Under that title, a stinging editorial by The Arizona Republic appeared on their pages today:
As an act of coldblooded strategy, the pending lawsuit of the “flying imams” is a clever one.
It is directed not merely at an airline or at a government. It is directed at passengers, at anyone flying on a commercial airliner who might be so bold as to actually report what they believe may be “suspicious activity.”
It is a strategy aimed at all of us. What, after all, do ordinary citizens fear almost as much as terrorism in the skies? It is the prospect of being dunned into their dotage — and into poverty — by lawyers and process servers demanding to know why they are so hateful.
And, so, the result: Let the other guy report what he sees, thank you.
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As the imams have made clear from the moment they finally arrived in Phoenix, the only explanation for what happened at the Minneapolis airport is that a wide variety of people acted against their innocent behavior strictly out of ethnic bias or hatred. They have not deviated an iota from that script since.
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Into this cynical legal ploy, then, steps one of the most altruistic citizens of our age, Dr. M. Zuhdi Jasser, director of the American Islamic Forum for Democracy. Jasser, a Phoenix-area physician and a Muslim, has offered to raise money for the legal defense of any “John Doe” passengers who ultimately may be named.Jasser has done more to espouse Islamic principles of peace and co-existence than perhaps anyone in the country.
Congress, too, has acted. Legislation sponsored by Rep. Steve Pearce, R-N.M., seeks to shield airline passengers from such frivolous lawsuits by granting them immunity. Sounds good to us.
Read the rest and please visit Dr. Jasser’s web site and lend whatever support you can.