California Conservative

Pajamas Media has posted an extensive article written by Richard Miniter on the ‘flying Imam Fiasco’. It’s understatement to say that it’s must reading. Here’s some of the things that the Agenda Media isn’t telling us:

As the plane boarded, she said, no one refused to fly. The public prayers and Arabic phone call did not trigger any alarms - so much for the p.c. allegations that people were disturbed by Muslim prayers. (emphasis mine)

Here’s another important bit of information that wasn’t reported before:

Another passenger, not the note writer, was an Arabic speaker sitting near two of the imams in the plane’s tail. That passenger pulled a flight attendant aside, and in a whisper, translated what the men were saying. They were invoking “bin Laden” and condemning America for “killing Saddam,” according to police reports.

Based on this detail alone, the passengers’ reaction wasn’t paranoia-driven, as the imams have suggested, but was based on a variety of strange things happening aboard the plane, not the least of which is this Arabic-speaking passenger who heard the imams “condemning America for ‘killing Saddam’”.

As I stated in my first post on this fiasco, Imam Shahin made this ugly quote:

“I want to go home. I don’t want phone numbers,” Shahin said. “I want to buy six tickets. They have no reason to refuse service to us just because of the way we look,” he said “It’s terrible. We want America to stay the way it is because we love this country.”

It’s now apparent that they weren’t refused service “because of the way we look.” They were treated this way because what they did was alarming in a post 9/11 world. It isn’t unreasonable to think that Shahin’s comment was his attempt to conceal the facts.

Meanwhile an imam seated in first class asked for a seat-belt extension, even though according to both an on-duty flight attendant and another deadheading flight attendant, he looked too thin to need one. Hours later, when the passengers were being evacuated, the seat-belt extension was found on the floor near the imam’s seat, police reports confirm. The U.S. Airways spokeswoman Andrea Rader said she did not dispute the report, but said the airline’s internal investigation cannot yet account for the seat-belt extension request or its subsequent use.

Not only is it strange that a man would ask for a seat-belt extension when he didn’t need it but then there’s also new that only a single imam had purchased a first class ticket. The more I read, the more red flags that appear.

A seat-belt extension can easily be used as a weapon, by wrapping the open-end of the belt around your fist and swinging the heavy metal buckle.

I imagine you could use it as weapon by grabbing either end of the strap, then cinching it up tight to choke someone with. I’m sure those aren’t the only ways you can turn that extension into a weapon either.

Other factors were also considered: All six imams had boarded together, with the first-class passengers - even though only one of them had a first-class ticket. Three had one-way tickets. Between the six men, only one had checked a bag.

I strongly recommend you read Mr. Miniter’s entire article. I’ll guarantee that it’ll be an eye-opening experience.

UPDATE: Here’s the link to Richard Miniter’s NY Post article. It contains much of the same information but it’s laid out a bit different. It’s well worth the reading.

Technorati Tags: Flying Imams, Pajamas Media, CAIR, Richard Miniter, Islamophobia

Cross-posted at LetFreedomRingBlog

This entry was posted on Saturday, December 2nd, 2006 at 2:20 pm and is filed under Author: Gary Gross, Homeland Security, Media, Religion, 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.