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FLIGHT AVOIDED

Former Guantanamo Bay detainee Moazzam Begg declines to fly ... because he’s scared of profiling:

The 38-year-old British Muslim, who spent almost three years in captivity at the naval base in Cuba, said he was concerned about the scrutiny he might have been subjected to and the feelings of other passengers on the flight.

Mr Begg, from Birmingham, decided at the last minute to catch a train to make his appearance at the Edinburgh International Book Festival. He told a sell-out audience in the Scottish capital that his anxiety about catching a flight was typical of the experiences faced by many Asian people in the current climate, after September 11 and the London bombings.

Hmmm. Possibly Begg is suffering a case of Phillip Panic.

Mr Begg, who is promoting his new book Enemy Combatant, said his experience in Guantanamo had made him “stronger and more focused”.

Guantanamo Bay made Mamdouh Habib stronger and more focused, too. Place is a damn health farm.

(Via Raffi)

Posted by Tim B. on 08/17/2006 at 10:31 AM
  1. Well, now I don’t feel so safe on trains.

    Posted by ushie on 2006 08 17 at 10:41 AM • permalink

  2. he was concerned about the scrutiny he might have been subjected to and the feelings of other passengers on the flight.

    I suspect London train travellers might have felt similar feelings…

    Posted by Dan Lewis on 2006 08 17 at 11:12 AM • permalink

  3. Begg was never charged. With anything. So what are we laughing at?

    Posted by gson on 2006 08 17 at 11:17 AM • permalink

  4. I laugh. At. People who use peri. Ods randomly.

    Posted by VKI on 2006 08 17 at 11:30 AM • permalink

  5. Hilarious, Vicki. (It was for emphasis, but never mind.)

    Anyway, why does an innocent bloke who was jailed for several years deserve to be ridiculed by anonymous blog commenters?

    Put your old skool grammar book down and put your common sense hat on.

    Posted by gson on 2006 08 17 at 11:34 AM • permalink

  6. Who is this Begg fellow? So this innocent man was grabbed off of the street in downtown London and thrown into Gauntanamo?

    Also, I thought that Guantanamo was a detention center, that was used to confine persons captured during the various operations in the war on terror(ism)? If true, then why would anyone detained there undergo any charges or trials? Persons interned or detained during times of war are usually not charged, but are detained, unless they are repatriated, exchanged or released. The only exception would be persons charged with violating conventions or laws regarding war.

    Posted by Blue Hen on 2006 08 17 at 11:43 AM • permalink

  7. #5 gson

    If you can’t be ridiculed by anonymous blog commenters, who can you be ridiculed by? That’s why Al Gore invented the damn internets!

    viz. Mr Begg, there’s an axiom in the US when driving long distances to eat where the truckdrivers eat (since they would supposedly know which restaurants were better through experience).

    If I see Mr. Begg backing off a plane, I’m not flying on it, either!

    Posted by JDB on 2006 08 17 at 11:46 AM • permalink

  8. Anyway, why does an innocent bloke who was jailed for several years deserve to be ridiculed by anonymous blog commenters?

    Because he was “jailed” for carrying arms in a combat zone jam-packed with unlawful combatants who had committed multiple war crimes, were committing more at the time, and were planning to commit even more.

    The odds of a man of fighting age who WAS NOT A LOCAL being in Afghanistan at that time purely by chance are vanishingly small.

    And, heck, he was probably released because he sang like a canary.

    Posted by Rob Crawford on 2006 08 17 at 12:49 PM • permalink

  9. gson,

    (Truth to tell, random periods for emphasis is a

    tic of mine, too.

    I can’t add to Blue Hen’s comment.  Gitmo is for detaining enemy combatants, to keep them from further combating.

    VKI

    Posted by VKI on 2006 08 17 at 12:50 PM • permalink

  10. Hmmm. Possibly Begg is suffering a case of Phillip Panic.

    Yes, odd isn’t it, how many people of that stripe are suddenly reluctant to fly.  Not that there was really anything to that UK bomb plot.  [/sarc]

    Posted by RebeccaH on 2006 08 17 at 01:32 PM • permalink

  11. gson’s use of periods reminds me of that much-ridiculed Liberal ad in the last Canadian election:

    “Stephen Harper actually announced he wants to increase military presence in our cities. Canadian cities. Soldiers with guns. In our cities. In Canada. We did not make this up.”

    The level of obtuseness is pretty comparable, too.

    Posted by PW on 2006 08 17 at 01:58 PM • permalink

  12. Oh, and if gson’s spelling and punctuation wasn’t as good as it is, I would swear we’re dealing with the third incarnation of drpoll/hal_thall here.

    Posted by PW on 2006 08 17 at 01:59 PM • permalink

  13. sell-out audience

    or audience of sell-outs?

