Deliberate Provocation
After reading some of the updates about the story of the six imams removed from a Northwest Airlines flight at the Minneapolis/St. Paul airport, it looks very much like a deliberate attempt to provoke and incident. It looks even more like it when the spokesman for the six arranged to have a reporter with him when he tried again to get tickets. The behavior the men indulged in is not at all normal and I rather doubt anyone who witnessed it thought they were harmless.
This morning Shahin returned to the Twin Cities International Airport to buy six more tickets for the flight to Phoenix, but a US Airways ticket agent and supervisor refused to sell him the tickets.
In an exchange witnessed by a Star Tribune reporter, the unnamed supervisor said Shahin's tickets had been refunded and that he needed to get tickets on another airline…..
….Pat Hogan, spokesman for the Metropolitan Airports Commission, said that witnesses to Monday's events told police that before the flight that besides praying, the imams were spouting anti-American rhetoric, talking about the war in Iraq and Saddam Hussein.
One of the imams was heard saying that he would do whatever is necessary to fulfill his commitment to the Qur'an, witnesses told police, Hogan said. Other witnesses said some of the imams were repeating "Allah, Allah," he said.
And a couple of the imams asked for seat-belt extensions, even though it did not appear they needed them, Hogan said.
All of this made passengers, the attendants and the pilot uncomfortable, Hogan said. As a result, the pilot called police to have the imams escorted from plane.
Airlines have the right not to allow passengers on a plane, Hogan said.
Others have quite a lot on the background of the spokesman. He's a peach, he is. I think this was a setup, a deliberate attempt to engineer an incident. See some of the other people bloggin this for background:
Power Line, Hot Air, Jihad Watch, Sweetness & Light, Confederate Yankee, Scared Monkeys, Dr. Sanity, Wake up America, Classical Values, Hot Air, The Jawa Report,
Other Links to this Post
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The Heretik : The Power of Prayer — November 22, 2006 @ 10:09 am
By old_dawg, November 21, 2006 @ 9:14 pm
The real problem is that we even allow these people into our country. We should have the same degree of religious tolerance toward Muslim Imams that Saudi Arabia has toward Christian ministers.
By daveinboca, November 21, 2006 @ 9:16 pm
The coverage by national media on tonight’s broadcast news [ABC & NBC] that I watched did not mention the connection of the Imam Shahin to a Hamas “charity.”
What a surprise!?!
Also, their refusal to accept the seats they were assigned makes it appear that they were acting as agents provacateurs, attempting to create a “cause celebre” to arouse radicalism in quiescent Muslims in the USA.
That wouldn’t surprise me at all.
By Solar C, November 22, 2006 @ 9:27 am
Yet another case of the country being divided.
Sometimes I think that “Simon and the Lefties” have it right.
I don’t like Muslims any more than I like Christians, but how many freedoms will we eventually give up in the name of safety?
By mokus, November 22, 2006 @ 12:38 pm
It’s a bit perplexing why Muslims would get on an airplane in the first place, since they’re constructed in the image of the Christian cross. That’s what keeps them aloft.
Perhaps the wise men of Islam have overlooked how the blasphemous practice of air travel might insult their god.