 767 was escorted by two F-15 jets based out of Otis Air National Guard Base on Cape Cod.
Passengers say Mayo paced the aisles and peppered her incoherent mutterings with the word "Pakistan." They said two plainclothes men on board and flight attendants tackled the woman. She was handcuffed while the flight was diverted.
After a day filled with conflicting reports about what she was carrying, an FBI spokeswoman confirmed Mayo had a screwdriver, lighters and matches when she was subdued...
(Excerpt) Read more at cbs4boston.com ...
Recall that among the many jihadis busted in England was one who was an airport employee with a FULL access pass.
The cancer runs deep... And if it's that deep in England, then I'd wager anything goes in Pakistan.
Probably more like the Kahlil Gibran brand, rather than Abdul Wahhab school. (Gibran's "The Prophet" was popular among the sandal and incense crowd back in the '60s.)
From what I understand (not having read the book), it's more of a gushy, mysticism, "luv an' peace, man" variant, "islam" in name only (compared to the hardcases ruining the world today).
Finger-licking. Now that's an unusal way to describe it!
Nice catch! At this rate 100% of all original "first reports" will be confirmed. We just need one more suspect.
Matches=confirmed (plus lighters)
Screwdriver=confirmed
Gelatin-like Substance=confirmed
A.Q. Notes=semi-confirmed (she talked about something the crew thinks was A.Q. and she passed notes to the crew)
Tackled by Two Passengers and Crew Member=confirmed
Three Suspects Involved=semi-confirmed (2 out of 3 ain't bad)
Plus all kinds of new stuff we hadn't heard orginally (Pakistani nexus, pushing on bulkhead, pictures of Pakistan, "six steps to build a thing", published letters to Gitmo prisoners, Muslim fiance denied visa, urinating on floor, etc.)
Exactly - like I've been saying, I think she got an attack of Judeo-Christian values and couldn't pull the plot off.
Remember Don, she flew from Pakistan to Dubai to London and onto this flight - her only security check came in Pakistan!
From her very first sentence here, she shows that she doesn't have the slightest concept of the REPUBLIC that the founding fathers put together. The thought of a "pure democracy" was something that they did NOT like! She seems to be completely unaware of the fact that of the 3 branches of government set up, only 1/2 of one branch was to be selected by "pure democracy." And in fact, the vote would be diluted by proportional representation.
this woman's an idiot, and a delusional one at that.
Mark
"she has serious mental health problems"=Mooselimb
I would say that a few of us know that the only way to truly enjoy a conversation with a drunk is to have a few under your own belt. So, that can easily be extrapolated from your experiences. I'm sure your brain cells are most humbly thankful that you didn't hippie them up. LOL!!
I had someone tell me that back then, petty theft (food and clothes) was a serious problem in that area..
I think the Bay area is so beautiful, really I do.....yet sooooo screwed up.
So typical that the stupid b*tch, like millions of others, thinks our form of government is a democracy. Pathetic...
The base human instinct to live overrode all other learned ideology. Period. This worthless POS was game to help kill other innocent human beings in support of the cause. The only error that her handlers made was in evaluating her mental capacity. Guaranteed that her pictures showed dead people, that SHE was responsible for. She was a willing participant, up until the point of killing herself. Now she wants protective custody, under the "mental incapacity" guise. I say send her back to Pakistan to face the consequences.
Guess she never heard of "checks and balances"? The whole premise of the founding fathers was to set up a system that would work in spite of humanity's corrupt nature. Cathy's understanding of American government is literally backwards! No wonder she's so screwed up.
Bookmarking summary. Thanks
Well, I say set her up in a "secure location", with every imaginable comfort (short of drugs and booze of course), treat her like royalty, butter her up, tell her how glad we are to have her back...
And then milk her for every last bit of info she's got bouncing around that bubblehead of hers -- with (hidden) audio/video recorders running 24/7.
I've got a feeling she was traveling in some pretty high circles in *stan. (And that country she said she was in illegally -- it's (IMO) pretty much got to be Afghanistan -- that's where the AQ camps are located -- in the mountainous border regions, correct?)
For all we know, she was hobnobbing it up with OBL and his generals -- and she may know the "breadcrumb trail" to where they are.
After we drop the oxygen-sucking fuel-air munitions on the right cave network, then I say to send her off to some out of the way boobyhatch, where she obviously belongs. (And it seems to me like it was obvious from the first of her deranged writings. How the hell did she even get that incoherent babble published?)
It's certainly the same woman. The article that started this very thread says, "The Daily Times of Pakistan has published columns she has written, including one on March 18, 2003, in which she criticized President Bush."
You can read that article here.
Check out this Yahoo search:
Cathy Mayo American in Pakistan
It's the same woman.
I see now I'm a day late. Never mind.
