Another Buried Christmas Day Arrest Uncovered: Same Route, Same Airline, Same Day, Different Flight

On the day of the Flight 253 incident, reporter Michael
Rosenfield of WXYZ in Detroit appeared live on CNN during the
evening news and reported that, earlier that day, another passenger was arrested on a different flight from Amsterdam to Detroit. Same route, same airline, same day. This
report appears to have been corroborated by a woman who was apparently
a passenger on that flight in an on-camera interview; an interview
which was even played at least once on CNN on December 25. However, the
media subsequently blended this separate incident with the
widely-reported “failed bombing” incident.  Hence, the
many media reports of Mutallab “screaming about
Afghanistan” despite the fact that the witnesses actually
describe him as being amazingly calm and totally silent. The End Run
deconstructs this apparent, suspicious, and convenient misreporting.

TheEndRun.com
January 4, 2010

On Christmas Day, the public was inundated with reports that a
23-year-old Nigerian had attempted to blow up Northwest/Delta Flight
253, which had departed from Amsterdam, as it neared its destination in
Detroit. We are already seeing information coming out that indicates a
deliberate cover-up on many fronts, to say the least.

One thing we have now learned is that a second man from Flight 253
was handcuffed and taken away by authorities on Christmas Day. 
According to witness Kurt Haskell and his wife Lori, bomb sniffing dogs
had detected something in his bag, which led to an extended period of
questioning in another room, followed by his (apparent) arrest.

Government officials initially denied that anyone other than
Mutallab was detained; but, after other witnesses came forward to
corroborate the Haskells, they had to admit that someone else was
detained. However, they cited “immigration charges” as the
reason, and have since changed their story
at least three more times.  As of now it seems they are trying to
claim that this man was from a totally different flight, a claim that
Kurt Haskell says is false and impossible because the passengers from
his plane were “quarantined” and absolutely not permitted
to comingle with passengers from any other planes.  He facetiously
suggests that the government official who made this claim “should
become a comedian”.

Haskell also says
that he witnessed a “nicely dressed” Indian-looking man
around 50 years of age approach the ticket counter with Mutallab in
Amsterdam.  He says Mutallab “never said a word” as
the Indian-looking man pressed the person behind the counter to allow
Mutallab to fly, even though he did not, according to the
Indian-looking man, have a passport.  Eventually the two were sent
down a hallway to talk to a manager, according to Haskell.  So far
neither U.S. nor Dutch authorities have acknowledge that this took
place, instead opting to make what Haskell calls “self serving play[s] on semantics”.

Other passengers have reported
that there was a mysterious man who video taped the entire flight with
a camcorder, and when the “attempted bombing” occured, he
“sat up and videotaped the entire thing, very
calmly”.  Passenger Patricia “Scotty” Keepman,
who witnessed this along with her daughter Richelle, has said:
“We do know that the FBI is looking for him intensely. Since
then, we’ve heard nothing about it.”

The rest of this article will provide new information that further points to a cover-up.

THE REPORT FROM THE “UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE PASSENGER”

On the day of the event, numerous passengers from Flight 253 were interviewed on camera while they were still in the airport.

One woman reported the following:

He was — stood up.  He was belligerent. 
Uh, he was yelling, swearing.  He would put hats on.  He was
screaming about Afghanistan.  Umm.  He was fighting with the
wonderful s– err,  stewards that we had.  There were
five men — big men — and three women.  I said to my
husband I was so thankful that there were three — er, five men on
the, um, flight.

The video recording of this short interview is not easy to find online, but as of this writing it can still be viewed here, on the website of The Daily Telegraph, sandwiched in between interviews with two other passengers.

For your convenience I have uploaded her interview by itself:

Popout

Unlike most if not all of the other passengers who have been
interviewed and quoted by the media, this woman was not identified by
name at the time, and still (to my knowledge) has never been
identified.  As far as I can tell she has never been interviewed
again.

The other two interviewees in that Telegraph video, on the
other hand, were both identified by name on Christmas day in many other
places as Richelle Keepman and Melinda Dennis.  Both have been
quoted in myriad other articles, and have subsequently appeared on
mainstream news stations (For example, Keepman was interviewed on CNN’s Anderson Cooper 360 Degrees and Dennis on NBC’s The Today Show.)

In this
early BBC article she is quoted along with six other passengers. 
She is referred to as an “unidentified female passenger”,
while all others are referred to by their full name.

