OK, who was the threat?

LOS ANGELES | July 22, 2004 – Undercover federal air marshals on board a June 29 Northwest airlines flight from Detroit to LAX identified themselves after a passenger, “overreacted,” to a group of middle-eastern men on board, federal officials and sources have told KFI NEWS.

The passenger, later identified as Annie Jacobsen, was in danger of panicking other passengers and creating a larger problem on the plane, according to a source close to the secretive federal protective service.

(hat tip Patterico)

Read the whole thing.And I’ll go back to my earlier comment about

Similarly, there are two competing narratives we can construct out of Jacobsen’s story.

On one hand, a dry run or failed mission by a group of terrorists, as she suggests.

On the other, a group of foreign musicians, already somewhat out of place, being bad-vibed beyond belief by the rest of the passengers, and so acting with a less-then affable demeanor, and doing what I’ve done in the past when flying with large groups of people, which is to walk around and congregate so we can chat.

What makes me anxious is the level of blind fear and rage that this story provoked. Comments like “eject them midair” were made, which makes me worry both out of concern for the innocent (except of being Middle Eastern) who will be affected by this (and I’ll note, whose opinions of the West will be lowered) but because when we start acting out of unthinking rage, we risk losing the fight.

I’ll refer readers back to this post:

…in the actual conflict, in the actual decision to fight and fighting, I’ll take Cooper’s ‘concentration’ and Musashi’s ‘settled yet unbiased’ spirit. Showing anger – standing in front of the enemy or potential enemy, and frothing at the mouth in rage – does two bad things. First, it helps create a fight where it might have been possible to avoid one. And second, if your enemy is at all strong, it shows weakness.

Update: I forgot to include the best quote from the article at all…in fact, I think it’s so good it ought to be a national motto:

“We don’t freak out in situations like this,” the air marshal responded.

I’ll buy that guy a beer anytime.

“We Don’t Freak Out In Situations Like This.” You betcha.

Donovan Janus, the Dutch programming god behind Exposure Manager (disclosure: I have an interest in the business) has created two galleries to consolidate the “Citizen’s Media” view of the election and of the situation in Iraq and Afghanistan.

One, going live today, is “www.electionphotos04.com” a photo gallery of images from the bloggers covering the conventions and campaigns. It’s a free service which we’re offering to try and encourage those taking photos of the campaigns to publish their images. A RSS feed will be available at (www.electionphotos04.com/rss.xml).

The other, going live late next week, will be “www.photosfromiraq.com“, which is actually for pictures from serving military in both Iraq and Afghanistan (“picturesfromiraqandafghanistan.com” gave me carpal tunnel just thinking about it). Again, the goal is to provide a broader view of what’s going on there than the “if it bleeds it leads” coverage we get from the mainstream media. Similarly, a RSS feed will be available.

More as things develop (as they say).

Much of the blog world has gone medieval on Joseph Wilson (not in the pipe-wielding sense of Ving Rhames, but in the sense of medieval scholars carefully parsing sacred texts and crafting lengthy analyses of subtle wordings).

Recently, Kevin Drum posted something that suggested that his – misrepresentations?? – had been unclear and insignificant:

Wilson’s central claim was that there was virtually no evidence to back up the idea that Saddam had sought uranium from Niger. The CIA agreed with that assessment before the war, it agreed with it after the war, and it still agrees with it — and the Senate Intelligence report backs them up.

…

Wilson may be guilty of overembellishing his case on several minor points, but on the central question he brought up — should the president have made those claims about African uranium in his State of the Union address? — he was right. The CIA admits it, the White House admits it, and the Senate Intelligence committee admits it. Republicans ought to keep this in mind.

