Please see my previous related posts here, here, and here.

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Standing up to the flying imams
Michelle Malkin

Audrey Hudson at the Washington Times investigates the Minneapolis Six and gets feedback from air marshals.

We take a closer look at Omar Shahin over at Hot Air. Discussion on O'Reilly last night here.

HA affiliate Charles Ryder has more video and spotted another hate-spewer at the praying imams' protest yesterday at Reagan National.

Scott Johnson at Power Line examines the safety threat of seatbelt extenders.

Bruce at GP asks:

We know now, based on evidence, that a Republican President will err on the side of security and preemptive action if there is a perceived terrorist threat. We also know, based on repeated statements by their leaders that the Democrats favor a post-attack posture. For Democrats, Terror = Law Enforcement Response.

So I ask my fellow Americans.... if you were on this US Airways flight and this suspicious behavior by the Imams began, who would you want as your pilot and flight attendants? George Bush, Condi Rice and Dick Cheney? Or Nancy Pelosi, Charles Rangel and Alcee Hastings? ...

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Report: Airport imams followed hijack pattern in seating, mentioned Bin Laden
Allahpundit

Misunderstanding? Thwarted terror attack? Or a deliberate attempt to get thrown off the plane so that they could scream “Islamophobia”?

Passengers and flight attendants told law-enforcement officials the imams switched from their assigned seats to a pattern associated with the September 11 terrorist attacks and also found in probes of U.S. security since the attacks — two in the front row first-class, two in the middle of the plane on the exit aisle and two in the rear of the cabin.

“That would alarm me,” said a federal air marshal who asked to remain anonymous. “They now control all of the entry and exit routes to the plane.”

A pilot from another airline said: “That behavior has been identified as a terrorist probe in the airline industry.”…

Three of the men asked for seat-belt extenders, although two flight attendants told police the men were not oversized. One flight attendant told police she “found this unsettling, as crew knew about the six [passengers] on board and where they were sitting.” Rather than attach the extensions, the men placed the straps and buckles on the cabin floor, the flight attendant said. ...

You’ve got all this plus Omar Shahin’s admission that his mosque used to support Osama back in the day when he was still a “good guy” plus his work for the KindHearts charity that’s been linked to Hamas, and yet there hasn’t been a single media inquiry thus far about the goings-on at the conference of North American imams that Shahin and co. were in town to attend.  ...

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Hardly Innocent
Ed Morrissey

We have experienced the birth of a new phrase in victimology -- flying while Muslim. The six imams kicked off of a US Air flight here in Minneapolis have gone on tour with this phrase at the ready, doing a "pray-in" at Ronald Reagan National Airport in Washington DC yesterday. However, details from the airline and its other passengers point towards a much different conclusion, one that understandably worried all involved: ...

... The imams did not intend on conducting a terrorist attack. Instead, they have conducted an attack on American security protocols, first by staging this ridiculous event to heighten their status as victims, and second to expose the kind of activities that airlines view as suspicious. In doing so, they have created an environment where the airlines will second-guess their own security procedures, becoming hypersensitive to political correctness instead of focusing on suspicious behaviors. The imams will have made us all less safe if their act becomes a hit.

Unfortunately, members of Congress seem more intent on pandering to the victimology rather than supporting the airlines for doing their job. Sheila Jackson-Lee and newly-elected Muslim Keith Ellison both took the time to acknowledge how humiliating it had to be for the six men ejected from the flight, rather than how stressful it must have been for the passengers and crew of the US Air flight that the imams used to gain their notoriety. I guess they figure that it's better to be sorry than safe.

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The Grounded Imams; Stranger Behavior Than Prayers
Jay at Stop the ACLU

Remember the Imams that CAIR was so quick to defend after they were booted from a Minneapolis flight last week? Remember how they claimed they were only praying and how humiliated they were by our reactions? They’ve been staging protests and making as much noise as possible over all of this ever since.

Well, Audrey Hudson reports a fuller picture of what happened in today’s Washington Times. It looks like these Islamic religious leaders were engaging in much stranger behavior than simply praying.

[...]

Of course the Imams are latching on to the old race card here and trying to claim they were the victims of racial profiling. They are making a lot of noise and have even called upon Congress to create laws against passenger profiling. But make no mistake, it wasn’t the color of these men’s skin that got them kicked off the plane, nor was it any religious practices or American ignorance and insensitivity. The reason these men were not allowed flight was because of a combination of strange behavior.

[...]

Indeed, they may have been looking for a lawsuit. As Aviation security officials pointed out, thousands of Muslims fly every day and conduct prayers in airports in a quiet and private manner without creating incidents. These Imams seem to have went out of their way to get attention, create a scene, and then cry the victim. I think U.S. Airways made a very good decision. I hope that all the crying, protests, boycotting, and lawsuit threats don’t intimidate them and that they practice good judgement like this on all their flights. I think they have set a good example of how to correctly use behavior as a way of identifying potential threats. I know the next time I fly, the vigilant effort towards safety displayed by U.S. Airways will be a good reason to choose them. ...