THE MUTE CONSENSUS

 

Given that a week has now passed and the dust has been able to
settle a bit, many readers who have been following the Mutallab story
will likely be able to see that there is something wrong with this
witness account.  Namely, all of the other passengers report
Mutallab’s behavior as being the total opposite of what this
woman describes.

For example, in a video-recorded interview in the airport shortly after the event (later aired and transcribed by CNN), passenger Melinda Dennis (mentioned above) told WXYZ news:

 

“He didn’t say anything. He was injured.  He was burnt quite severely on his leg […]
He was very calm. He didn’t show any reaction to pain or any
feeling of shock or nervousness. He just looked like a normal
individual.

 

Appearing on the Fox News show “On The Record” on December 28 (transcript), passenger Daniel Huisinga told guest host Shannon Breem:

…that’s one of the strangest things about
this experience is he was burned very badly, he was in a situation
where he was being put in a headlock, dragged into the aisle,
handcuffed, but he wasn’t screaming, he wasn’t yelling, he wasn’t really struggling. And,
the — the scariest part of the whole experience was looking into
the eyes of the person who at that time I thought had just sealed my
death warrant and seeing no emotion, not even anger, no fear, just a blank stare, blank expression in the face of this unbelievable evil that he was attempting to commit against all of these innocent people.

 

Syed Jafry, a passenger who was three rows away from Mutallab, was interviewed by CNN’s Ali Velshi on the day of the event.  Here’s what he said:

VELSHI: …did he look like he was struggling?

JAFRY: No, he — I don’t recall that he was
struggling, more that he appeared to be more stunned and sort of
surprised with the whole act.

 

[…]

VELSHI: Did he seem to be yelling anything or saying anything, uttering any threats?

JAFRY: No, nothing at all. I, at least, didn’t hear anything. Maybe some other people who were closer to him may have heard him, but I did not hear anything...

Jasper Schuringa, who the Herald Sun says “has been hailed as
the hero of Northwest Airlines Flight 253″ for subduing Mutallab,
agrees:

FREDRICKA WHITFELD (CNN ANCHOR):
Now tell me about him.  Was he fighting you? Was he
struggling?  Did he just seem to, uhh, upon discovery just kind of
let it go, and — and you all were able to kind of manhandle him?

JASPER SCHURINGA: No, he was — he was just very calm.  Uhh, he was shaking though.  But he didn’t resist anything.  And uh, he was just sitting there.  And, uh, he looked like a normal guy as well.
But, you know, it was just, uh, just hard to — to believe that,
you know, he was going to try — trying to blow up this plane.

WHITFELD: Was there — was there anything about him prior to
that incident that ever made you look at him?  Did you suspect
anything?  Did anything catch your attention about him?

SCHURINGA: No.  Nothing, nothing, nothing.  Absolutely nothing. 
So, it was a big, uh, surprise when we heard the first explosion people
were just like looking around like, you know, “Okay, this is not
good.  What’s going on?”  And then the first
person shouted “Fire!”  And then, uh, like I got to my
sense and [I thought] okay this is wrong.

[…]

WHITFELD : Were there any words?… was there any yelling, any screaming?

SCHURINGA: No.  Yeah, well the — like the — like, like whole plane was screaming.  And uh, but the suspect, he, he, like he didn’t say a word.  No nothing like that.

WHITFELD: Never said a word.  Not
prior, not during, not even once you all had subdued him and you were
holding him waiting for authorities.

SCHURINGA: Well we were holding him, but he wasn’t, uh, struggling, he wasn’t saying a word, nothing. He was just [inaudible] I guess.

[..]

SCHURINGA: Well he was, uh, like, he was in trance.

By December 30, the uniformity of the witness accounts with regard
to Mutallab’s behavior could not be denied, even by the major
media.  Writing for Time Magazine that day, Michael Duffy and Mark Thompson summarized the descriptions:

Passengers later said there was something curious about
the spare young man who had tried to bring down their plane: he was
silent throughout the attack. He didn’t panic. He didn’t
yell any last-second religious slogans. He was calm and methodical as
he set himself on fire. It was as though he had been trained.

