June 07, 2002

Dangerous Maniac Alert Have you

Dangerous Maniac Alert

Have you seen the piece about how Mohamed Atta and three of the other jihadi-jackers applied for a government loan to finance a "crop dusting business?" It's unbelievable.

"He wanted to finance a twin-engine six-passenger aircraft … and remove the seats," said [government loan officer Johnelle] Bryant. "He said he was an engineer, and he wanted to build a chemical tank that would fit inside the aircraft and take up every available square inch of the aircraft except for where the pilot would be sitting."

The loan officer says that people like Atta "don't have a big 'T' on their forehead..." But judging from the account of his bizarre behavior, it's almost like he might as well have been wearing a "terrorist, just add $" T-shirt. Of course hindsight is 20/20 and all that. I'm sure her office had no shortage of nutters coming through every day. But Atta seems to have been pushing the nutter envelope.

You really have to read the whole thing to believe it.

No would-be Islamist terrorist will ever be able to get away with being this clumsy and obtrusive again. He seems to have been the best they could do as far as that operation was concerned, and the chances of such a massive improvement in "blending in" skills are pretty slim. Had there been more public awareness of the threat posed by Arab terrorists at the time (as there is now) the operation probably wouldn't have survived this extreme case of "blowing their cover," even accounting for the ineptitude of the FBI. ("Public" awareness includes the FBI: they may have been clueless then, which is an outrage, but no one is clueless now when it comes to guys like Atta.)

Still, even accounting for the cluelessness of the time (May 2000-- most of us were blissfully unaware of the need to be vigilant against terrorism) it's amazing that Bryant never thought to report such over-the-top behavior. Leave aside the terrorism. What would you do if someone came in to your workplace and threatened to cut your throat and take all the money in the safe behind your desk?

There's a hint of multi-culturalist claptrap in her explanation:

Bryant never thought to report her strange encounter because she thought she was just helping a new immigrant learn about the country.

"I felt that he was trying to make the cultural leap from the country that he came from, with all the violence, as compared to the United States," she says. "I was attempting, in every manner I could, to help him make his relocation into our country as easy for him as I could make it."


The bizarre behavior of those participating in the hijacking "dress rehearsal" witnessed by James Woods was similarly discounted by those on the plane and by the authorities to whom it was reported. At what point should indulgence for quaint "cultural differences" give way to a big, flashing "dangerous maniac" sign? It seems as though the threshold has shifted. Sometimes, it's true, such bizarre behavior can be a reflection of harmless "cultural differences;" sometimes, it's simply a reflection of mental derangement. But from now on, when a guy named Mohamed starts talking about blowing up Washington D.C., you have to consider the possibility that he really might mean it.

Posted by Dr. Frank at June 7, 2002 10:11 AM | TrackBack