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Would Democrats Kick Potential Terrorists Off A Plane?
Posted by GayPatriot

Imagine if you will that the entire US of A is actually a jetliner with the markings of "US Airways".  And in a post-9/11 world, the following situation happens:

[...]

... So I ask my fellow Americans.... if you were on this US Airways flight and this suspicious behavior by the Imams began, who would you want as your pilot and flight attendants?   George Bush, Condi Rice and Dick Cheney?   Or Nancy Pelosi, Charles Rangel and Alcee Hastings?

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Theater Of The Absurd Victims
Rick Moran

As a former professional actor, I can always appreciate a good performance when I see it. But the production put on by the six Imams who were dragged off the tarmac at the Minneapolis-St. Paul in handcuffs after, what they claim, was simply praying on board a parked airplane may just take the prize for Best Original Performance by a Put-Upon Minority.

In truth, I was halfway through a piece I called “Making America Look Ridiculous” that incorporated the original reporting of the story which made it appear that stupid, ignorant Americans over-reacted to a bunch of quiet, peaceful Muslims saying their prayers in public.

As it turns out, that isn’t even close to being the real story. In fact, it is more than likely that the entire episode was planned to force the authorities into removing the men from the plane for the sole and exclusive purpose of crying “discrimination” and “profiling” to the media. Even more amazing is that the aftermath of the incident may also have been planned for maximum public relations effect in order to capitalize on this egregious example of Muslim persecution: ...

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How The 'Praying Imams' Terrorized US Airways Flight 300 To Phoenix.
Hyscience

Remember the six imams that were removed from a US Airways flight and detained in an episode that CAIR called for an investigation about saying that they were thrown off because of "persistent fear and prejudice against Muslims"? Their group leader said at the time that they were removed after three of them prayed before boarding the plane:

[...]

Goodness gracious, poor misunderstood Muslims, and especially Mr. Omar Shahin, who is so frustrated over Americans not knowing more about Islam - or at least his version of it.

To hear Shahin tell it, and the media who parroted the Islamofascist propaganda, one would think that those terrible passengers and a prejudiced anti-Muslim U.S. Airways joined together to conspire against six innocent praying imams returning from a conference of the North American Imams Federation where all who attended discussed world peace, tranquility, tolerance, inter-faith dialogue, and condemned Islamic terrorism, violent jihad, and forced conversions of Christians to Islam. However, as usual, what we hear from CAIR and the six imams about the incident is no more true than the myriad of other distortions of truth and fact that we have come to recognize as being so typical of the Islamic propaganda that spills across our TV screens and newspapers. As a matter of fact, it's a complete distortion of the facts, and and the opposite of the truth. ...

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James Joyner comments here.

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Lileks (H/T Ed Driscoll):

So that’s my day. Back to work now; more tomorrow, including a discussion of the piece in the local paper about the background of that fellow who was kicked off the plane last week. I mean, given the questions and peculiarities of some of his associations, I am certain a full accounting is forthcoming.

Because I can’t see any reason why such a piece wouldn’t be written.

Ergo, I’m certain it’s en route.

Quite certain.

Absolutely dead-bang positive.

Really. I also expect that a reporter will have called the hotel where the conference took place, found out who was in the adjacent room, contacted a representative of that organization, asked for a recap of what they heard, and ran the assessment past a newly prominent local politician who was in attendance to see if it squared with his recollection. Said politician would also be asked about the deplaned imam’s connections, regardless of whether this seemed like recrudescent Islamophobia, because these are crucial issues –

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Profiling the Flying Imams
Posted By Uncle Jimbo

Sounds like a circus act, and to some extent it is.

Profiling is the single best tool we have available to deter or prevent airplane hijackings, short of terrorist assassinations overseas. The fact that we don't use it is a prime example of our non-seriousness about the threat Islamists pose to everyone. We hear wails of indignation anytime a Muslim in the US catches a cross-eyed glance from the terror apologists at CAIR, and the media hype every instance. Yet even though Muslims outnumber Jews significantly in this country, hate crimes against Jews dwarf any inconveniences suffered by Muslims, somehow it is the innocent Muslims who the press ensures are seen as victims.

The most recent atrocity committed by jack-booted, Islamophobic airline folks involves the 6 Imams booted from their flight. The apologist line is that they were persecuted for the crime of Flying while Muslim, and calls for boycotts and pray ins abounded. Actually a boycott by Muslims of an airline would be an advertising bonanza if they had the stones to advertise "Fly jihadi-free with US Airways". But back to our innocent religious scholars who were treated unfairly and unreasonably by the airlines right? Not quite that simple, ...

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