BobTheFirstJr

If this passage is "the one that connected" with the author, out of the entire story explaining how the imams not only prayed loudly, but also seated themselves throughout the plane in a pattern that controlled all exits, asked for potential restraints (lapbelt extenders which they placed on the floor, not on the lapbelts) and mulled about the plane in a behaior pattern similar to known previous troublemakers.... Then the writer has an agenda, nothing more.

The lapbelt extenders might serve as a decent improvised weapon as well. One solid metal end attached to several inches of belt- that could hurt.

This six iman thing was a set-up. They did what airlines have identified as dry runs for terrorist attacks, except with such a group that they were pretty much gauranteed to get fawning, uncritical media attention blathering on about 'ignorant americans'- something 9 out of 10 farkers are falling for by the looks of this thread.

Coming so soon after the election of America's first muslim legislator, do you really think this is a coincidence? Ellison is playing his part with the usual blather about wanting to meet with airline execs and islamophobia. I'm not saying he was part of the set-up but right off the bat he's being a great patsy so far.

But why? The most obvious answer is to take advantage of the swirl of PC bullshiat around airline security and basically try to make it illegal for passengers and airlines to protect themselves against the most obvious threats.

The Al-Qaeda leaning section of the Muslim world understands psy-ops and propoganda efforts far better than are own government. Moreover, anything the administration puts out that is positive is mindlessly decried as 'propoganda' and quickly forgetton regardless of it's accuracy, while the endless litany of bad news is unquestionably consumed and internalized.

We all see what I just described every single goddamn day on Fark, and folks think themselves wise and worldly for it, and imagine themselves smarter than the people actually responsible for accomplishing anything. Sickening.

Oh yeah, and the majority of posts responding to this one will just be more of the same.

Maybe I should quit fark for a while.

Oh yes, and for everyone who is critical of the folks on the plane and the airline:

Go f*ck yourselves.

Long, and hard. You didn't see what happened, you don't know much about what happened, and it wasn't your ass on the line. It's pretty easy to be judgemental from your keyboard, isn't it?

I haven't heard of anyone from the flight speaking up for these dickheads. They made themselves out to be a threat, and they got treated like one. That should be the end of the story.

and another thing:
El-Al's most effective profiling tool is a short interview with each passenger, and giving gate agents the authority to boot someone off the plane. They smell bullshiat, you don't fly, and that's it.

Racial is a lesser role I believe. Haven't actually heard anything about it.

IIRC they have armed security personell at the gates and on the planes as well.

Fart_Machine,
I'm being judgemental of other assholes behind their keyboards. Being an asshole behind a keyboard, I certainly have that right.

Well, it wasn't in my post, but I'd like to retroactively put it there!

Again, the Washington Times is hardly a reliable source. Did you even bother to read it? All of the sources were anonymous with the exception of a former air marshall who wasn't even there.

Ah yes, the classical fallacy of "It doesn't fit my ideological bias so it must be crap" + "increased scrutiny for that which doesn't fit my preconcieved notions, no scrutiny for that which does."

Oh, well, maybe those aren't the shortest terms, but you can see what I'm getting at.

By the way, thank you for meeting the expectations I laid out in my longest post in this thread. You've fit the bill well.

Can you find me a story with passengers who said "no, they were cool, it was all a mistake?"

Or you think maybe there was a basis for the airlines and passengers reactions?

Does the washington times account conflict with any other released versions?

I'm not going to dig around because I don't expect to convince you of anything but we can look more at the story itself.

First there's the gate agent, who could be more specifically identified I'm sure.Then there is the passengers and flight attendants who reported what they saw to the Law Enforcement Officers.

That's surely a public record you could probably acquire with access to a fax machine and maybe a couple bucks.

There's analysis of what is in public records by people who weren't there. So what?

You're so concerned with it, go track down the police report. That should be all the tracibility and verification you need. And if you can't trust the accounts in the police report subsequent news stories from ANY source are worth nothing.

But you'd rather believe that it's just a bunch of ignorant, predjudiced Americans than maybe we're being farked with. That's exactly the response I predicted I'd recieve several posts before.