Posted on 09/21/2002 11:17:50 AM PDT by Rumierules
Does "bring it down" -- words spoken by the Arab men during the restaurant discussion -- refer to detonating explosives to bring down a building? Or were the men talking about bringing another car down to Florida?
The "bring down a car" story was not floated out until Sunday night when they consulted with their legal team.
Eunice did hear "bring it down" correctly by the students' own admission.
Eunice did hear correctly what the students' destination was.
Eunice did not state that the men where speaking in Arabic (as the press reported).
Eunice was not a waitress at Shoney's (as was reported).
Eunice did not use her (18 year old) son's crayons to write down the information.
Eunice's son did hear the same conversation, he thought that they may have just been pulling her leg (razz the locals).
The students did alledge that she "added some salt and pepper" to her story.
She was called a liar (because she reported her suspicions).
She was called a racist (because of who she claimed made the statements).
Nothing that has come out has cleared the men of making jokes in bad taste at the restaurant. They have shown themselves to be arrogant.
If police stopped me and I knew that I had done nothing wrong, I'd be wary about answering their questions, too. Remember part of the Miranda warning that police give suspects goes like this: "Anything you say can be used against you."
How can something be used against you when you didn't do anything in the first place? "Anything you say can be used against you" is to prevent you from confessing your crimes without proper legal counsel. Ever answer a cop when he pulls you over and asks, "Do you know why I pulled you over?"
If the men did deliberately razz the woman, then yes they have committed a terrorist hoax. Same as a jealous woman sending "anthrax" to her competitor. Nothing to back up the threat but the threat was made all the same.
Say you were working in a strip joint and 3 young middle eastern men -- all training to be pilots -- are making statements derogatory statements about America and claiming, "just you wait until tomorrow". Oh, that's right, some people don't believe that terrorists would reveal their plans in English.
And as far as the scholarly background, Osama's right hand man was a doctor, Arafat was an engineer, and a Jewish doctor in Miami was turned in by his wife for planning to blow up some mosques. Naw, I guess that only unemployed high school drop outs commit acts of terrorism.
Nice letter. I may use it as a model for my e-mail to this idiot reporter...if you don't mind.
Looks like the Hate America; Hate Americans bunch is still at it.
If this incident would have happened just twenty years ago, what would the likely outcome have been? These three foreign scholars would likely have gotten a well deserved ass whoopin' for their insolence. Isn't tolerance wonderful?
FGS
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