Larry Klayman © 2001 WorldNetDaily.com, October 23,
2001.
Two weeks ago, my colleague, Christopher Farrell, and I, were headed for
Brussels, Belgium, to file a criminal complaint against Fidel Castro, not only
the murderous dictator of Cuba, but an avowed international terrorist who owns
and operates biochemical weapons facilities on his "lovely" Caribbean
island.
The basis for the complaint: Forty-two years of murder and torture of his
citizens, topped off with a murderous attack on "Brothers to the Rescue"
pilots, who five years ago were simply flying humanitarian missions over the
Florida straits. Founded and run by Jose Basulto, a pro-democracy freedom
fighter from the days of the Bay of Pigs and Cuban Missile Crisis – when he
worked for the American government as a Cuban national (Mr. Basulto is now a
proud American citizen living in Miami) – the mission of "Brothers"
is to rescue rafters fleeing the communist hell of Castro's regime.
On a bright summer day, Castro's MiGs shot down two of Mr. Basulto's planes
while they were flying in international waters, killing four Brothers' pilots.
Immediately afterward, the Cuban dictator and madman boasted of his direct
involvement in the murders, during an interview on CBS Evening News with Dan
Rather.
Sadly, the victims of Castro's reign of oppression were forced to use
Belgian law to seek justice, as no American administration had the guts to
indict him. Belgium has a "progressive" law, which allows for
dictators who commit crimes against humanity to be prosecuted there. The time
was long overdue to attempt to hold Fidel accountable, with a possible prison
term, if convicted, of 20 to 30 years. Importantly, Belgium has an extradition
treaty with Cuba.
Accompanying Mr. Farrell and me on the flight to Brussels from Washington's
Dulles airport was Mr. Basulto himself, along with two victims of Castro's
brutality, Eugenio De Sosa and Marcelino Feal. One of these victims, Eugenio De
Sosa, had spent 21 years in one of Castro's prisons, because he dared to write
articles, as a journalist, criticizing the communist regime. On one occasion,
while in prison, he was forced to view the entrails of his dead mother who was
just previously murdered by Castro's thugs.
As United Flight 950 took off, the flight crew seemed tense, fully aware
that only days had elapsed since airports were again operating after the World
Trade Center and Pentagon terrorist bombings. What was frightening to me was not
the proximity of our flight to a resumption of airport activities, but how the
baggage screeners and other security personnel at Dulles neither bothered to
hand-check bags, nor take any additional precautionary measures – despite
statements by President Bush that greater measures were in effect –
creating a completely safe environment for travel. I was reminded of one of the
principal reasons I founded Judicial Watch in 1994 – my inability, after 17
years as a Justice Department trial lawyer, and then as a private practitioner
in Washington, D.C., to trust the pronouncements and actions of the government.
When I founded Judicial Watch, I was fed up with the lying and deceit that had
come to characterize our public officials, and the industries they regulated.
Sure enough, less than 15 minutes after takeoff, a flight attendant's voice
announced on the public intercom system that a metal canister, one foot high and
several inches wide, had rolled out from under a passenger's seat. She asked the
passengers in English, French and Flemish to claim it. When on the first
occasion no one did so, she asked two more times. By that time, the atmosphere
in the cabin had grown tense. Even before I was about to predict that we would
have to make an emergency landing, the plane banked hard left. A few moments
later, the captain took to the loudspeaker to announce that he was being
instructed to bring the aircraft down at John F. Kennedy airport in New York.
The route to JFK would take about 15 minutes, the pilot added.
Shortly after the announcement, two flight attendants rushed into the back
of the plane, carrying delicately the foot high metal canister that no one could
identify. With fear in their faces and a special urgency in their voices, they
told the passengers in the back of the plane, where we were seated, to move to
the front of the cabin. The believed bomb was "safest" if it was
placed at the rear of the aircraft, near the food galley, they said.
I looked at Mr. Farrell and asked if he thought we, too, should move
forward, as several passengers had done. We decided not to, since if the
suspected bomb blew it would not make any difference. We suspected that this
could happen on descent as a result of a change in altitude, if the canister
contained a barometric triggering device. Alternatively, if a timing device was
the method of detonation, it could go off at any time.
