According to "World Net Daily" the FBI in Dallas has received thousands of "leads" pertaining to Middle Eastern men coming in to DFW airport from overseas, ostensibly to attend area flight schools.
US embassies in countries such as Saudi Arabia, Syria, Algeria and elsewhere perform perfunctory checks, require the applicant to fill out forms, then issue student visas. Upon arrival in the US, the Immigration and Naturalization Service (INS) employees check to see that the men have a valid passport and visa, and pass them through into the US.
According to World Net Daily, there is no further checking or surveillance to see whether foreign nationals entering our country actually go to the destinations indicated. There is no such program in place, nor do Federal authorities plan to install any computerized tracking system. This is why so many foreign "students" who have recently been arrested as "material witnesses" following the hijackings were in possession of expired student visas.
Notwithstanding all the hype about heightened security; about large numbers of National Guardsmen being sent to guard the nation’s airports, America remains like a sieve through which pours an unlimited number of Middle Easterners. The government is reportedly considering "tightening visa enforcement" but the plan presently in the works "stops short of suspending visas for students and visitors from Arab terrorist states." The web site also said, "They are still welcome in the U.S. ? as long as their visa applications are OK’d by embassy workers in their home countries, and as long as they don’t show up on federal ‘lookout lists’ of suspected terrorists."
But NONE of the hijackers of September 11th had shown up on any such lists!
ALL were inside the US, training in flight schools. They became known terrorists after their deaths, not when they were learning to "steer" an airplane (without worrying about how to take off or land, in the case of one man), or checking into purchasing a crop duster!
Several of the flight schools are allegedly owned and operated by Islamics. For instance, "Delta Qualiflight Aeronautics" at Meacham field in Fort Worth, Texas, is owned by one Khaled Miloud.
When I received word that a contingent of Algerian students had arrived here in Tyler, Texas, to attend a local flight school, it corroborated what I had said to several neighbors the preceding day. Outside, we heard the buzz of a single-engine aircraft overhead, going through the usual maneuvers associated with flight training, power on and power off stalls, (simulating emergency procedures as well as landings), steep turns, and the like. I said, "That is probably another Middle Eastern student, learning how to fly." Imagine my surprise when I found, the very next morning, that my apprehension was correct!
I called the flight school to obtain confirmation of the World Net Daily report. The secretary was very cool and abrupt. A man who identified himself as "Randy" came on the line, and I asked whether the World Net Daily story was correct. He said it was incorrect and that they had received a lot of calls from the media. He offered to fax me an official statement.
This is what the statement says:
"TYLER INTERNATIONAL SCHOOL OF AVIATION, INC.
"TYLER, TEXAS
NOVEMBER 1, 2001 [Note, this is not the date of my call, which was made on Friday, November 9th, but the date of their written statement issued to the press].
"We have received several telephone calls regarding the recent enrollment of students at the Tyler International School of Aviation.
"The school’s student body is comprised of students from the world throughout. Our international students are all required to have proper documentation from the United States Immigration Naturalization Service (I.N.S.), before being allowed to enroll.
In order to obtain documentation, the student must file an application with the school. If the school accepts the application, the school will process highly controlled paperwork which is presented to the American Embassy in the student’s home country. Background checks, usually involving a personal interview with the student, are conducted by the U.S. Embassy. Upon the approval of the U.S. agencies, the students are then awarded a student visa by the I.N.S. The United States Government determines who is eligible or not eligible to enter the United States in order to obtain any type of education.
Today, we have been contacted by the media regarding the enrollment of African (sic) students. These students are from the country of Algeria, and are either Algerian or French citizens. All of these recently enrolled students are employees of an airline in Algeria, and are scheduled to be here for only fourteen weeks. Their training course is paid for by their airline employer and consists of basic ground and flight training. The school does not conduct any type of jet training at Tyler. These airline employees have had numerous background checks by the airline, the U.S. Embassy, INS, and the FBI.
Tyler International School of Aviation has an excellent reputation. Since September 11, 2001, management of the school has invited and worked with the FBI and other government entities that needed to be involved to address any security issues regarding the students of this school.
Each student enrolled at the school has been carefully scrutinized by the INS as well as any other U.S. Agencies requesting to do so. Only properly enrolled and INS approved international students are permitted to fly or train at the Tyler International School of Aviation."
One can hardly take exception to the right of the aviation school to enroll foreign students, especially when by their very name they cater to the large number of young foreign nationals who desire to work in their own country’s airlines. On the other hand, it does not offer comfort and encouragement to learn that the school relies so heavily on the embassies and the INS inspectors at customs in the major airports as the students arrive.
What exactly is "highly controlled paperwork?" Is it merely applications which are placed in envelopes and then stamped and addressed? If background checks "usually" involve an actual personal interview by an embassy official (which is very doubtful in my mind, for I have been all over the world, and have visited with many embassies and their personnel), so what? Is anyone so naive as to believe that a would-be terrorist is going to tell the truth? "Oh sure, I am going to the United States to learn to fly, so I can fly an airplane into the White House!"
I have no doubt that the Tyler International School of Aviation has an excellent reputation. I also have no doubt that the Florida flight schools which trained the 9/11 murderers also had excellent reputations. That the school does "not conduct any type of jet training at Tyler" is hardly comforting. Anyone with a private pilot’s license who has learned to manage the controls of a Cessna 172 can manage to steer a Boeing 767. Actually, and I speak from experience, a jet airplane is easier to fly than a piston twin. In the twin, one must deal with three sets of power controls; the power, the props and the mixture, or fuel flow. In a jet, one only needs to manage the power levers and steer the plane.
Incidentally, World Net Daily pointed out that Crawford Texas, where President Bush will soon entertain Russian President Putin, is about 120 miles from Tyler, and about 80 miles from Meacham field in Fort Worth.
I left a message on the voice mail of our local FBI station chief to check out the story that the FBI has allegedly investigated the background of the Algerians. Incidentally, Algeria is 99% Sunni Muslim, and the major language is Arabic. If the FBI returns my call, I’ll let you know.
Allegedly, a U.S. Senator from California has proposed a 6 months ban on issuing student visas to people who come from the seven countries on the State Department’s list of terrorist-sponsoring states. They are Syria, Iraq, Iran, Sudan, Cuba, North Korea and Libya. Libya is an adjoining country to Algeria. Between 1990 and 2000, the State Department issued 3,370 visas from those seven countries! Over the past 10 years, "World Net Daily" reported, more than 16,000 students entered the US from those countries. There has been no word about how the government views such a proposal.
Incidentally, the INS told World Net Daily that six Iranian nationals entered the DFW airport recently, telling inspectors they were going to attend a US martial arts tournament. Another group of eight Iranians said they were here to attend a "building-materials competition."
Martial arts? Building materials?
Sure.
Incredible, isn’t it, how much common sense is seen in our government agencies?