That’s pretty confusing to me, and I say this with respect to Kevin and Dan all the others who have made close textual analyses of the Senate report. Because here’s what it says:

The intelligence report indicated that former Nigerien Prime Minister Ibrahim Mayaki was unaware of any contracts that had been signed between Niger and any rogue states for the sale of yellowcake while he was Prime Minister (1997-1999) or Foreign Minister (1996- 1997). Mayaki said that if there had been any such contract during his tenure, he would have been aware of it. Mayaki said, however, that in June 1999, [redacted] businessman, approached him and insisted that Mayaki meet with an Iraqi delegation to discuss “expanding commercial relations” between Niger and Iraq. The intelligence report said that Mayaki interpreted “expanding commercial relations” to mean that the delegation wanted to discuss uranium yellowcake sales. The intelligence report also said that “although the meeting took place, Mayaki let the matter drop due to the UN sanctions on Iraq.” (page 43)

The reports officer said that a “good” grade [for Wilson’s report – ed.] was merited because the information responded to at least some of the outstanding questions in the Intelligence Community, but did not provide substantial new information. He said he judged that the most important fact in the report was that the Nigerian officials admitted that the Iraqi delegation had traveled there in 1999, and that the Nigerian Prime Minister believed the Iraqis were interested in purchasing uranium, because this provided some confirmation of foreign government service reporting. (page 46)

So Wilson directly confirmed to the CIA that Iraqi officials had met with Nigerian officials, and that they had – in the view of the Nigerian officials – attempted to broach the subject of uranium sales.

Now the claim the President made wasn’t that Iraq had gotten uranium, or that it was even likely to get uranium. It was that:

The British government has learned that Saddam Hussein recently sought significant quantities of uranium from Africa.

Now skipping over the ‘gimme’ that Bush is saying that the British are saying etc. etc., the question is whether Wilson – who accused Bush of lying in that statement – was himself telling the truth in making that accusation.

And the problem I have, as a kind of simpleminded person, is that Wilson’s own words, as expressed in the consensus, bipartisan Senate report, also support the charge that Iraq was seeking uranium.

So what is it that I am missing, exactly?

Michelle Malkin does a gracious climbdown and sends Donald Sensing the facts on the “Wayne Newton of Syria” who gave Anne Jacobsen heart failure on flight 327.

Buckaroo Banzai, anyone? Or maybe just paranoia, which, as I note isn’t a very useful state for people who have real enemies. There is a better way.

I forgot to mention that yesterday was the anniversary of the first human footstep on ground that is not Earth (July 20, 1969).

Go get Quicktime if you don’t already have it installed, and then go get this.

UPDATE: Rand Simberg of Transterrestrial Musings had a good roundup, and some thoughts of his own.

I shared Donald Sensing’s original skepticism about Anne Jacobsen’s Flight 327 nightmare in my post below. Today, Donald has a post up that amplifies his skepticism in the face of people who would take his position (and mine) as being ‘objectively pro-terrorism’.

They’re wrong.

They’re wrong both because we obviously aren’t (look at our oeuvre, folks, puh-leese), but because the kind of kneejerk, fact-free reactions they are encouraging in fact will make us objectively less safe from terrorist attacks.

They’re demonstrating exactly the kind of hysteria that gets used to justify bad policies – like the limit on the number of Arab flyers that can be put through secondary screening.Sensing says, quite reasonably:

…what does Annie herself actually relate? Only this:

# My husband and I noticed Arab men boarding the airliner and that made us scared.

# Before and during the flight, the Arabs did some things that made us even more scared, especially their trips to the loo. At least some of the other passengers and crew expressed or displayed concern or fear also. These fears compounded until the plane landed.

# There were federal air marshals aboard, but they didn’t do anything.

# The plane landed safely and normally. We all egressed as rapidly as possible.

# Agents from multiple LE organizations met the plane and detained the 14 men. They were investigated and released. FAMS identified them as a band playing a gig in a casino near LA.

# We were interviewed by the FBI and gave sworn statements, then went on our way.

That’s pretty much it, folks. That is what is in the text about what actually occurred. Annie does a lot of dot connecting from one TSA alert or warning to another, then connects them all to the 14 men, who were in fact guilty of nothing except stupidity or inexcusable unconcern/arrogance at how their fellow passengers were reacting to them.

As I’ve noted, a lot of narratives can be strung over that skein of fact. As someone who has a close, personal relationship with Mr. Occam, I do tend to look at the simplest possible explanation unless there’re grounds not to – and while this event is a data point that should be noted with interest, I have a hard time buying into the complex when the simple hangs together just as well.