The two of us instinctively clasped our hands in prayer. So too did most of
the remaining passengers of the plane, save for some young hippie-clad Belgians,
who laughed nervously. The exception was my client, Mr. De Sosa, now 85 years
old, who continued to calmly read the airline magazine. Sitting just in front of
Mr. Farrell, he grabbed my left arm while leaning across the isle toward me, and
softly told me that nothing could scare him after 21 years of Castro's prison
torture.
The 15 minutes to landing at JFK seemed like an eternity. With the exception
of Mr. De Sosa, the passengers sat frozen like mummies, and the flight
attendants looked like melting icicles.
As we finally hit the runway in darkness, I looked out the window. As the
aircraft taxied, we were flanked and followed on both sides of the runway by
scores of police cars, fire trucks, and ambulances, all flashing emergency
lights. I braced myself for a quick stop, since while the suspected bomb was
clearly not barometer triggered – indeed, it did not blow while we
descended to land – if there was a timing device, it could go off at any
time, but, we did not stop.
Incredibly, we continued to taxi, our entourage in tow, right past major
passenger terminals and other aircraft. In fact, we taxied for 20 minutes, all
the while believing that if, as the crew suspected, the canister was a bomb
planted by Islamic terrorists, it could explode at any moment, taking not only
our own lives, but hundreds if not thousands of people in the other planes and
terminals we traversed.
Finally, about 40 minutes after the canister was initially discovered, the
plane stopped in a middle of a distant runway, far from the terminals of JFK. I
expected that the emergency exits and evacuation chutes would be instantly
deployed but, instead, the passengers were forced to leave the plane by the
normal means: queuing up in the aisle. As a result, it took an additional 10
minutes to deplane, as we continued to hold our breath for fear that the
suspected bomb could explode at any minute.
As I descended the gangplank onto an open tarmac, I could see not only
firemen and police dressed in protective suits, but a tram at my right. We were
herded into the tram, without any instruction as to how long we would remain
there. Standing with Mr. Farrell, and the Cuban victims in the aisle of the
vehicle, I turned on my cell phone and called my wife in Washington, D.C. I
asked her to turn on CNN or Fox News, as this bomb scare, occurring only three
weeks after the Sept. 11 World Trade Center and Pentagon attacks, would
obviously be covered live on the news networks. I was surprised to learn from my
wife that the unfolding incident was not only not on television, there were no
tickertape or oral announcements either.
As we waited for the authorities to inspect the suspected bomb and the other
contents of the plane's cabin, Mr. Farrell remarked that the passengers were
likely being kept away from the terminal in order to ensure that news of the
event did not leak that evening. As the airlines had rapidly lost customers
following Sept. 11, they could not afford more "bad" publicity –
as the industry was already teetering on bankruptcy.
With ever growing amazement over not only the scene but the politics
involved, we waited patiently, our hearts beating quickly over the stress of the
evening. After about one half hour, we were told that the metal canister had
turned out not to be a bomb, but a sports thermos. Even with this news, the
anxiety of the moment did not recede. Another half hour later, absent any offer
by United to allow passengers to elect to discontinue the voyage to Brussels, we
were herded back on the plane, never having visited the terminal, to continue
our trip. Ironically, although other passengers in our group voiced openly their
desire to not continue on, I argued that the plane – at least now –
had been properly inspected, and was therefore safer than when we left Dulles
bound for Europe.
Upon my return to the aircraft, as I sought use of the restroom and then to
get a drink of water, I asked one of the more seasoned flight attendants why we
had not deplaned upon landing much more quickly, rather than taxiing for 20 or
so minutes, and then taking another 10 minutes to leave the cabin. She had no
response. When I added that this risked the lives of the passengers and others,
since a timing device could have detonated the suspected bomb at any moment, she
agreed, and conceded that the whole affair was reckless and made no sense at
all. She theorized that maybe the FBI had something to do with the bizarre
delay.
