I am not a Pacifist

[Nachtrafe]

Reeka...You're very welcome. *HUGS*

Just my quick two cents before I jaunt off to bed. I can see points in what both Yorick and Ryanamur say. Although, Ryanamur is a bit more pessimistic.

And big R, I defenitely have to disagree with you about the Skymarshals. Think of all of the unnecessary deaths that could have been prevented if there has been a 'Marshall onboard any of those flights.

Terrorist: "I have a box knife and I am hijacking your plane. Praise Allah!"
SkyMarshall: "BLAM!! Join Allah!"
Seems pretty cut and dried to me.

Sorry this is short. I'm brain fried and on my way to bed. I'd be happy to respond more in depth after some sleep. Nite all!!!

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"In Memorium of those who are gone, and all those that bought our freedom with their hearts blood!"

"May the Colors of Liberty never run"

[DragonMage]

Originally posted by Nachtrafe: Terrorist: "I have a box knife and I am hijacking your plane. Praise Allah!" SkyMarshall: "BLAM!! Join Allah!" Seems pretty cut and dried to me.

Short, sweet and to the point...I like that!
And I agree that if there had been Marshalls on board, it would have ended far differently. Sad thing that there weren't. Very sad.

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The day we stop learning is the day we start dying!(c)

Owner/operator of the Evil Petting Zoo and devout member of the HADB clan.
Commander of the Dragon Fleet, IW Peacekeeping Force
Sublime Sister of the Illuminati - may the Light shine forever!
Mage extraordinair.
Occasional minion to Gwhanos the Fluffy

Hopeless Romantic *sigh*

"Allright! We'll call it a draw."

[Ryanamur]

Originally posted by Nachtraferepare for the worst and hope for the best. Unfortunately, we, in North America are in nature optimistic: don't prepare and at all 'cause there's only the best to come. The funny thing is that we are both debating about a future that neither of us can identify with certainty. Just to push the irony to it's fullest, to have a pessimistic leader in power is really not good to the population: if you plan ahead to counter something ahead of time, you can defuse the Reeka...You're very welcome. *HUGS* Terrorist: "I have a box knife and I am hijacking your plane. Praise Allah!" SkyMarshall: "BLAM!! Join Allah!" Seems pretty cut and dried to me.

Blam, bullet keeps going and bust window. Big Blam as a section about 5x5 feet of the airplane explodes because of a rapid decompression and structural failure (let's face it, American inspections standards for structural inspections are amongst the lowests in the Civilized World.

No, Air Marshalls are not a good idea. Yes, They will be wearing plain closes and yes, they can still be IDed and taken out. With 1-2 marshall per flight, that gives the terrorists 1-2 guns (mind you Air Marshall are definitely a better route to take than armed pilots... their job is to fly). Sorry, what you need it real thight security at the airports to ensure that nobody has weapons (weither that body is black, white, yellow, red or brown). Right now the security at airports is on alert. They go mostly after any Arab looking individual (which makes sense given the nature of the attack... but, that will fade away). And people will still be able to make it through with gun and box cutters because we are not willing to let go of our stupid "body protection" rights.

Guess what, taking a plane (or any other transport) is not a right. It's a privilege. So go to that room, undress, and have all your luggaged emptied for inspection.

And for the economy, yep, the slowdown was definitly there before the attack and will continue for about a year. I agree with that. What I'm saying is that this slowdown could've been averted with proper governement involvement in the economy.

It's amazing that people think that the government is doing so much work to help the economy. Yes, they're putting money in the system. Mind you, there not putting enough (that's my opinion) to keep the system stable.

Earlier, I mentioned that we had elites in power that were not able to make the though calls when they where needed. It's ironic that people think that Bush, Congress and the House (just to take the US exemple) are making the though decision. They are not. They are reacting. They are not making though decisions. They are making decisions with the full backing of the population etc etc.

A though decision is proactive (that's before the event). A though decision means that you do not and will not have the support of the population. A though decision means that you will loose vote but it's the right decision for the country...

Yes, I'm pessimistic. That's my nature: danger and people do not support you because they didn't see the danger. What people want is an optimistic governement: you know the kind takes really bad decisions and leads thousands to their deaths before doing anything. Yes, people need to see to believe. Well, they saw, now they believe, governement acts, people forget, people will see again and it will go on like that.

Just to prove to which point it's screwed up (don't worry, we have very similar situations here in Canada), I was watching CNN last week and in a round discussion with a Congressmen who, if I'm not mistaking, was on the Intelligence commitee, a question about "failure of the government to see and act on the threath came up". His response was that we could not put blame on the government or any of it's employees for what happened. According to him,we had no warning signes and we should not look for scapegoats within the government. My jaw just dropped. I could not believe such an idiotic response. The government had plenty of signs: expert warning about potential terrorists attack, known terrorists in the US, warning by Bin Ladden that a strike was coming... They had warning signs, they were just not cleaver enought to put them together. In my book, that's an automatic dismissal. Thanks for you services, here's your pinkslip, golden handshake (100,000$ check to leave) and go find a job at McDonald.

Sorry, I do not believe in second chances. You screwed up, your out. It's harsh but that way, you know that you get and keep the best of the best for a job. Government work should not be stable, secure work. It should be really high paid and extremely unstable and with no security whatsoever. Who do you want to help run your country, an idiot who's in 9-5 with 2 hours of break and that takes his job for granted Or would you prefer a guy that gets paid 2-3 times as much but produces like crazy?

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If I am because I think, then, if I talk without thinking, I'm not really talking! Am I?

[This message has been edited by Ryanamur (edited 09-29-2001).]