But beyond that, here’s the rub.

Keith Code, an author and (great) instructor who teaches about motorcycle racing, talks about the notion of limited attention: “Each person has a fixed amount of attention while riding a motorcycle. This is represented as a $10 bill worth of attention. If you spend five dollars of it on one aspect of riding, you have only five dollars left for all the other aspects. Spend nine and you have only one dollar left, and so on.”

If we’ve made up our minds that the terrorist threat is going to be from groups of Arab men, we’ve spent all of our attention in one place. What’s going on elsewhere?

We will have created a single-purpose, brittle defense mechanism that is both going to wear out quickly, as the overwhelming number of false positives drains the resources and credibility of the system, and is going to keep us watching Penn’s right hand while Teller picks our pocket.

So let’s not do that, OK?

The Telegraph has a story that the Max Planck Institute has released a report on global warming, suggesting that solar cycles are responsible for global warming (with some interaction between increased solar energy and increased greenhouse effect).

Global warming has finally been explained: the Earth is getting hotter because the Sun is burning more brightly than at any time during the past 1,000 years, according to new research.

A study by Swiss and German scientists suggests that increasing radiation from the sun is responsible for recent global climate changes.

…

Dr Solanki said that the brighter Sun and higher levels of “greenhouse gases”, such as carbon dioxide, both contributed to the change in the Earth’s temperature but it was impossible to say which had the greater impact.

I give Matt Yglesias grief a lot, which should be construed to mean at least two things: first, that I read him a lot, because I think he’s good and important enough read him all the time (I’m still short on time, and my news and blog reading is suffering); and second, that I think that he represents a solid center of one of the most important groups in the Democratic Party. I happen to have some core disagreements with that group, and my arguments with Matt are often arguments by proxy with them.

So now that I’m firmly in sucking-up mode, let me send you over to a stunningly sensible post by Matt on gun control and the assault weapons ban. It’s sensible not only because he takes the position that I think makes the most sense on the ban – “Why bother?” – but because he enumerates what I think are the exactly correct reasons for taking that position, and further looks with a fairly clear eye on the policy and political consequences of the core gun control positions.

No quotes, the whole thing’s good, go check it out.

Remember the discussion on the level of contremps we can expect on Election 2004? I’ll modestly look down and burnish my nails on my chest, now – here’s Monday’s New York Times:

Mindful of the election problems in Florida four years ago, aides to Senator John Kerry, the presumptive Democratic presidential nominee, say his campaign is putting together a far more intricate set of legal safeguards than any presidential candidate before him to monitor the election.

Aides to Mr. Kerry say the campaign is taking the unusual step of setting up a nationwide legal network under its own umbrella, rather than relying, as in the past, on lawyers associated with state Democratic parties. The aides said they were recruiting people based on their skills as litigators and election lawyers, rather than rewarding political connections or big donors.

Lawyers for the campaign are gathering intelligence and preparing litigation over the ballot machines being used and the rules concerning how voters will be registered or their votes disqualified. In some cases, the lawyers are compiling dossiers on the people involved and their track records on enforcing voting rights.

As noted, unless it’s not close (possible, but unlikely), we’re going to be in court for quite a while; imagine if you would, what the court cases will be like if there are major terrorist attacks that have any impact on voting…

Like a lot of other people, I read Anne Jacobsen’s article ‘Terror in the Skies, Again?‘ with interest and not a little anxiety.

Tenacious G read it, and asked me what I thought. My reply was – “I’m not sure, and I think it would be good if all of us were a bit uncertain as well.” I see that Donald Sensing shares some of my skepticism. Here’s the deal; having flown a fair amount lately, I’m eminently convinced that much of the security in place is what Bruce Schnier (I’d strongly suggest subscribing to his e-newsletter, and I owe a review of his book) calls ‘theatrical security.’ So the general concerns raised in the article are more than valid. But as to the story itself, let me counter by telling one of my own.A long time ago, I took a one-day writing class from a semi-famous writer through UCLA. We met in Westwood village, in a building that had once house a club I used to go to, and the class was fun and somewhat useful. Most useful – and fun – was the incident that happened right after we regrouped for lunch.

