TA-THREATS: Recent Terrorism Dry Run on Flight 327?

They were just a band! The National Review has confirmed that Annie just freaked out because she read some kind of terrorist act into every innocent movement. Oh, I'm paraphrasing, they said:

Anyway, this is good news. Nour Mehana's band might have acted like jerks on the plane, but it appears safe to say they were not casing Northwest Airlines for a suicidal assault, and we can quit worrying about this being a "dry run" or an aborted attack. And if Jacobsen was wondering why one man in a dark suit and sunglasses sat in first class while everyone else flew coach, well, it seems pretty clear that this was the Big Mehana himself.

Which is definitely not the same as saying Jacobsen was wrong to worry. The proven existence of this band confirms one of the last details of her story, and her story confirms some of our worst fears about airline security. The mindset of passengers, of the crew, and even of the law-enforcement personnel (Jacobsen said a flight attendant reassured her husband by pointing out that air marshals were on the flight), and decision makers higher up the ladder was reactive, not proactive.

Now, by that I certainly don't mean that the interceptors should have scrambled or the passengers should have started swinging Chardonnay bottles as soon as the oud player took too long in the john. But evidently no one even engaged these guys in a conversation, and no one, not the flight crew, and not the air marshals, challenged their egregious violations of protocols about congregating near restrooms or standing up in unison as the plane started its descent. Nothing was done to alleviate the terror Jacobsen, and probably a lot of the other passengers, felt.

Be vigilant, of course, but let's not go into hysterics. Just use common sense people. Not every Middle Eastern person is a terrorist, and sometimes they have to go to the bathroom.

EDIT: This was the scariest part:

And then I noticed something that was truly terrifying, something linking Nour Mehana to a figure of such repulsive evil that I felt a rush of prickly fear not unlike Jacobsen's: Just one week later, the same company that arranged Mehana's performance, also booked Carrot Top!

[edit on 21-7-2004 by curme]

Curme, nobody here has ever said that every middle-easterner is a terrorist. And it is not going into hysterics to more thoroughly search those who are likely to harbor anti-american hatred, not because of their skin color, but the environment in which they were raised. If it is true that they were a band, where is it written that just because somebody is a musician they cannot also be a terrorist? Maybe thats the perfect plan, book a few gigs, develop rapport with people at the airport, see what they can get away with in the air, and when it comes time for the real attack, nobody will be expecting it. How is the fact that they may actually be a band definitive proof this was not a dry run? Again I ask, if you were dropping off your child at the terminal to visit relatives, and you saw those men breeze through security with all of their carry-on bags on your childs flight, would you be comfortable? Or would you desire that they be searched more thoroughly, just to be on the safe side? If they were just innocent dudes, then rock on guys, sorry for the inconvenience but you know the state of the world right now, we have to air on the side of caution as much as possible. But, like I said before, its a good quality to trust your fellow man. Its just too bad the price for error is so high.

Carrot-top should be held as an enemy combatant at Gitmo indefinitely.

[edit on 21-7-2004 by jd27]

[edit on 21-7-2004 by jd27]

Originally posted by jd27
Again I ask, if you were dropping off your child at the terminal to visit relatives, and you saw those men breeze through security with all of their carry-on bags on your childs flight, would you be comfortable? Or would you desire that they be searched more thoroughly, just to be on the safe side? If they were just innocent dudes, then rock on guys, sorry for the inconvenience but you know the state of the world right now, we have to air on the side of caution as much as possible. But, like I said before, its a good quality to trust your fellow man. Its just too bad the price for error is so high.

Carrot-top should be held as an enemy combatant at Gitmo indefinitely.

[edit on 21-7-2004 by jd27]

[edit on 21-7-2004 by jd27]

There is no evidence they breezed through security. I don't think the author knows what security they went through. How could she? I think you and I agree on security issues. Yes, I want people checked, and doubled checked. Syrians? Triple checked. They were. I'm just upset that this lady's paranoia fanned the flames of hysteria. Like Orson Welles 'War of the Worlds'. Some people want an excuse to be racists. They want justification. I know you are not one of them, but people are going to read this false account, and say, "I knew it!" Those people can't be trusted!

