World Trade Center

[edew]

Originally posted by its_me_mango:
<STRONG>one more ting: where is this 'i don't feel like an american' stem from? ah, i know where, from the vietnam protests, but it's okay, i was around for that one, when columbia and berkely went nuts and everyone took to the streets, but that was a good thing, the thing we don't really know is what our parents and grandparents know, and that is what they went through the nazi occupation and during the pacific conflict. sorry guys it was real close, hitler started the whole thing, he trained young people to hate minorities and sent them into homes and apartments with german shepard dogs and hauled them out and stuck them onto trains and brought them into camps and gassed them, then the emperor of japan (sorry folks again, but...)thought it looked pretty good and an opportunity, and he went for it, but the whole thing collapsed because it was all based on shinto-sim and hitler stole teachings from india and they both twisted up everything, and that's how it all came about. sort of, naturally it's more complicated than than, but that's what it boils down to.</STRONG>

I don't know about you or others, but I feel about as American as ever, if not more. The several items which I particularly feel good about as an American is that I am allowed to voice my opinions without retribution; is that I'm assumed innocent until proven guilty; is that we let the free market dictate itself (well, that's not exactly part of the constitution, but certainly an almost deductive ramification of it).

I am glad to see Barbara Lee, representative from Oakland/Berkeley area vote in dissent among the 422 other sheeps. The role of congress is to be one part of the checks and balances. No tragedy should absolve them of that role. If anything, the president himself should remind congress to perform its function to check and balance his (the president's) actions. That doesn't mean throwing bureaucratic obstacles, but it does mean asking questions making sure we're doing the right thing. Cooperate with the executive branch, but don't cave in. And don't short-change the citizens' civil liberties for the ephemeral goal of safety. No amount of sky marshalls will prevent some suicidal maniac from taking a plane down.

[Purple Fencer]

I'm not sure of teh realy value of a SKy Marshall, but ther's one concern, I've always had. If the hijacking takes place at - and the plane STAYS at - cruising altitude (about 36,000 feet, or close to 6 miles up), do we REALLY want to have the possibility of a gun battle? A real firefight is not like the movies...the vast majority of shells fired do not hit their intended target. If someone hits a window...can you say explosive decompression.

[attila]

Big Purple

This now brings us to tactical responses to an attmpt at highjacking by a pilot. Policy will undoubtably change from passive resistance to active resistane. How about having a pilot take a nose up attitude to send the jackers tumbling toward the tail so the passengers can over power is possible then reducing the oxygen to the plane to knock all passengers and jackers out-- Would be nice in case the plane bites it ( I would definetly rather to go out in my sleep). Fly the nervous skies.....

[Purple Fencer]

How about making an airtight seal at the cockpit door, then flooding the cabin with a knockout gas?

'Course, now we're starting to get more Tom Clancy than reality.

The only prob with pitching the nose up -- or any other such maneuver -- is the simple fact that airliners are basically sky busses; they're not designed for acrobatics. Even if the airframe could survive the strain of recovering from a steep pitch up, power dive, a barrell roll, or even standing it on the wing, it woudl take the pilot of the gods to pull it out...and no airline pilot is trained for such extrme maneuvers in a large aircraft...they just aren't going to encounter them unless they've completely lost the aircraft. One problem with really large planes (average airliner or a B-52), is they they tend to lose lift if they stand on the wing. Sure, in an isolated incident they plane may be able to take it and pull out, but that would very likely be a one time shot -- after the Sioux City crash, they tried to replacate the accident in a simulator. Despite dozens of attempts, the simulator crashed every time...the plane should not have been able to stay aloft, yet it did.

The sad fact is, a suicide mission is the hardest to stop. What would a terorist care if he planned on blowing his worthless self to smithereens? Even if he didn't hit his intended target (using the WTC as an example) he could STILL take out a few more hated Americans.

In a very real sense, those folks aboard the plane that crashed in Penn. were ALSO on a suicide mission -- they had nothing to lose and everything to gain -- it simply turned into a matter of who's ideology was stronger, undoubtedly aided by sheer numbers.

My boss asked me this morning why a plane full of people couldn't overpower three guys with knives. I pointed out a basic survival instinct. There's a reason why Sgt, Alvin York was able to capture 100+ German soldiers by himself during WWI...they were probably all afraid that, even if they rushed him and he only got off one shot (with his rifle...no sub-machine guns yet), they might be the one to catch it.

[Craig]

First - let's keep the flames to a minimum. Anyone calling anyone else an idiot is not the way to have a discussion, and it's not showing the proper respect that everyone is due.

