Responding to questions abouot the validity of a lawsuit the Council on American-Islamic Relations filed on behalf of the 6 Imams, Arsalan Iftikhar said “As Americans, we deserve security based on intelligence and evidence - not paranoia, false reporting, bigotry and witch hunts at 32,000 feet”

At issue here is not the lawsuit which was filed against U.S. Airways, that was expected from the likes of CAIR. What is distrubing Americans enough to warrant a response from CAIR’s legal director was the announcement that they intend to sue the individual’s who reported the suspsicous behavior as well.

For those unfamiliar with this case, here it is in a nutshell. Just before Thanksgiving, 6 Muslim Imams were removed from US Airways Flight 300 from Minneapolis to Phoenix. The reason for their removal was several reports from passengers regarding suspicious behavior. The suspicious behavior included, praying loudly in the concourse and repeatedly shouted “Allah” when passengers were called for boarding; switching from their assigned seats to a pattern associated with the September 11 terrorist attacks; and asking for seat belt extenders although none of the men appeared to be overweight.

Arsalan Iftikhar wrote an editorial this morning entitled “False reporting is wrong” in which he says:

“The fact that we have to coin the new phrase “flying while Muslim” is indicative of the unraveling of our national social fabric.
Many Americans are aware of the case of six American Muslim imams (prayer leaders) who were removed from a US Airways flight. Notwithstanding the fact that the imams had already cleared TSA security and did nothing illegal, they were discriminated against by not being allowed to re-board any subsequent US Airways flights to Phoenix.”

Well of course US Airways didnt allow them to board any subsequent flights, they were removed under suspicion of terrorism! When 6 men display the amount of suspicious behavior these men did, it is not considered discrimination, or profiling, it is considered probable cause.

The ditorial goes on to say:

Reporting suspicious criminal activity to law enforcement authorities does not absolve anyone from the responsibility to be factual. False reporting is criminal. We want to find out whether these “John Does” made other false claims against the imams - not just that they were praying, however ignorant complaining about that might be.

Is this man truly a legal director for a national orginization? Six men get on a plane, all of them coming from the same “religous conference”, yet they go out of their way to not sit together. The legal director for CAIR calls reporting this to the Captain as “ignorant”.

As I have said in my previous article

I think it is important to point out, that although these 6 men did not break any laws, it is very possible they were testing limits. Testing the system to find out if they could indeed get away with sitting in unassigned seats in an effort to block access to key parts of an airplane. Testing the airlines to find out if they would indeed give seatbelt extenders (which are described as straps with a buckle) to 3 men who obviously have no need for them. I have little doubt that these 6 men proved much threat to the US Airways flight in question, however as any good soldier will tell you, the most important part of any attack is good recon.

I truly believe these 6 men did not have good intentions when boarding this flight. Wether this was indeed a recon mission which would be used to gather inteligence for a future mission, or it was simply a political ploy. It is completely possible their motive for acting suspiciously was because they wanted to get thrown off the plane in order to have grounds for a lawsuit later.

This lawsuit, regardless of the outcome, will only have a negative affect on the security of our airports. Fear of lawsuits has been a driving force in coporate policy, and this will be no exception.

In response to Arsalan Iftikhar’s quote about “flying while Muslim”, my reply is do not “fly while Muslim”, fly while American.

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CAIR, Terrorism