jarhubby just called and informed me that the government was looking into a car abandoned at Boston’s Logan Airport, filled with Arabic flight manuals, pics of Bin Laden and the Koran.
What convenient evidence.
Doesn’t it seem like someone would leave that behind on purpose? He also tells me that there was some man on the news (and I’m hoping someone else will have a cite) that said he had gotten in a squabble and near fight with five ‘arabic men’ in the airport parking lot over a parking space…and that the arabic men said “they were going to miss their flight”
I think there may be two ‘car’ stories being conflated:
This story discusses a car siezed at Logan airport that had Arabic flight manuals.
This story mentions a car sized at a Florida airport. This other car was the one that had a “a picture that resembled Osama Bin Laden and a Palestinian flag”.
I haven’t heard that either car has been clearly linked to the hijackings. I think they’re just being treated as ‘suspicious’.
We can certainly imagine Conspiracy Theories, in which the attacks were carred out by someone other than Arab-speaking extremist Muslims, who carefully planted an Arabic flight manual to throw off suspicion. But, let’s not discount the fact that people who are under stress do stupid things. Even the most assured fanatic might be a little nervous on a day like that. We’ve all read lots of “World’s Dumbest Criminals” stories about people leaving their wallets behind at the bank they just robbed. IIRC, the perpetrators of the first World Trade Center bombing were caught when one of them tried to get back his rental deposit on the truck, no? An act of stupidity far less understandable than slipping up and leaving some papers behind in the car.
As I said, I hadn’t heard that either of these cars has been clearly (or even vaguely) linked to the hijacks (someone please correct me if they’ve heard otherwise).
It certainly seems possible that this car might belong to a legitimate Arabic-speaking airline pilot, and that it has nothing to do with yesterday’s events. I don’t think anybody knows at this point.
IMHO, it seems unlikely that the pilots ( assuming they were trained to the degree that seems plausible, considering their alleged roles ) would need to carry flight manuals ( in the car, upto the airport ) on the day of their planned attack.
This business of the props on the car are mighty suspicious to me too. I think the real stories are known by our government as they unfold and they will present another picture to the American People as they find out all the horrific nasties that these people wanted to unleash on this country.
Consider the risk involved in taking items that show you are interested in the technical details of air-travel through airport security. Why? “I’d feel a lot more comfortable crashing this jet if I knew I had a fuel-consumption calculator locked away in storage.” Any baggage taken along would be useful only to reassure security that you are expecting to get off the plane alive and will want clean underwear.
This didn’t make any sense to me either. My theory?
I think that we haven’t seen the last of the attacks. I think that the “evidence” was left to throw the authority’s off track while the real perpertrators plan their next move.
[sub][sup]Maybe I’ve read to many books and seen to many movies.[/sub][/sup]
I think this may apply to a lot of people in this thread. Look, I don’t want to be doctrinaire in saying there couldn’t possibly be something funny going on here. But I do think that saying “Oh, that’s too perfect” or “Oh, it’s just too ‘pat’ to be true” is a fallacy, somewhat along the same lines of always discounting the possibility of coincidence in favor of conspiracies and deep secret meanings. In real life, lots of things happen that are “too perfect”, where people say “Wow, if a fiction writer had written that, no one would have believed him!”
With the benefit of 20/20 hindsight we can naturally see that airport security should have summarily shot any passenger attempting to board a plane who appeared to be in training to become a commercial airline pilot, especially if they were foreign or something. :rolleyes:
(And naturally, any terrorists would assume that’s what airport security would do, because that’s what airport security in this country tradtionally has done, right?)
Just as it’s obviously a very bad idea to assume one’s enemies are incompetent or powerless, it can also be a mistake to assume they are omnipotent and all-powerful and free of error. The hijackers were human beings (however evil they may have been). Human beings often feel the need to consult manuals before carrying out technically complex or difficult tasks, especially in stressful situations.
Well, the terrorists probably wanted to time their arrival at the airport within certain parameters - not too early, but make the flight. Ever driven to Logan? Some days traffic breezes on the expressway and through the tunnel; other days, it crawls for no apparent reason. It’s certainly reasonable that they made a “dry run” or two, and then on the fateful day…ran late. They end up frantic that they will miss the flight. The stuff in the car? I’m with MEBuckner. On the day of a big test, I cram, no matter how well I know the material. Before sitting for boards, I studied on the way to the exam, as if those last few minutes would do what years of study hadn’t. Looks like maybe they did too. And if they hadn’t got into that beef, that car would have sat there…and sat there…with the trail growing colder. Doesn’t seem too fortuitous to be true to me.
I only meant that the only possible use that luggage would be of would be as camouflage… Passengers travelling without luggage are suspicious. Therefore, it makes sense that the person packing it would be thinking about being inconspicuous. Even friendly conversation- “Oh, you are a pilot?” would be unwelcome, wouldn’t it?