Posted on 01/05/2002 1:56:21 AM PST by ImphClinton
Thanks for your support!!
Here is a tip, always bet against the Jets and you will win 9 times a year!!
Where does the pilot claim he thought he was a terrorist? He may have been suspicious, but that is something entirely different. As I stated in a previous thread you're commiting a logical fallacy.
The name not like the old saying, it's jake!!
I suppose the right thing would be to allow an armed Arab onto a flight? If this guy would have given me phone number and said that it was the White House, I would suspect the same thing that the pilot did. He could have had an accomplice to answer the phone and pretend that it was the White House.
We can't allow political correctness to be more important than preventing another attack on our country.
No, don't look it up, I know you must have it memorized. Didn't you chat with Bill and Hill daily?
He should be fired forthwith.
Right. And who REALLY believes that? BTW Americans spell "wize" with an "S": wiSe.
Good point. I wonder why a suspected terrorist was not turned over to law enforcement?
Why did he ask for Terroist Pictures if he didn't suspect this was a Terroist. If he suspected he was a Terroist why didn't he call the FBI or Airport Security. The last thing you want to do is comfront an armed terroist.
That support was way too premature -- if you haven't noticed, in the wake of 9/11, everything Bush says takes on added importance.
What concerns me more than who's at fault here is the SS Agent first going to CAIR, whose support of terrorist organizations through the years is well-documented, and then his media campaign, via lawyer press-conferences, a sole sympathetic witness on TV, and who knows what else. He definitely seems to have an agenda much the same as the ACLU. Trouble with that agenda is that it could easily lead to compromise of already dismal security, in the name of "discrimination."
I hope the FBI and CIA are carefully checking this agent's contacts, and re-checking his history. It smells.
The SS agent appears to have an attitude problem. Part of this SS agent's job in protecting the president is to profile. It seems the profiler doesn't like being profiled. He's just another sickening cry baby.
The pilot fulfilled his responsiblity in this area when he got LEOs involved.
At the risk of being "flamed"...I agree and wish that the president had waited for all the facts before offering his opinion. All Bush had to say was "we're looking into it". I cringed when I heard him say he'd be "madder than heck".
I wondered then and wonder still: "What was the President thinking?" I still don't understand it.
The President said IFhe was kept off the flight because of his ethnicity ----
From everything I have heard, this SS Agent fit the profile of a suspicious person because of his behaviour. I would expect the pilot to have made the same decisions no matter what genetic background the person acting suspiciously represented. And bottom line - The agent is a trained profiler. He should have been as cool as ice during this snafu of flights and paperwork. He was presenting himself as one whose job is the personal protection of the President!!!
Actually, the last thing you want is to be at 36,000 feet with an armed terrorist. It could very well be the last thing you ever do.
I have been reading the replies on this thread and the ones supporting the SS agent fall into several categories:
The pilot should have done more checking before denying the agent a seat. My response is: the pilot has a job to do, fly the plane safely from point A to point B without falling out of the sky. He is also aware that people (exclusively of Arab descent) have made it their goal in life to crash planes into large buildings. On 9/11 they took over planes with box cutters (totally unexpected). The next time they may do it by impersonating a person entitled to carry a gun aboard an aircraft. The pilot does not have all day to try to figure out who this person is. Any phone number provided by the SS agent could be a phony leading to an accomplice. So, in between getting clearance for his flight and doing a pre-take off check, he consults with the airline ops center. Not getting any firm confirmation of the SS agents identity, he decides not to roll the dice with his planeload of passengers and asks the agent to deplane. The agent is finally able to get his identity confirmed and catches a later flight.
That could be the end of the story, except we now have a multicultural hypersensitivity where if our feeling get hurt, we sue. Which brings us to the second objection, the kind represented by Physicist.
Arabs are being widely discriminated against, and we should be especially sensitive to their feelings. I dont know, not being an Arab, if they are getting suspicious glances on the street. I do know that President Bush, practically every member of government, and everyone in the media is reassuring the American people that Arabs are really peaceful people who wish us no harm. That OBL and his followers are a tiny, tiny minority and that we should all take an Arab to lunch.
OK, Ill buy that. But how do we guard against another terror attack by that member of the tiny, tiny minority without recognizing that they are Arab? We are confiscating knitting needles from 85-year-old Caucasian grandmothers and confiscating nail clippers from 75-year-old Caucasian grandfathers. Lets see, I dont recall if people like these drove the airplanes into their victims on 9/11. Confiscating knitting needles from grandmothers and nail clippers from grandfathers are the actions of stupid people. Not to be suspicious of young Arabs with guns, knives or box cutters on planes after 9/11 is to be suicidally stupid. That may be OK for people sitting safely behind computer screens at their desks. It is not OK for people who are responsible for getting a planeload of people from point A to point B.
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