Part II: Terror in the Skies, Again? (New Story) Part II: Terror in the Skies, Again?

Women's Wall Street.com ^ | 7/19/04 | Annie Jacobsen

[jimbo123]

Last Tuesday morning, WomensWallStreet.com (WWS) published my first-person account of a recent Northwest Airlines flight that I took from Detroit to Los Angeles called Terror in the Skies, Again? A heads up about this article went out in our Daily Cents email -- our subscriber newsletter which primarily features financial tips and information for women.

On Wednesday morning, the WWS page views were unusually high, something like 10 times the normal amount. Apparently our readers had been emailing the article to their friends, family and colleagues and everyone was reading it.

By Thursday morning, that number had again multiplied ten-fold. It felt like the shampoo commercial from my youth: they told two friends, then they told two friends, then they told two friends. We sat in the WWS offices reading through your emails, taking stock of what you had to say. As the afternoon went on, the number of people reading the article continued to increase and the telephone was ringing off the hook.

And then a powerful thing happened. The mainstream media started calling.

The following statement was made by Daniel Drezner, an Assistant Professor of Political Science at the University of Chicago, on his website danieldrezner.com:

I received a mass email linking to this disturbing first-person account by Annie Jacobsen... I can say that the e-mail sent to me and other bloggers was cc-ed to movers and shakers in the mediaspere -- Bill Keller, David Ignatius, George Will, Anne Applebaum, and Nicholas D. Kristoff. So they're certainly aware of the story... I'd like to see real journalists dig deeper into this.

Dig they did. NBC was the first major news outlet to contact WomensWallStreet. The producer I spoke with on the telephone said the FBI had confirmed that 14 Syrians were on the flight, they confirmed the details about what happened upon landing in Los Angeles, and they said that the accounts from the flight attendants regarding what happened during the flight matched the accounts given by me and my husband to the FBI after we landed.

Then I spoke with a producer from ABC. She explained that she could not get Dave Adams, Head of Public Affairs of the Federal Air Marshal Services (FAM), on the phone. So she asked me some of the questions that she had wanted to ask him: Where exactly did this band of 14 musicians play? What was the name of the band? Who booked the band and what kind of music did they play? Did anyone follow up and actually witness these 14 men performing at their desert casino gig? I had none of the answers, even though I had asked Adams these exact questions myself when we spoke last week. The ABC producer also asked me other questions which had crossed my mind after hanging up with Adams. Did I know anything about their return flight on JetBlue? Did the men go back to Syria? Did I believe FAM's story?

[bvw]

Where I live the 17-year locust made no appearance. Perhaps the parasitic wasp took them all out.

Up the road in the Ivory Tower-ville where many geniuses live and get paid to walk trails that are lined with blackboards ... the cicadas did bloom noisily in the evening.

Where I live we encourage the small things that protect us from nuisances.

[kanawa]

The date is wrong. He would have had to have taken an earlier flight to be at the gig.

Flight June 29
Concert July02

[kanawa]

I received a reply from Mel Lehman

---

Dear xxx xxxxxx,

I am the Manager of the Kulna Sawa/Together Concert for Peace Tour which will take place in November. At this point the band is still in Syria. Kulna Sawa is not the band referred to in recent press coverage and web discussion about Flight 327.

Any help you could give me in sharing this message with others would be greatly appreciated.

Mel Lehman
Concert for Peace Tour
New York City
ML9612921@aol.com

---

I didn't really expect a reply. I'm going have to send him a nice thank you note.

At least we can eliminate Kulna Sawa as the possible group.

[stainlessbanner]

Silk purses I can not make out of sow's ears.

Confucious, just give him an answer. Your posts are getting more and more obscure.

[bvw]

Disturbing the terrorist's normal, expected or anticpated enviroment is a tactic.

1. 

   Cicada killers inhabit disturbed environments; they require bare soil or very short grass in order to nest. These would be rare in a natural environment, but since we humans all have homes and yards, they are common. In fact, there are probably more cicada killers than ever because of the presence of modern human cultural practices.

   (Source: ""Cicada Killer Control", http://homepages.culver.edu/faculty/jcoelho/control.htm)

2. "Saving American lives by virtue of disrupting terrorism." -- John Ashcroft, 28 May 2004.

3. Preempting terrorist operations and penetrating, disrupting, and destroying terrorist groups that target the interests of the United States -- Acting DCI William O. Studeman, 6 April 1995

4. "Hunting down terrorists one by one: Bush's bold approach to fighting terrorism. Example: Under his leadership, the United States and our allies are disrupting terrorist operations, cutting off their funding and hunting down terrorists one by one." -- William Saletan, SLATE, Thursday, April 8, 2004 (Analysing Coondi Rice's remarks)

[Badeye]

"So, Master of Hot Air, what heat does your air bring to my mighty plans above? Or are you as lard3ss as ever?"

Gee, what a meaningful comment to offer.

[bvw]

In other words,
instead of

JUST WATCHING

the air marshalls, the crew and the passengers should have taken some mix of ACTIONS to disrupt whatever it was the syrians and affliates were up to.

[bvw]

See yourself in that pic, above?

[Badeye]

You haven't given me a reason to open the thread, so nope.

Now, run along, the short bus is leaving for school.....

[bvw]

LOL! It is ... it is ...

[Solson]

Cool. Thanks! I had e-mailed the author of the article asking them about the various bands but heard nothing.

[milford421]

You are correct. Sorry about that, I realized that July 7 was the arrest of the Syrian with ties to a known terrorist. Also a Northwest Flight.

Tell me, in the report you found, did the gig list just the one musician or all 14?

[agrace]

What we discussed re Quinn's radio show this morning - looks like we missed this (and part one) posted on FR while our internet was down last week.

[bitt]

.

[First_Salute]

On the Glenn Beck Radio show this morning, Tuesday, July 27th, the guest host read a report that 13 of the 14 Syrians had visas that had expired on (I think it was June 10th) prior to the flight about which Annie Jacobson wrote her story.

Nobody stopped the 13 Syrians from boarding with those out-of-date visas. The federal agents involved all along the route, did not stop the 13 Syrians.

[snopercod]

When you board a plane, you have to show a government-issued picture ID of some kind. Simply performing that act gets you on the plane.