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?
AL- thanks for the support! I am getting precious little!
Nonetheless, “here I stand, I can do no other.”
Dr. Sensing, you are getting your support; it’s just from people like me (one of the two or three leftmost posters to be seen here). Sorry. Sort of.
Why is it exactly that the false alarm must really be an uncaught true alarm? What in the story indicates that the security system has failed? That Arabs were allowed to fly? To go to McDonalds? Nothing is wrong in our airport security on the basis of this story.
But why pass up a chance to spread fear and loathing of liberals? To impugn their patriotism. To suggest they value process over results. That they don’t understand 9/11. To suggest softness on crime even unto mass murder. Anything that can be distorted by Coulter, Malkin, the WWSJ, and many others to support this political crusade will be. By now, red and blue America not only don’t share analysis of the situation, they live in completely different worlds of fact. The “dry-run” will be a confirmed fact in the Weltanschauung of millions of Limbaugh listeners tomorrow—also the liberals’ refusal to do anything about it. It would only be fair to add that while I happily inhabit Sensing/A.L.’s planet on this issue, I see downblog we don’t agree on the first thing about the 2000 Florida vote count, including statements of fact.
(At least Team L isn’t whinging in the corner any more.)
I guess I fall in the middle a bit. I read and appreciate Sensing’s analysis. It was sensible. However, I think this woman’s story got some people (those of us among the great unwashed masses) thinking about terrorists’ “probing” our airline defenses and what that might look like. I don’t think that sorting out this story means we have brittle (personal) defense mechanisms. I think it raised the awareness of some people and fueled the hysteria of others.
Unfortunately or fortunately NOTHING HAPPENED.
Of course, nothing is supposed to happen during a dry run. Al Quaida would not take down one airplane. Their manner/style/M.O. is to take down several at one time.
That would mean lots of dry runs. Lots of familiarization flights. Lots of training runs to see how the public and authorities respond.
we all read spy-murder novels and watch endless hours of TV. Surely we can all spin scenarios that would accept the plausibility of such events.
Afterall, nobody had ever driven a truckloaded with low brissance deisel fuel/fertilizer explosives into the underground parking, hikacked 4 aircraft and used them as missiles, run an inflatable boat up against a destroyer, bombed several embassies at one time, before they did it.
All of these actions show planning, patience and willingness to kill unlimited numbers of civilians.
Ignoring the threat seems rather foolish at this point.
To take the arguments to their logical conclusion we do not need a TSA, Homeland Security department or even the military. Afterall, until something happens; no threat exists.
Using the same logic we could do away with seatbelts, bicycle helmets, and athletic cups.
I’m not from the leftmost group, but I pretty much agree with Sensing. I’ve read the Jacobsen story, and I believe what she says, but didn’t draw the conclusions I was supposed to. A few commenters implied that it should be a terrifying story but it’s just not. Those men could have been a bunch of Syrian musicians
..or they could have been a bunch of Syrian musicians who also happened to be terrorists (musicians often have day jobs). They could have been doing a dry run for an attack. If so, the airlines and the Marshals are now aware of this tactic.
That’s why the story isn’t as frightening as advertised. We don’t know all the facts, and I don’t trust our ‘intelligence’ agencies to figure out what’s right, but our awareness and the presence of marshals on the plane is proof that the system is apparently working.
Before 9/11, James Woods saw a dry run for a terrorist attack, and he had a hard time getting anyone to listen to his fears. Now, we don’t have that problem.
Terrorists are at war with us. This isn’t news. They are testing, they are probably sending people who don’t look Middle Eastern, (or if they do, people who have a good excuse for traveling together, like musicians) out on dry runs. They’ve probably been doing this for years. I’m more worried about the dry runs that pass unnoticed.
Being ‘objectively pro-terrorism’ means that one objects to fighting terrorism. It’s not ‘objectively pro-terrorist’ to suggest that there’s more than one way of identifying potential terrorists – they would be sympathetic to the Islamist cause, but they wouldn’t always appear to be Muslim.
Personally, I’m always suspicious of anti-social, ascetic, hostile types. If I found Jeanine Garafalo sitting next to me on a plane, I’d be more nervous than if my seatmate was a Muslim.
Andy, “nothing happened” does not mean just that the plane was not hijacked. It also means that, at least publically, there is no, zip, zero evidence that the Arab passengers are terrorists.
If I said that your (hypothetical) son’s (hypothetical) priest was a child molester and you said, “No, we observed his behavior on the field trip and nothing happened” you would be deservedly skeptical if I started talking about how it could have been a dry run without bringing up any evidence other than the recent epidemic of pedophile priests. I could point out that he went to the bathroom frequently, and might have been casing it for use in a covert sexual encounter. But in the absence of other evidence relating to your particular priest, you probably wouldn’t find my argument very compelling. Well, I’d say the odds that a randomly selected American priest is a pedophile are much greater than the odds a randomly selected Syrian is an Al Qaeda operative.
