Progress of our war

[LAK]

Actually, you need a tinfoil hat to believe the explanations of certain people in our government as to what transpired on 9/11. In fact you need more than a tinfoil hat.

 

[Michigander]

So then there IS an air defense system? And it failed on September 11, 2001?

First there is, then there isn't, now there is again.

Now I'm confused.

 

[Fred Hansen]

So then there IS an air defense system?

In the sense that pilots train in interception techniques when assigned to Air Defense Squadrons, yes.

Do we have a magic button that can be pushed - like in an Oliver Stone (or some other fruitcake) movie - that will tell each fighter how to fly in the super-secret Mach 9 mode, and how to blast the passenger jet in exactly just the right fashion so that the terrorists all die, and Kevin Costner can still fly the plane to safety? No.

Prior to 9/11 terrorists had always hijacked the plane, and then landed somewhere to make their demands. No one was going to build an air defense system around the idea of blasting passenger liners out of the sky with Phoenix missles.

At best, at very best, an errant plane may have been escorted out of restricted airspace. That escort system would have to rely on the terrorist(s) being afraid of the possibility of being blown out of the sky for non-compliance with the fighter pilots demands. Given that the 9/11 hijackers were - by definition - death-cult psychotics, the escort system would have been to no avail.

In the final analysis, those with no understanding of our military, basic recent history, or even simple physics, would like people to believe that the pilots would merely need to activate their 20/20 Hindsight-o-Meter*, and start blazing.


* The 20/20 Hindsight-o-Meter has experienced serious firmware glitches, and is therefore not currently available fleet/squadron wide. Stay tuned for changes and revisions in the soon to be released Mk2 Mod3 20/20 Hindsight-o-Meter.

 

[Destructo6]

You're only confused because DaveB didn't bother to read the entire thread before posting stuff that has already been debunked.

 

[Dave B]

That has been 'debunked'? I see many unanswered questions, and little response outside of 'you watch too many movies'.

db

 

[Destructo6]

Read the thread and be more specific.

The interceptors sent up on that day were flying below the speed of sound, or so I have read.

Because sonic booms can break windows and usually scares the crap out of people, US military planes do not fly supersonic over populated areas. It also uses quite a bit more fuel, reducing their loiter time (no super-cruise yet).

Do you guys also believe we have some sort of meteor defense system, too?

 

[LAK]

Michigander,

We do an Aerospace Defense Command. And NORAD is alive and well. And we do have fully armed, interceptor units with expertly trained pilots on standby at all times. This was before, during and after 9/11, despite the rumors to the contrary. Three armed F-16s of the 119th Fighter Wing at Langley were scrambled that day. Also sent up were some unarmed units of the District of Columbia Air National Guard; but the latter were not alerted by NORAD because they were not assigned to such duties. Hence the reason they were not properly armed etc.

The reason that this has been fogged, denied, then affirmed in contradiction is to create confusion. This is a standard political m.o. by which many or most people can be persuaded to lose interest in any particular subject.

 

[Michigander]

OK, so, assuming for now, for a minute, that there was and is an "air defense system" of sorts in place, why could/would it not defend us? What were the failures? Has there been any published review/report? Have there been recommendations/changes made to the procedure/policy to prevent such an attack from happening again?

Refresher - some of my remaining unanswered questions:

What actual proof is there that Al-Queda, or the hijackers listed were actually responsible for and/or flew the planes that crashed into the WTC, Pentagon and Pennsylvania?

Is it true that some of the hijackers originally listed have been found to be alive and well as stated here? If so, then has there been a revised list? What "hard" evidence is there? I have read elsewhere that up to 8 of the 19 hijackers originally listed have been found alive and well and that their names have not been removed from the list. No new names have been added.

Is it true that the airline manifest records have been sealed so that no names of passengers are published? If the government itself has published the names of the 19 hijackers, what would be the purpose of having the airlines withhold the names?

And what of the United Airlines and American Airlines unusually large stock shortings? Was there an investigation? If so, who profitted?

 

[LAK]

[Michigander]"OK, so, assuming for now, for a minute, that there was and is an "air defense system" of sorts in place, why could/would it not defend us? What were the failures? Has there been any published review/report? Have there been recommendations/changes made to the procedure/policy to prevent such an attack from happening again?"

..... Well, one should ask Dick Cheney who it was that told them to stand down. Of course this is one of many questions that should be the subject of the (ahem) "Independent 9/11 Commission". The second part is rather moot; we had a perfectly good air defense system - the only question is who stood in it's way.

"What actual proof is there that Al-Queda, or the hijackers listed were actually responsible for and/or flew the planes that crashed into the WTC, Pentagon and Pennsylvania?"

