From Colorado’s 9News.com:
Sloan says seven men were escorted off of the plane. Two of them were sitting in coach. The other five were sitting in first-class, he says. All were re-booked onto another flight according to United.
Sloan says the men were attempting to change seats with other passengers. Another passenger, who doesn’t want his name used, says the men were also trying to move luggage while the plane was getting ready to push back.
Passengers tell 9NEWS all of the men looked to be “Middle Eastern,” but United will not confirm the identity of the seven men.
In summary, another case (like the Flying Imams of 2006 and the AirTran incident a month ago) where a group of Muslims make every effort to look and act suspicious, doing things calculated to terrify passengers and crew. Since, as it seems they were not armed, they did not have the intent to actually hijack the plane, why might they do this? A few possibilities come to mind:
1) They *want* to get kicked off the plane. Then, like the Flying Imams, they can go to the press and scream about harassment and bigotry, and then get themselves a lawyer and a big fat civil lawsuit payday.
2) The are probing the system for weaknesses, seeing what they can get away with… collecting intelligence for a *real* operation down the line.
3) By combining the first two, they are trying to weaken the system. They not only learn what they can get away with, but by following that up with a lawsuit jihad, they can help change the system (such as making employees fearful of getting branded as”Islamophobes” by actually doing their jobs) to make it easier to get away with more. Witness Fort Hood as an example of what you can get away with with entrenched political correctness.
4) They’re assholes, doing this to scare people for fun.
5) They’re assholes, doing this because they are arrogant and oblivious.
Such behavior should not be tolerated, of course. Imagine if this were to occur on an El Al flight… the offenders would be removed from the plane not by the police, but by paramedics. And this would be only right and proper. Whether as a form of political protest, or an effort at lawsuit lotto, or just a practical joke, making people in a confined space fear for their lives is the sort of jackassery that can be properly responded to with a beatdown.
6 Responses to “Another case of “Flying Imams””
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The comments on 9NEWS were hilarious. Terrorists are trained to fart when a bomb dog is nearby?
Another possibility:
The guys were not middle eastern at all + were trying to change seats which isn’t illegal + some paranoid Americans made a big fuss out of this
> Another possibility:
Given numerous eye witnesses, this seems unlikely.
Simon actually could be correct. Note there is nothing in the article that shows they were “muslim” nor even “middle-eastern” (since 9/11 when pressed to make an “identification” people will tend to see “middle-eastern” instead of Latin American, Hispanic, Black and even Hawian :o) one witness is quoted as saying they “looked” which is not identification.
Switching seats is not illegal, though frowned upon these days because having you in your assigned seat makes it easier to identify the body as far as the Airlines and NTSB are concerned.
I’m wonderging what the “pattern” was the flight crew was looking for, but I suppose that’s the point isn’t it? We don’t know.
Given that almost the entire article is based on an unknown and possibly unreliable witness spoken testemony and no one is officially saying anything there are other possibilites that come to mind:
1) A security exercise is quite possible
2) Newly trained and excitable flight crew who may have over-reacted
3) A group that had been flying together suddenly find themselves spread out over an entire airplane and wanted to remain together and so inadvertently triggered an alarm response.
The article doesn’t mention “numerous” eye witness’ but just a couple of people who were interviewed, most of whom were kept in the dark on WHAT was going on during the whole affair so could have easily misinterpreted or distorted the data they passed on to the media.
Randy
Considering: “there is no criminal investigation in connection to the incident”, my bets are on paranoia.
The lack of a criminal investigation does not negate the likelihood of this being an intentional act on the part of the people in question. Options 1, 4 and 5 all are basically legal. Options 2 and 3 would not necessarily draw a blatant criminal investigation, though one hopes the FBI would take a sudden if subtle interest in them.
Since Options 1 through 5 all look pretty much exactly the same, the end result for all would likely be no criminal charges, but interest from Homeland Security and the FBI.
It is only wise for people to be “paranoid” when there really are jihadists out to kill them.