Oh mercy, I didn?t mean to make it sound like we were pitiful or anything. I can count on one hand the number of incidents we?ve had as family ? and most of those were ?normal? middle/high school teasing. It?s people who don?t know us that say or do the things that get to us. And articles such as this one that play on people?s fears.

And honestly, we might have been nervous on the plane too, although we?d have understood when the guy gave the thumbs up and said, ?Man, I finally got rid of that Big Mac. Feel like a new man. Here, have the rest of the fries.?

:) ok, I'm happy not to worry for you.

The story sounds far-fetched (the flight attendant approaches the woman and shares information about air marshalls?). The author's citing of Anne Coulter does indeed bring the credibility of the story into question, just as citing Michael Moore in such a way would do the same. Regardless of political views, Anne Coulter is not considered to be a serious and respected political commentator. She is a sensationalist who sells a lot of books to a true-believer audience, just as Fahrenheit 911 is not to be treated as a sober assessment of the Bush Administration. No serious journalist would do so.

two weeks ago on alaska airlines the pilot asked passengers to not form a line for the rest rooms- he did not say for security purposes, he said for safety (whatever that means)

When we flew US air in April to National and Southwest to San Francisco in March, both times the flight attendants asked that passengers not line up for the lavatories. I think it has been a fairly frequent request for sometime.

This story strikes me as being very similar to the reactions of someone who is anxious about flying in general. Their anxiety is very real, and so my guess is that dismissing their anxieties as silly is not going to be very helpful. To someone convinced that a plane is about to crash, every noise heard on the plane is not only significant, it seems imperative that they be able to stop these sounds from happening. The more they focus on how difficult (if not impossible) such control would be, the more it seems likely that the sounds and other things observed are, in fact, portenders of doom.

Attempts to reassure them that the plane isn't about to crash or be attacked by terrorists won't work, because they are already terrorized. Terror is not the less when it is caused by one's own thoughts, as opposed to actual events. The people in question are simulating so perfectly the feelings they would have if the plane was crashing, that for all practical purposes, the plane might just as well be crashing - or blowing up, as the case may be.

How can you persuade someone who is terrorized that more terror isn't about to happen?

It seems more productive to help them to mourn the loss of a very cherished belief - that they didn't just lose control of their lives when they boarded an airplane, they weren't in that much control before, either.

I have heard that announcement (no bathroom queues) before in flights, the first time about a year ago. I do recalled the Threat alarm was Elevated the first week of July.

Recent reports of active terrorist- recruiting among non-Middle Easterners may throw some profiling criteria out the window, though. However, how 14 Syrians get into one single flight and no stringent security provisions in place to avoid this type of situation is very troublesome to me. How good is to me that thanks to MY TAX DOLLAR some people in Iraq have running water when MY TAX DOLLAR is not being effectively used for the so-called HOMELAND SECURITY?????

I am amazed this thread hasn't been pulled.The minute I comment it probably will be,so maybe i'll just read on.

What is the point of this thread?

- There seems clear evidence 14 Syrians got on a flight
- There's also clear evidence they were tailed on the flight by sky marshalls: FAMS are widely reported to have confirmed it.
- Unquestionably, nothing happened
- The specific details of the account beggar belief (if you were an Arab terrorist, would you call off the action by cutting your throat in front of your intended victims and mouthing "no" - IN ENGLISH - to other terrorists?)
- No other passenger has confirmed any of this woman's nonsense

So it's dead simple. A group of Syrians innocuously got on a plane, the US government shadowed them, one hysterical idiot got the details wrong (as witnesses to most events do), and nothing happened.

Sounds to me like the Syrians - apart from their bizarre taste in food - did what they should and the marshalls did what they should.

So what's all the fuss about?

They also boarded in Detroit..which has one of the highest Arab populations in the US. I wouldn't be surprised if there were 20 or 30 Middle easterners onboard and she didn't recognize those.

Parts of her story just do not add up. I can't wait to see what Snopes comes up with.. Interesting links at the end of the aeticle.

Maybe this was a practice run or something?

But these terrorist goons should know that everyone is watching the airlines, even though it might not be PC with some, the security personell is watching everyone that comes into the airports closely.

I still think it was rather amusing how some people in here slip their anti Bush feelings in here, even though Bush's name has not been mentioned, except by me :D

Flanneruk:Ditto. Most people refuse to objectivel look at anything before they react emotionally.Your points are spot on.