Yeah, I agree the story was written in a manner that read like a horror novel, and Im sure her own fear caused her to remember the incident as being more sinister than it actually was. But if even remotely true and they were allowed to all get up and congregate in the back making it seem like they could have been possibly assembling an explosive with electronics smuggled in the cameras and cell phones and maybe a plastic explosive like C-4 or something in the orthotic shoe. Even if they were screened it seems that may have been hard to detect. Sure it kinda sounds like an old Delta Force movie, but so would 9-11 have, had it not actually happened. But at the least they knew that would cause distress among passengers, so if not terrorists they were certainly rude. Hopefully they were searched thoroughly enough, and gauged the other passengers suspicions high enough that if it was a dry run, they wont attempt a real operation. Chances are they were just musicians that were just insensitive to others concerns, but you gotta be on guard anyways. I know we can agree on that.

Mrs. Jacobsen is a racist fruitcake dimwit. She personifies all that's wrong with the country right now, ie chicken#s who'd rather take away rights and liberties in exchange for percieved security. In fact I doubt this even happened, she's probably a pundit for politicians who want to facilitate more commie bull# laws like the Patriot Act. Why didn't she talk to any of the scary Arab men if she was suspicious? "Oh, I'm so scared, I'm so scared, I'm so scared." Why not make that the national anthem? Are we the land of the free, home of the brave, or land of the chicken#, prison of cowards? 30k + deaths from automobile accidents in this country every year, 3000 people get friend on national TV and people are ready to give up every single right they were gifted with. The level of chicken# hysteria and paranoia in this country makes me want to vomit.

Originally posted by taibunsuu
Mrs. Jacobsen is a racist fruitcake dimwit...

Not suited to logical inquiry and discussion, are you?

Originally posted by Eastern_Diamondback

Originally posted by taibunsuu
Mrs. Jacobsen is a racist fruitcake dimwit...

Not suited to logical inquiry and discussion, are you?

Maybe not when it comes to people making horror stories out of perfectly normal airline flights, lol. Come on, her story is beyond hyperbole, and the fact that it gets other people scared is ludicrous. Like I said, let's change the national anthem to "Oh I'm so scared, oh I'm so scared."

This woman is probably a pundit, ie one of the people who can spread propaganda for the politicians who have to stay 'honest.'

If people are that suspicious on an airplane, don't sit there like a cow, get up and talk to them yourself.

Oh wait, that'd be taking security manners into your own hands. I'm sorry, the government has to keep us safe. We just say 'moo' and do as we're told.

SNOPES has debunked Annie's account as an urban legend.

curme I just wanted to add the concluding paragraphs that NRO's article ended with, maybe you had forgotten to add them to your recent post. Surely you were not being selective in the ones presented were you?

National Review Online

Which is definitely not the same as saying Jacobsen was wrong to worry. The proven existence of this band confirms one of the last details of her story, and her story confirms some of our worst fears about airline security. The mindset of passengers, of the crew, and even of the law-enforcement personnel (Jacobsen said a flight attendant reassured her husband by pointing out that air marshals were on the flight), and decision makers higher up the ladder was reactive, not proactive.

June 29 was no ordinary day in the skies. That day, Department of Homeland Security officials issued an "unusually specific internal warning," urging customs officials to watch out for Pakistanis with physical signs of rough training in the al Qaeda training camps. The warning specifically mentioned Detroit and Los Angeles's LAX airports, the origin and terminus of NWA flight 327.

That means that our air-traffic system was expecting trouble. But rather than land the plane in Las Vegas or Omaha, it was allowed to continue on to Los Angeles without interruption, as if everything were hunky-dory on board. It certainly wasn't. If this had been the real thing, and the musicians had instead been terrorists, nothing was stopping them from taking control of the plane or assembling a bomb in the restroom. Given the information they were working with at the time, almost everyone should have reacted differently than they did.