Rant aside, here are a couple of more thoughts:

Does anyone think that a hijacking will occur again? People that I'm talking with don't think so. Here's why - If your plane gets hijacked, you are going to assume that you WILL die and be flown into a populated area. You and the other passengers on board will see that you can overpower the hijackers and will do it - hoping to either be walked through how to fly/land the plane or (more likely) ditch it in an unpopulated area.

Not a nice thought to have, but the Philly flight made a good example to many.

Craig

[its_me_mango]

i really don't trust pakistan either, they've extremists, they've been attacking northern india for years, and those people have had it up to HERE.

[Moonitic]

Very good points, Craig. There's no need to start turning on one another right now.

By the way, about killing the terrorists? Gang, they don't care. Remember, they skipped happily onto those jets, knowing full well that Tuesday was the end of their rotten lives. Those that are still alive are hanging back, laughing at all the talk about us "getting revenge."

Of course, that doesn't stop me from saying I'd love to beat them over each pointy little head with a baseball bat. Whatever is done, I hope it's done in a timely manner. The nation really needs to start the healing process.

[veeco]

Originally posted by its_me_mango:
<STRONG>i really don't trust pakistan either, they've extremists, they've been attacking northern india for years, and those people have had it up to HERE. </STRONG>

Well, let's see then... Mango who do you trust? In a case like this, it's good to have allies you can count on. In any case, even on a personal level, I guess you can't just clam up and try and weather the storm. You have to have friends to talk to, people you can trust. So who would you trust?

Quite frankly, I think this situation is just beyond everyone's grasp right now. I have stopped trying to understand it and cope with it at the same time. I'll first try and cope with it, and then, maybe I'll go into 'deep thinking mode' to understand what happened here.

It's like in fencing: when you're down 13-10, you first have to learn how to cope with yourself being down, before being able to fight back and even out the score to be able to win.

[Inquartata]

Originally posted by edew:
<STRONG>

Everything else has been tried? I find that claim most incredulous.</STRONG>

I guess you're right. We haven't tried abject surrender yet.

But the best and brightest have been studying terrorists for decades, and again, none of their solutions has amounted to a pitcher of warm spit. Only the "I can be even more brutal and amoral than you" tactic has shown any real results. Extirpation is about the only avenue left, as far as I can see...
<STRONG>
As for your killer plague analogy, we most certainly try to understand it. Eradicating it without understanding the vectors involved in its propagation will only allow it to resume once again in the future.</STRONG>

I meant that we do not try to understand its motives. We do not try to capture it to be put on trial. We do not try to soothe it with diplomacy, or buy it off, or threaten it with a few cruise missiles. And I guarantee that when it has infected a human host we waste no time trying to "understand its vectors" before applying treatments designed to kill it.

<STRONG> And like a plague, terrorism (or fanatics willing to do weird, extreme things) will never disappear. It may mutate into different forms, but like a plague, we should acknowledge its permanent existence in the world and deal with controlling and understanding it.</STRONG>

True, I suppose---though to extend the plague analogy, note that we have gotten rid of diseases entirely ere now. Smallpox comes to mind. ( Unfortunately, human beings are craftier than plagues. In that respect you are right. But I prefer to "understand" it only in the way we seek to understand the extinction of the dinosaur---that is, as a puzzling historical phenomenon. At least as far as that is possible. )

[edew]

Purple wrote:

In a very real sense, those folks aboard the plane that crashed in Penn. were ALSO on a suicide mission -- they had nothing to lose and everything to gain -- it simply turned into a matter of who's ideology was stronger, undoubtedly aided by sheer numbers.

Actually, the won a tactical victory. Their suicide was accomplished. Success in preventing such a hijacking's result would be defined as getting the plane onto the ground safely with the majority of passengers alive.

As for inquartata's response to my comments, many ideas may have been considered, but just by looking at the history of the past fifty years, it's quite clear that not many alternative plans have been implemented. Some were not implemented because smart people thought through them and realized that they won't work. Some were not implemented because it gave a short-term negative acceptance by the populace and the politicians in power would rather not commit political suicide in lieu of a wise plan. As I stated in this thread above, or in another, the solution may require up to four generations, or 100 years, to see the results.

I tried to look back in history to see a similar event to this terroristic act. One that comes to mind was the thugee killings in the mid- to late-1800s in India.

In India during that time, there were a group of people called the thugees (where we get the term "thugs") who would associate with travelers, live and work with the for a while, and then kill them. The british, who were colonizing everywhere, including India, was affected by the thugees. British subjects, as well as Indians (of high or low caste level) were subjected to indiscriminate killings by the thugees. It took the British many years of education, eradication, and enforcement of laws to break the thugees.

