The Six Imams and Abraham Lincoln

When the six Imams were pulled from US Airways Flight 300 for actions that security personnel thought to be suspicious, the resulting cries from these Imams and their lawyers were predictably loud. Racism and Islamophobia, they cried, were the motivating factors for their ejection. Before boarding the aircraft the Imams had prayed loudly in the boarding area, making frequent repetition of Allah. When they boarded, they refused to take their assigned seats, choosing instead to sit near the various doors and exits, in a manner similar to what the 19 Saudis did on 9/11. Further, one of them asked for a seat belt extender, a device normally given only to the morbidly obesee. Such an extender could be rolled up and used as a weapon. When they were asked to leave the aircraft by flight attendants, they refused. Security personnel had to be called. There are only two possible logical explanations. One: they were truly innocent of murderous intent and were merely praying according to Islamic tradition. Or two: this entire fiasco was a staged event.

The first event if true is a microcosm of all that is wrong with political correctness and multiculturalism. There is a world of difference between respecting foreign culture and custom and allowing ourselves to be harmed by them. I cannot think of any other country in the world that would allow to pass such obvious and flagrant threats to airline security. Since the Imams were guests of this country, it was encumbent of them to refrain from actions that even smack of harm to an aircraft. To put matters into perspective, consider what would happen if a Westerner were to board an aircraft in Tehran chanting, "Long live Moses and George Bush."

The second event seems more logical. When the Imams were forcibly ejected, their attorneys were magically present to conduct a post-ejection press conference, loudly protesting such shameful behavior on the part of US Airways. It does not take great brains to realize that America was witnessing a preplanned and phony non-event whose sole purpose was to intimidate airlines into making ever greater concessions in the war on terror. I will not even consider a third alternative that they were really terrorists who were prevented in their perfidy by a watchful security team. For those who are tempted to agree with the Imams that it is better to be sorry than safe, they might consider a not dissimilar situation faced by Abraham Lincoln, who found it necessary to curtail the constitutional right of habeas corpus when national security and preservation of the union was at stake. Within the closed in space of a jet, there is no room for political correctness to help a ruthless and fanatical foe create yet another national emergency.