I'm getting all the satisfaction I'm liable to get from the following story: That of having been proved instantaneously right.
Here is the story I first read yesterday morning about what flight attendants regarded as suspicious behavior and a terrorist threat by two "individuals" aboard a flight coming into the Raleigh-Durham airport. (Actually, I saw this linked from LGF. But the LGF story has been updated to include what I'm going to reveal below.) As you can see, there are no details as to what the two individuals did. Nor does the general public evidently have such details yet.
So I read it, turned to my husband and said, "When the FBI says there was no danger and that it was just a misunderstanding, I won't believe it." He thereupon did a little clicking around, and in seconds, came up with this story. Headline: "Incident on Flight to RDU Posed No Threat." And in the first sentence, we have...you got it...It was a misunderstanding.
I don't believe it. It would be helpful to be able to evaluate for ourselves how plausible the "misunderstanding" theory is, but no one is telling us what the two guys said or did. Interesting.
And on the subject of flight security, here was the photo doing the rounds of the blogosphere yesterday. Y'all can put this in the "I feel much safer now" file. In case you can't tell, the TSA agent frisking the habited nun is wearing a hijab.
Update: The link for the photo was wrong in the original version of this post. I've fixed it. Try again if you didn't get a photo of a nun being frisked before.
Comments (9)
What really went on, then? Another "dry run" that got some people to sit up and pay attention, perhaps? Maybe some Syrian musicians getting frisky? I sure am getting tired of the mushroom management technique being used by Federal agencies. The sight of a TSA agent in a hijab just shows how far down the wrong road we have gone already, thanks to the liberal death wish.
Posted by Anti Dhimmi | September 23, 2007 8:17 PM
The real problem for terrorism is immigration, whether and how people get into this country. What happens in the Middle East is irrelevant. These people should not be allowed to fly into the U.S. for any reason whatsoever. Ironically, neocons like Bush have increased immigration quotas and tourist visas for Muslims.
If we want to end terrorism and such threats, we should (1) end all immigration and tourist visas from the third world, (2) deport all Muslims from the West, (3) withdraw from the Middle East, and (4) stop giving aid to all Middle Eastern countries, including Israel. In other words, as Srdja Trifkovic has said , we need total disengagement.
Posted by Bede | September 24, 2007 10:58 PM
Terrorism, and more importantly, the fear of terrorism, is having a drastic impact on freedoms we have taken for granted. Security cameras, intrusive surveillance, intrusive searches, retina scans, DNA profiling etc, are all leading us towards a police state. It is hard to imagine that all this has occurred in a matter of just 6 years. What the future holds as Muslim populations in the West incease exponentially, one can only guess.
This is the price we are paying for allowing mass Muslim immigration to the West.
If we carry on as we are now, blithely ignoring all facts about Islam, then a civil war in Europe is very likely, as power is never handed over voluntarily. Such a civil war will be gruesome, and the winner will extract a bloody vengeance, with ethnic cleansing on a mass scale. Partition of Europe into Muslim and non-Muslims regions, on the like of Bosnia or Kosovo, will be the only way to contain such a war. It is this future we are headed towards. Even if we win the war, it will scar European conscience to such an extent that it will lead to its moral collapse.
Common humanity and a concern for Muslims and non-Muslim lives alike, require that #3, the most humane option, is the best option. God help us.
Posted by DP111 | September 25, 2007 8:56 AM
I forgot to mention that terrorsm, and the fear of terrorism in the West, arises mainly from Muslims living in the West. If this internal threat is removed, virtually the whole problem will go away, and with it, all the restrictions to our freedoms.
Posted by DP111 | September 25, 2007 9:02 AM
One should translate the Bushian-neoconservative war slogan, "We're fighting them over there, so that we don't have to fight them here" as "We're fighting them over there, because we refuse to fight them here, because we will not abandon the dream of multicultural, multiconfessional amity; and we must hope that democracy eliminates the resentments that lead to terrorism, because America will have a growing Muslim presence, whether Americans desire it or not." In other words, the entire strategy is, ultimately, an obscene gesture in the face of the American people.
Posted by Maximos | September 25, 2007 11:37 AM
"We fight them over there because we won't discriminate over here."
Posted by Zippy | September 25, 2007 2:02 PM
Well, yes, that's much more succinct! I simply believe that there is an ugly, crypto-authoritarian undertone to the strategy, a coded communication to the American people that we must accept that Islam is a Religion of Peace, defiled by a minority of extremists who cribbed their ideology from interwar fascism; and to make good and darn sure that we accept the ROP meme, the government will keep importing more Mahometans. Diversity is (the) strength of the fist that pounds your face.
Posted by Maximos | September 25, 2007 4:02 PM
My only mild disagreement with that is that I think Bush & co. are genuinely mistaken, for whatever that is worth as an excuse. That is, they really _believe_ the nonsense about the ROP. It's exceedingly unreasonable of them, but I think they do.
By the way, Maximos, I thought of your photos on the old EM blog of airport security when I saw the photo I linked above.
Posted by Lydia | September 25, 2007 4:10 PM
That probably only makes it worse, from my perspective: the ROP propaganda, which sentient beings know to be a load of codswollop, in sincerely held, so they will be that much more adamant in conforming public policy thereto.
I wish that I could have saved those photos and the accompanying text. There is just something so revolting in all of these images of how our lives are made worse by the presence of the 'ROP'.
Posted by Maximos | September 25, 2007 4:23 PM