The thugees may be compared with the terrorists we see now in that they killed indiscriminately and they killed for their religion (which I'm assuming in the WTC case). If you're a marked man for the thugees, well, you're screwed; especially since you wouldn't know it until they garroted you or carved out your bowels. So, in a sense, they were as unpredictable as the WTC case is. Maybe we can learn from that and see what we should do.

It did take the british and the Indian government many years to end the thugees' violence. If you can get ahold of Mark Twain's book, "Crossing The Equator," he writes a very lengthy expose on this particular subject, as he visited and lived in India for several years. He also described the culture of self-immolation by the widow of a recently deceased man. It took many years to break that cultural ritual (and even now, some women still perform this act).

[Inquartata]

edew---There are lots of historical precedents, such as the Mau Mau rebellion in the 1950s and going all the way back to the cult of the hasishim during the times of the Crusades.

Unlike present-day terrorism, these, along with the thugee movement, were localized and were not supported by powerful states. However, your comparisons are still apt. These sort of fanatic outbreaks are very tenacious and difficult to uproot, even with the methods I advocate ( i.e. kill them all ). I expect a long and heartwrenchingly tragic and costly struggle. The alternative is, IMO, far worse, however---the more so as these groups draw closer to the capacity to deploy biological, chemical and nuclear weapons...

[Stryder]

Edew-
"Things must be measured on an economic basis, and not on an emotional basis."

Absurd. You assign a dollar value to human life then get back to me. We will measure the loss of life with our emotions. Without emotions we are free to say "Hey, one less mouth to feed!" Emotions are what make us care. Pretending that we can deal with situations like this without emotion is another misguided ideal. Like your idea to respond to these attacks by sending psychiatists and social workers to solve the internal issues and psychoses of the terrorists.


"Success in preventing such a hijacking's result would be defined as getting the plane onto the ground safely with the majority of passengers alive."

So you consider the passengers aboard flight UA93 to be failures? I find that offensive. They knowingly risked and ultimately gave their lives to prevent further loss of life. They are heros.

[ 09-20-2001: Message edited by: Stryder ]

[its_me_mango]

i think edew was noting that currently we seem to measure things on an economic level rather than the human level. I agree that our concern should be for human life rathern than dollars, and that's why the FAA should beef it up and stop counting their pennies. thank you.

[edew]

Nope. I am saying that we should measure things on an economic basis and not on a human (whatever that means) basis. If you think that's absurd, look at your insurance companies. If you have life, AD&D, auto, home, etc., insurance, what do you think they -- and you -- are doing, other than pegging a value to your human life?

Ultimately, the sensible thing to do is to deal with this tragedy as a major accident. How different in terms of lives would it be if a major hurricane-cum-earthquake hit NY and destroyed the WTC? What would we have done in that case? Well, I'd imagine we'd pick up the pieces, rebuild, learn from it to prevent it from happening, recompense those who lost value due to the event, and go forward. Do we go fight a war against a hurricane?

This call for war is sounding more and more inane. It sounds no different than that idiot in Arizona who shot and killed a Sikh (a Sikh!) and yelled, "I'm an American all the way!" Yeah, what bravery and what patriotism.

[Stryder]

Idiots are everywhere. The idiot in Arizona deserves no less punishment than the idiots who blew up the WTC.

You actually want to treat this attack as a natural disaster? Just live with it? Stop living in the places where it might strike next? Build all of our houses with cellars and wait. Hope we're not the next ones to go?

This was an action made by people, not God. Not nature. People who will do it again.
Hurricanes and earthquakes are terrible and we are doing everything we can to protect ourselves. We will do all that we can to prevent terrorists from hurting us again. Like natural disasters, we will not be completely successful, but to extend the metaphor, I will not move back into the same unsafe area without taking any and all precautions that I can take first.

"To seek safety, one must go to the heart of danger."

Defending ourselves is an important step, but how safe are you backing away? Sooner or later you will run out of strip. The only way to keep from being hit, in the end, is to hit them.

[Inquartata]

Well said, Stryder.

[edew]

I don't recall suggesting we just give in. I believe my words were, "learn from it, go forward, build with it in mind." Humans are part of nature (unless you belong to that particular sect among us who believe that humans are separate from the rest of the nature), and human actions are part of nature. Killings among humans, among animals, and even among bacteria, have been around since the first amoeba wriggled its little protuberance. You think that *this* time, such killings will be completely and forever eradicated?

In the grand scheme of things, terrorist killings amount to a blip in the radar screen of all the ways humans kill themselves. I'm still more likely to be concerned about that driver ahead of me than the possibility of some suicidal jihad guy trying to fly a plane onto the very freeway I'm driving on.