THE ANOMALOUS REPORT EXPLAINED

I began researching the “failed bombing” incident in the
very early morning on December 26.  I watched and read dozens of
news reports, paying careful attention to the accounts of the
passengers (amongst other things).  I did this because I know that
when these kinds of “terrorist events” occur there are
usually early witness reports that contradict what will eventually
become the official (government-endorsed) storyline.  Since I was
looking critically at the witness accounts from the very beginning in
this way, it did not take me long to recognize that the
“unidentified female passenger” was an anomalous account.

Later that day, while discussing the incident with a family member,
I mentioned the report of this unidentified woman.  She replied,
“Oh, she was probably on that other flight.”

I, of course, had no idea what she was talking about.  She
proceeded to tell me (nonchalantly) that it was reported on television
the previous day that there was another man arrested on another flight
from Amsterdam to Detroit whose behavior fit the description of this
unidentified female passenger.  Having just spent hours reading
dozens of media reports, I informed her that none of them said a word
about such a thing, and asked if she could be mistaken.  She
insisted that she was not.

I went online and searched, but could not find any reports of this.  Not one.  Then, finally, I found a single blog post which stated: “CNN
is also reporting a weird coincidence: Another guy was arrested today
on the same route, same airline, (different flight) for shouting
“pro-Afghanistan, anti-American” statements and generally
being rowdy. Law enforcement say the two incidents aren’t
related—the guy was just drunk”.

The post included a link to the CNN video clip from Christmas Day
— the same one my family member saw, which was, as far as I can
tell, the only broadcast in which this story was ever reported on live.
(Part of it re-aired at least once, see below).

Here it is:

Popout

Here is a transcript:

MICHAEL ROSENFIELD: We have also learned about another
incident, also on board a flight from Amsterdam to Detroit this
afternoon.  Another passenger was arrested on that flight as
well.  Federal officials and local law enforcement here
don’t think the two incidents were connected, but it also did
happen on a flight from Amsterdam to Detroit.  A passenger was
yelling pro-Afghanistan statements, anti-American statements as
well.  He was throwing food on passengers in the back part of the
plane.  He was taken into custody, but law enforcement officials
here on the ground tell us they think that it was just a drunk
passenger.  They do not think these two incidents were
connected.  Live in Detroit, I’m Michael Rosenfield. 
Back to you.

ALI VELSHI (CNN ANCHOR): Mike, was that a — was that a
Northwest flight as well coming in from Amsterdam, or was that a
different flight?

ROSENFIELD: Yeah, that was also a Northwest Delta flight also coming
in from Amsterdam to Detroit.  Another incident on that
case.  But again, law enforcement officials think that they were
not connected.  But, uh, pretty coincidental that both happened on
the same route on the same day.

 

Now does the unidentified woman — who, in diametric
opposition to all of the other witnesses, reported that
“he” (who?) “stood up”, was
“beligerent”, “yelling”,
“swearing”,  “screaming about
Afghanistan”, “fighting with the stewards”, and
“would put hats on” — make sense?  If you go
back and watch her interview (or read the transcript), you’ll
notice that she gives no indication that she was on the plane with
Mutallab whatsoever.  She does not say one word about the
“failed bombing”.  She simply describes someone’s
unruly behavior (clearly not Mutallab), and even seems somewhat amused
by it.  Can there be any doubt that she corroborates
Rosenfield’s report and was in fact on that other flight that the
media, for some reason, has failed to speak of ever again?

THE SUNDAY INCIDENT

If you answered “no, there can be no doubt” to that question, then this information ought to raises a lot of new questions.
For instance, are we to believe that CNN and WXYZ did not see
Rosenfield’s report as worthy of following up on?  Or even mentioning
ever again (save one partial re-airing the following morning as
described below)?  Are we to believe that every other news station
simply missed this story, or else saw it and found it equally
uninteresting?

These kinds of considerations are particularly implausible in light of the fact that (”coincidentally”, I guess) an extremely similar “coincidence” occurred on Sunday, and became a top news story of the day, if not the top
story.  It was covered in detail by most if not all major media
outlets, including CNN.  Here are a few of the countless headlines
with links to the articles.

Another Delta Flight Scare in Detroit CBS/AP Dec 27Detroit terror attack: second Nigerian arrested on Amsterdam flight The Daily Telegraph Dec 27

Food Poisoning Blamed In Second Northwest Flight 253 Bomb Scare ABC News ABC News Dec 27

Northwest Airlines Passenger Taken Into Custody in Detroit Bloomberg Dec 27

New Detroit scare declared ‘nonserious’ CNN Dec 27

Unruly Passenger Disrupts Another Amsterdam-to-Detroit Flight Politics Daily Dec 27

 

Déjà vu on Flight 253 in Detroit Free Press Dec 28

Not one of these articles about the Sunday incident makes any mention of the extremely similar incident reported by Rosenfield on Friday; not even the one published by CNN!  Did CNN have amnesia?

