California Conservative

The Christian Science Monitor’s article about the Flying Imam Fiasco simply gets it wrong. Here’s their first mistake:

Take the controversy over six imams who were removed from a US Airways flight last October, and their recent decision to sue for discrimination, not just the airline and its employees, but also some passengers who complained about their preflight behavior.

At the heart of the controversy are Americans’ concern about terrorism, ignorance about Islam, and constitutional guarantees of freedom of religion and speech. In the middle are the airlines, which are charged with the difficult task of sorting out legitimate complaints about unusual behavior from those based on prejudice and fear of people’s appearance, and to do it in a short period when dealing with a particular flight.

With all due respect, the “heart of the controversy” doesn’t include concerns about “ignorance of Islam”. Nor does it center on “constitutional guarantees of freedom of religion and speech.” I’ve been watching this story since it broke. I’ve written about it numerous times. What’s at the “heart of the controversy” are the activities of a group of terrorist-sympathizing imam acting in a very suspicious manner. What’s at the “heart of the controversy” is the possibility of them acting this way deliberately so they can evoke some sympathy.

They’d likely then use that sympathy to get their legislative agenda passed, which includes the End Racial Profiling Act, which is co-sponsored by Nancy Pelosi and John Conyers. It would also include legislation that would give special civil rights protections to Muslims, which is also sponsored by John Conyers. It might even include legislation that would gut the Patriot Act.

The imams’ lawsuit, brought in March at the federal district court in Minnesota, presents a thorny problem. On one hand, if individuals can be sued for making complaints that turn out to be false, it may discourage others from reporting suspicious activity. On the other, some people “still act out of prejudice,” says Penny Edgell, a sociologist at the University of Minneapolis.

“What we need to do is to figure out ways to encourage people to make responsible complaints,” she says. “Part of that is training those in the airlines to ask questions to help them sort out the basis for the complaints, whether it was a genuinely suspicious behavior, or is it simply a bias complaint motivated by somebody looking different.”

With all due respect to Ms. Edgell, this isn’t a thorny issue. These imams’ behavior was suspicious. Several of them bought one way tickets, which is something that raises red flags. That was further accentuated by the fact that several of the imams didn’t have baggage of any sort, raising another red flag. Even more worrisome was their behavior on the plane. Sitting in the same formation as the hijackers was guaranteed to set off lots of red flags, as was their asking for seat belt extensions even though several if them were positively skinny.

The truth is that the airlines’ training is just fine. It was the imams’ behavior that needs further scrutiny. Here’s another problem with the article:

The October incident sparked outrage among civil libertarians, Muslim-Americans, and others who thought it was un-American for five US citizens and a legal resident, who’d all been thoroughly screened by the Transportation Security Administration (TSA), to be suddenly taken off the plane as it sat at the gate because their behavior and Middle Eastern appearance frightened a few passengers.

With all due respect to Ms. Marks, the “October incident happened just before Thanksgiving, after the midterm elections, after Keith Ellison became the first Muslim elected to Congress. When a high profile media organization makes that big of a mistake, they lose all credibility with me. I’d cut them some slack if there weren’t any special events to use as ‘historical landmarks’. You’d think that the midterm elections and Thanksgiving would be good reminders of when something happened.

The men were returning from a religious conference in Minneapolis that focused, among other things, on religious tolerance. After they went through the TSA screening process for passengers, they went to the gate for their 5:45 p.m. flight to Phoenix. It was time for afternoon prayers and so, according to the imams’ complaint, three of them went to pray while the other three watched their bags.

I’d like to point out that this wasn’t a conference that actually focused on religious tolerance. That’s just part of their PR spin. If they cared about religious tolerance, they wouldn’t have invited known religious bigots like Wael Hamza Julaidan, Mazen Mokhtar, Abdullah Azzam and Siraj Wahhaj.

Here’s a little background on them:

Wael Hamza Julaidan is a “a former colleague of Osama bin Laden”. Abdullah Azzam is bin Laden’s mentor. Mazen Mokhtar is a web designer for Al-Qaeda and who has proclaimed his support for Hamas, which isn’t exactly a tolerant organization. That’s alot of religious intolerance before we even get to Siraj Wahhaj, whose name appears on the “U.S. Attorney’s list of unindicted co-conspirators of the 1993 World Trade Center attack.”

Considering who participated in this conference, I’d suggest that if these imams want to preach about religious intolerance towards Muslims, then they’d first better practice tolerance towards Jews and Christians. The fact that Julaidan, Mokhtar and Azzam have been associated with bin Laden tells me that they aren’t very tolerant people.

The fact that Ms. Marks wouldn’t know these basic facts leads me to believe that she simply didn’t do her homework on this article, which isn’t a crime but it is a little disturbing.

The other thing I’d ask is why didn’t all of the imams pray? You’ll notice that it says that three prayed but the other three stayed to “watched their bags.”

Technorati Tags: Siraj Wahhaj, Abdullah Azzam, Mazen Mokhtar, Wael Hamza Julaidan, Nancy Pelosi, John Conyers, End Racial Profiling Act, Hamas, al Qaeda, bin Laden, Homeland Security

Cross-posted at LetFreedomRingBlog

This entry was posted on Wednesday, May 2nd, 2007 at 12:50 am and is filed under Author: Gary Gross, CAIR, Corruption, Homeland Security, Media, Middle East, Pelosi, Special Interests, Subversives, Terrorism. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.