In 2006 a Northwest Airlines flight from Amsterdam to Mumbai was escorted back to Schiphol by Dutch fighter planes after the crew became suspicious of some passengers' behaviour. Granted that in the hysterical post-9/11 climate you only need to wear a beard and whisper Allah to warrant suspicions, but 12 people were nevertheless arrested before the Dutch government announced it was a false alarm. A trial run for future scenarios involving Northwest Airlines perhaps?
Last February a Turkish Airlines Boeing crashed upon landing at Schiphol. Another incident that smacks of spy vs spy games, four of the nine passengers killed were US "Boeing employees" returning from Turkey after pitching a "sophisticated airborne radar station" - to be installed in a Turkish airforce Boeing 737 - to the Turkish military brass on behalf of the Pentagon.
Amsterdam Schiphol has had the DNA-tearing 'naked' scanners in operation since 2007. Although that's irrelevant in Mutallab's case because he was escorted around normal security procedure, the incident was used to promote these machines en-masse, a plan we are told was on the backburner until now because of 'fears for people's privacy.'
Along with the psychopaths in the US government, racist hard-liners in Israel believe the survival of the state of Israel lies solely in its military strength and that this strength arises from the need to answer the constant threat of war.
Of course, fighting a real and well-equipped enemy is very risky. After all, you might lose. The next best thing is to create the enemy yourself and play both sides against the middle, as they say. Unfortunately it is the masses of ordinary people that find themselves in the middle of the deranged games that psychopaths play.
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