THE RE-AIRING

The full, live Rosenfield report aired shortly before 8:45pm EST on
Christmas day.  The Christmas Day part is made clear by his
statements.  That it’s nighttime is obvious in the
video.  I originally derived the timeframe based on two posts
found on message boards from Christmas Day.

Post #1: On the Professional Pilots Rumor Network (PPRuNe.org) the user “AASLF” in “DFW, Tx” said:

“CNN News here reporting a SECOND – separate
NWA flt ex-AMS/DET today had a pax arrested on landing for shouting
anti-American/pro-AQ speech in cabin and throwing food at pax. It is
believed this pax was “merely” drunk. Coincidence???”

This post was dated December 25, 2009, at 2:45.  After browsing
the PPRuNe.org site it seems that their clock is set six hours ahead of
Eastern Standard Time, meaning that it was posted at 8:45pm EST.

Post #2:
Another post made by a user on the DetroitLuv.com message board,
stamped 8:54pm on Dec 25 (that forum’s clock appears to be on set
to EST) reads:

“…and to add more strangeness, a second
man, on a separate Amsterdam to Detroit flight, was taken off a plane
upon landing shouting anti-American slogans (and pro-Afghani ones) and
throwing food on the other passengers. Weirdness.”

 CNN has now released a transcript
of that Dec 25 broadcast, which begins at “20:00 ET”
(8:00pm EST).  Rosenfield’s report comes roughly two-thirds
of the way through the broadcast, confirming the time frame implied by
those message board posts.

The CNN transcript reveals a few things:

1) Rosenfield’s entire report was considerably longer than
that video clip.  Before giving the “second flight”
report, he first reported on the main Mutallab incident for what must
have been at least two or three minutes, playing clips from witnesses.

2) A few minutes after Rosenfield’s report, Velshi did summarized it in his own words:

“We did hear from a reporter in Detroit a few
minutes ago, Michael Rosenfield, about another passenger on a different
flight also a Delta Northwest flight coming in from Amsterdam to
Detroit. This passenger was arrested earlier today. Now have word from
Delta Airlines that that passenger was intoxicated, caused a
disturbance and was subdued. That flight was also met by authorities at
the request of the crew.  Delta at least for now does not believe
that that incident was in any way related to the incident on Northwest
253 that we’re discussing now. That is the Northwest flight that
came in from Amsterdam to Detroit and moments before landing, a
passenger attempted to ignite something on the plane.

3) Remember that, after Rosenfield finished his report, Velshi asked
him if the second incident was on the same airline, to which Rosenfield
said yes, it was the same airline and route on the same day. That is
where the video I found cuts off, but in the transcript we can see
that, before moving on, Velshi replied “Michael, thanks very much
for all this information. We appreciate it. We’ll be checking in
with you again.”

I see no indication that they ever did check in with him again.

I see zero articles written about this story by CNN or a single other news outlet.

I see no indication that Rosenfield’s report was ever re-aired
except for one time the following morning (Dec 26) on CNN Saturday
Morning News.  The transcript
begins around 7:00am EST, and the re-airing of Rosenfield’s
report is found about two-third of the way down the page, so it
probably aired sometime between 7:30 and 8:00am EST.

Calling it a re-airing isn’t exactly accurate, though.  It was a partial re-airing. 
What’s interesting is that they play his entire report (starting
just after his original three-sentence introduction of general
background information about the Mutallab incident), but the clip is
cut off just before Velshi asks about which airline the flight was
from.  Rosenfield’s response that it was the same airline as
the “failed bombing”, and his comment about the whole thing
being “pretty coincidental”, were therefore not re-aired.

This is from transcript of this Dec 26 re-airing:

We have also learned about another incident also aboard
a flight from Amsterdam to Detroit this afternoon. Another passenger
was arrested on that flight, as well. Federal officials and local law
enforcement here don’t think the two incidents were connected.
But it also did happen on a flight from Amsterdam to Detroit.

