In the media, “authorities” are like “experts”: They’re everywhere and don’t seem to actually know or do anything useful.
The passengers sat stunned as they watched a man walk quickly toward the front of American Airlines Flight 1561 as it was descending toward San Francisco. He was screaming and then began pounding on the cockpit door.
“I kept saying to myself: ‘What’s he doing? Does he have a bomb? Is he armed?'” passenger Angelina Marty said.
Within moments Sunday, a flight attendant tackled Rageh Almurisi. Authorities do not yet have a motive.
“Authorities” may not have a motive, but the man on the plane did and he didn’t even try to hide it.
Almurisi went toward the cockpit door 30 minutes before the flight from Chicago was supposed to land on Sunday night, San Francisco airport police Sgt. Michael Rodriguez said. Almurisi was yelling unintelligibly as he brushed past a flight attendant.
Marty, 35, recalled that she and other passengers on the plane were stunned when they saw Almurisi walking down the aisle. She said a woman in a row across from her who speaks Arabic translated that Almurisi said “God is Great!” in Arabic.
So the man is from Yemen, a known terrorist hotbed, and creates a disturbance on a plane yelling “Allahu Akbar!” and “authorities” can’t figure out the motive? And by the way, if the man was fidgety on the plane as the passengers report, he was probably fidgety in the security line, yet he got past the finest molesters and gropers the TSA can buy? The man obviously knew how to get around airport security: Don’t be a six-year-old child or a former Miss USA.
Folks like our Yemeni friend don’t try to hide their motives. They want it known that they’re acting in the name of Islam. Our “authorities” are in denial and keep consulting “experts” who are too. My fellow Americans, when it comes to dealing with threats in our daily lives, in spite of the billions we spend and all the power we keep giving these various and sundry “authorities,” we are very much on our own.
Update: Video report with interviews of some of the passengers. The first one confirms that the Yemeni man was shouting “Allahu ackbar!” A woman about 1:30 in confirms as well. The editing makes it seem as if the woman is claiming to be a native Arabic speaker, but I think she is the same woman in the story above, who is quoting another woman. Nevertheless, more than one passenger noticed the shout – yet as you’ll see in the clip, the media and “authorities” just can’t figure out his motive.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iqVhtHapFW4
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