    Posted by Grimmy on 2006 08 17 at 02:09 PM • permalink

  14. Funny, as I thought the security checks were done on a random basis because “profiling” for a certain age, sex, and ethnic identity was considered “racist.” Isn’t Mr. Begg confirming what we know to be true—security checks should be done on the basis of a profile—but have refused to act upon as it would be insufficiently sensitive (so say our post-modern multiculturalists).

    Posted by Forbes on 2006 08 17 at 04:46 PM • permalink

  15. Britain’s loss of nerve is one of the main reasons it has become a global centre of Islamic extremism.

    So here’s my sing song for the day for the Brits.. holds the mike.

    He drinks a whisky drink
    He drinks a vodka drink
    He drinks a lager drink
    He drinks a cider drink
    He sings the songs that remind him
    Of the good times
    He sings the songs that remind him
    Of the better times:
    “Oh Danny Boy
    Danny Boy
    Danny Boy…”
    I get knocked down
    But I get up again
    You’re never going to keep me down!

    fa la laaaaaaaaaaaaaa…

    Posted by 1.618 on 2006 08 17 at 06:39 PM • permalink

  16. (It was for emphasis, but never mind.)

    There’s a trick to using periods for emphasis on the Internet, gson.  Imagine yourself speaking each word in a sentence as though it is a separate sentence, thusly:

    Begg. Was. Never. Charged. With. Anything.

    Note the capitalization.  See?  Simple!

    Or try this for size:


    Persons. Captured. During. War. Are. Usually. Not. Charged. But. Detained. Unless. They. Are. Repatriated. Exchanged. Or. Released.

    Long, but still a useful example (h/t to Blue Hen).

    Posted by The_Real_JeffS on 2006 08 17 at 07:32 PM • permalink

  17. Aha!

    I claim a new internet standard word!

    PHILIPANIC: noun; the fear of flying felt by complete leftist tossers when they realise that the set of victims de jour they are currently patronising actually will blow up an airliner with them on it while yowling ‘allah akhbar’.
    see: Philip Adams (AKA Phat Phil, Phattie, Phil the Phuckwit etc etc etc etc), term coined when Adams voided his bowels in fear on realising he’d arrive in London during the 2006 Bojinka II bomb plot.
    Also see ‘Cluebat: getting hit with the’
    Also see ‘Demolitiondump’, another term from this infamous occasion, coined to describe the structural effect of Adams voiding his bowels in terror on the building in which it occurred (The Vietnam Moratorium Chomsky Appreciation and Land Rights for Nuclear Free Gay Whales Centre and Latte Bar), in which 32 leftists were smothered to death in what locals called ‘The Great Coproslide of ‘06’.

    MarkL
    Canberra

    Phew. and to think Tim nearly got there first…

    Posted by MarkL on 2006 08 17 at 07:35 PM • permalink

  18. #17.  Reads like a Wikipedia entry.  Well done.

    Posted by RebeccaH on 2006 08 17 at 08:51 PM • permalink

  19. Has Begg made a movie, starring his family, of his torture? Is he on the dole because of his terrible experience?

    Posted by kae on 2006 08 17 at 09:56 PM • permalink

  20. Here’s a brief synopsis of the Beggster- no wonder he’s the darling of the fruitcake fringe; he’s knocked out a book describing how he was in Afghanistan to teach, his collection of urban warfare kit seized by the filth was purely a hobby and while he is a radical Islamist who’d like to see Western Civilisation collapse and a new Sha’ria based Caliphate be its logical replacement, he’s not actually doing anything to bring this about.

    And his mum says he’s just a naughty boy.

    Posted by Habib on 2006 08 17 at 10:24 PM • permalink

  21. I just have a comment on the term “sell-out” audience.

    He told a sell-out audience in the Scottish capital that…

    In the good ol’ US of A that’s called a “sold-out” audience, in that all the tickets to the event were sold.

    “Sell-out” is a completely different thing.  Although, from what I’ve read concerning a large part of European public opinion, perhaps the term is accurate in its American sense, too.

    Posted by kcom on 2006 08 17 at 11:43 PM • permalink

  22. So he’s frightened only by racial profiling at the airport [really scary!] and NOT by the possibility of being blown up when he travels??
    Does he know something we should all know?

    Posted by Barrie on 2006 08 18 at 01:58 AM • permalink

  23. #22

    Does he know something we should all know?

    Perhaps he knows you’re not likely to get to your destination on time.  Flying within the UK is notoriously unreliable often with fog closing off airports.  So he’s really better off on the train.

    But that wouldn’t make a good story now, would it?

    I reckon this one is just more MSM b/s.

    Posted by Wand on 2006 08 18 at 02:15 AM • permalink

  24. #5 0nly Volvo drivers wear hats..and the Ant of course..

    Posted by crash on 2006 08 18 at 08:34 AM • permalink

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