Um, Shouldn't You Have Asked Me These Questions Before I Got on the Plane?

Got home from the airport last night just in time to see Channel 8's piece on how Dallas PD and the FBI are prepping for the 10th anniversary of September 11. Would have been home a little sooner, but, ya know, I stopped by a Northwest Highway construction site. Oh -- and I was briefly detained by a man with a badge at Dallas-Fort Worth International. Perhaps I should explain.

I was out of town yesterday, in Los Angeles. Left Tuesday night, came back Wednesday night. Very uneventful. Left the hotel room just long enough to do an interview. Arrived yesterday on the 9:10, a very full flight. Slept, drank a Dr Pepper, re-read Moneyball; landed just as I got to the part about how players love playing for Ron Washington, who, under Billy Beane, was the Oakland A's first base coach. So far, so thrilling.

So. We landed at Terminal D. I was near the back and among the last to deplane. As I walked down the glass-lined corridor to the terminal, I noticed a handful of folks loitering around the mouth of the ramp -- men and women clad in khakis and short-sleeved knits that came in various shades of breige. They looked like they were waiting to meet and greet passengers, like in the old days -- before the fall of 2001, when you could get through security without a boarding pass and greet a returning family member with a hug, a kiss or divorce papers. Thought that odd, and kept walking, thinking about how fun it must be to play for Ron Washing ...

A gentleman, perhaps a foot shorter than me, had stepped in my way, blocking me from leaving. He'd come out of nowhere, from a small hallway near the jet bridge exit. He was dressed like the others, like a guy behind the counter at a muni golf course's pro shop. He also looked a little like the guy who plays Det. Esposito on Castle. (Aw, leave me alone.)

At the end of the lanyard around his neck was his I.D. Said: "U.S. Customs." He flashed a badge.

"Um, yes," I said. But it didn't sound like me. It sounded like my sister. If I had one. That's what she would have sounded like.

"Short trip," he said, in a tone of voice that suggested it was all very ... suspicious. But, really, for all I know, that's just the way he talks. Like, maybe he also thought my voice is always this high. Like Tiny Tim high. The squinting, though, was unnecessary. I also wondered if he could tell I was beginning to vibrate.

I kept expecting him to put his hand on my arm and ask me to come with him. At this point I began wishing I hadn't spent so many years watching so many movies. I also tried to calculate how long I could hold my breath, should it come to that.

I mean, really. At some point I realized I was no longer nervous (no reason to be, but that's the way random interrogations go) and was just a little ... peeved. My dad was outside, waiting to give me a ride home. I wanted to get home. I'd slept maybe two hours in the past 36. I'd done nothing wrong. It's the deep, rich weekend summer tan, isn't it, officer? You're suspicious.

"Unh-hunh. Did anyone give you anything to hold before you got on the plane or while you were in transit?"

Well, the cab driver did give me my receipt. I knew I shouldn't have taken it. Damn thing was covered in ink. And he was from Moscow too! Told me he used to be an engineer, but now all he could do in U.S.A. was drive cab. Clearly, the man was a spy. They have been tailing me since L.A. I am the Will Smith character in a Tony Scott movie.

I looked around and noticed the guy who'd been sitting next to me was also being questioned. You gotta be kidding me. The guy who'd slept the whole way? Who'd been listening to Al Green on his iPod? (Yeah, I look at shit like that.) Who woke up long enough to read some sex workout article in Men's Health? Two, three other passengers had also been stopped. Enough already.

Finally, he said: "We're just doing advance security. You know, the anniversary of September 11?"

He didn't say anything else. He clearly liked the dramatic weight of those ellipses. He handed me back my I.D. He said I could go.

The Obama White House is behind a cynical, coldly calculated political effort to erase the meaning of the Sept. 11, 2001 terrorist attacks from the American psyche and convert Sept. 11 into a day of leftist celebration and statist idolatry.

Instead of inspiring a nation with a hardened commitment to defend America and America’s values at all costs, and pay the greatest tribute to all of those who defend America and freedom, and a warning to the enemies of freedom that America’s resolve is as firm as tempered steel, Obama chose rather to speak about 9/11 as a day of national service.

Obama has toured the world, apologizing for America and bowing down to Muslim kings and dictators.

Obama has put out an order to stop using the “War On Terror” Label and to use “Overseas Contingency Operation” instead. He has honored and protected and apologized for Muslims while putting down Christianity at every opportunity.

Obama stated in his book, "I will stand with the Muslims should the political winds shift in an ugly direction."

As the tenth anniversary of 9/11 approaches, neither the victim’s families, the 9/11 first responders nor the clergy are invited to the national ceremony in New York City. It is an orchestrated event to redefine what truly happened.The whole “day of service” agenda is an attempt to get us to forget what happened so we lose our resolve to uphold freedom.

This effort to reshape the American psyche has nothing to do with healing the nation and everything to do with easing the nation along in the ongoing radical transformation of America that Obama promised during his election campaign.

Don't let Obama and the nihilistic liberals drain 9/11 of all meaning.

Our voices need to be heard not only at Town Hall sessions or Tea Party demonstrations but in the very halls of Congress. We have to speak out to stop the desecration of September 11th..

NEVER FORGET

"Every 'moderate' Muslim is a potential terrorist. The belief in Islam is like a tank of gasoline. It looks innocuous, until it meets the fire. For a 'moderate' Muslim to become a murderous jihadist, all it takes is a spark of faith.

It is time to put an end to the charade of “moderate Islam.” There is no such thing as moderate Muslim. Muslims are either jihadists or dormant jihadists – moderate, they are not."

Ali Sini

Ali Sini is head of Faith Freedom International. FFI is a grassroots worldwide movement of ex-Muslims and all those who are concerned about the rise of the Islamic threat.

Faith Freedom International Forums

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Watch 'Remembering 9/11' on the Geographic Channel. Repeating Thursday 3PM CST: 'Inside 9/11: Zero Hour'- EXCELLENT.

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Watch this moving video. It is the most viewed of any of the 9/11 videos and is now in the Smithsonian.

Be sure to read (at the site) Anatomy Of The Attack and the moving essay,’That Day’ by Steve Golding, a New Yorker who lived through it.

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NEVER FORGET

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