Im sure they plotted this at their "confrence". Its an attack upon our national security and should be seen for the "psycological" terrorism that it is.

So an unidentified source on this flight cites an interpretation of the comments of these imams from an unidentified Muslim, who somehow otherwise found himself in the confidence this "Pauline" person -- probably reported himself to her right away, knowing that she would soon be giving out anonymous interviews. Five paragraphs to set that up, by the way; perhaps a new record.

a gate attendant told the captain that she did not want to fly with them

That just proves it, doesn't it?

Face it, if you look middle eastern and you act like a terrorist, you are going to be asked to leave a flight whether you like it or not. Civil rights have nothing to do with it Ahmed, it's the allah akbar and changing seats while chanting shit about virgins and bin laden that will get you arrested asshole.

Whether it is Muslim imams or members of a nut case church, 9 out of ten of these cases in the future will be someone trying to set up a situation whereby they can win a big discrimination law suit. However, the one out of ten that is the real thing should cause those who insist on playing with fire get to burned; as in sent to jail for causing potential problems for their actions. If I have to take off my shoes to get on each and ever flight in the future, then I have no problem with six "imams" who are carrying on questionable conversations aboard an aircraft being ask to get off. The constitution gives me the right to say pretty much what ever I want to, however my common sense prevents me from doing it.

Astigafa:

One day they will come for you, and there will be no one left to defend you.

Most have heard the term "asymmetric war", where the weaker side adopts the tactic of hiding. The fighters can hide in rough terrain or within a population that supports them. Hiding within a population works well if the stronger side values innocent lives more than the weaker side. That's the case in Iraq.

Radical Islam certainly doesn't have the communication channels that the U.S. has, so in this asymmetric propaganda war radical Islam is hiding behind our anti-discrimination and free speech laws. Laws which radical Islam itself disdains.

The solution to asymmetric warfare such as in Iraq would be some technology that takes away the insurgent's ability to hide. The solution to asymmetric propaganda is the technology to quickly publish the truth, so that radical Islam's propagandists can't hide within their web of lies. If school buses can have video cameras why not commercial aircraft? I would even go so far as to transmit the video to the ground during the flight so that controllers can see what's going on. The technology already exists to do this with the digital cell phone network. I'm sure leftists will see this as another intrusion into privacy, but I don't believe anyone using public transportation has an expectation of privacy accept in the toilets. Nevertheless, I don't really care for the idea that a video of me picking my noise could end up on the web, so there would need to be legal and encryption safeguards developed to minimize that possibility.

The overall governing principle of Christianity is the Golden Rule.

In Islam, the general rule is that anything that is good for furthering Islam is good, anything that's bad for Islam is bad.

Maybe these imams work for Homeland Security, they did it to distract us and justify the fact that the TSA is keeping an "Automated Targeting System" in which American travelers are assigned numbered terrorist threat ratings which they can't find out about and can't challenge.

Imagine - the US government keeping secret ratings on you which they can pass around to other government agencies, but you can't learn yourself.

Wow observer, that actually sounds like a really good idea. I would give low numbers to old ladies and other obvious non threats. Then we can focus resources on people that could be threats. Not only is profiling logical, it works. It keeps us safer at the cost of inconvenience...if they actually have nothing to hide.

Yeah, charlie, I agree. We should trust the government, after all they always know best, right?

And if some grandma pays for a one-way ticket in cash, or has a bad credit rating, or is mixed up with someone else, too bad, right? She must have done something wrong. We can't let our Precious Government Secrets about all of us be revealed or challenged, right?

Observer, Whats your fear here? That you have a high number and they are going to make you take off your shoes more often than old ladies?

I hate big government, but profiling works. I guess I have nothing to hide so I don't fear being searched.

"So an unidentified source on this flight cites an interpretation of the comments of these imams from an unidentified Muslim, ...That just proves it, doesn't it?"

Heh. Hey, that's a good enough standard for the AP reporting on Iraq and plenty of people believe them.

Hmm...Richard Miniter "reports." Yes, he's always entertaining. There's pretty much nothing in his "report" that hasn't already been written about at length in such worthy publications as the Washington Times. But he does have "Pauline." Miniter assures us:

"Pauline said she never wanted media attention. She wrote an email to U.S. Airways and cc:ed her daughter, who unexpectedly emailed it to her friends. As the letter took on an internet life of its own, it made its way to the inbox of a retired CNN executive producer. Then, to her dismay, the feeding frenzy began."