The latest is that they were no known Syrian band, and their cover story doesn’t ring true.
There are still too many fishy details.
As someone on another thread pointed out, we all do profiling all the time, when we decide whether to go on a blind date, who to invite to a dinner party, who to hire . . . . our brains look for patterns, and that’s a survival mechanism. When this mechanism goes into overdrive, you get bigoted stereotyping. I understand Andrew’s fears, and Donald’s skepticism is sensible, but it would just be stupid to switch off this profiling faculty completely. Especially on an airplane.
I used to teach self-defense, and one of the most useful SD skills is trusting one’s intuition, which is simply information we are taking in through all our senses that our brains are processing subconciously. We get feelings about situations which we can’t rationally explain, but which may contain useful information.
We would also teach that it is better to be safe than sorry. If your gut tells you someone isn’t safe, pay attention to your gut. The worst that can happen is – nothing. You’ll never know how many attacks you averted just by trusting your gut.
The consequences of being wrong in this situation are too deadly to brush off this story.
Why is it that no one seems to have figured out the LIKELY scenario (unless I’ve missed it): namely, this was a probing job — OURS!
Are we not aware that American security officials have ways to test our domestic carriers and judge how they respond?
This sickness in our country of assuming incompetence (which is not a left or right sickness; it is pervasive) does not assist us in the Global War on Terror.
1) Jacobson’s account of how the FA worked with her is beyond belief. Asked her to take notes??? If this was true, the FA should be fired. More likely, this just didn’t happen.
2) The account of some law enforcement officer showing her 14 Syrian passports also is hard to swallow. This would be a very cavalier manner to perform an investigation. And if it was just a glance, it would be quite difficult to determine they were 14 passports, all Syrian. I suspect she got “14 Syrian” from later information.
3) Did she sit with her head turned 180 degrees the entire flight? Seams like she is reporting the entire activities at the rear lavatories, 20 rows behind her. Also, I believe the natuaral “waiting area” for the rear lavatories on this 757 is by the doors behind the lavatories, not visable to the foward passengers.
Sounds like we still have Sensig’s version as the simple truth, with Ms. Jacobsen having either an overactive imagination, or more likely some journalistic embellishment.
And the “Questions that need be resolved” really arn’t supicious.
“Why were they not seated together?”
Not enought empty seats in one area?
“Why was one in first class?”
One FF upgrade left?
“Why has the band not stepped forward?”
Afraid some idiot(s) will kill them as terrorists?
“No known Syrian band?”
Just some little Detroit area band playing at a relatives wedding?
“What happend to the Big Mack?”
An alian from a UFO stole it 🙂
I don’t see what the big deal is, given that the system worked. In fact, I would suggest that racial profiling was probably the very reason that there were federal air marshalls aboard the plane, poised and ready to intervene if necessary. Then, the Syrians were scrubbed, and one can only assume they are being watched now.
What does Jacobsen want? A Sherman-like razing of infrastructure in and around Detroit?
Give me a break.
There are two ways of looking at this: prospectively and in retrospect.
As events are unfolding, we can’t (author/passenger Jacobsen didn’t) know how things end up. Musicians, AQ footsoldiers, neither, both? Complacency bad, hysteria also bad.
Retrospectively, it’s good to get articles like hers out there, have these kinds of debates (Sensing vs. Malkin), reflect on where the security systems are working, where they aren’t, how they can be improved. I’m glad there’s a lot of focus on not depriving Americans who look a certain way of their rights and treating them like the enemy. But not glad when p.c. turns into stupidity. There will always be tension between over-reacting and under-reacting; we properly wrestle with these issues.
FWIW, my hypothesis is that these Syrian musicians came to the US to play gigs, but with the common pre-conceived stereotype that most Americans are bigoted against Arabs. When they (correctly) read the other passengers’ vibe of fear, they became resentful and decided to “play” with their audience during the flight, anticipating that they’d get a hassle afterwards, but nothing more.
Inconsiderate behavior? Yes. Terrorist dry run? No. As Mary said earlier in the thread, it’s the dry runs that we don’t hear about that are the most worrisome.
While a complete acceptance of Ms. Jacobsen’s in-flight experience requires the suspension of disbelief, the question remains … “What would you have done or felt in the same circumstance?”
As a passenger, if you were to say that the presence of even one middle eastern looking traveler wouldn’t at least raise your level of alertness, I would have to question your honesty.