Nothing to add but this thread is utterly fascinating... what an insight into the minds of strangers. :D
Bookmarking to be able to find later (if it's not delete!).

What if --- just speculating -- this were a test run staged by TSA/"our side" to see how passengers, crew would react?

Hard to imagine, otherwise, that instrument cases and McDonald's bags hadn't been searched, for one thing. And yes, I have been on a plane where no one was allowed to queue for the restroom (the F.A.'s kind of kept track of who stood up to go and said, "please stay in your seat, but you're next").

I'm just wondering, if this article is true, why did federal air marshalls just happen to be aboard...and when would they be called in normally? Do they just hang around the airport?


Patricia

I would say the 4 out the last 6 flights I took, either the pilot or a flight attendant made a "no standing at the cockpit waiting for the Lav" announcement.

One flight attendant was so into enforcing this that every single time I got up to use the lav, the F.A. made me sit back down because someone jumped up ahead of me. Finally I gave up and went to the back of the plane.

Finally have to speak up and say something on this thread. I consider myself to be on the fence politically, not right, not left. But I think some of you are underestimating Ann Coulter, who is a smart woman and excellent writer, whether you agree with her conservative stance or not. She's blunt, and calls a spade a spade, not PC at all, and the liberals don't like that. She speaks a lot of truth, though it doesn't always sound pretty. I don't agree with her on every issue, of course.

As to Fox being biased, no less than a communications study group at U.C. Berkeley very recently found the Fox Report with Brit Hume, 6 to 7 each night, to be the most balanced news coverage available on U.S. television. Not the whole network, but an individual news report, daily. I found that interesting considering where the study was done.

Time will tell if Jacobsen's article is a true accounting.

I certainly hope that time will tell, but this should be an easy story to verify and document -- so many were involved. It smacks a bit of a hoax in that some of the details seem a bit over the top (no search of cases? multiple air marshals? etc.) and there does seem to be a pro-profiling ax to grind here. The author of the article has written before, but here she seems way too eager to protest that things happened as she reported and that being anything less than terrified is stupid. Nonetheless, if it happened -- and how it actually happened -- is something that should be
brought to light. And if it didn't, we can certainly ask questions about why WWS published it.

As for the UC study, it matters a lot how the questions were asked and what the method of analysis was, not to mention who (faculty, students, political affinity group, etc.) did it, and taking a report of one finding out of context and without explaining what "balanced" meant to the investigators is misleading. Remember, balanced is not the same as objective (just because you can come up with two sides of something doesn't mean that both are true). In any case, Fox's choice of stories -- which precedes decisions about how to present them -- is driven more by sensation than by the public's right to know about important issues. As for Coulter, no denying she's sharp, fast, and effective, but a lot of questions can and have been raised about how fast and loose she plays with facts. No one would ever mistake her for an objective analyst nor even a balanced one, in any case.

I couldn't disagree with you more, soccr. Coulter doesn't play loose with the facts, she is usually right on with her facts. I don't always agree with her solutions, but she's one of the few people that I've seen who can stand up to the likes of James Carville and his ilk, and not falter, and not be proved wrong.

I believe that Fox News is more fair in their reporting than many news outlets, particularly ABC/NPR/BBC. Many liberals feel any view other than theirs cannot possibly be correct. That's not true. Where you have a Teddy Kennedy, you need a George Bush to balance. While I don't agree with all conservative viewpoints, I don't agree with much of liberalism either. Either side can be wrong on an issue, and I don't label myself as one or the other.

In my opinion, you are wrong about Coulter and Fox News.

Here are two well-documented, easy to confirm examples (I'll even give you the sources) of Coulter playing fast and loose with the truth:
--In her most recent book, she wrote that New York Times columnist Frank Rich called for John Ashcroft to stop focusing on Muslim Terrorists and concentrate on anti-abortion extremists. But it's not true--Rich's piece simply took Ashcroft to task for refusing to meet with Planned Parenthood--which has learned how to deal with terrorism in the form of bombings and gun attacks. See The New York TImes, October 27, 2001, "How to Lose a War".

--She also states that the media consortium study on the 2000 Florida vote showed "that Bush had won on any count" (her words). But the story she cites actually has the headline, "Study Finds Gore Might Have Won Statewide Tally of All Uncounted Ballots". Source: The Washington Post, November 12, 2001.

I can provide many, many more, if you'd like.