.... Because "they say so". I personally do not believe them. Watching all the footage of the two airliners over NY the first thing that struck me was that they were flown with precision. Not by student pilots of whom it was said were almost hopeless in single-engined Cessnas. The most hopeless of all, Hani Hanjour, we are told flew a 757 all the way to Ohio and back, then located the Pentagon, executed a spectacular dive ending in a turn, down to ground level - and hit the ground floor of the building. One of the airtraffic controllers that witnessed this on her scopes, Danielle O'Brien, stated that the way it was flying she and her experienced colleagues thought it was a military fighter, not an airliner. And nope, I don't buy it either.

http://www.newsday.com/ny-usflight232380680sep23.story

http://september11.natca.org/NewsArticles/DaniellOBrien.htm

"Is it true that some of the hijackers originally listed have been found to be alive and well as stated here? If so, then has there been a revised list? What "hard" evidence is there? I have read elsewhere that up to 8 of the 19 hijackers originally listed have been found alive and well and that their names have not been removed from the list. No new names have been added.

... Don't know about that one. I know we were told "Atta's passport" turned up alive and well on the streets of NY after the whole plane "he was flying" and everyone and everything else in it was "vaporized inside the WTC tower and never recovered". Maybe he tossed it out of the cockpit the millisecond the nose struck the tower.

"Is it true that the airline manifest records have been sealed so that no names of passengers are published? If the government itself has published the names of the 19 hijackers, what would be the purpose of having the airlines withhold the names?"

... Of course. Even the 12 surveillance tapes of Tim McVeigh getting out of the Ryder truck with that middle easter... uh I mean on his own ... have been sealed as a matter of "national security". The purpose? Ah - good question, and one for the "Commission" which is not going to get asked

"And what of the United Airlines and American Airlines unusually large stock shortings? Was there an investigation? If so, who profitted?"

... This was jumped on right away by the Security and Exchange Commission, the FBI, etc and every major agency in Europa. Then it got buried. The parties involved have never been named - only a mention somewhere that they were "investors" in Germany and Israel. This is another question for the "Commission" which is not going to be asked.

Of course, the "Commission" is not "independent" and it is a sham. So the results are not unpredictable.

 

[mvpel]

Michigander, I'll repeat my previous post...

As for connections between OBL, AQ, and 9/11...

Saeed Sheikh, who was closely tied to the Pakistani ISI and to Afghanistan, was referred to by OBL as "my special son". [Vanity Fair, 8/02] He reportedly helped train the hijackers. He was involved in transferring money - upwards of $100,000 - to Atta and Alshehhi under the alias "Mustafa Ahmed," from the UAE. He had connections high in the Pakistani military and into the inntermost circles of OBL and AQ. London Times, 4/21/02]

Also, from today's WSJ:

The four-day al Qaeda meeting was attended by Khalid al Midhar and Nawaz al Hamzi, who were at the controls of American Airlines Flight 77 when it crashed into the Pentagon. Also on hand were Ramzi bin al Shibh, the operational planner of the 9/11 attacks, and Tawfiz al Atash, a high-ranking Osama bin Laden lieutenant and mastermind of the USS Cole bombing. Shakir left Malaysia on January 13, four days after the summit concluded.

 

[mvpel]

... Don't know about that one. I know we were told "Atta's passport" turned up alive and well on the streets of NY after the whole plane "he was flying" and everyone and everything else in it was "vaporized inside the WTC tower and never recovered". Maybe he tossed it out of the cockpit the millisecond the nose struck the tower.

Loosen that tinfoil, my friend. Anyone living in New York will tell you that they were for weeks finding scattered, singed documents from the WTC all over lower Manhattan, including resumes, and documents from companies which ceased to exist that day.

I remember vividly that the massive explosion didn't occur until the plane had entirely disappeared into the side of the building, as this photo shows:

A 767-400 is 200 feet long, and the tower was 208 feet wide. In addition, the fuel tanks of that type of airplane are in the wings, and the wings don't start until about 90 feet back from the front of the plane:

Those first 90 feet of the plane, along with Atta and his fellow murderers, were dimantled by the steel structure and contents of the building at 500-600 miles per hour before the fuel tanks were even breached. Unlike his body, Atta's passport was small enough to fit throught the 18 inch wide gaps in the exterior of the WTC, and light enough to be blown clear, intact, by a 500-mile-per-hour breeze induced by the passage of the plane.

Hard to believe I'm even dignifying this with a response, but oh well.

 

[Fred Hansen]

we had a perfectly good air defense system

That was never designed to shoot down passenger planes - as stated earlier. I know that the liberals in this country would have LOOOOOOOVVVVED it if the Bush administration had blown passenger jets out of the sky, but no, not gonna happen. Maybe now that the tactic of flying hijacked planes into buildings is a reality, but not then. Not in a million years.

BTW one question about the schizophrenia of the left. Why all the outrage about NOT using deadly force? I thought that if we use deadly force against our enemies it only makes them more angry. Shouldn't the Bush administration have used the morning of 9/11 to get in touch with the feelings of the death-cult psychotics in those planes? Oh... that's right, they weren't in the planes. After all, some "journalists" for The Guardian found some men in the middle-east named Mohamad, ergo no one named Mohamad could possibly have been in those planes.

Next you'll be telling me that they've found men in London with the name John Smith.
Oh! That's right, you won't be telling me anything. Welcome to my ignore list.

 

[fix]

WOW...just WOW!

 

[TheBluesMan]

I think we've taken this thread about as far as it can go here. I'll be closing it now before we all harm our common cause with constant bickering and infighting.

PM or email if you have any questions.

-Dave