Why has no news agency or blogger sought out “the band” for an interview? Doesn’t anyone else find that strange?
Does anyone think that “the band” might have been having a little fun at their fellow passengers’ expense? (e.g., tuba player to drummer in Arabic … “Watch what 27B does when I take my Big Mac to the “loo” and leave it there.”)
Why is there no effort to introduce Arabic language skills to flight attendants? Obviously an attendant who understood what “the band” was saying to one another would have reduced any concerns.
Finally, why didn’t Ms. Jacobsen attempt to converse with one or more of “the band”? Seeing the reaction of her fellow passengers, wouldn’t a journalist see an opportunity for a story?
Oh, that’s right. She did see an opportunity for a story. For a passenger, Ms. Jacobsen’s account was compelling. For a journalist, in my opinion, it was an embarrassment.
praktike:
What does Jacobsen want? A Sherman-like razing of infrastructure in and around Detroit?
Completely unnecessary. Been there lately?
RattlerGator:
This sickness in our country of assuming incompetence (which is not a left or right sickness; it is pervasive) does not assist us in the Global War on Terror.
As I’ve pointed out in a post on this story on my own blog, there are two possible roles for the TSA: to make travellers in America safer and to make travellers in America feel safer. This story suggests that it’s at least possible that they are not succeeding at the former. This story—and the reaction to this story—is proof positive that it’s not succeeding at the latter.
“This story suggests that it’s at least possible that they are not succeeding at the former.”
At least possible, huh? Doesn’t that prove my point? Hell, using that standard — any citizen or customer complaint makes ANYTHING at least possible.
Bizarre. Truly bizarre.
Meanwhile, al-Qaeda diligently courts disaffected Europeans who don’t fit the supposed mold and won’t generate the kind of apparent terror our dear reporter suffered from.
Oh well. “This story—and the reaction to this story—is proof positive that it’s not succeeding at the latter.”
Pray tell: using your standard, how could they possibly succeed at either?
Perfection is not the standard, ladies and gentlemen. It never will be. Every government action boils down to a balancing act. Always has, always will.
I like the way Malkin lambastes those who don’t agree with her as “sheeple.” Very respectful of the thinking of fellow citizens who come to different conclusions.
Judith declares that “The latest is that they were no known Syrian band, and their cover story doesn’t ring true.”
Yet NRO, those pro-terrorist crazy leftists (and it’s sad that only such sources will be believe by some, but never mind) identifies them as Nour Mehana and his band, so this is both neither the “latest,” nor are they “unidentified.” I don’t know what is left that is “fishy.” I’d welcome any specifics that suggests that they were not Nour Mehana’s band, and they weren’t washing before prayers.
“The consequences of being wrong in this situation are too deadly to brush off this story.” One thing that no one can possibly claim is that this story has been “brushed off.”
Pray tell: using your standard, how could they possibly succeed at either?
Unnecessary snark aside, there are lots of things that could have been done and that could still be done. I touch on some of them in the post I mentioned above. Do we want to be safer or do we want to feel safer? If we want to be safer, there should be significantly more border control than we have, significantly more restrictions placed on resident aliens, abolition of carry-on luggage. Security should be the responsibility of the airlines (and their insurance companies). We shouldn’t hold out a promise of indemnification for failures of security to the airlines. If we want to feel safer, significantly more attention needs to be paid to atmospherics than has been to date. The security color-code has to mean something. The people need to be enlisted and be a part of the effort. If the president and his immediate staff can’t improve the atmospherics, they should hire someone who can.
You’re right in saying that a defense mechanism which is focused on one group is brittle. Yes, we could be attacked by hordes of marauding blond blue eyed Swedes. Yes, every year someone is found to be a murderer/pedophile/loathsome type whom ‘nobody would have suspected’. Cops have to suspect everyone. But they should focus on the high probabilities first. And in this case, who would that be?
Was Richard Reid a “high probability”?
How about John Walker Lindh?
Focusing on ethnicity is a great way to miss people.
Interesting, lets NOT profile those who come from Terror nations because that would focus too much of our limited attention in one area. Lets instead suspect everyone. Neat. Lets suspect my 74 Year Old mother who gets searched each and everytime she flies, lets suspect my 74 year old step dad who gets searched each and every time he flies, but don’t lets not suspect Arab Males. hehe…Too funny. No wonder we are going to get attacked again.
The reasoning behind not profiling Arab men is that well then they will just switch to Non Arab men as if they have scores of German Grandmothers waiting for a chance to hijack a plane. As if their switching from Arab men wouldn’t be a better opportunity to infiltrate their organizations. As if they don’t know that we might be better able to infiltrate their organizations if they switch from Arab males to German Grandmothers. There is a reason they have used Arab Men exclusively….trust.