During the Clinton years, some liberal journalists – supportive of the
administration –mocked my use of the legal system to fight corruption,
stating that, "I would even sue my own mother." Ironically, these
leftists had approved of legal actions by their darling, Ralph Nader, against
the airlines, for breaches of safety and over-booking. Now that I have decided
to bring suit against United – for reckless endangerment, false
imprisonment and other causes of action, not as a way to make money but to
enhance safety – one of them, gossip columnist Neil Travis of the New York
Post, mocks me, arguing that, as a conservative, it is hypocritical for me to
bring suit. Conservatives, he claims, are against litigation.
However, what separates me from people such as Mr. Travis is that I will
take action, not just write articles. The government says the airlines are
completely safe. Indeed, President George W. Bush sent four cabinet secretaries
on commercial planes just a day or so before our ill-fated flight to Brussels.
The difference was that their planes were properly inspected, they all contained
federal air marshals, and they were not forced to taxi and deplane in a total of
30 minutes after an announced bomb scare and emergency landing, risking the
lives of the passengers had there really been a bomb on United Flight 950.
About a week ago, the flight attendants union issued a report that security
had not improved, implying that neither the airlines nor President Bush were
being candid with the American people. Indeed, it was this lack of government
candor, which gave the people false confidence, before the terrorist attacks of
Sept. 11, that our nation faced no great threats, including terrorist, from
abroad. Now that it is obvious that our political elite – in their zeal to
win elections based on the "fine state of the union" – was not
candid, and that its regulated airline industry threw caution to the wind in
creating the negligent conditions for four flights to be hijacked within minutes
of each other on Sept. 11, turning the other cheek is no virtue in the fight to
protect the American people from further disasters.
In the face of airline neglect and federal abuse, I cannot sit idly by and
fail to bring legal actions to try to stop the lack of candor and negligence
which risks the lives of ordinary Americans, all in the name of electing
politicians and feathering the nest of the industries, such as the airlines, who
continue to feed misinformation to the public.
Yesterday, in a lead editorial titled "Checked Bags Unscreened Despite
Terrorist Threat," U.S.A. Today wrote: "[The] [a]irlines embrace of
security measures in public and laxity in implementing them behind the scenes is
a combination that no longer works. With the airlines proving once more that
they're better at making excuses than making improvements, it's time for the
federal government to set its own goals and take over this critical element of
security."
When I win my suit over the reckless behavior of United, this will not only
cause the airlines to think twice about putting the interests of innocent
passengers second, I will donate the proceeds of any damage award to the Sept.
11 victims' charities. With some modicum of bona fide security by the airlines,
and candor and diligence by the government, these victims might still be alive.
They made it easy for Osama bin Laden and his band of criminals to kill nearly
7,000 Americans, nearly wreck our economy – which is still hanging by a
thread – and destroy or damage symbols of our liberty.
The simple fact is that we live in a world where many Islamic radicals and
others hate Americans and want to see us dead, and our great country buried on
the ash heap of not only New York, but history. We should not continue to make
it easy for these degenerates to effect their twisted and sick anti-Western and
anti-Semitic desires by allowing our public officials to continue to create a
false sense of security, and our regulated industries to do little to nothing to
protect us.
These foreign barbarians are not only at the gates, they now, thanks to our
lax immigration, law enforcement and intelligence gathering policies and
practices, live amongst us. To put blind trust in government to solve our
problems did not work. Indeed, it has never worked. The cancer has spread and it
has now turned malignant, with multiple foreign born terrorist cells
metastasizing in major American cities. Just as our founding fathers did, now is
the time to take matters into our own legal hands. We can support our leaders by
ourselves playing an active role, without giving them a blank check to lead us
down the primrose path to other disasters.
Patriotism does not mean that we become "yes men" and blindly
follow the political and economic elite – it means that we will do what we
can to not only be loyal citizens, but, ourselves ask the right questions,
demand answers and, when necessary, take lawful action in the name of eternal
liberty. If we are to survive as a country, we must all be citizen soldiers,
rather than sunshine patriots. And, like our founding fathers, we must be
prepared to also give our lives for our children's and grandchildren's future.
In addition to my case against United, Judicial Watch is currently pursuing
other lawful actions to root out the terrorists now living in our communities
and force the government and its regulated industries to adequately protect us
from further foreign tyranny. Stay tuned!
Larry Klayman is chairman and general counsel of government "watchdog"
organization Judicial Watch.
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