The building entrance was on an alley, and as I walked back with a few others from my burger, I noticed three homeless men, sitting on the steps, eating their lunches. One was daintily eating a yogurt with a plastic spoon, and I remember remarking “What a healthy guy!!” as we went up the elevator.

A few minutes later, one of the women students dashed into the classroom, exclaiming that she’d been confronted by a homeless man with a knife. I moved to the front of the room, and asked her ‘did you see the knife? what did he look like? where did this happen?’ and was told he’d been in the corridor, she was sure she’d seen the knife, and he was a homeless guy. The teacher locked the door and used the room phone to call the University police.

Then, as I walked to the door and opened it to look and see what was going on, one of the homeless guys – my yogurt-eating guy – was walking by. I stepped in front of him and told him “Hey, man, you can’t be in here. You need to leave right now – come on with me and I’ll walk you out.” Another man from the class stepped out to join me, shouting instructions at the homeless guy – “Show me your hands! Do it!” and generally acting like he had Monster Kody standing in front of him holding a boo-yah. I told him to shut up or leave, so he was silent as we walked the homeless guy out to the elevator, rode down with him, and walked him to the street. I asked him: “So, do you have a knife? Did you show it to a woman wearing a yellow shirt?” “No, man, I don’t have a knife. I was eating my lunch and I asked her for some change, and she freaked out.”

Then I saw the white plastic handle of a spoon sticking from his back pocket.

Hmmmm. I thought, He probably did have something shiny in his hand…

Homeless people generally don’t commit armed robbery on civilians (non-homeless people); they have no where to run to, no means of escape, and they are usually smart enough to know that they’ll be busted right away for it (note that this doesn’t mean you shouldn’t be attentive when walking down a dark alley with one, just that you’re more at risk from a bunch of teenage kids). But they are scary, and it’s a more logical narrative to me that when one person – already scared by the presence of a homeless man where he wasn’t supposed to be – saw a homeless man with a plastic spoon in his hand, she read it as ‘knife!!’ and reacted appropriately (note that trained police officers have been known to make similar mistakes).

Similarly, there are two competing narratives we can construct out of Jacobsen’s story.

On one hand, a dry run or failed mission by a group of terrorists, as she suggests.

On the other, a group of foreign musicians, already somewhat out of place, being bad-vibed beyond belief by the rest of the passengers, and so acting with a less-then affable demeanor, and doing what I’ve done in the past when flying with large groups of people, which is to walk around and congregate so we can chat.

Which do I think is the case? I have no idea. Would I have prevented them from flying? Probably not. I think that the idea of limiting the number of Arabic men flying together is kinda absurd; no one’s taking a plane over and flying it anywhere these days, and if I want to blow a plane up in midair, I don’t need 14 men to do it.

So what would I have done? TG wanted to know, and the answer is pretty simple. I’d have walked up to them and chatted. Annoyingly cheerfully. “Hey! How you doing? You waiting for the bathroom, too? Where are you guys from? Where you going? Isn’t that cool?” Their responses – both verbal and nonverbal – would have determined what happened next.

I’ve done things like this in the past – in a parking structure with four thugged-out kids. There are a couple of reasons why it’s a good idea. First, because it lets you set the tempo for whatever is going to happen. My parking lot kids may have been would-be muggers (I was once unsuccessfully mugged in a parking structure in Santa Monica), or four honor-roll kids out for a night in the town. By walking up to them and asking a question – “Hey, do you know how to get to the Edwards movie theaters from here?” – I created a situation in which they would react, one way or another, on my timeline, rather than theirs, and in a setting chosen by me, rather than by them. By being cheerful beyond belief, instead of saying something confrontational like “You’re creeping me out,” I don’t unnecessarily start a confrontation, or leave four good kids muttering about racist assholes as I walk away. I’m more sympathetic to women, who use the ‘Model Mugging’-approved technique of telling someone “You’re making me uncomfortable, please back away,” but I still think a more cheerful wording and tone could be used to convey a similar message.

So, in Jacobsen’s case, simply walking up to the suspicious characters and introducing yourself would have gone a long way to sort out what was going on – and at no meaningful cost.