Jacobsen's fear was quite natural under these circumstances, and she has done us a service by pointing out some egregious shortfalls in our airline security. Danke Schoen, Darling. Let's hope the right people are listening.

Snopes obviously plagerized NRO's article- there sure isn't any attribution and it appears they claim the info as their own.
Snopes

As things turned out, although the events Ms. Jacobsen claims to have witnessed on her flight did occur (more or less), her interpretation of them (that they involved a group of terrrorists making a dry run for building a bomb in-flight) was erroneous.

Hardly an urban legend, all they say is that the 14 Syrians were in fact musicians based on another publications article that ends by saying she was right to point out the problems with airline security.

I seen this lady and her husban on CNN today telling thier story, in the first two hours they got 2 million hits to the story. They are very serious, this is no urban tell.

Originally posted by taibunsuu

Maybe not when it comes to people making horror stories out of perfectly normal airline flights, lol. Come on, her story is beyond hyperbole,

Her account has been verified.

This woman is probably a pundit, ie one of the people who can spread propaganda for the politicians who have to stay 'honest.'

LIke I said, not suited to logical inquiry and discussion.

If people are that suspicious on an airplane, don't sit there like a cow, get up and talk to them yourself.

Oh wait, that'd be taking security manners into your own hands. I'm sorry, the government has to keep us safe. We just say 'moo' and do as we're told.

This is the only thing you've said that has merit. Americans need to stop being wimps. Stop being afraid of offending someone. Stop putting your security entirely in someone else's hands.

Originally posted by Eastern_Diamondback

Originally posted by taibunsuu

Maybe not when it comes to people making horror stories out of perfectly normal airline flights, lol. Come on, her story is beyond hyperbole,

Her account has been verified.

This woman is probably a pundit, ie one of the people who can spread propaganda for the politicians who have to stay 'honest.'

LIke I said, not suited to logical inquiry and discussion.

If people are that suspicious on an airplane, don't sit there like a cow, get up and talk to them yourself.

Oh wait, that'd be taking security manners into your own hands. I'm sorry, the government has to keep us safe. We just say 'moo' and do as we're told.

This is the only thing you've said that has merit. Americans need to stop being wimps. Stop being afraid of offending someone. Stop putting your security entirely in someone else's hands.

That's what I'm saying. I mean look at this woman's 'about me' in her website, she's a writer from Nova Scotia. She gets around brown people and panics. I just can't believe people take her account seriously. Her whole writing is summed up by "14 brown Arabs got on the plane with me and I was #ting my pants the whole flight."

The current government loves this type of writing, trying to make Stephen King stories out of airline flights. The real horror is that people aren't using their brains but just taking a panic mentality about it. 41,945 people in the year 2001 died in auto accidents in the US, and 3.4 million were injured. 3500 people died on 9/11 yet the fact that it was an attack allows people's minds to be frozen by fear and treat all Arabs like they're terrorists. It's absolutely ridiculous. So I hear about this white chick undergoing the sheer horror of sitting on a plane with 14 Arabs and I have little pity. Arabs are normal people. How about Tim McVeigh, Unabomber, Charles Whitman, Hitler and the other Nazis, Napoleon, Stalin, all the evil white guys in history, do they make all white guys are evil? If those 14 brown Arabs had been white Arabs (yes there are Arabs who are white) and they were still speaking Arabic I bet she'd think they were Russians or something and wouldn't have been scared and this article never written. She's a racist and she's ignorant and the story reaks of hysteria and cowardice. If she's too scared to fly with brown people who speak funny she shouldn't #ing fly.

