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Ann Coulter - Arab Hijackers Now Eligible for Pre-Boarding
FrontpPageMagazine.com ^ | 4/30/04 | Ann Coulter

Posted on 04/30/2004 1:50:30 AM PDT by kattracks

In June 2001, as Mohamed Atta completed his final "to do" list before the 9/11 attacks ("... amend will to ban women from my funeral ... leave extra little Friskies out for Mr. Buttons ... set TiVo for Streisand on 'Inside the Actors' Studio'...."), Secretary of Transportation Norman Mineta was conducting a major study on whether airport security was improperly screening passengers based on ethnicity. As Mineta explained: "We must protect the civil rights of airline passengers." Protecting airline passengers from sudden death has never made it onto Mineta's radar screen.

A few months later, after 19 Muslim men hijacked U.S. airplanes and turned them into Weapons of Mass Destruction on American soil, Mineta was a whirlwind of activity. On Sept. 21, as the remains of thousands of Americans lay smoldering at Ground Zero, Mineta fired off a letter to all U.S. airlines forbidding them from implementing the one security measure that would have prevented 9/11: subjecting Middle Eastern passengers to an added degree of pre-flight scrutiny. He sternly reminded the airlines that it was illegal to discriminate against passengers based on their race, color, national or ethnic origin, or religion.

Mineta would have sent the letter even sooner, but he wanted to give the airlines enough time to count the number of their employees and customers who had just been murdered by Arab passengers.

On Sept. 27, 2001, the ACLU sent out a press release titled, "ACLU Applauds Sensible Scope of Bush Airport Security Plan," which narrowly won out over the headline: "Fox Approves Henhouse Security Plan." As a rule of thumb, any security plan approved by the ACLU puts American lives at risk. ACLU Associate Director Barry Steinhardt praised Bush's Transportation Department for showing "an admirable degree of restraint by not suggesting airport security procedures that would deny civil liberties as a condition of air travel." The ACLU had zeroed in on the true meaning of 9/11: Americans needed to be more tolerant of and sensitive toward ethnic minorities.

Flush with praise from the ACLU, Mineta set to work suing airlines for removing passengers perceived to be of Arab, Middle Eastern or Southeast Asian descent, and/or Muslim. If we're going to start shifting money around based on who's rude to whom, my guess is Muslims are going to end up in the red. But that's not how Mineta's Department of Transportation sees it.

Despite Mineta's clearly worded letter immediately after the 9/11 terrorist attacks and another follow-up letter in October, the Department of Transportation found that in the weeks after the 9/11 terrorist attacks carried out by Middle Eastern men, the airlines were targeting passengers who appeared to be Middle Eastern. To his horror, Mineta discovered that the airlines were using logic and deductive reasoning to safeguard their passengers – in direct violation of his just-issued guidelines on racial profiling!

The Department of Transportation filed a complaint against United Airlines, claiming United removed passengers from flights in "a few instances" based on their race, color, national origin, religion or ancestry. Mineta gave United no credit for so scrupulously ignoring ethnicity on Sept. 11 that it lost four pilots, 12 flight attendants, and 84 passengers (not including the nine Arab hijackers). In November 2003, United settled the case for $1.5 million.

In another crucial anti-terrorism investigation undertaken by Norman Mineta, the Department of Transportation claimed that between Sept. 11, 2001, and Dec. 31, 2001, American Airlines – which lost four pilots, 13 flight attendants and 129 passengers (not including 10 Arab hijackers) on Sept. 11 by ignoring the ethnicity of its passengers – removed 10 individuals who appeared to be Middle Eastern from American Airline flights as alleged security risks. On March 1, 2004, American Airlines settled the case for $1.5 million.

The Department of Transportation also charged Continental Airlines with discriminating against passengers who appeared to be Arab, Middle Eastern or Muslim after the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks. In April 2004, Continental Airlines settled the complaint for $500,000.

Like many of you, I carefully reviewed the lawsuits against the airlines in order to determine which airlines had engaged in the most egregious discrimination, so I could fly only that airline. But oddly, rather than bragging about the charges, the airlines heatedly denied discriminating against Middle Eastern passengers. What a wasted marketing opportunity! Imagine the great slogans the airlines could use:

"Now Frisking All Arabs – Twice!"

"More Civil-Rights Lawsuits Brought by Arabs Than Any Other Airline!"

"The Friendly Skies – Unless You're an Arab"

"You Are Now Free to Move About the Cabin – Not So Fast, Mohammed!"

Worst of all, the Department of Transportation ordered the settlement money to be spent on civil-rights programs to train airline staff to stop looking for terrorists, a practice known as digging your own grave and paying for the shovel. Airlines that have been the most vigilant against terrorism are forced by the government into re-education seminars to learn to suppress common sense. Airlines are being forced, at their own expense, to make commercial air travel more dangerous.

If John Kerry would promise to fire Norman Mineta and start racial profiling at the airports, I would campaign for him. Unfortunately, like George Bush, Kerry doesn't travel commercial air with the little people.


Ann Coulter is a bestselling author and syndicated columnist. Her most recent book is Treason: Liberal Treachery from the Cold War to the War on Terrorism.


