Video: WTC Witnesses: "It was definitely no commercial air..

External Since: Sep 05, 2004 Posts: 24

In article ,
Rocinante wrote:
>On Sat, 15 Sep 2007 21:14:47 -0400, Jonathan wrote:
>
>> Rocinante wrote:
>>> On Thu, 13 Sep 2007 20:42:46 +0000 (UTC), EskWIRED DeleteThis @spamblock.panix.com
>>> wrote:
>>>
>>>> In misc.survivalism trader4 DeleteThis @optonline.net wrote:

>
>I see you cannot refute the truth. I just told you its raining outside and
>took you outside to get wet, but you still don't believe that it's raining.
>You would rather believe that someone is standing on the roof with a garden
>hose.
>
>The whole premise of this conspiracy theory is ridiculously absurd; our own
>government secretly planned the mass murder of innocent citizens in order
>to garner support for the Iraq war. Wouldn't it have been easier for the
>government to plant some WMD's in Iraq?
>
>Occam's Razor: research it and understand it.
>

I think Occam would prefer the the sudden appearance of space aliens
with laser beams over the head of Jonathan.

(stolen from "jc".)

--
a d y k e s @ p a n i x . c o m
Don't blame me. I voted for Gore. A Proud signature since 2001

External Since: Sep 13, 2007 Posts: 10

On Sep 16, 11:15 am, Robert Sturgeon wrote:
> On Sun, 16 Sep 2007 05:44:23 -0700, trad... DeleteThis @optonline.net
> wrote:
>
>
>
>
>
> >On Sep 15, 5:46 pm, Robert Sturgeon wrote:
> >> On Sat, 15 Sep 2007 19:36:05 +0000 (UTC),
>
> >> EskWI... DeleteThis @spamblock.panix.com wrote:
> >> >In misc.survivalism Jonathan wrote:
>
> >> >> The whole of 911 was "pretty far fetched" before it happened.
>
> >> >Is that some reason to accept poor evidence?
>
> >> >And besides, the scenarios were predicted and studied. Bush was warned.
>
> >> Hell, Tom Clancy wrote about something very similar in a
> >> book. There was nothing far-fetched about it. The people
> >> in charge of airspace defense were caught off guard, but
> >> there was no reason they should have been. They just
> >> weren't paying attention to the all-too-obvious
> >> possibilities. I mean, really, TWO fighters ready on the
> >> ground in Massachusetts, to defend the entire northeast???
>
> >What enemy exactly did you expect to be defending against in 2001 that
> >required air force fighters to be ready on a few minutes notice to go
> >intercept? Canada? You have to make some reasonable decisions
> >about what the risks are and what resources it makes sense to use.
>
> And the "reasonable" decision they made was that there was,
> for all practical purposes, no threat at all. After the
> first WTC bombing -- after the nightclub bombing in Germany
> -- after the bombings of the African embassies -- after the
> attack on the Cole -- the defensive posture was still at the
> usual relaxed peacetime level. What the goofy heck were
> they thinking? Were they thinking at all? Wasn't there at
> least some colonel in the Pentagon going around bothering
> people about the threats? If so, nobody listened. "At Dawn
> We Slept," all over again. But really -- that's the way it
> always is.
>
> >If the AF had hundreds of fighters sitting on the end of runways ready
> >to go on a moments notice, guys like you would be the first to say how
> >stupid that was.
>
> Hundreds? Why not 8 or 10, at 4 or 5 airbases in the area?

What do you want the 8 or 10 fighters? NYC area? Boston? DC?
Miami? Chicago? Atlanta? Dallas? To have any fast response,
like you want, you obviously need hundreds.

> I was genuinely shocked to find out that the entire
> northeastern U.S. was "protected" by 2 F-15s sitting on an
> airbase in Massachusetts. Weren't you?

No, because there is no nearby threat from any enemy airforce that
justified having fighters ready to go on a moments notice to protect
the US from attack. It comes down to 2 things:

1 - Using these resources, which would be substantial vs deploying
them somewhere that they can do more productive good in the war on
terrorism.

2 - Do you want a policy where the AF is authorized to shoot down
commecial airliners on a few minutes notice and who makes that call?
How long does it take for a plane to leave say JFK or EWR and then
reach NYC? A few mins. So, you don't just need hundreds of
fighters on the runway, ready to go. You need thousands of fighters
constantly in the air around all targets in the US and on a hair
trigger. That is what it would take to have the kind of defense you
seek to protect all the targets that are close to airports and could
be hit before any fighter response got in the air.

Have you read about
> the Chinese fire drill the military staged at the time? For
> all the good they possibly could have done, they might as
> well have stayed on the ground.

>
> > Plus, the hijackers could have just used planes
> >taking off from NYC airports, in which case they would have been at
> >the WTC in a few minutes.
>
> Yes, they could have. But they didn't. It really didn't
> matter where they started -- there was no effective air
> defense anywhere.

They didn't because they didn't have to. They aren't stupid. If
they know we have your 8 or 10 fighters, then they will just use
airports and targets that can't be reached by them in time. Again
from the 3 NYC airports to any NYC area target is not within the
response time of any fighter, unless they are in the air and on a hair
trigger. Are you prepared for the aftermath when the first jet that
strays out of it's assigned airspace is shot down, with or without a
hijacking?

>
> >> It's just like Pearl Harbor, which also shouldn't have come
> >> as such a surprise. The U.S. Navy had already run two
> >> wargames showing the power of carrier attack. The British
> >> had already sunk several Italian warships at Taranto using
> >> torpedoes, and Taranto was also "too shallow" to allow
> >> torpedo attack.
>
> >> The typical defense establishment just isn't very good at
> >> preparing for anything they haven't handled in the immediate
> >> past. The "next time" will also be something they should
> >> have seen coming, but didn't.
>
> >Why don't you tell us what that is, smart guy. It's easy to be a
> >Monday morning quarterback, isn't it?
>
> OK -- here's an obvious one -- a nuke smuggled into a port
> city on a container ship. That's already been postulated
> and the likely results surveyed by the RAND Corporation. It
> wouldn't be pretty -- and would likely result in the
> collapse of the U.S. economy, and perhaps of the national
> government. Does the military and/or customs service have
> ANY procedure for protecting the ports from that? Nope.

Actually that's not true. Currently they do testing for traces of
radioactive emissions, as well as X-ray inspection of at least some
cargo. They also do full human inspection of a small percentage of
higher risk cargo. Now, you can argue that they should have a
better procedure, but it's not true that they have no procedure.

Now if you want to argue where some more money would be productively
spent, it's clear to me that spending it on increased port inspection
would be a far better idea instead of trying to have an airforce to
shoot down commercial planes.

As far as dealing with commercial planes, if you want to spend money,
a better solution might be to require commercial jets to be
retrofitted with a system that would work as follows. The newer jets
already have the capability to land themselves at ILS equipped
airports. The autopilot could have pre-programmed landing
infomation that, when activated, would direct the plane to land at one
of a number of pre-determined sites. For say, NYC area, the site
could be McGuire Air Force Base. This system could be activated by a
signal from ATC on the ground and could not be over ridden by the
flight crew. So, when activated in the northeast, the plane would fly
itself to McGuire AFB and land. Just to be clear, the sites are pre-
loaded and in the plane's system. The ground ATC could select one of
the sites, but not direct the plane to some co-ordinates of their
choice. That prevents any unauthorized use from leading to something
bad.

>
> --
> Robert Sturgeon
> Alcohol, Tobacco & Firearms should be a convenience store, not a government agency.http://www.vistech.net/users/rsturge/- Hide quoted text -
>
> - Show quoted text -