Sounds very plausible -- I sure hope the authorities did a life-proctological exam on any possible Islamo-Nazis on that flight!! Certainly she showed she could smuggle some banned items onto the plane -- was that just for her own amusement or was she working (whether or not willingly) with some terrorists as you have described?
My theory is that she was playing along with their demands, so that they wouldn't kill her, and, so that she'd be able to get back to the USA. Remember the late Eldridge Cleaver, who left the country a fugitive from justice, a very radical leader of the Black Panthers? After spending time on the lam in Algeria where he found sanctuary, he voluntarily returned to the USA, saying that he'd rather be in prison in this country than "free" anywhere else in the world. He became a stalwart conservative.
Sounds very plausible -- I sure hope the authorities did a life-proctological exam on any possible Islamo-Nazis on that flight!! Certainly she showed she could smuggle some banned items onto the plane -- was that just for her own amusement or was she working (whether or not willingly) with some terrorists as you have described?
I'm not suggesting that she followed that path, let alone that she has the character, courage, and integrity that Cleaver demonstrated. She definitely seems to be more than a little bit of a flake. However, after a protracted time in al Qaida camps in the Paki/Afghan mountains, seeing (and evidently photographing) various horrors, it's not hard to believe that she'd want more than anything else to get the hell outta Dodge and back to the USA.
So, I'm thinking that she played along with them, pretended to be a loyal, suicidal jihadi, in order to get on the plane. Once there, she began trying to put the kibosh to whatever it was the terrorists had planned. The fact that her "erratic behavior" began with a request to speak with the air marshalls, and, show them the contents of her bag (which would have resulted in an instant lockdown condition on that plane!) speaks volumes, as does her increasing "upping the ante" via increasingly outrageous behavior, trying to get the attention of the sky marshalls.
Pretty much everything she did seems to be pretty obvious attempts to draw their attention to her, and, to get someone in a position of authority to look in the damn bag! In that context, I see the urinating on the aisle floor to be not an act of derangement so much as an act of desperation, i.e., "What the hell do I have to do to get you people to stop ignoring me and look in the damn bag???" (I know that if my only way to "invoke a Flight 93 reaction" )on a flight about to be taken over by terrorists) was to piss on the floor... well, I'd be pissing on the floor! Compared to the alternative, well, there's no comparison.)
Her actions were NOT what a jihadi intent on fulfilling "the operation" would have done! They are what someone "trapped in the nightmare would do, particularly if she began by discretely attempting to speak with the air marshalls so as to apprise them of the situation -- and failed to get anyone's attention! (Almost reminds me of that old Twilight Zone, Richard Shattner's first acting job, I believe -- he was a "mental case" on an airplane trying to convince the crew that there was "something" on the wing. He was politely ignored.)
Now, as to "the bag" (and more to the point, its contents, I see two possibilities, both of which ring ominous for the west.
I honestly do not give either possibility greater weight of probability than the other, nor do I think it matters in the final analysis.
In short, the way I see it, either someone working security in Pakistan was directed to let her through with her materials, or, someone working "in the secure area" planted the stuff on the plane. And, quite likely in either case is the potential for them to have allowed other "stuff" (either on the person(s) of, or, pre-positioned on the plane for the other jihadis presumably on that flight.)
The fact that the British arrested a jihadi who was an airport employee with a FULL access pass... is very unsettling.
If that kind of stuff is going on in the UK, then I think it an act of folly to think that even worse stuff isn't going on at airports in muslim countries.
The above is my analysis of the likely scenario, based on the known facts that have come out in the press, at first released, then officialy (and vociferously) denied, and finally, once the witnesses confirmed it, acknowledged as being the truth. The pathetic cover story (fabricated of whole cloth, IMO) about her being a panicking claustrophobe, seems to have deflated as the failed trial balloon that it apparently was. As another poster pointed out, what kind of claustrophobe hangs out in an airplane lavatory? Those things make a phone booth feel like Grand Central Station! The are cramped with a capital C!
I've tried to be as dispassionate, clinical, and objective as I can while analyzing these known facts, and "the above" is what I've concluded to be the most likely scenario. It fits the known facts, and, I can't come up with any alternative scenario that fits (without needing major shoehorning or outright disregard for some of the facts).
I realize that this conclusion is not consonant with the consensus as reflected in this thread, but I didn't look at this situation with an eye towards coming up with a conclusion that would be received enthusiastically. (I'm not real big on "outcome-based investigations", LOL!) I wanted to know what really went down on that flight, and after considering the known facts, I'm fairly confident that my conclusion is fairly accurate.
I'll close by saying that I think there are decent odds that after extensive debriefing (and perhaps therapy, in a "safe-house" environment), this woman may end up in the Witness Protection Program.
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.