Never mind Snakes On A Plane, airline travelers and crew members are much more apprehensive about terrorists on a plane. Indeed, in the aftermath of the alleged British terror plot that was foiled earlier this month and the heightened security that followed this event, the friendly skies have been downright hysterical. Fliers are jumpier than members of Dick Cheney’s hunting party (and perhaps his political party). They’re seeing terrorists everywhere. Suspects abound. And, by suspects, I mean those who appear of Middle Eastern descent or of Muslim faith. Thanks to their dangerously extremist brethren, these are exceedingly difficult times for such folks, who, however innocent or unassuming, are viewed with more suspicion than Cindy Sheehan at a GOP fundraiser. Consider the recent consequences…

From the Washington Post:

Travelers Are Jittery After Air Plot Arrests

At an airport in Spain, a terrified 12-year-old girl began crying and pointing at two passengers, both Muslim college students, fueling a panic that led to their removal from the plane. A West Virginia airport terminal was evacuated when officials wrongly suspected that luggage belonging to a woman of Pakistani descent contained liquid explosives. A Muslim doctor was escorted off a United Airlines flight in Denver after passengers became suspicious when he recited prayers.

A growing number of these kinds of incidents in recent days suggest how jittery and suspicious air travelers have become. Since British police announced earlier this month that they had broken up an alleged plot by young British Muslims to bomb jetliners flying from Britain to the United States, passengers and pilots are reporting high anxiety in the skies.

Some say the feeling is an understandable response to extraordinarily unsettling events involving airplanes, beginning with the attacks of Sept. 11, 2001. But many Muslims—and even Sikhs and other non-Muslim people who appear Asian—say they are suffering for doing nothing more than “TWA: traveling while Asian.� [full text]

From the New York Times:

Dutch, Seeing No Terror Link, Free 12 Held After India Flight

Dutch authorities said Thursday that they were releasing all 12 passengers arrested on Wednesday after they aroused suspicion on a Northwest Airlines flight to India and it made an emergency landing in Amsterdam.

The police said that the men had been unruly but that no evidence was found that they were planning any terrorist actions.

The men, all Indian citizens or of Indian descent, had aroused the suspicion of the crew and several federal air marshals when they began using and passing around cellphones soon after takeoff from Amsterdam and ignored orders to keep their seat belts on and stay in their seats.

Because of the group’s behavior, the pilot of the DC-10 decided to return to Amsterdam, and on the way back the plane was escorted by two Dutch fighter jets. On arrival, the 12 men were handcuffed and led away by the police, who held them overnight in a detention center. [full text]

From the Bangor Daily News:

Handcuffed Man Removed from Plane Diverted to Bangor

A man was handcuffed and removed Friday from a trans-Atlantic flight that was diverted to Bangor International Airport, passengers said.

American Airlines Flight 55, a Boeing 767, was en route from Manchester, England, to Chicago, when it was diverted for security reasons, said Arlene Murray, New England regional spokeswoman for the Federal Aviation Administration.

She declined to elaborate….

Passengers told reporters that a man they believed to be of Middle Eastern descent was handcuffed and taken away by police. [full text]

Despite these incidents and others like them, government officials in the U.S. and abroad seem rather blasé about the growing hysteria and the prejudice and harassment that such breeds. Through their inaction or collusion, they sow further seeds of discontent in the Muslim and Arab world and so, rather than creating greater security, create less.