How is it that you cannot grasp that this is not about color? I agree her story is told from the vantage point of an overly frightened woman. But are you saying that their behavior on that plane (which should not have been permitted regardless of race) coupled with the fact that they were from Syria, one of the most notorious countries for anti-american sentiment, should have been viewed by the passengers as just a normal flight with "brown" people on it? There are thousands of flights every day in which people fly with "brown" people, and if they behave normally like the other passengers there will be no problems. But if you mean to advocate they should be permitted to congregate out of their seats and seemingly guard the restroom while they take turns going in and out, then I only hope you are on a flight and something like this occurs, we'll see how clean your underwear are then. It has nothing to do with race, just nationality, so your McVeigh, unibomber, and Hitler comparisons hold no water, we're talking about airline terrorism, in which none of them were ever involved so quit reaching.

The whole episode reminds me of the movie, "Blazing Saddles" when the sheriff says, "Excuse me while I whip this thing out!"

One of the funniest movies of all times. It just had an anniversary.

What I found quite disturbing in this article, but what did appear innocent enough at first without further consideration, was that the stewardess was so willing to divulge information about the presence of air marshalls on board and the alertness of the staff to the author (Annie Jacobson).

At first glance this seems innocent enough, just an attempt to calm a distressed passenger, but this willingness to divulge critical information such as this or anything else that could prove to be useful to a terrorist seems to be yet another crack in security. If Al-Qaeda were to use caucasion men to undertake missions then they could easily exploit this weakness by feigning fear and anxiety and therefore gain critical information that could determine how they could overrun the cockpit.

I think it is important to look into even the most minute instances of lax security that have the potential to aid a hijacking as Al-Qaeda will take whatever they can get in this post 9/11 age of intense vigilance.

The hysterical skies
She survived a flight with 14 harmless Syrian musicians -- then spread 3,000 bigoted and paranoid words across the Internet. As a pilot and an American, I'm appalled. SALON

A pilot gives his view on the article.

Hilarious picture curme, if only the Syrians we are talking about were only reading the paper nonchalanlty, this discussion wouldnt be taking place. And by the way, the Syrians were here illegally on expired visas, so if they were checked as thoroughly as you believe, again we wouldnt be having this discussion. It seems this ladies "fabricated" story has gained more national attention:
www.msnbc.msn.com...
(about halfway down the transcript)
Maybe another funny picture you could post would be the planes crashing into the WTC, or somebodies face comically distorted as they jump from the top floors to escape the fire. Hahaha.
It seems you will stop at nothing to discount our legitimate safety concerns.

p.s. my username is inverted cuz Im at work

Michelle Malkin has been tracking the story, and explains about the visa. In a nutshell, the reporter may of been mistaken about the visas, she is waiting to hear back from him, and when you apply for an extension, it is considered automatically approved until the application has been processed.

Also, Michelle had an interesting link,
AIR MARSHALS SAY PASSENGER OVERREACTED

I never had much respect for Michelle Malkin until I had been tracking this story. Even though I disagree with her on almost every issue, she really does an objective job in reporting the facts. She puts a little spin on them, but that's to be expected from both sides. She has earned my begrudging
respect.

I just put the SALON link up because I thought it would be interesting to hear a pilots perspective.


EDIT: Come on jd27, that WTC comment was a little over the line. And it's the illegitimate concerns that is the problem.

[edit on 23-7-2004 by curme]

My WTC comment was only a way to outline that this is not a laughing matter. And there is no way the concern of one passenger can summon the JTTF and FBI to intercept a flight, not to mention that when the passenger asked the flight attendant, she said they were concerned as well and were passing notes, and even the link you provided states they are not allowed publicly to confirm that. And the visa issue is still up in the air, but should have been addressed before they boarded the plane. And why were they allowed to break the rules on board? And would you go as far as to say that given their behavior, there is no way they could have been up to no good and the passengers concern was completely unmerited, and racist just because they happened to be from a region that we naturally are going to be more cautious (and for good reason) of? So in a way youre saying that because of our pre-disposition to suspect them, we should not suspect them at all, even if they behave strangely. Like one of the guests on the link I posted said, if they were white, they wouldve been asked to go back to their seats, but because of their nationality, which harbors a unified religious movement to conquer us, they were permitted to break the rules.

[edit on 23-7-2004 by 27jd]

[edit on 23-7-2004 by 27jd]