[DragonMage]

Originally posted by Ryanamur: Blam, bullet keeps going and bust window. Big Blam as a section about 5x5 feet of the airplane explodes because of a rapid decompression and structural failure (let's face it, American inspections standards for structural inspections are amongst the lowests in the Civilized World. ...

Just some FYI from a news report the other day on this...

According to the report, the bullets they would use are not 'normal' bullets. Enough to stop a hijacker (i.e. - rubber bullets, but not sure exactly) but not enough to rip through a person and/or the plane; therefore little to no danger of that happening. If that makes you feel any better about it.



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The day we stop learning is the day we start dying!(c)

Owner/operator of the Evil Petting Zoo and devout member of the HADB clan.
Commander of the Dragon Fleet, IW Peacekeeping Force
Sublime Sister of the Illuminati - may the Light shine forever!
Mage extraordinair.
Occasional minion to Gwhanos the Fluffy

Hopeless Romantic *sigh*

"Allright! We'll call it a draw."

[Ryanamur]

Originally posted by DragonMage: Just some FYI from a news report the other day on this... According to the report, the bullets they would use are not 'normal' bullets. Enough to stop a hijacker (i.e. - rubber bullets, but not sure exactly) but not enough to rip through a person and/or the plane; therefore little to no danger of that happening. If that makes you feel any better about it.

Yes, it does

But it still easy to spot them out. All you need is a group of 4 who boards a plane. First, you put one guy at the security stand. He watches just to find out who gets through the crew side doors. Anybody in plane close would be a potential airmarshall (they will not be going through normal security because of their weapons, they'll have a special pass and go through crew door. Then, you have a second and third guy on the way to the gate where the plane is. The final and last guy is at the gate itself, sitting, reading his journal.

The first guy just tags the potential airmarshalls as they clear security. From there, the other two keep and eye out for them and by hand signals communicate between them to ID. The final guy is sitting at the gate to find out if he's coming on the flight. If he is, note is face.

Once on the plane, our so be terrorists just have to find out who the airmarshall are. One or two go to the bathrooms and now, you know where they are. Another 2 or 3 go to the washroom and in a coordinated effort, take them out. Now, we have terrorists with gun instead of knives or box cutters.

Just a small possibilities. It's not a good idea... and this doesn't even take into account that terrorist could obtain Air Marshalls ID and bring their own weapons onto the plane.

If the system is wise, and for the overall security reasons, their should be more than one airmarshall per plane and they should NOT know who the other is.

I still believe that the cabin should be a sterile environment. Hell, you can put a bomb into a palm pilot and that would be enough to bring a plane down. Thighter security at airports is the answers, not people armed on planes.




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If I am because I think, then, if I talk without thinking, I'm not really talking! Am I?

[ScottR]

Wow, couldn't come to the board for a while and feel I have missed so much.

Ryanamur, I agree that soldiers who have signed up are aware of the dangers. My point is that it should be a sacrifice that needs to be made and not to preserve the lives of a foreign civilian population. 100-200 body bags might be fine in your eyes but in my original post I was trying to make the point that this kind of operation is (in my opinion) the least likely to succeed due to the operational difficulties. It would be a sacrifice in vain and then back to square one. Perhaps with the Taliban parading a few POWs who had been 'commiting acts of terrorism' in Afghanistan.

Any action on foreign is an act of war, this is the very premise our governments have used.

A more general comment is to the continual theme in many posts which highlight the destabilisation of world politics as a consequence of US and Western action during the last few decades. This to me seems an incrediably short sighted view. In the last century there were probably less than a dozen years without a military conflict somewhere in the world. The same in previous centuries. These instabilities have been around for millenium. The difference now is technological (these countries can now attack our homes) and a general informal alliance of fundamentalist countries against the West.

A lot of posts say we should look at the 'root causes' of the problems as a long term soultion. A humanitarian solution but please answer me one thing. How?

[Nachtrafe]

Originally posted by Ryanamur: Blam, bullet keeps going and bust window. Big Blam as a section about 5x5 feet of the airplane explodes because of a rapid decompression and structural failure (let's face it, American inspections standards for structural inspections are amongst the lowests in the Civilized World.

Too tired to respond to all of this, but I will try to later today(after sleep. ) Just wanted to give an FYI. I was listening to a rep from the pilots union talking about the weapons that they are planning on having the pilots using(I agree with you about the pilots BTW. Their job is to fly the plane, not be a cop. That would be the Marshalls job.). DragonMage, they are talking something light calibre, like a .38 or, possibly a 9mm. They are planning to load them with GLASERs. For those that dont know, those are bullets designed to do soft tissue damage, and lots of it. They are used by hostage rescue teams. The bullets will not overpenetrate a body, i.e. if a terrorist is shot in a crowd, the bullet will not pass through him and hit an innocent. Also, they can be stopped by just about any relatively hard surface, such as the wall of the plane, or even an inch of plexiglass(the windows).

Also, and I'm not real sure about this one either, they are thinking about letting crewmembers have non-lethal weapons...stun guns, mace, etc.

Plus, the FAA is instituting new training standards for all existing airport employees and is thinking about Federalizing the whole kit and caboodle. Not a bad idea, considering Airports and their airspace are already Federal property. I just hope they dont keep the military on guard. I really, REALLY dont want to see armed military personnel at my local airport. Visions of Police States beging to flood my little conspiracy theory laden brain.

Will respond to the rest of this later. Sorry. Cant think. Nite!!

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"In Memorium of those who are gone, and all those that bought our freedom with their hearts blood!"

"May the Colors of Liberty never run"