Friday August 12 2005
PUT AWAY THE MUSH BEFORE SOMEONE GETS HURT: If
you're interested in cracking open the head of a far left liberal
and wading around in the mushy goo that drives their reasoning
behind what causes terrorism and what we should do about it, I
direct you to this
article by Naomi Klein at The Nation.
I'll spare
you the fatuous details of how Klein traces the origin of radical
Islam back to America in 1948 (here's a hint, it involves the
phrase "Zionist project") and cut right to Klein's conclusion
about why we face the threat of terrorism today:
The
real problem is not too much multiculturalism but too little.
If the diversity now ghettoized on the margins of Western societies--geographically
and psychologically--were truly allowed to migrate to the centers,
it might infuse public life in the West with a powerful new
humanism. If we had deeply multi-ethnic societies, rather than
shallow multicultural ones, it would be much more difficult
for politicians to sign deportation orders sending Algerian
asylum-seekers to torture, or to wage wars in which only the
invaders' dead are counted. A society that truly lived its values
of equality and human rights, at home and abroad, would have
another benefit too. It would rob terrorists of what has always
been their greatest recruitment tool: our racism.
This is absolutely
nuts. Even if you set aside the intense self-loathing and victimology
in which this article is wrapped, you're still left with nothing
but gobbledygook. How exactly, as a matter of policy, are we supposed
to "infuse" the West with a "powerful new humanism"
and create "deeply multi-ethnic societies?" And do we
really believe that terrorists will respond to either of these
things by laying down their arms or renouncing violence against
the West? This is the kind of mushy reasoning that could get people
hurt. - T. Bevan 10:15 am Link
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Thursday
August 11 2005
POISON IN THE SYMPATHY WELL: I haven't been following
the Cindy Sheehan story as closely as some. I saw the Drudge
item earlier in the week claiming she had changed her tune
somewhat since her original meeting with President Bush and I've
seen the pictures of her sitting with Joe Hagin and Stephen
Hadley. And despite the support she's receiving from some of what
I would call the 'unsavory
elements' of the anti-war activist left, she still cut an
enormously sympathetic figure in my mind. Until today, that is.
Don't get
me wrong. This is a free country and Cindy Sheehan has every right
to say, think and do whatever she wants to do. She's suffered
a terrible loss, one which deserves a tremendous amount of deference,
respect, and sympathy. As far as I'm concerned, Sheehan is free
to demand to want to speak with the President and she's free to
disagree with and to question the merits of the President's policy
in Iraq as harshly and vocally as she wants.
But my sympathy
for Sheehan ran suddenly dry this morning when I read that she'd
taken to spouting the ultimate antiwar canard:
"I
don't believe his phony excuses for the war," she said
of Bush in an interview with a CBS reporter for the network's
Northern California affiliates. "I want him to tell me
why my son died.
"If
he gave the real answer, people in this country would be outraged
— if he told people it was to make his buddies rich, that
it was about oil."
There is
not, nor has there ever been, a single shred of evidence suggesting
that Cindy Sheehan's son died to make Bush's oil buddies rich.
Lest this come as some sort of shocking news, Bush's oil buddies
were plenty rich before the war, and the suggestion Bush would
send young American men and women to die in a fit of crony capitalism
is so odious and farfetched it calls into question the intelligence
and motives of anyone who accepts it as reality.
It would
be one thing if Sheehan were merely echoing her son's belief that
he had been fighting an immoral war in Iraq for the sake of enriching
Bush's oil pals. I may be wrong, but I don't believe that's the
case. So how much of a service is the mother doing the son's memory
(and the memory of all our soldiers) by making such a claim?
I understand
that grief and anger might make you do strange things. But I also
understand that being showered with praise and support from the
most rabid fringes of the antiwar base and being instantly transformed
into a media celebrity might lead you to do strange things too.
- T. Bevan 9:15 am Link
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Tuesday
August 9 2005
TO PROFILE OR NOT TO PROFILE?: Colbert King is confused.
Two days after the 7/7 suicide bombings in London King
argued that we're still woefully unprepared to face another
attack by Muslim fanatics here in America:
"Islamic
jihadists, we seem to forget, haven't limited themselves to
creating havoc in Iraq and Afghanistan. America and the West
remain on their list of targets. Yet until and unless some horrific
event such as London comes along, Americans don't act like a
nation living on the edge of peril."
But three
weeks later, after Paul
Sperry and Charles
Krauthammer suggested we actually focus on 18-34 year old
Muslims as part of our domestic security effort instead of continuing
the politically-correct-but-massively-inefficient policy of random
searches, King
exploded in outrage: "What the racial profilers are
proposing is insulting, offensive and -- by thought, word and
deed, whether intentional or not -- racist."