I'm certainly not suggesting that we do absolutely nothing about it. But please, take it in proportion to everything else that happens to us. Heart disease kills several million US citizens every day. No flags are raised to half-mast for them. No eulogies and practically no war (and very little money) is conducted on that fight. You want terrorism, you got terrorism right there.

Smoking-related deaths in the US is estimated to be around 500,000 (maybe more). That's 100 times the number of those who died in the WTC bombing. Are we fighting a war there? Are we "routing the terrorists" and holding those who harbor them responsible as well? Hell, the US government bleeping subsidizes the tobacco industry, the tobacco industry chiefs acknowledges (at least some do) that their product kill people, and we let them continue their act. Where's the sense of scale here, folks? Want to really save some lives? Bomb the s**t out of the tobacco fields in North Carolina and such places.

Terrorism will never be eradicated because the concept is not well-defined. Those who we call terrorists are called "freedom fighters" by those who practice it. If we want to end terrorism right now, we can do much by not allowing US citizens to fund the IRA and their continual bombings and killings in Ireland and England. The IRA is almost entirely supported by US citizens of Irish ancestry. Should the US go after itself since it harbors those who aid terrorists? Or are we really just speaking about bin Laden?

[Inquartata]

That's why the law enacts such greatly more severe penalties for premeditated murder than for manslaughter: intent. Heart disease has no intent. Tobacco has no intent; and even the tobacco companies are interested in profit, not in killing people. Moreover, smokers are willing accomplices in their own destruction, as murder victims are not.

You can't simply paint every cause of death with the same broad brush, and say they should be considered equivalent. At least not in a world of free will and finite resources.

[edew]

Originally posted by Inquartata:
<STRONG>That's why the law enacts such greatly more severe penalties for premeditated murder than for manslaughter: intent. Heart disease has no intent. Tobacco has no intent; and even the tobacco companies are interested in profit, not in killing people. Moreover, smokers are willing accomplices in their own destruction, as murder victims are not.

You can't simply paint every cause of death with the same broad brush, and say they should be considered equivalent. At least not in a world of free will and finite resources.</STRONG>

Sorry to say, but to put a degree on the person's death is an anachronistic concept which very few people have been able to break away from. Look, if you're the person who's dead or dying, what does it matter how you're killed? To say that first-degree murder is worse than second-degree, and that is worse than third-degree, which being worse than manslaughter is a artifact of the same Judeo-Christian (maybe I'll attach Muslim in here) religion which brought about this whole terrorists mess. Death is death and no one is any more better or worse than another. It happens to everyone eventually.

I personally see no difference between a person who -- while switching channels on a car radio -- plows into me and Cary Stayner slicing my throat. In either case, the outcome is the same: I'm dead. The only issue is how to prevent it from happening in the future to someone else. There, you assess the probability of whether the person (or whatever entity, although if it's not a person or perhaps an animal, the government can't really do much in terms of legal recourse) is likely to perform such an act again, and then act accordingly.

A habitual drunk driver, for example, is no different in my book, and in yours, too, than a serial murdered like Cary Stayner or Richard Allen Davis. Here, I don't read in the intent, just the consequences and the likelihood of recurrence.

I mean, really, isn't the likelihood of recurrence the only issue? O.J. Simpson most likely did the dirty deed. He most likely did it with deliberate intent (at least against Nicole; Ron Goldman was just an unlucky sop who wanted to "meet" Nicole, and did it at the wrong time). But is he likely to do it again? Would I feel less safe sitting next to him? That guy might start a fight, might punch me out. But kill? No more likely than I would. His probability is higher, mainly because there's a preponderance of evidence suggesting he did, whereas there is nil in evidence suggesting I did.

This probability assessment may be used on any entity: persons, animals, plants, food, germs, devices, natural phenomena, etc. You assess the probability that such an event will occur again. If the probability is sufficiently low, you don't need to apply as much effort in protecting against it. If the probability is high, you take preventative measures.

So is the probability of another terrorist attack in the US high? Well, it's higher than before, but that probability is probably pretty low compared to other possible death-causing events. In other words, I'm not going to stop flying airplanes because of the possibility of a hijacker taking it into the Transamerica building. I'm not going to eschew going to the top of the Empire State building because of the possibility of a hijacked plane ramming it at the 75th floor.

I am reticent about flying on a plane in the next few months because the probability that I will have to take an extra 3 hours before, a possible 1 hour extra delay before take-off, and an extra hour afte deboarding has definitely increased.

[Stryder]

"..I don't recall suggesting we just give in..." - "...but like a plague, we should acknowledge its permanent existence in the world and deal with controlling and understanding it..."

Hmmm....Acknowledge the presence of of terrorism and deal with controlling and understanding it. I think that's what we're doing! Glad that I could straighten you out ,edew!