Terrorists attempt fresh wave of US hijackings ("MUST READ" describes recent attempts)

Scotsman ^ | July 23, 2004 | JAMES HALL

[patriciamary]

How about this one, WE ask a question what would you do if you were the president? explain, Putin told the president of an upcoming attack on the us by Iraq, Saddam hatred for the us and past history using wmd's,killing thousands, the attempt to buy uranium,the weapons the have been found,his offer to set up bin laden and the operations in Iraq,what the US, British ,French,German etc intelligent stated Saddam had weapons of mass destruction.Now after 911 what would you do.Perhaps as the 911 commission stated used your imagination . Bush a strong leader who will protect our nation.Sorry for my sloppy form but you get the point.By the way great idea!

[Indie]

EVRY single one of these Islamists was RELEASED. All of them.

If the government doesn't give a shi$, then why should we?

These rEligion of piece folks have been singled out way too much and it is wrong. /SARC ...[the government must WANT us to be blown to he!! since they release every single one they catch.]

so much for preemption.

[Shazolene]

I don't get it. You can be arrested for joking at the check-in counter, "Gee, you think I have a bomb in my wallet?" You can be arrested for refusing to take off your shoes or allow yourself to be searched in security.

Another thing you are not supposed to do is stand up in the plane (no, not even to go to the bathroom) within 30 minutes of landing time.

What those 14 'musicians' did was at least against that rule. Of course, on the plane you don't have burly security men, all you have to enforce rules are stewardesses. So what does the rule really mean? What will happen if they break the rule and all 14 of them jump up just before landing?

Musicians or no musicians, THAT'S what those guys were doing: testing.

Furthermore, they were doing the equivalent of a 'bomb joke' on the airplane -- if not actually building a bomb, they were doing things that airlines have been warned might indicate a bomb-making threat in progress. What did they find happened to them? NOTHING.

What's to prevent others in their group from doing the real thing next time? I'm afraid the answer is: NOTHING.

That chick from New York is a glutton for punishment, I guess. I don't think we should be listening to such voices of 'sweet reason' (read PC) anymore. "NEVER AGAIN!"

[Law is not justice but process]

"I bet if those 9-11 terrorists Woods saw, had been shaken down, the authorities wouldn't have found anything"

Most likely, since they were on a dry run and not a terrorist mission, they might even have had a good cover story. Maybe they would have been students traveling to a conference, and may even have had reservations at the conference. Or . . .Hey, maybe a band going to play a gig at a casino in the California desert!

All kidding aside, this issue scares me. I was on a flight from LA to Houston recently when a large group of middle eastern men (they looked Egyptian to me, I don't really remember why I concluded that) boarded and sat in scattered seats throughout the plane. One sat next to me. They didn't really talk to each other after sitting down, but it seemed like every time they got up several would get up at the same time. And they were constantly going into the lavatories. This got my attention. Also, they were all much larger than most of the middle eastern people I have met in the past.

Of course I instantly had thoughts of the "muscle" hijackers on 9/11. The guy sitting next to me was the oldest in the group, maybe 45 to 50. He kept glancing at the others. When I read the article from the "Ladies Wall Street Journal" posted a couple of weeks ago my blood ran cold. It was so similar to what I saw.

When I was sitting there on that flight I was frightened. I do not scare easily, but this scared me. I was sitting there planning out my response to the hijacking I feared was coming. I am pretty big myself and figured on grabbing my row-mate and hitting him in the back of the knee to take him down. Then I would do my best to strangle him (I was planning on killing him, not subduing him) using my 260 some odd pounds to hold him down and, if applied in just the right place, break his back. I was sincerely hoping others on the flight made similar plans for his friends.

Needless to say, I didn't have to do it. The plane landed in Houston and the Egyptians made no moves. In retrospect, I think it 99.9% certain that these guys were up to no harm. They probably were going to a relative's wedding or some such innocent thing. But the .1% chance they were terrorists on a dry run still scares the hell out of me.

I am doubly fearful now that I have learned of the FSA's ban on profiling. I think the fact that there is a group of middle eastern men traveling together is reasonable suspicion in and of itself for greater scrutiny. The risk of another 9/11 style attack is too great to let the minimal intrusion on middle astern travelers rights outweigh passenger (and ground-bound citizen) safety. We are all screened pretty obtrusively, I hope all agree on that, and an extra frisk on reasonable suspicion is not a much greater burden than a frisk based on random seat selections. I would hope they would do the same if 17 skinheads with white-supremacist slogans on their shirts boarded a plane together. If we ever have a hijacking by 17 women dressed as Sisters of Holy Mercy, I would hope the FSA would frisk all large groups of nuns getting on planes together. It is not racial politics but safety that should be paramount.

Does that mean all groups of middle eastern men are up to no good? Definitely not! 99.9% of such groups are utterly harmless. But would you get on an airplane if you knew the risk an engine would fall off was 1 in 1000 instead of 1 in 10 billion? Wouldn't you want to know if you were taking such a risk?

And should we let the government which is sworn to protect us shirk their duty on the flimsy excuse that "we might look like racists if we do what safety and prudence demand?"

[John Valentine]

Several people on this thread, and you are one of them, have little ability to make distinctions or to understand subleties of difference.

I have NEVER suggested that we ignore suspicious behavior. Quite the contrary. In several posts on this thread I have tried to make quite clear that we should all be careful and alert and report suspicious behavior to the authorities. Yet I am continually attacked as if I had been saying just the opposite.

What I have said, and still say is that once a person has made his or her suspicions known to authorities, the authorities have the job of investigating and making a determination. You and others seem to beleive that someone's allegation of "suspicious" behavior should be sufficient reason to detain and lock up people forwho knows how long. That is unreasonable and unworkable.

