The Angry Arab links to this NYTimes story on the hysterical and mendacious Annie Jacobsen. For a breakdown post on the story with links to credulous warbloggers as well as the original Jacobsen panic-fest, go here. From the NYTimes' Joe Sharkey:
Did, as a passenger reported, 7 of the 13 Syrian musicians whose behavior was terrifying some passengers stand up in unison and take strategic positions by the lavatories and the exit door during final approach to Los Angeles, an act that would have been a frighteningly overt and unambiguous provocation?
They did not, according to the Federal Air Marshal Service, which had previously left unchallenged assertions by Annie Jacobsen, a freelance writer on the flight, that they did.
"What happened was, they were already standing up in the aisle before the seat belt signs became illuminated," said Dave Adams, a spokesman for the agency, which represents air marshals who travel undercover on airplanes.
"The flight attendants asked them to sit down and the men respected the orders and sat in their seats. Two gentlemen asked why they had to, and a flight attendant told them 'Because, so please take your seats.' And they obeyed," he said.
The new information, he added, came from "subsequent interviews of flight attendants on this matter by our personnel."
So there was absolutely no sudden move by the men on final approach?
"None," Mr. Adams said.
As'ad AbuKhalil adds this comment:
And yet the US media keep whipping up the story. And Jacobsen could NOT find one passenger to come forward on the record and corroborate her story (she claims that two other passengers did so but they do not want to come forward). Do you know how bad that is for US relations with the ME? Do you know that Al-Hayat newspaper published a first page story a few days ago by its correspondent in Damascus (Ibrahim Humaydi whom I met in the recent visit--a great journalist who spent time in Syrian jails) in which he ridiculed that story because in Syria they all know this Syrian singing group.
Pathetic. Of course the Annie Jacobsen types don't care what relations between the ME and the US are like. If you told them that foreign student enrollment, after declining steadily since 9/11 (the day
everything changed) dipped dramatically -
down 32% from a year ago - they would probably consider that a positive development, just as the diplomatic isolation of the US is shrugged off. Now, for As'ad -
What US relations with the ME?The latest survey results out of the Middle East show that America's favorability rating is now, essentially, zero. That's down from as high as 75 percent in some Muslim countries just four years ago.
And,
In the first poll, which surveyed six Arab nations and was commissioned by the Washington-based Arab American Institute (AAI), the overall approval ratings of the US ranged between an unprecedented low of two per cent in Egypt and a high of 20 per cent in Lebanon. Those holding a favourable view of the US in Saudi Arabia were four per cent, 11 per cent in Morocco, 14 per cent in the United Arab Emirates (UAE) and 15 per cent in Jordan. That marked a relatively sharp decline compared to a similar poll held by AAI two years ago, and indicated that the main reason behind the fall was the policies of the present US administration led by George W Bush.
Considering the information above, it is a wonder that the Syrian band that so frightened Jacobsen even agreed to perform in the US. Now that their experience with hyperventilating American twits like Jacobsen is being widely reported in the ME, likely other
swarthy people are going to pass up the opportunity for such a delightful experience and all of us will be poorer, both economically and culturally, as a result.
