"Abu Nasr (by way of louisgodena@ids.net Louis R Godena)" wrote:
>
> Dear Louis and everybody!
>
> Well, the crash into the ocean of EgyptAir flight 990 on 31 October 1999 has
> now begun to take on a certain political colouring. The US and other western
> media are full of accusations, open and concealed, directed at one or another
> member of the Egyptian crew. The claim is that one of the Egyptian pilots
> aboard the flight deliberately flew the plane into the ocean.
>
> The Arabic press has responded angrily to the charges, not the least because
> what appears to have prompted them is the simple fact that the co-pilot
> uttered some religious phrases that were picked up by the cockpit voice
> recorder. The media have not yet actually told us what exactly the phrases
> were, but accounts range from a Muslim "prayer" to the Muslim credo, "la ilaha
> ill-Allah" (there is no god but God). Saying such things appears to be
> sufficient evidence for the US authorities to charge that person with suicidal
> terrorism!
>
> In Beirut the lefist daily, as-Safir, noted in a front page editorial entitled
> "The Boeing is more important than Egypt" asserted that the motivation for the
> suicide pilot allegation was political. From the first few hours after the
> crash, as-Safir's editor Talal Salman wrote, the American media have laid
> blame for the disaster on the Egyptians. "The motive was clear, indeed
> cryingly obvious from the first moment: exhonerating the American company and
> all its workers and management, exhonerating the American airports and all
> their traffic control towers and personnel, and concentrating the accusation
> on the Egyptians -- the pilots, crewmembers, travellers ... and those who saw
> them off too!!"
>
> The western media are full of "convincing" "evidence". The chief suspect of
> today, co-pilot Gameel al-Battouti (59), reportedly sent home a large amount
> of money to his family just a day before he was supposed to arrive home in
> person -- unless he already knew what nefarious crime he intended to commit.
> Such is the reasoning of an article in the Dallas Morning News today, 17
> November. Cairo's paper, al-Ahram, today quoted al-Battouti's son, Muhammad,
> as saying that his father had sent home US$300 care of an airline friend in
> order to pay a phone bill due on 31 October!
>
> According to al-Gomhouria, another leading Egyptian paper today, the
> al-Battouti family has requested that EgyptAir security people be sent to
> protect them since western reporters have begun surrounding their Cairo
> apartment building.
>
> According to the editor of as-Safir, who has been in Egypt in the last few
> days, the popular mood has turned sharply hostile to the US over the airline
> crash issue. The editor of al-Gomhouria, reportedly close to the Egyptian
> president Husni Mubarak, has voiced suggestions that various means could have
> been used to bring down the plane, and some have noted that the 33 Egyptian
> military officers aboard the flight, including some high ranking ones, might
> have been targets of zionist sabotage.
>
> That, of course is speculation, at this stage, but so is the bizarre claim
> that one Egpytian pilot drove the plane and passengers to their deaths on
> purpose while at least three other pilots in the cockpit sat by and watched.
> As usual, the vehemence of the imperialist media are likely an indication that
> there is more there than we are being told.
>
> With revolutionary greetings!
>
> Abu Nasr
>
> ____________________________________________________________________
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