<p>So… they should have to wear a USA shirt or pin to fly without undue harrassment? Or to fly at all (after multiple searches)? I don’t get your point. The Muslim I mentioned who works with me is a quiet, sincere family man. He is generous, thoughtful, and I have never heard him raise his voice. He abhors violence, and is someone I am pleased to call a friend. What is it that you expect from him? Should he hang a picture of OBL in his office with a red circle/slash through it? Or buy a USA flag t-shirt for when he flies? Or… what? He goes out his life in a quiet, peaceful way… that is the best example he could set, in my opinion. </p>
<p>Are you saying that I (a midwestern born, blue-eyed, caucasian American) also should wear a flag pin or shirt when I fly, or I am not sufficiently “patriotic” to fly without harrassment?</p>
<p>I have a good Muslim friend and we discuss this regularly. There are no high profile Muslim groups that stand up for the USA against Radical Islam. That is my point. Name one if you can. This has been going on for 10 years. Where are the high profile Muslim leaders condemning jihad against the USA?</p>
<p>Making a religious group wear a certain thing; sounds like a great idea. Especially since it’s not something that could easily be put on by a terrorist in disguise. Because American flag pins burn them like demons with holy water. :rolleyes:</p>
<p>**Making a religious group wear a certain thing; sounds like a great idea. Especially since it’s not something that could easily be put on by a terrorist in disguise. Because American flag pins burn them like demons with holy water. **</p>
<p>*I certainly am not saying that Muslims should or should not wear anything. I am saying that I believe that many Muslims are “afraid to wear a USA pin, T-Shirt or any other indicator” that they support the USA rather than the extremist Islamic groups. Where are the Muslim organizations condemning radical Islam??? *</p>
<p>why do you continue to take my words out of context??</p>
<p>The Muslim Brotherhood would be an example of a major Islamic group that has renounced violence. And certainly there are millions of Muslims who do not believe in terrorist acts in the name of Islam, and if you ask them individually, they would tell you so. The lives they lead every day make that clear. I am not sure how that makes any difference in how these fliers were treated; if a Muslim group did speak up more loudly on terrorism, would that make the pilot behave with less prejudice in this situation? I doubt it would cross his mind (or that the average pilot or passenger would even be aware of it).</p>
<p>Why is this an “either/or proposition”? Anyone (including anyone flying on our airlines) is entitled to peaceful disagreement with the US and its policies. I personally don’t care if they are patriotic or “on the side of the US”, as long as they are not engaging in violent behavior. This litmus test of being “with us or against us” is ridiculous.</p>
I agree. I am far from patriotic, yet I’m not going to blow up a plane. Hell, death is the reason I’m not patriotic. “Be patriotic or get out” is fairly silly. I’m pretty sure there’s an old piece of paper that would conflict with that sentiment.</p>
<p>The Muslim Brotherhood would be an example of a major Islamic group that has renounced violence.</p>
<p>news articles below</p>
<p>*Among the brotherhood’s graduates: Al Qaeda’s number two leader, the Egyptian doctor Ayman al-Zawahiri who was imprisoned for three years on weapons charges</p>
<p>The Muslim Brotherhood is the mothership for the jihadi ideologies and thinking. And therefore one can say today’s Al Qaeda, and today many other jihadists, are off shoots of the Muslim Brotherhood. *</p>
<p>We’re not at war with Islam. There are plenty of Christian terrorists in the US, but I don’t see anyone denying flight to Christians. I understand the sentiment and the perception of danger. I understand that airports are especially touchy. I also understand why the pilot wouldn’t want to fly the plane when he perceived it as putting his life in danger. But he should step down from the cockpit, not deny the passengers flight if they’ve been cleared.
Especially considering that they were going to an anti-discrimination conference.
And that one of them is a government employee. Did anyone else catch that?</p>
<p>You are not up the current state of the Muslim Brotherhood. And honestly, this is all beside the point of the issue at hand. What these other groups are doing has NOTHING to do with whether someone who has been searched several times and has no known terrorist ties should be allowed to fly, regardless of their religion or clothing.</p>
<p>In my area, a local Muslim group wanted to hold a demonstration against Al Quaeda and in support of the US’ actions against Osama Bin Laden, but the police asked them not to because the police could not guarantee the safety of the marchers.</p>
<p>As far as why don’t more Muslims speak out - many Muslims do, but the news doesn’t report it widely. The facat that a bunch of clerics put out a letter is not a major news story usually.</p>
<p>A friend is an FBI agent. He carries a gun, including when he flies. Security at the airport is required to notify the pilot that there will be an armed federal agent on board the flight. The pilot is allowed to refuse to fly the flight…in which case another pilot is found for the flight. The original pilot, IIRC, isn’t paid for the missed flight. My friend is not the one who gets kicked off the flight. The same procedure applies to other individuals who are allowed to carry arms on board.</p>
<p>So, why not the same deal in the case of the pilot afraid to carry three muslim passengers? If pilots have negotiated the right to refuse to fly a passenger, then remove the pilot. Not the passenger. </p>
<p>I’m waiting to see what The Atlantic’s James Fallows and Salon’s Patrick Smith, two bloggers with in-depth knowledge about aviation and security issues, write about this incident.</p>
<p>So was the Muslim doctor who slaughtered his fellow soldiers at Fort Hood.</p>
<p>Personally, I am not a fan of Islam or of most other religions. Islam was spread by the sword. To call it a “religion of peace” is to fly in the face of history, IMHO. At least when Christians commit violent, hateful acts, they are doing so directly against the teachings of the person they claim as their prophet. (Usually they look to the old testament or Paul for justification for hatefulness.) But I am not a Christian or an apologist for the excesses of its adherents either.</p>
<p>Be that as it may, for a pilot to refuse to fly people who have been cleared by three separate detailed checks is pretty ridiculous. If he is going to make a habit of this kind of thing, he should find another job.</p>
<p>As for the Muslim Brotherhood, let’s see whether they try to set up an “Islamic state” that begins to deny rights to women and so forth if they gain power in the upcoming elections. I’ll believe that they will support a secular state when I see it happen.</p>
<p>BTW, some people here should read Dave Eggars’ book Zeitoun, about what happened to a “model immigrant” of Syrian background in the aftermath of Katrina, thanks to ignorance.</p>
<p>It would be a digression that we probably shouldn’t pursue in this thread, but it isn’t as if Islam is the only religion that restricts the rights of women!</p>