A passenger was yelling pro-Afghanistan statement, anti-American
statements, as well. He was throwing food on passengers in the back
part of the plane. He was taken into custody. But law enforcement
officials here on the ground tell us they think it was just a drunk
passenger. They did not think these two incidents were connected. (END
VIDEOTAPE)

HOLMES: Well, a little scary there from our reporter from WXYZ, Rosenfield.

But everybody a little on edge and they will be for some time, especially during this holiday season.

BALDWIN: Yes, for good reason.

HOLMES: Yes.

BALDWIN: So that’s the situation on the ground at Detroit.

Again, in the original live report from Rosenfield, just after the
“(END VIDEOTAPE)” mark on the re-airing, Velshi asked
Rosenfield, “Mike, was that a — was that a Northwest
flight as well coming in from Amsterdam, or was that a different
flight?”, to which Rosenfield responded, “Yeah,
that was also a Northwest Delta flight also coming in from Amsterdam to
Detroit. Another incident on that case. But again, law enforcement
officials think that they were not connected. But, uh, pretty
coincidental that both happened on the same route on the same
day.”

 

It’s a bit odd that Rosenfield didn’t include this very
interesting and “coincidental” information in his original
report until prompted, and it’s also interesting that CNN left
this key point out of the single re-airing of the clip, especially
since the incident was apparently “dropped down the memory
hole” after that entirely.

BLENDING THE UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE’S ACCOUNT WITH THE MUTALLAB INCIDENT

 What did the major media do with the odd,
extremely anomalous report given by the unidentified female
“passenger”? Did they connect the dots to the second
incident reported by Rosenfield? If not, did they investigate why on
earth someone would be reporting Mutallab’s behavior as being the
total opposite of what all of the other witness reported?

No. What happened was the woman was rarely quoted at length after the first 24-48 hours. Even during that initial period, her account was already significantly edited.

Here
is an article from WITN, an NBC affiliate in North Carolina, published
on Dec 25, the day of the incident. Like everywhere else, the
unidentified female is presented as having been on the Mutallab plane.
Notice, however, that she is quoted in full, except for the part where
she says that “he would put hats on”, which is possibly the
most blatantly eyebrow raising part. They simply omitted it.

The White House is now calling the frightening incident
on a flight from Amsterdam to Detroit an attempted terrorist attack.
Passengers on that Northwest flight are talking about the experience.
Administration officials say a passenger ignited a small explosive
device at the end of the flight. Three people were injured, one of them
the suspect. A federal bulletin lists the suspect as a Nigerian
national who claims to have extremist affiliations. One
passenger describes what she saw: “He stood up, he was
belligerent, he was yelling… swearing. He… screaming
about Afghanistan. Um, he was fighting with the stewardesses. There
were five men on the flight. I said to my husband I was thankful that
there were five men on the flight and I kept tapping him because I was
nervous and he kept telling me relax, relax.” The suspect has been taken into custody and is being treated for burns from the explosion.

In an article on Dec 26 entitled “‘Smoke and screams’ on board plane“,
BBC News quoted her this way. (”The “man” she is
describing, at least according to BBC News, is Mutallab):

Another unidentified female passenger described the man’s behavior during the incident.

“He stood up. He was belligerent. He was yelling, swearing,” she said.

“He was screaming about Afghanistan. He was fighting with the wonderful stewards that we had.”

Just like in the WITN report, the bizarre “he would put hats
on” line (bizarre if you are trying to make this work as a
description of Mutallab’s behavior) is omitted. Also,
again, note that she is the only unidentified passenger mentioned in
the article. There are six other witnesses quoted in the article, and
full names are given for all of them.

On Dec 27, Express.co.uk
quoted her the exact same way as BBC News word-for-word, while also
implying that she was talking about Mutallab. The one difference is
that Express.co.uk presents it all as one continuous quote. Remember,
in between the “yelling, swearing” part and the
“screaming about Afghanistan” part, the unidentified female
said that the person she was describing “would put hats
on”. WITN at least included an ellipsis (dot-dot-dot) to indicate
that some words had been omitted. BBC broke theirs up into two pieces
with a “she said” in the middle, which is a little more
ambiguous. Express.co.uk gives us no ellipsis or anything else to that
effect. The “hats” comment has simply disappeared. (Note:
this could have just been a result of copying it from BBC News or
elsewhere and not watching the primary source video.)

Another passenger described the man’s behavior
during the incident. She said: “He stood up. He was belligerent.
He was yelling, swearing. He was screaming about Afghanistan. He was
fighting with the wonderful stewards that we had.”

