PC killed on 9-11

 

Michael Tuohey was a ticket agent in Portland Maine on 9-11. The crux of his account:

Then his eyes locked on Atta.

“It just sent chills through you. You see his picture in the paper (now). You see more life in that picture than there is in flesh and blood,” Tuohey said.

Then Tuohey went through an internal debate that still haunts him.

“I said to myself, `If this guy doesn’t look like an Arab terrorist, then nothing does.’ Then I gave myself a mental slap, because in this day and age, it’s not nice to say things like this,” he said. “You’ve checked in hundreds of Arabs and Hindus and Sikhs, and you’ve never done that. I felt kind of embarrassed.”

It wasn’t just Atta’s demeanor that caught Tuohey’s attention.

“When I looked at their tickets, they had first-class, one-way tickets — $2,500 tickets. Very unusual,” he said. “I guess they’re not coming back. Maybe this is the end of their trip.”

Published in Islamist Terrorism
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  1. Dr. Bastiat Member
    Dr. Bastiat
    @drbastiat

    Ignorance is dangerous.

    Willful ignorance is EXTREMELY dangerous.

    • #1
  2. Dave of Barsham Member
    Dave of Barsham
    @LesserSonofBarsham

    Believe in something, even if it means…

    • #2
  3. JimGoneWild Coolidge
    JimGoneWild
    @JimGoneWild

    Oh, boy. What a dilemma?

    If this had happened today, would he be a hero to the Left? 

    • #3
  4. Kozak Member
    Kozak
    @Kozak

    It’s still killing today.

    Almost every day.

    • #4
  5. TallCon Inactive
    TallCon
    @TallCon

    Anyone hear @roblong talk about how James Woods says he saw the 9/11 gang doing practice runs?  Rob said James sounded crazy, but his story checked out.

    Just to show how completely unthinkable this was.  Until it happened.

    • #5
  6. drlorentz Member
    drlorentz
    @drlorentz

    If you see something, say something. Then get called an Islamophobe and a racist.

    • #6
  7. Valiuth Member
    Valiuth
    @Valiuth

    Except that not liking the look of a guy is no standard for doing anything without the benefit of hindsight. In fact I question the account entierly as being fabricated expost facto. 

    • #7
  8. Kozak Member
    Kozak
    @Kozak

    Valiuth (View Comment):

    Except that not liking the look of a guy is no standard for doing anything without the benefit of hindsight. In fact I question the account entierly as being fabricated expost facto.

    Woods took a flight from Boston to Los Angeles one week before the World Trade Center attacks. The only other people in first class with him were four men “of Middle Eastern appearance” who acted very strangely. During the entire cross-country flight none of them had anything to eat or drink, nor did they read or sleep. They only sat upright in their seats, occasionally conversing with each other in low tones. Woods mentioned what he had noticed to a flight attendant, “who shrugged it off.” Arriving in Los Angeles, Woods told airport authorities, but they “seemed unwilling to become involved.”

    From that notorious conservative site “Snopes”

    Reported by ABC news 1 week after 9/11

     

    • #8
  9. Dr. Bastiat Member
    Dr. Bastiat
    @drbastiat

    Valiuth (View Comment):
    Except that not liking the look of a guy is no standard for doing anything

    Anyone who works in security does this all the time.  Police, soldiers, security guards, and so on.  Intentionally ignoring your intuition is dangerous.

    • #9
  10. Valiuth Member
    Valiuth
    @Valiuth

    Dr. Bastiat (View Comment):

    Valiuth (View Comment):
    Except that not liking the look of a guy is no standard for doing anything

    Anyone who works in security does this all the time. Police, soldiers, security guards, and so on. Intentionally ignoring your intuition is dangerous.

    My point is that his intuition is retroactive, because it clearly wasn’t strong enough when he saw the man to do anything, and then afterwards when he learned information he had no way of knowing he retroactively fits in stronger feelings than he had. I guess Woods followed his intuitions, but the people who took his report get hundreds of similar complaints. Why is he more credible? 

    The claim that PC killed is vacuous. No reasonable person would have had a reason to stop them based on the information available in their flight plan, or looks. And the person who would extrapolate from such information will likely create more problems for the whole system by swamping it with false positives. 

    • #10
  11. Douglas Pratt Coolidge
    Douglas Pratt
    @DouglasPratt

    I once narrated a couple of books for a retired CIA analyst who had gotten access to a lot of KGB material after the Soviet Union shut down and before Putin locked it all back up. His thesis was that political correctness was a deliberate, coordinated campaign to attack American exceptualism and individualism. He had names, reports and budgets.

    Lenin and Stalin knew that they could not defeat the US militarily. In order for socialism to triumph here, they had to change the way Americans perceived themselves and their country. They targeted three institutions: education, entertainment and the press.

    It’s looking less and less like a conspiracy theory every day.

    • #11
  12. Susan Quinn Contributor
    Susan Quinn
    @SusanQuinn

    Valiuth (View Comment):
    The claim that PC killed is vacuous. No reasonable person would have had a reason to stop them based on the information available in their flight plan, or looks.

    I’m sure an Israeli would tell you otherwise . . .

    • #12
  13. Richard Easton Coolidge
    Richard Easton
    @RichardEaston

    Susan Quinn (View Comment):

    Valiuth (View Comment):
    The claim that PC killed is vacuous. No reasonable person would have had a reason to stop them based on the information available in their flight plan, or looks.

    I’m sure an Israeli would tell you otherwise . . .

    Even today politicians like Obama insist that Islam has nothing to do with terrorism.  Cognitive dissonance runs deep with Leftists.

    • #13
  14. Chris Campion Coolidge
    Chris Campion
    @ChrisCampion

    Valiuth (View Comment):

    Dr. Bastiat (View Comment):

    Valiuth (View Comment):
    Except that not liking the look of a guy is no standard for doing anything

    Anyone who works in security does this all the time. Police, soldiers, security guards, and so on. Intentionally ignoring your intuition is dangerous.

    My point is that his intuition is retroactive, because it clearly wasn’t strong enough when he saw the man to do anything, and then afterwards when he learned information he had no way of knowing he retroactively fits in stronger feelings than he had. I guess Woods followed his intuitions, but the people who took his report get hundreds of similar complaints. Why is he more credible?

    The claim that PC killed is vacuous. No reasonable person would have had a reason to stop them based on the information available in their flight plan, or looks. And the person who would extrapolate from such information will likely create more problems for the whole system by swamping it with false positives.

    The guy himself said he’s passed people from different backgrounds – but this one guy set off alarms.

    This is literally what we pay them to do.  It’s not a vacuous claim.  Someone paid to do this work had a concern, but stopped himself because of political correctness.  The perception of his actions.

    And thanks – but I’d rather the system get swamped than my plane being crashed into a political target.  Is it swamped now?

    • #14
  15. Douglas Pratt Coolidge
    Douglas Pratt
    @DouglasPratt

    A wise old Israeli security expert was invited to speak to a class I was fortunate to attend. When asked how we could improve American security efforts, he said, “You look for bad things. We look for bad people.”

    • #15
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