Pierre Legrand’s Pink Flamingo Bar

UPDATE: Driven by Michelle Malkin’s persistence the story reaches Washington and apparently some are not very happy with the Co-0peration of the officials testifying. Also it appears that yes indeed the Marshal’s themselves were worried about the group of 14 Syrians. And Washington isnt too impressed that the Band sings about Martyr’s!

Donald Sensing is back on the case and one does have to wonder why? He says that we are reading events into the text of Anne’s account then proceeds to distort the account to fit his version of events. In previous posts I have covered those distortions better than I do here. A list of earlier articles covering those distortions is at the end of this article.

I must be masochistic to be writing about Northwest Flight 327 again. The amount of email and commentary I have received about my previous posts 1 about “Annie Jacobsen’s Terror in the Skies, Again?” article in Women’s Wall Street, and her follow-up piece, is pretty daunting. Sorry, there is just no way I can respond individually. Most by far have ranged from expressing simple disagreement with my skepticism to taking me to task for not understanding we are at war and that all necessary measures must be taken, etc., a fact that I simply defy anyone to read through my site and conclude I somehow missed. Very, very few folks have been actually offensive, for which I am grateful I hope will continue. But precious few of the people criticizing me have actually dealt with Annie’s text itself.

Well I realize that I only get a meager average of 145 hits a day so Donald can be forgiven for not giving me credit for attacking his interpretation exactly because of his distortion of the text. The text does indeed speak for itself.

Now I must explain my reasons for being so persistent in countering Mr. Sensing. I see his attitude as being perhaps the most dangerous sort of attitude we might face in our war on terror. This war is characterized as an intelligence war, in an intelligence war if the Intelligence Services specifically discount regular citizens observations out of hand as simply the ravings of a scared person then we have a problem inside of this country. But indeed we do have this exact problem. Police forces around the country regularly look at the citizens as being in the way of law enforcement. Almost as if we are intruding into what they consider their territory. Multiply that effect by hundreds when you consider the CIA, DIA, FBI and the rest of the Alphabet Bureaucracies that are charged with defending us. The CIA will simply disregard evidence if it is not found by one of its agents. This war will not allow that sort of attitude. Donald Sensing so quickly started trying to kill the Anne Jacobsen story that I feel he is reflecting the mentality of the Bureaucracy he used to work for. We need to eradicate that sort of thinking. Not invented here should not mean not considered here.

Lets look at his latest attacks on Anne’s story.

For the fact remains that Annie’s story is simply a scarily well-written shaggy-dog story. What she and many others have is a lot of suspicion, but the fact is - and I guess I need to keep emphasizing it - her suspicions were all unfounded. Michelle Malkin wrote   that people (like me, I guess) who say that “nothing happened” are, acting like 9/10 sheeple. Better a false alarm than a flaming plane.Except that there was no flaming plane precisely because it was a false alarm. Again: nothing happened . For some reason I get the impression that a lot of you think that’s bad news.

So if we are to take Donald at his word the plane has to hit the ground or worse before we can start to be alarmed. I don’t think it is bad news  that it didn’t hit the ground, I think it is very bad news that people who have admitted to working in our Law Enforcement branch’s need for the crime to be committed before they get suspicious. Haven’t we covered this ground before? Moussaui ring any bells? Phoenix FBI office . flight training. bells. ring.?  

Certainly I understand the reluctance of Law Enforcement to consider being proactive. It is a wonderful safety guard against the violation of our rights, but we are at war. Syrians are members of a country that sponsors terror as well as sending terrorists into Iraq to attack our soldiers. Syria is a Police State which is reputedly even more tightly controlled than Iraq was prior to our liberation, does Donald actually believe that these Syrians should be treated like any other American? No additional vigilance is required? No additional cautions? He acts as if we should have just considered them to be another group of Americans out for a leisurely jaunt around this wonderful country.

Frankly - I hate to be so direct - most of you are reading Annie’s piece eisegetically, pouring into it your own fears and preconceptions and (dare I say it?) prejudices. For what does Annie herself actually relate? Only this:

Now to the meat of the matter.  Right off Donald gets it wrong in his attempt to defend his attack on this story. Anne is NOT reading anything into this story, she is the one who is relating this to us. Anne herself lived this story, she is just trying her best to relate it. Anne, the Flight Attendants, Pilots, FBI, LAPD were all concerned by the actions of these men….they weren’t reading anything into the text they were living it.