Ironically, they quote Jasper Schuringa in the very same article
saying that Mutallab was “out of it” and “staring
into nothing”.

While the dropping of the odd “hats” line was
significant, the media went on to make almost the entire rest of the
quote disappear after December 26. All but one little part, that is. If
you’ve followed the Mutallab story, you probably know which one I
am referring to: the “screaming about Afghanistan” line.

Here are a some examples of the many articles in which the major
news outlets used this one little snippet from the unidentified
female’s account and ascribed the behavior to Mutallab, even
though it was not corroborated by any other passenger, and in fact was
contradicted by them (as was the rest of her account):

“Detroit terror attack: ‘He was screaming about Afghanistan’”– Telegraph.co.uk (headline) Dec 26

 

“A woman passenger from the plane described the man as
standing up and shouting and “screaming about Afghanistan”.
Investigators were examining the residue of the device, which was
thought to contain powder and liquid.”Financial Times, Dec 26

–

”The suspected terrorist was said to have been yelling and swearing and “screaming about Afghanistan”.

– The Guardian, Dec 27

”As the bomber was being manhandled away one woman
passenger said he was yelling, swearing and “screaming about
Afghanistan”.

– News of the World, subisidiary of News International Ltd., which is owned by Rupert Murdoch’s News Corp, Dec 27

Abdulmutallab, described as a devout Muslim, attempted to
ignite an explosive device on a plane from Amsterdam to Detroit on
Christmas Day after shouting about Afghanistan.

– Times Online Dec 27

”When he was overpowered, Abdulmutallab was said by witnesses to be “screaming about Afghanistan”

– The Guardian Dec 28

”Although Abdulmutallab was screaming about
Afghanistan when he was overpowered, it is to Africa we should look for
the source of his fanaticism.”

– Mail Online, Dec 28

“Abdulmutallab, described as a devout Muslim, was
charged on Saturday with trying to destroy the plane flying from
Amsterdam to Detroit on Christmas Day and placing a destructive device
in the plane. He had attempted to ignite explosives after shouting
about Afghanistan.”Times Online Dec 27

–

” Although it has been reported that he shouted
slogans about Afghanistan as he tried to trigger the device,
23-year-old Abdulmutallab does not fit the stereotype of a
poverty-stricken jihadi…”

– The Independent, Dec 28

CNN APPARENTLY REMOVES THE UNIDENTIFIED WOMAN FROM AN ARTICLE ON THEIR WEBSITE

 

Notice that CNN is not one of the networks who
makes mention of the “reports” that Mutallab was
“screaming about Afghanistan”.

At least not anymore.

On Google, if you preface your search terms with
“site:”, it allows you to search just within a specified
domain (like CNN.com) or even subdomain (like TRANSCRIPTS.CNN.com). For
example, the following search terms…

site:transcripts.cnn.com “Richard Gage”

…will search the “transcripts” subdomain of
CNN.com for any references to “Richard Gage”.
(Incidentally, Richard Gage
is never mentioned in any of CNN’s thousands of transcripts.) If
a subdomain is not specified, then it simply searches the entire domain
(all of CNN.com in this case).

If one searches CNN.com for the “he would put hats on”
quote, they will discover that CNN played the full clip of the
unidentified woman on Dec 25.

However, viewing the full transcript
that this search turns up reveals that they misattribute her words to
Melinda Dennis. Dennis herself is mislabeled as an “unidentified
female”, the title that should have gone to the first woman.

MELINDA DENNIS, PASSENGER: He was — stood up. He
was belligerent. He was yelling, swearing. He would put hats on. He was
screaming about Afghanistan. He was fighting with the wonderful
stewards that we had. There were five men, big men. and three women. I
said to my husband, I was so thankful there were three — five men
on the flight, because I kept tapping him that I was nervous. And he
kept telling me, “Relax, relax.”

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: He didn’t say anything. He was injured. I
— he was burnt quite severely on his leg. They were very careful
in trying to make sure that he had nothing else on him so it was easy
to see that — from the exposure that he had gotten significantly
burned.

If we search CNN.com for just the phrase “screaming about
Afghanistan” we get four results. One is the aforementioned
transcript. The other three are all for the article entitled
“Passenger: Terrorist suspect seemed ’stunned’”:

We can see from the Google snippets that she is quoted just before
Elias Fawaz in the article. However, if one clicks any of the three
links to the article, they are met with a message saying “The
content item you requested is not available at this moment.”