Let's put
Mr. King's theory into action. Two weeks ago, in a little noticed
event, a United
Airlines flight from Los Angeles to London was diverted to Boston
after crew members observed three Pakistani passengers acting
suspiciously. What follows is an account of what a crew member
claiming to be on the flight saw:
The
three Pakistani passengers, two in BC (business class) seats
(8A and 14D) and one in economy, got our attention before takeoff
with self upgrading, moving about the plane, changing seats
several times and asking the crew about our layover, where we
stayed, etc. We basically ignored them and wrote them off as
bothersome.
During
the bar service, two of the guys kept drinking a lot, and asking
for refills before we got two rows away. Now we wrote them off
as obnoxious, as well as annoying. We cut down the drinks to
the guy in BC who wanted more scotch and wine with dinner.
After
the meal service, the guy in 8A, who hadn't said a word, got
up and went to 14D and spoke with him for 10 minutes. We didn't
even know they knew each other as they had no prior contact.
The
F/As (flight attendants) in economy were concerned over the
behavior of the economy passenger and asked for a name check.
The cockpit got back to us to let us know all had gone through
secondary clearance in LAX and were all ticketed to Islamabad,
Pakistan.
All
the guys kept going to the bathroom and now we were checking
the loos every time they came out. After 8A spoke with 14D,
he (14D) went to economy and went straight to the overhead in
32CDE, took out a briefcase and brought it back to his BC seat.
32E was where the economy passenger was originally seated, but
he had moved to 31G on the aisle. All the F/As were keeping
an eye on these three and every time we would casually look
at them, they were staring at us, watching everything we were
doing.
The
economy guy went to the back galley and kept the duty free sellers
busy by asking to see everything and having them open several
items to the point where one of them wrote on a piece of paper
to another F/A, "He's distracting us, see what's happening
in the cabin"....
I was
communicating all this information to the cockpit, as well as
our concerns. I don't think they took it as seriously as we
did. That was until the economy guy went to the F/As in the
back and asked them if we had been up in the air for 3 1/2 hours
yet. He kept asking when 3 1/2 hours would be. At the same time,
the 14D guy went up to the BC F/As and asked if we'd been flying
3, 3 1/2 or 4 hours yet.
Now
most passengers ask how much longer we have to go and not if
we've been flying a specific time, and we figured with all their
drinking, they didn't want to know the time so they could face
Mecca for their prayers.
UAL
and the pilots decided we needed to divert before we got over
the Atlantic (we were about 3 1/2 hours out from LAX, over the
Hudson Bay) so we did a slow turn and descent to Boston for
1:50 hours.
About
5 minutes before landing, the Captain made announcement we had
a navigational problem that needed to be looked at before we
crossed the ocean. We were all watching the guys when they were
told we were landing, and none reacted abnormally.
We
moved a very muscular passenger to seat 1E on the aisle and
an SA (space available passenger) to seat 1A and told them we
had security issues and if anyone not in uniform came up the
aisle towards the cockpit, they were to try and do anything
to stop them.
We
also moved one of the F/As sitting up front (she is 5 foot and
weighs about 100 pounds) to another jumpseat and moved another
male F/A up front so there were three guys in the jumpseats
by the cockpit.
The
landing was normal, and very quiet on the plane since it was
0300 and most passengers were asleep when we woke them. We pulled
to the gate, but the jetway didn't come toward us for two minutes.
I looked out and saw about 30 swat team guys in flak jackets
and machine guns. Well, I guess everyone figured out at this
point it was not a navigational problem.
As
I went to door 2, the guy in 8A was staring out the window at
our welcoming party. The guy in 14D was on his mobile phone
and he was later observed hiding the phone in the pillow when
the armed guys came on board. 20 swat team guys boarded the
plane, ten down each aisle with guns ready.
The
FBI, TSA, Joint Terrorism Task Force Rep, Boston Police, Airport
Police and Massachusetts State Troopers interviewed the Captain,
the two F/As who had the most contact with them and me for two
hours. The FBI also interviewed the passengers sitting around
the guys. The FBI asked the Captain when he realized the severity
of the situation, and he replied, "When he saw the fear
in the eyes of his crew..."
By
the time we got to the hotel, we were already on the news, and
several hours later, we heard the passengers were interviewed,
cleared and released. The FBI told me they felt they were on
a test run surveillance flight, observing and watching our routine
and looking for weaknesses in our security. All the authorities
reassured us we did the right thing and that was backed up by
the passengers who thanked us and said that they were so glad
we watching out for their well being. I think as F/As, we sense
when something just isn't right, and this flight had too many
small incidents that didn't add up, and thankfully, we acted
on our feelings.
Assuming
the account is authentic (or even if we take it as a detailed
hypothetical) we're left with a few questions for Colbert King.
Did the crew members do the right thing in this situation? Do
you consider them racists for paying extra attention to the behavior
of these three men because of their ethnicity? If you were on
board this flight and witnessed the actions of these men would
it have made you uncomfortable and if so, what does that make
you? - T. Bevan 11:15 am Link
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