Laughter justified

Not Injustice:

Captain Ed reports some details about the six imams removed from a US Airways flight. Apparently, the men switched seats without authorization from the airline, seizing positions in the front row of first class, the exit rows, and the rear. This was a technique used by the 9/11 hijackers:

That would normally be enough to get any flight delayed while the seating arrangements got straightened out, especially if passengers deliberately take seats other than those assigned to them. However, the men kept interfering with the boarding process by going back and forth to talk amongst each other. Their seating pattern -- again, not that assigned by the airline -- positioned them at every egress point from the aircraft.

And those seat-belt extenders? Once they received them from the flight attendants, the imams put them under their seats, and not on the seat belts that purportedly would not fit them. Anyone who saw that would understandably wonder why the imams requested them in the first place, especially the flight crew, which has primary responsibility for flight security.

Small wonder, then, that US Air kicked them off the flight. Two pilots from other airlines confirmed that they would have done the same thing under the same circumstances. One pilot indicated that the repositioning of the group within the plane has been identified as a terrorist probe technique.

Seat belt extenders can, of course, be used as a weapon of sorts. Given the rigorousness with which the other passengers are disarmed by our own government before boarding the aircraft, real harm could be done by someone with such a strap who has trained in using it as a field-expedient weapon.

I remember shortly after 9/11 someone suggested that we just issue all airline passengers a Louisville Slugger. That would, at least, remove the chance of someone using a seat belt extension (or a box cutter) to hijack a plane. It would probably also cut down on "probes" like this one.

However, for now that concept is not in the cards. Too many people still think that we can best achieve security by disarming. In fact, security requires that we be capable of upholding the peace.