The happenings in the air and at Amsterdam induce many thoughts in me. First, the Americans are paranoid about security. After 9/11 they have become even more so. If one can avoid traveling to the US it is advisable not to go there. My last visit to the US was a couple of days before those attacks on the twin towers.

The sky marshals on NW 42 are the ones who triggered off the entire farce. These sky marshals are not particularly educated and certainly not conversant with cultures beyond their own backyard. Their instructions are to go for anything suspicious, they did just that.

These marshals spied a dozen brown-skinned people, some with beards and all with Muslim names, behaving funnily (according to their patterns of behaviour). That was enough to set off alarm bells. They should have known that terrorists do not attract attention to themselves in this manner. In particular they should have known that the twelve had developed a collective personality and in the company of each other had been transformed into a herd. A trained policeman would have attempted to pierce this collective personality and made them think and act as individuals. There was no need to call the Dutch air force or the Dutch police, or to turn back the aircraft for uncouth behaviour!

The Dutch police did their job according to their procedures. The hand-cuffing is standard procedure in the West. The solitary cells need to be questioned by the European Courts for Human Rights.

... contd.