Thursday, November 30, 2006

Marshals decry imams' charges

Washington Times reported Air marshals, pilots and security officials yesterday expressed concern that airline passengers and crews will be reluctant to report suspicious behavior aboard for fear of being called "racists," after several Muslim imams made that charge in a press conference Monday at Ronald Reagan Washington National Airport.

For one thing, Islam is not a race. And the passengers were just being vigilant, since the imams did several things that were suspicious, including not taking their assigned seats, but sitting in the first two seats in first class (they were ticketed for coach), two in the middle, and two at the back of the plane, they asked for seat belt extenders, and then put them under thir seats rather than using them, etc.
Six imams, or Muslim holy men, accused a US Airways flight crew of inappropriately evicting them from a flight last week in Minneapolis after several passengers said the imams tried to intimidate them by loudly praying and moving around the airplane. The imams urged Congress to enact laws to prohibit ethnic and religious "profiling."
The real question is why are they not now at Gitmo?

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