If Pauline didn't want any media attention and was in fact writing to US Airways, why did she begin the email with the words:

"To all news stations concerned"?

Why did she go on to say "In defense of US Airways: *They* did a splendid job....*They* did not make a knee jerk reaction..."?

Wouldn't the words "*you* did a splendid job," or "*your staff* did..." be more appropriate if the email was really being written to US Airways?

Why would Pauline tell an airline:

"You in the media have a moral responsibility to investigate all of the facts, not just statements you are fed by them."?

And why did she say:

"Let's not sweep this under the rug as yesterday's news. I challenge the news media to investigate the real facts..."?

The entire email is a message to multiple media outlets. If it wasn't, then it's present form has been radically changed.

It seems that Miniter can't even get the start of his story right. But let's suppose that he told the truth - that Pauline really told him she didn't send the email to the press herself. In that case she lied - so why should we believe anything else she says?

Maybe the Imams really did act suspiciously. Maybe they really were trying to provoke a reaction.

Or maybe they're telling the truth and this is another case of hysterical overreaction and distortion - like the British tourists who refused to get on a plane because some Muslims were wearing pullovers. Or like the Welsh pilot removed from a plane because he had a Muslim-sounding name.

I could be wrong. But its my understanding that the email was sent to the airline but wasn't for them. She was already hearing the media condeming the airline for "intolerance" when she got home so she wanted to get the real story out. She could send it to the liberal media who will ignore it or to the airline who would be on her side.

We want a prayer room.

We want our own Muslim prayer room.

We want our own Muslim prayer room that faces Mecca.

We want our own Muslim prayer room that faces Mecca with separate facilities for men and women.

We want our own Muslim prayer room that faces Mecca with separate facilities for men and women with Muslim only bathrooms adjacent for ceremonial washing.

We want our own Muslim prayer room that faces Mecca with separate facilities for men and women with Muslim only bathrooms adjacent for ceremonial washing with long-term storage lockers so we don't have to transport our prayer rugs.

We want our own Muslim prayer room that faces Mecca with separate facilities for men and women with Muslim only bathrooms adjacent for ceremonial washing with long-term storage lockers so we don't have to transport our prayer rugs with a halal food court with Muslim only employees.

We want our own Muslim prayer room that faces Mecca with separate facilities for men and women with Muslim only bathrooms adjacent for ceremonial washing with long-term storage lockers so we don't have to transport our prayer rugs with a halal food court with Muslim only employees and a separate entrance with Muslim only screeners...

... and no video or audio surveillance.

If these muslims are so concerned about equal treatment and justice, why aren't they protesting in front of the Saudi Arabian embassy demanding equal treatment and justice for Christians and Jew?

There are no churches in that country because it's against the law to build one. It's even against the law to holds a prayer service in a private home. Can anyone even imagine what would happen to a group of Christians who tried praying publicly in a Saudi airport? They'd be lucky to be arrested before all those moderate Muslim passengers tore them to pieces for defiling the sacred land of the Prophet.

We'd better get it through our heads that to Muslims, the only ones entitled to fair and humane treatment in this world are Muslims. It is Allah's will. It is also Allah's will that all non-Muslims be treated like dirt.

Re: Profiling
(1) The Israilis do it, don't they? Haven't heard of any El-Al planes hijacked lately, have you?
(2) It seems to me that the only people complaining about profiling are the potential profilees. Wonder why?
(3) I understand that there were other muslims on flight 300, and they WEREN'T "PROFILED", since they didn't act in a manner to cause concern. Common sense says "if you yell fire in a crowded theater, you are gonna get your ass whupped"!!!

Not entirely correct. The 'dirt' that makes up the land of the holy city of mecca is certainly more important than unbelievers. Actually any 'dirt' that is land that makes up "dar al-islam" is usually more important.

Out of curiousity, shouldn't "bin Laden" sound pretty much the same in any language, since it's a name? Why did it take an Arabic speaker to spot that?

Out of curiousity, shouldn't "bin Laden" sound pretty much the same in any language, since it's a name? Why did it take an Arabic speaker to spot that?

Such names sound different in Arabic than in English. To pronounce it correctly in English one first needs to learn how to make barfing and spitting sounds as part of their normal speech. Only then can a native English speaker approach the sound of Arabic.

This incident is part of the larger effort to soften up the US in a PC manner.

