that one of our writers, Annie Jacobsen, took from Detroit to Los
Angeles. The WWS Editorial Team debated long and hard about how to
handle this information and ultimately we decided it was something that
should be shared. What does it have to do with finances? Nothing, and
everything. Here is Annie’s story.” (Women’s Wall Street)
Isn’t it overwhelmingly likely that we would have had a major press
conference with unrestrained crowing from Ashcroft and Ridge if they
had found that the Arab men detained at the end of this flight had been
involved in midair bomb-making? So we can safely say that this piece is
about the writer’s in-flight terror but has nothing to do with
in-flight terrorism; I am confident the men described in the
article were a bunch of Syrian musicians and nothing more. The real
issue is whether the fact that she was supposedly terrorized by her
experience has anything to say objectively about our security. Her
observation that
the civil liberties of every individual, even non-citizens, and protect
its citizens from terrorist threats”
strikes me as likely a preconception that shaped her perception of what happened to her that day rather than the conclusion she presents it as. In any case, it is precisely that which a government
interested in the absurd prosecution of a neverending WoT® hopes people
will reach. For this reason, my bet is that no government agency will
ever reply reassuringly to her persistent requests for followup with
the information that the “Middle Eastern men” were innocent of the
suspicions against them.
Right-wing bloggers like Reynolds are linking to this piece admiringly (and Lileks does a typical bleat on the issue), but there are obvious questions about the writer’s
judgment and agenda. In defiance of the likely truth, she makes the
implausible assertion that these suspicious passengers’ carry-on items
were not searched and, furthermore, that it was because of fears of
‘racial profiling’. She draws some outlandish conclusions about
how an interest in preserving civil liberties will inevitably defeat
any efforts at airline security. One frequently-flying weblogger proclaims this a hoax (scroll down to July 15; I couldn’t find a permalink)
simply on the basis of the description of the behavior of the flight
crew. I realized what we were up against, if not before, when she
offered a quotation from Ann Coulter in support of her argument. (Good
for Reynolds; wondering if it is a law enforcement training exercise
rather than a de facto threat
at least betrays some doubt.) Another weblogger who identifies
himself as involved with law enforcement investigations on both
federal and local levels is skeptical of the level of detail Jacobsen puts into her account. As a psychiatrist experienced in the evaluation of traumatic memories, I agree with his assertion that the amount of adrenaline flowing in a terrorized observer usually obliterates their eye for detail, even if they are a trained writer.
Indeed, the WWS editor’s description of ‘long and hard’ editorial deliberations
about ‘how to handle this information’ sounds like code for questioning its veracity, which would not be out of the question. Although she is identified as a writer for WWS, a Google search on the (somewhat common) name
comes up with numerous references to the ‘Terror’ article but nothing
else that I could clearly associate with this particular Annie
Jacobsen, certainly nothing else she has published for WWS before. In
what I find an ironic comment, a link to her ‘last ten articles’ on FrontPagemag.com,
where she is listed in the company of other right-wing poster children
like Coulter and David Horowitz, shows nothing but the ‘Terror’ piece.
Michelle Malkin, a credulous conservative weblogger lauding Jacobsen’s story, is dismayed by the news that the Washington Post
did not deem it fit to print. She did a phone interview with Jacobsen,
who is puzzled by the mainstream media’s ignoring her story. Jacobsen
claims to have received ‘thousands’ of corroborating emails from
airline passengers and flight crews who have had similar experiences on
other flights. To reiterate, this clearly speaks to the danger we are
in, but not the danger from bearded Middle Eastern men (regardless of
whether they do suspicious things like going to the bathroom, reading
the Koran, or eating their fast food onboard); rather the dangers of
insistently implanted irrational memes poisoning credulous people’s
minds with hatred and fear. And the pitiful victims do not realize they
are the dupes of a beleaguered lying administration terrorizing them to
win reelection and further its megalomanic agenda.
The funny thing is that Jacobsen’s argument that we cannot simultaneously
protect civil liberties and prevent terrorist attacks on the US is
probably true. But we cannot prevent such attacks with draconian
restrictions on our civil liberties either. Regardless of whether
airline security is becoming more lax (which though I am not a frequent
traveller I would dispute, although arguably it is becoming somewhat
more reasonable), all the
airline security in the world is not going to prevent some group of
enraged, dedicated and resourceful men from their next attempt at mass
devastation by a different, non-airborne means. And we are of course
making the next attack far more likely by the discord our grandiose and
bigoted international adventurism is sowing in its wake.
