The headline in the Daily Mail (UK) screamed: "Mutiny as passengers refuse to fly until Asians are removed." Leaving aside the minor matter that the British press uses "Asian" to describe anyone with an ethnic background from the region stretching from Turkey to Siberia to Japan to Indonesia – which, while geographically accurate is disingenuously vague given that this vast area is commonly subdivided into places with names like the "Middle East," "Arabian Peninsula," "Indian subcontinent," "Far East," and so forth. More to the point, the headline uses the inflammatory word "mutiny" to describe what turns out to be a perfectly lawful action by citizens acting rationally and in their own best interests. After reading the story, it is clear that the irrational actors are government officials who continue to deny what most of us know: We are at war with fanatics whose ethnicity can be fairly narrowly defined and whose allegiance to a particular religion is absolute.
The story is here from the UK based Daily Mail. Clearly this British Tory official – the "Homeland Security spokesman"! – does not understand the post-9/11 world:
Patrick Mercer, the Tory Homeland Security spokesman, said last night: "This is a victory for terrorists. These people on the flight have been terrorised into behaving irrationally.
"For those unfortunate two men to be victimised because of the colour of their skin is just nonsense."
Would Mercer describe the "Neighborhood Watch" program as nonsense and a victory for thieves? Citizen vigilance is not irrational. These passengers scored a victory for the people. When elected officials fail to act rationally in the face of a deadly threat, when government action is judged ineffectual by the people, it falls to the people to act. Not as sheep, not as wolves, but to simply act within the law and in their own best interests. These passengers did not behave irrationally. Contrary to Mr. Mercer, they did not act merely because the two men in question had skin of a certain shade. As the article makes clear, these passengers noted odd behavior and inappropriate clothing, and in the context of our deadly clash of civilizations with the Islamic world, took calm and effective action. This can be dangerous if taken too far, but the Daily Mail news story makes it is clear that these passengers did nothing to threaten the men in question. They indeed acted rationally, and no harm was done.
I recommend reading the article in the current (September) Yankee magazine about Mike Tuohey, the man who checked Mohamed Atta onto the flight from Portland, Maine to Logan. ("The Maine Connection" by Mel Allen.) A quote from Tuohey about his interaction with Atta: "I thought, ‘If this guy doesn’t look like an Arab terrorist, nobody does.’ I’ve checked in thousands of people from all over the world, and he’s the only one who made me have that reaction." He now has to live with the second-guessing, the "if only."
At least one innocent person from that horrible day could not live with herself. The Yankee magazine article mentions that a woman who worked at the American Airlines counter in Boston that day five years ago committed suicide. Now our elected leaders seem willing to risk cultural suicide rather than challenge PC orthodoxy. That is a victory for terrorists, and quite irrational. But this is the course they’ve set for our ship of state…Is it time to mutiny?