These guys blocked the exits forward, mid-ship and aft. They took seats not assigned to them and one assumed a first class seat not his.

This was absolutely a provocation. It is but the beginning of a long effort to Islamify this country and recognize Islam above all other religions.

Where did this flying-Imam incident occur?

Where was the "pray-in" the other day?

Why?

Hint: Where is the newly elected Muslim representative from?

So who do you suspect will be the champion of this effort?

Now all you need do is connect those dots.

Sounds like it could be desensitization to me - get us to accept the most peculiar actions as normal and acceptable. (Or if not acceptable in a normal fashion then under the PC rules.) And then...

Or it could have been a test - how blatant could they be and still not provoke a response?

From everything available, this doesn't seem anything like normal activities by normal travellers. This WAS a test, in my opinion - and one which will be seen as successful in that the Imams didn't get arrested and deported.

The grain of truth in astigafa's complaint is that we don't know yet exactly what happened on that flight and that nothing in Miniter's article is sourced all that well. Thanks to the voracious demands of the 24/7 news cycle, half-truth and rumor get immediately reported as fact (cf. Katrina) and it takes several weeks, if not months, to get all the details sorted out.

But one thing is clear from the accounts is that the passengers were not upset merely by seeing some Muslims pray, but rather by other things they were doing. This refutes the lie being peddled by CAIR and other islamoterrorist apologists that the imams were singled out simply because they were Muslims.

We'll probably never know for sure why these 6 imams decided to make a scene. At this point, we can only speculate.

I think the airline acted rightly in this manner and I hope they don't cave to the PC police.

I can tell you how to cure the mooselum problem here in the USA very easy. Everytime one of the mooselums opens his mouth to complain whack him up the side of his head with a ball bat. If he gets up and asks why you did that (if he gets up) tell him that we treat mooselums like they treat thier women--like they don't exist.

To pronounce it correctly in English one first needs to learn how to make barfing and spitting sounds as part of their normal speech. Only then can a native English speaker approach the sound of Arabic.

Such a charitable Christian description of Arabic, MacLorry.

Since Jesus Himself spoke Aramaic, a language closely related to and sounding like Modern Arabic and Hebrew, I guess He made those "barfing and spitting" noises, too.

I'm over 270 lbs and unfortunately its not all muscle and its all in my gut, although I am tall.

I'm not anywhere near needing a belt extender. You have be pretty rotund to require one.

They make a nice strap with weight at the end for an improvised weapon and can be turned into improvised restraints.

If many asked for extenders, which should be easy to corroborate, and these guys aren't extremely plump, also easy to corroborate, they were up to something.

Since Jesus Himself spoke Aramaic, a language closely related to and sounding like Modern Arabic and Hebrew, I guess He made those "barfing and spitting" noises, too.

Well nobody knows exactly what ancient Arabic and Hebrew sounded like. Like any other language both usage and pronunciation change and without sound recordings it's only a guess as to what any language sounded like 2000 years ago. Nevertheless, these are very natural sounds, not noises as you claim. They are, however, uncommon to native English speakers.

Moslems are excused from praying while travelling. To me, that means no prayer rooms or concessions to praying Moslems. The Imams were simply trying to get publicity (they succeeded) by raising a bogus issue. Their goal: see how far they could push another issue that might weaken our security and strengthen their clout. If I had been on that plane, I would have demanded to deplane early on. THen I would have contacted Homeland Security to demand my rights.

I couldn't wait to see if the commi...er, leftists lingering here would rush to support these Islamic Nazis.

I guess liberals are predictable if nothing else.

If you do something to draw attention to yourself in an airport, you're going to be treated differently than people who aren't doing something to draw attention to themselves.

If you share common traits with people who pose a threat, the threshold for 'drawing attention' gets lowered because that, in and of itself, draws attention.

R.I.P. common sense.

>(1) The Israilis do it, don't they? Haven't heard of any El-Al planes hijacked lately, have you?

Yes they do. If they really don't like you, you don't fly. If they just don't trust you, they seat an armed guard next to you.

M16 rifle = good behavior.

.
We have to refuse to be intimidated, if someone makes someone report them for weird behavior, then that person should be sued by the passengers for causing them distress with their behavior.

These Imams were faking and goofing on the passengers, and were probably trying to get tossed off the plane just so they could play the victim card and go to court and make a scene. Any judge who allows this is garbage.

absurd thought -
God of the Universe says
pretend to be terrorists

scare people on a plane
get thrown off claim racism
.