• Donald goes on to list his supposedly rational look at her text.
  My husband and I noticed Arab men boarding the airliner and that made us scared.

This is disturbing, Donald accuses us of reading things into the text then goes right ahead and distorts the actual text. Why? Ridicule is an effective means of discrediting a story, because if you are effective the person telling the story loses credibility with those who are reading. Anne does NOT say she was scared.

• Before and during the flight, the Arabs did some things that made us even more scared, especially their trips to the loo. At least some of the other passengers and crew expressed or displayed concern or fear also. These fears compounded until the plane landed.

Choreographed trips to both the forward and rear rest rooms, eating your McDonald’s in the lavatory, standing in front of the cockpit door watching the choreograph ballet, none of that apparently is enough to make Donald pause. That the ballet dancers were Syrians, whose country is currently sponsoring terrorists who are killing US soldiers, nope no big deal. That the trained people aboard, Flight Attendants (who might have experience dealing with Syrian Bands) and Pilots were also a bit worried, no problem to Donald. The plane didn’t crash.

• Agents from multiple LE organizations met the plane and detained the 14 men. They were investigated and released. FAMS identified them as a band playing a gig in a casino near LA.

These same originations had also not found Ali Mohamed Almosaleh  on any terror watch-lists. Are we that confident that the incompetence that marked Terror Watch-lists prior to 9/11 has been corrected? Do we blithely assume that because we had mistakes with out earlier attempts at updating Watch-lists that now everything is fine because the bureaucracies in charge have gotten religion? Another reason to doubt these very same groups is the quickness which these groups are quick to say that any incident is NOT a terrorist incident. Remember the LA Airport shooter?

That’s pretty much it, folks. That is what is in the text about what actually occurred. Annie does a lot of dot connecting from one TSA alert or warning to another, then connects them all to the 14 men, who were in fact guilty of nothing except stupidity or inexcusable unconcern/arrogance at how their fellow passengers were reacting to them. Both are detestable, but not criminal.

Nowhere in her either of Anne’s articles does she state that she expected criminal charges. She does expect public officials to be more careful about people who fit the profile of those who attacked us on 9/11 coming from terrorist states .  She expects that our officials have changed their mindset from finding those people who have committed a crime to preventing crime.  This required profiling, this requires proactive action against at least those people who come from countries we know sponsor terrorism.

This was the point of Anne writing about her experiences, to show what she believes are problems with our security. She was a bit dismayed that the Federal Marshals onboard didn’t do anything and whether it was a good idea for them to give away their positions especially given the circumstances may be debatable. Though it is likely that if a Texas man had gotten drunk and made a scene the Marshals would have subdued him. That they refused to give away their position may indicate that they too were worried about the situation and wanted to keep the advantage of surprise should they be needed. Anne’s point was wondering if Political Correctness might end up costing us lives and anyone who is rational about our security must agree with her point that our reluctance to treat Arabs, who come here from known terror states, the way we treat each other when we act stupid is a terrible way to insure another 9/11 does not occur.

Now about the story that this group of men were a band from Syria Michelle Malkin  has published a letter from Mark Powelson, a former PBS executive and San Francisco magazine editor familiar with the world music scene. It is a severe indictment of a New York Times “report” on this incident. Here is an excerpt…go to Michelles excellent site to see the rest.

Something still doesn’t add up. There are indeed a few–but only a few–Syrian musicians and groups of the kind of reputation in the world music world that give them the opportunity for actual music tours…the big WOMAD fest last year bemoaned the fact that the large group called Whirling Dervishes from Syria couldn’t get travel visa’s ok’ed in time for the festival. But it’s hard to name or find a large ensemble (ten or more) Syrian group with a rep big enough for someone to pay their travelling $$ beyond Whirling Dervishes.
And there are a number of noted and

One Hand Clapping  
Here are some links to other bits of this story around my site.
My original post on the Terror in the Skies story here.  
Comment I left on Michelle Malkins site here.  
My opinion of the reaction to Anne’s story, The Nation of Cowards here.  
My response to Donald Sensings attack of the Article. Here  
Thoughts on Anne Jacobsens follow up article. here  

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