I say if we cannot both put people coming from known Police State Terrorist supporting nations under closer supervision and watch for the odd German Grandmother we need to get better people running the bureaucracies.
Suggesting that its is a higher possibility that we will be attacked by German Grandmothers than Arab males between the ages of 17 to 40 strikes me as just short of the most absurd thing I have ever heard. We should be watching carefully for the highest probability of attack. If we force them to switch to German Grandmothers fine, my mom will volunteer to infiltrate their operations. Till then watch carefully Arab Males from Terror Supporting States…sheesh.
Btw the very next week a Syrian was arrested for being connected to Al Queda and having terrorist materials. In Minneapolis. He was not found at first look on the watch lists.
Pierre Legrand
“There is a reason they have used Arab Men exclusively….trust.”
I don’t know what the four dots are doing there (an ellipsis not ending a sentence uses three, loosely speaking), nor what the word at the end is intended to mean,but such oddities aside, and on substance:
And so Richard Reid, the shoe bomber, is declared not to exist. And all those tens of thousands of people who went through the Taliban camps are retroactively made “Arab.” And so there are no Muslims and no Islamic terrorists from Pakistan. Or Malaysia (where you may find many, hint, Muslims of Chinese descent). Or the Phillipines. Or Uganda. Or Surinam. Or Cote d’Ivoire. Or India. Or Sri Lanka. Or Albania. Or Uzbekistan. Or Nigeria. Or Guyana. Or Benin. Or Turkmenistan. Or Azerbaijan. Or Indonesia. Or Mali. Or Senegal. Or Togo. Or Gambia. And on and on. Nor, for that matter, are there terrorist sympathisers from European stock in the US, such as John Walker Lindh, or from Europe itself.
There are not actually 57 members of the Organization of the Islamic Conference. No, only Arabs are a danger. Not, of course, Iranians, to be sure, either.
Yes, we’ll be very safe with this knowledgeable outlook. Be sure not to check any of the above groups! That would have caught the Bali bombers, and the members of Abu Sayyaf, for sure! And never, ever, ever, suspect Pakistanis or Indians or Iranians! Only Arabs!
Wise advice, indeed.
And I forgot to suggest we be sure to ignore Tajiks, Baluchis, Chechens….
Ah so it WAS 19 German Grandmothers who attacked us on 9/11! Great to know!
So you advocate looking at everyone….great my Mom thanks you for having to take off her shoes everytime she passes security. I guess she can wave at Atta and friends as they sail through your security since we cant take a closer look at Arabs or muslims.
Pierre
Gary Farber:
I’m a little confused about your comments above. It’s pretty clear what you’re against—concentrating exclusively on any particular ethnic group for scrutiny. I don’t know that anyone has proposed that. I have no idea what you’re actually for.
There’s a distinction that I think is important here: necessity vs. sufficiency. Is it sufficient to give additional scrutiny to what are referred to as “Middle Eastern men”? Clearly, no, as your comments suggest. Is it necessary? Sadly, perhaps, yes.
I give some of my preferred ideas on the subject above. Do you have additional suggestions?
Incidentally, we read here:
So those are among the places it’s undoubtedly wise to particularly keep an eye on people from or traveling from.
Those advising us to pay no attention to these people, but focus only on Arabs, are deeply clueless, and harming national security if listened to.
It remains a fact, as well, that Muslims come in every shape, size, race, age, dress, and nationality, and we can’t assume that anyone is definitely not a terrorist (or, of course, that being Muslim means you sympathise with terrorists). Israel learned that long ago, and has had great experience with the enemy having taken to wearing IDF uniforms, for instance.
That dealing with this inconveniences us is trivial in the face of saving lives. Shame on anyone who thinks otherwise, and places convenience over safety.
Dave, in answer to your question, I’m still reading the chapter, and the full report, but it seems, so far, as sound as I expected based upon my reading of the interim reports and staff statements. That is, this is the chapter with recommendations for a global strategy. (Full report here.)
report in convenient searchable form here
Ooops looks like it was a dry run after all. Washington times.
The report the WashTimes cites doesn’t support the dry run hypothesis at all.
So far the only evidence the reporter has supplied is citing her own July 2004 stories referring to suspicious behavior.
Yea but you know I am starting to get the feeling that to be classified as a terrorist incident lots of people have to be killed. Otherwise its all fine.
I think it is important to note that contrary to most of the debunkers of this “dry run” the activity was not solely the result of a panicked woman and her racist husband. Indeed the Air Marshalls were noting this behavior prior to the flight.