Here
is a working link to the current incarnation of the article on the CNN
page (it works at the time of this writing, at least). This article
still contains the part about Fawaz seen in the Google snippets in the
image above; however, the unidentified female’s quote, which
immediately preceded it, has been removed.

If we go back to our original search results and click the
“Cached” link for each of the three “Terror suspect
’seemed stunned’” listings, copies of the article do
come up, but they also do not contain the unidentified female’s
quote. What we can see by looking at these, however, is that the
article was edited at least twice: once at 10:15pm EST on Dec 25 and
once the following morning at 10:24am EST.

A search within the CNN domain for the article title, plus “12.25″, reveals
that one more edit took place at 9:27pm EST on Dec 25, before the other
two (although this could have just been the time that the article was
first posted).

Another Google search reveals that the section about the
unidentified female immediately followed the section about Syed Jafry
— a section which still remains in the article. Further advanced
Google searching yields the entire section
where the unidentified female was quoted. Here is the deleted passage
from the CNN report, which was previously appeared between Jafry and
Fawaz, but was subsequently removed by CNN:

At one point the suspect grew agitated, a female
passenger who didn’t want to identify herself, told WDIV-TV in
Detroit, Michigan.

“He stood up, he was belligerent, he was yelling swearing,” she said.

“He was screaming about Afghanistan.”

The current version
on the CNN website gives no notice of there ever having been edited or
updated, even though this passage is now gone. It just says
“December 26, 2009 10:24 a.m. EST”.

SOME MORE QUESTIONS

Why did someone at CNN apparently make a conscious decision to
quietly remove this quote? Was it because they realized that she was
not on Flight 253? If so, why didn’t they notify the public of
the initial error? Even if they didn’t originally think it was a
big deal, it certainly became one once the media began quoting the same
tiny snippet from her interview ad nauseam, painting a false picture of
Mutallab’s behavior. Did they really not connect the dots and
realize that she was apparently talking about the same man Rosenfield
reported on? Did no one in the media make this connection? Did no one
in the media remember anything about the story that CNN’s Holmes
called “a little scary”and Mike Rosenfield himself called
“pretty coincidental”, even as it became increasingly
significant, especially Sunday?

CONVENIENT MISREPORTING

The introduction to this article makes reference to how all of this
was “convenient misreporting”. It was convenient because
more and more information is coming out that makes this event look like
a set up, and Mutallab a patsy/dupe manipulated by U.S. intelligence
assets and other interested parties to play a role in this
“failed bombing”, which will now serve as a pretext for
further military action and probably an invasion of Yemen, virtual-strip-search body scanners at airports, renewal of the Patriot Act, and much, much more.

If you think this is a “conspiracy theory”, and that our
wise and benevolent leaders would never consider doing such a thing (guess again), let alone actually go through with it, you had better read some real history.
False flag terrorism is nothing new. In fact, if this was an actual
(failed) surprise attack, it would be an exception to the rule.

In the critical first days after the “failed bombing”,
when the public was most actively seeking out information about the
event and people were still forming their opinions about what had
transpired, the widespread reports that Mutallab was “screaming
about Afghanistan” at the time of the attack surely helped sell
the claims being made by usually-anonymous “official
sources” that Mutallab was a monster; a true radical, linked to a
larger “al Qaeda”-affiliated network which is planning to
launch more attacks. “The Man, The Menace”, as reporter Andrea Isom
called him on Dec 25. Not a dull, quiet, “poor”-looking,
“surprised”-looking patsy “in a trance”.

The mainstream press seems to have essentially quietly dropped the
“screaming about Afghanistan” meme. However, people who do
not usually follow current events have largely tuned out already. Most
people who are still following the story, and who have
noticed all of the passenger reports about how calm and quiet Mutallab
was, will not have the information contained in this article and
therefore will not realize that the reports to the contrary were
apparently bogus all along. Many will simply reconcile the supposedly
“conflicting reports” in their minds as meaning that he
must have been calm and quiet at one point, and “screaming about
Afghanistan” at another. This means that this convenient mythical
image will live on in the minds of many.

Further Reading:
False Flag Event in Detroit a Pretext to Invade Yemen
Obama Blames al-Qaeda for Christmas False Flag, Sets Stage for Yemen Attack