Similarly, there have been some, although I don't know if you fall into thai category that are calling for vigilante action against people who act suspicious in the vigilante's mind. What's wrong with that is that it is also unfeasible and unworkable. Worse, anyone pulling a stunt like this on an aircraft would be sued by his victim and prosecuted by the state, and righfully so. What kind of irresponsible person would encourage someone to commit unjustified battery on another? I know emotions run high over this issue, but we are supposed to be sane adults.

Right here is where I want to clear the air about direct action. Once there is a hijacking in progress, of course people can and should take matters into their own hands. But that has never been the thrust of the discussion on this thread. What has been proposed here is preemptive action against "towelheads", "ragheads" etc. acting suspiciously.

If you are aligning yourself withg that position, then God help you.

[Law is not justice but process]

"What is the problem here? What do you people want?"

Well, I can't help but notice that frisking and screening these people after the flight would have done no good had they crashed the plane into a crowded building before they landed.

Seems to me the goal should be to stop hijackings before they happen, not to investigate them after.

Of course we will respect the rights of all travelers in doing this, but ignoring the obvious relationship between groups of middle eastern men and hijacking will not stop hijackings and, in my opinion, shows utter disregard for the rights of the thousands of potential victims of hijackings (a group that includes me and, provided you do not live full-time in the NORAD bunker, you).

[bk1000]

"Nope, not true. Turned out to be a group of musicians on their way to a show."

If they can learn to fly airplanes, they can learn to play musical instruments.

(BTW, common tagline by coincidence!)

[rwfromkansas]

Thanks for the info.

Still, nobody has explained their actions and why they were not unusual.

They went into bathrooms almost at the same time, they gestured to eachother, they came out with less stuff than they came into the bathroom with. They all got up at the end of the flight in clear violation of the rules.

Nor has anybody explained the nice guy outside the plane turning into a menacing man on the plane who did not give a nice look to the observor like off the plane.

[SendShaqtoIraq]

Reporting suspicious activity is NOT vigilante action. If you think so, YOU are stupid.

[happygrl]

I trust private enterprise more than the government.

For this reason, I propose the following: Air Club for Men (and Women).

Taking a cue from the wealthy,[who no longer fly the regular airlines, but who belong to private air consortiums, for which they pay a membership fee, then a "flight fee" when they pick up the Red Phone to put their order in for a Lear Jet Taxi Service], I propose an Air Club, similar to Costco, that one can join, and then be given Air Privileges. One cannot simply buy tickets, but must be vetted prior to joining. I would be willing to pay some premium just to fly this way. It would not be the Red Phone Jet Club, but would be like a Buying Club that vets its members.

One more catastrophe, and the airlines as we know them are finished.

[happygrl]

"It's a probe. They are probing us," said a second air marshal, who confirmed that Middle Eastern men try to flush out marshals by rushing the cockpit and stopping suddenly.

!!!!!!!!

[Rightly Biased]

Bttt

[happygrl]

Does Bush have to put up with strange diaperheads wandering around Airforce One at 30,000 feet? Why should he expect any of us to put up with this bull sh*t?

NO.

See my prescrition on Post 210.

Until I can fly this way, the airlines won't have my business.

Obviously these Syrians have NO BUSINESS being in MY country.

[Joe Hadenuf]

Does Bush have to put up with strange diaperheads wandering around Airforce One at 30,000 feet? Why should he expect any of us to put up with this bull sh*t?

NO.

But our fellow citizens are as we speak.....

[happygrl]

Ditto to everything you said.

I'd rather be embarrassed than dead.

[John Valentine]

You REALLY need to learn to read.

Your seeming inability to do so makes your posts pitiful.

Of course, reporting suspicious activity is not vigilante action and I defy you to point out one case where I said it was.

Putting words in anothers mouth that were never spoken is a form of lying.

You, madam, stand as a confessed liar.

[SendShaqtoIraq]

No, I'm not, but you're a jackass.
The whole thread is about reporting suspicious activity and your comments are that people are being hysterical for doing so, and then you accused people on the thread of being vigilantes. I did not see one post that suggested killing for suspicious activity.

[John Valentine]

No, I'm not, but you're a jackass. The whole thread is about reporting suspicious activity and your comments are that people are being hysterical for doing so, and then you accused people on the thread of being vigilantes. I did not see one post that suggested killing for suspicious activity.

Your posts continue to baffle. Where does this stuff come from?

You obviously have not read or understood a single word of mine. Where on earth do you come up with this nonsensical "killing for suspicious activity"?

Not in any of my posts, that's for certain.

And another thing you have never found in a single one of my posts is a suggestion that people should not report suspicious activity. You invented that too.

I do think that some suspicious activity that has been reported has turned out to be innocent, but I explicitly said, in one of the earliest posts on this thread, that if we err we should err on the side of survival.

If you want to pick a fight, you ought to at least be honest.

I'm done with you.

[American in Israel]

I understand that very well, but it doesn't mean that those guys were terrorists on a dry run or anything like that at all.

And the no reason to detain them did not include their lack of visas as it seems their's were all expired...

This caviler attitude is why America is such a ripe target. Syria is at war with us and is sending troops into Iraq to kill our men. Why are they also sending Koran singers to play music in casino's? Does it not seem just a little strange to you? That is like a Vice Cop that works as a hooker on the side.

Clue, get one before it gets you.

[American in Israel]

You are a troll, one that is singing lullaby's in Gulliver's ears as the little people tyeing the strings.

If Syria takes out a plane, I am all for nuking Damascus in retaliation.

Gulliver, once awakened is a Giant my friend, and Islam is nothing but a fire ant nest. Ask Omar and Saddam.