TOPICS: Editorial; News/Current Events; War on Terror
KEYWORDS: 911hijackers; aclu; airlinesecurity; bushidiotmineta; coulter; dot
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1 posted on 04/30/2004 1:50:30 AM PDT by kattracks
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To: kattracks; JohnHuang2; mhking
This deserves every PING list =o)
2 posted on 04/30/2004 1:51:30 AM PDT by GeronL ("We are beyond right and wrong" the scariest words from the radical left.)
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To: kattracks
All of this bureaucracy for air security and Al Qaeda has shifted to other means of terrorist activity. Cargo planes as I hear are pretty insecure. If an Arab ever downs another commercial plane, Mineta should be hung by his gonads from the Washington monument.
3 posted on 04/30/2004 2:00:49 AM PDT by doosee
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To: kattracks
Bravo Ann and BTTT!!!
4 posted on 04/30/2004 2:01:00 AM PDT by lainde (Heads up...We're coming and we've got tongue blades!!)
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To: kattracks
Like many of you, I carefully reviewed the lawsuits against the airlines in order to determine which airlines had engaged in the most egregious discrimination, so I could fly only that airline.

Bump.

5 posted on 04/30/2004 2:03:44 AM PDT by Ichneumon
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To: kattracks
Well darn Kat, I just posted the same article!! I should have known I couldn't poster faster than you!!
6 posted on 04/30/2004 2:05:07 AM PDT by Elkiejg (Clintons and Democrats have ruined America)
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To: kattracks
"Racial 'profiling'"

Thank you 'good ol' political correctness!

7 posted on 04/30/2004 3:13:51 AM PDT by Budge (<><)
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To: doosee
"Mineta should be hung by his gonads from the Washington monument"

With his record, he should be anyway.

Regards.

8 posted on 04/30/2004 3:31:14 AM PDT by Jimmy Valentine (DemocRATS - when they speak, they lie; when they are silent, they are stealing the American Dream)
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To: kattracks
In strict accordance with the FreeRepublic by laws,
paragraph 4, section 7, stating that, and I quote:
"any mention of our beloved Ann Coulter
must include her image", I offer the following
pictures for your exclusive viewing pleasure.






Carville really IS gollum.

9 posted on 04/30/2004 3:34:23 AM PDT by ChadGore (Vote Bush. He's Earned It.)
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To: kattracks
Related thread -- perhaps there is a DOT cover-up of how stupid their policy is:
I, Your Federal Overseer, just need to know what you are working on
10 posted on 04/30/2004 3:41:25 AM PDT by bvw
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To: Howlin; Ed_NYC; MonroeDNA; widgysoft; Springman; Timesink; dubyaismypresident; Grani; coug97; ...

Just damn.

If you want on the list, FReepmail me. This IS a high-volume PING list...

11 posted on 04/30/2004 3:55:27 AM PDT by mhking (A velvet glove works better than an iron fist every day...)
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To: kattracks
"Don't fly"

If ordered to fly by your employer, resign from your job and take one that keeps you closer home. If you are eligible, take retirement, or use your accumulated savings to set yourself up in business where you NEVER have to use commercial air again.

On shorter trips, it is very nearly as fast to drive as it is to deal with airline transfers and check-in procedures (which appear to be largely ineffectual in any case), and probably much less stressful.
12 posted on 04/30/2004 3:58:12 AM PDT by alloysteel
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To: GeronL
bttt
13 posted on 04/30/2004 3:59:42 AM PDT by ConservativeMan55 (There is no problem so great that it cannot be solved with high powered explosives.)
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To: kattracks
Boy Ann just has a way with words.She just lays it out there for ya doesn't she?
14 posted on 04/30/2004 4:25:48 AM PDT by Rightly Biased (<><)
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To: kattracks
Not up to Ann's usually high standards. What with all the other major events happening, an article on this rather peripheral issue doesn't rate all this focus and firepower.
Get back to where the action is Ann!
15 posted on 04/30/2004 4:33:40 AM PDT by finnigan2 (ou're)
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To: kattracks
start racial profiling at the airports

My guess is that it is already happening......just not openly and officially.

I have a friend who was an AALine flight attendant out of Boston (she quit recently). She lost some friends on 9/11. You best believe that she did a lot of unofficial (discreet) profiling.

16 posted on 04/30/2004 4:41:18 AM PDT by Tom Bombadil (There are givers and takers. Be a giver and marry one.)
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To: lainde
Likewise, bravo, Anne. ACLU again, I see. Do we see a pattern here? Every malcontent and miscreant in the country seeks and gets the backing of these rats behinds. A-rabs with lawsuits against US? They should be forced to WALK, far less ride in airplanes with the rest of us.
17 posted on 04/30/2004 5:09:09 AM PDT by vandykelastone (I'm so glad Goober Pyle is the Governor of New Mexico, aren't you?)
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To: kattracks
On Sept. 21, Mineta fired off a letter to all U.S. airlines forbidding them from subjecting Middle Eastern passengers to an added degree of pre-flight scrutiny. Mineta would have sent the letter even sooner, but he wanted to give the airlines enough time to count the number of their employees and customers who had just been murdered by Arab passengers.

More likely, Mineta wanted to ensure that the airlines had already hired replacements for the murdered employees so they wouldn't miss out on his mandated sensitivity training.

18 posted on 04/30/2004 5:19:11 AM PDT by SpyGuy
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To: kattracks
Everything Ann Coulter says is 100 percent correct, and she always says it perfectly, and the case is closed when she is finished.
19 posted on 04/30/2004 5:35:34 AM PDT by speedy (Tagline for demonstration purposes only. Not for internal consumption.)
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To: doosee
"If an Arab ever downs another commercial plane, Mineta should be hung by his gonads from the Washington monument. "

I suggest changing the site to the FDR memorial.

20 posted on 04/30/2004 5:58:02 AM PDT by Jumpmaster (Teddy is all wet.)
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