According to the Washington Times federal air marshalls fear that passengers will be reluctant to report suspicious behavior for fear of being called racist after Muslims made exactly that charge in a press conference at Ronald Reagan Washington National Airport. At issue is the detention of the Minneapolis Six. Rabiah Ahmed, spokeswoman for the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR), claims Muslims "walk around on eggshells" for fear of arousing suspicions.
"Because one person misunderstood the actions of other law-abiding citizens, they were able to trigger a very long and daunting process for other travelers that were pulled off the plane in handcuffs and detained for many hours before they were cleared."
The imams say they were removed from the Phoenix-bound flight because they were praying quietly in the concourse. They had been in Minnesota for a conference sponsored by the North American Imams Federation.
But other passengers said the imams were testing the limits of what passengers and flight crew would put up with.
The imams, they said, tested the forbearance of the passengers and flight crew in what the air marshal called a "[political correctness] probe."
"The political correctness needs to be left at the boarding gate," the marshal said. "Instilling politically correct fears into the minds of airline passengers is nothing less than psychological terrorism."
The passengers and flight crew said the imams prayed loudly before boarding; switched seating assignments to a configuration used by terrorists in previous incidents; asked for seat-belt extensions, which could be used as weapons; and shouted hostile slogans about al Qaeda and the war in Iraq.
Flight attendants said three of the six men, who did not appear to be overweight, asked for the seat-belt extensions, which include heavy metal buckles, and then threw them to the floor under their seats.
Robert MacLean, a former federal air marshal, expressed the fear yesterday that the situation "will make crews and passengers in the future second-guess reporting these events, thus compromising the aircraft's security out of fear of being labeled a dogmatist or a bigot, or being sued."
File this one under Religion of Peace.
Islamonazi CAIR Relentlessly Undermining Airline Security
http://www.terrorfreeoil.org/videos/MS112106-2.php - MSNBC video
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Posted by: Terror-Free Oil | December 01, 2006 at 10:47 PM