No excuse for joking about terror

New York Daily News ^ | 9/23/02 | John Leo

[kattracks]

What really happened in the case of the three Muslim medical students and Eunice Stone? She is the nurse who said she overheard the students Sept. 12 at a Georgia restaurant apparently talking about plans for terrorism the next day.

Let's offer a probability rating, just as weather forecasters do when discussing chances of rain. Probability that the three men were terrorists who thought it was a good idea to discuss their plot loudly at a Shoney's restaurant in Calhoun, Ga., the day before an attack - less than 1%. Probability that Stone decided to call attention to herself by making up this story or that she misconstrued a memorable line about Friday the 13th - also 1% or less.

Probability the students were playing a joke, then refused to take responsibility when the incident blew up into an all-day scare on cable TV - 98%.

The students' credibility suffered greatly after authorities stopped them and shut down a major Florida highway to check their two cars for explosives. None were found, but federal and county authorities said the three students, interviewed separately, gave accounts that didn't match. This seems a polite way of saying that a great deal of prevarication was going on.

Experience tells us that in situations like this, we are never very far from allegations of bias and racial profiling. Sure enough. One student, Ayman Gheith, said that after Stone noticed his Muslim garb, "Maybe she put a little salt and pepper in her story." He said she was "flat-out lying." Gheith's sister said the three had made the mistake of stopping for a meal in Georgia, implying the whole state is so racist that no Muslim should ever risk eating there.

Oddly, the media didn't buy the racial-profiling complaint. The assumption was that the men had been caught in a prank. Perhaps because the hoax theory was so dominant, the students and their lawyers evolved a new, softer media message. By Sunday, Stone was no longer a flat-out liar, but rather a kindly though mistaken bystander who had been trying to be a patriot.

Another change in the students' message: They'd used the phrase "bring it down," just as Stone said, but the reference was to bringing a car from Kansas City to Miami. Why it took three days to mention the car wasn't explained.

An odd comment came from Anthony Romero, the new American Civil Liberties Union executive director: "Satire, humor, jokes are part of our everyday lives. We shouldn't be afraid that what we say might trigger a reaction from law enforcement."

Romero apparently acknowledges this looks like a hoax, yet defends it on free-speech grounds. But it is not all right to joke about staging a terrorist attack. It's dangerous, puts stress on law enforcement and can cost a lot of money - more than $100,000 in this case.

All post-9/11 hoaxes should be taken seriously. People who mailed baby powder and other fake versions of anthrax faced criminal charges. So should hoaxers who talk of terrorist plots.

At week's end, there were signs that Attorney General John Ashcroft's detractors may cite this case as a horrible example of what would happen if average citizens were recruited to report suspicious activity, as he has called for.

But Stone behaved well in reporting what might have been a serious plot. It's no horrible example, just an ordinary citizen doing the right thing.

[Hank Kerchief]

we need to be careful that we don't declare a religion as a whole invalid and toss out or kill all it's adherents.

I know you don't mean this, but what you just said sounds like, anything must be tolerated if it is called a religion. But, this cannot be true.

The question then becomes, what cannot be considered a religion? I suggest, any philosophy or ideology which advocates the destruction of all other peoples and soceities is not a valid religion. I don't care if everyone who belongs to the religion does not believe it. We need to show them that is what it teaches, and tell them it will not be tolerated.

If tolerance is right, the one thing it cannot tolerate is intolerance, especially when it masquerades as a religion.

Hank

[potlatch]

I read this, this morning and was hoping someone would post it. [I'm too slow at typing replies!!] This is the first time I've heard of the discrepancys [sp?] in the police interviews.

That was never reported while they were on TV telling all their lies, and now it probably won't even get mentioned on TV!!