F-35, not F-22, to Protect U.S. Airspace

On Feb 2, 6:52*pm, frank wrote:
OK guys, take a deep breath.

Couple of points. Its a GAO study. Some of them are good, some of them
are well, studies. GAO does not have subject matter experts. Think of
grad students that go out and write a paper on something. Like I said,
some good, some bad. Some really atrocious.

One point to consider. It costs a lot of bucks to keep planes ready on
the tarmac. Backups, maintenance, crews. And its boring. Some places
like Alaska, yeah you get some launches. Most places you end up
playing games.

And remember, 9/11 was launched INTERNALLY.

Anybody here want to shoot down an American airliner? Over the US?
Thought not.

And yeah, there are still NORAD or ADC sectors that take care of air
traffic. Lots of them. I think it was Vanity Fair that broke the story
on this when the tapes from the sector that dealt with NY and DC were
declassified.

Read through the transcripts, its like anything else, real time,
nobody knows what's going on. Like we always used to joke, best Intel
was from CNN. That's not too far from the truth.

Bluntly, we don't need a lot of effort spent on this. It'll probably
never happen again, and there are better ways to prevent it. OK,
besides letting groups of Arab looking guys get on the same flight
with box cutters. IF you look at what happened on 9/11 and where the
system failed, I'm not going to say the US is doing much better on all
this. At least El Al has professionals doing their flight screening.
But we can't afford to do that. Or we will until the first quarter
bill comes in.


Agreed.

Bluntly, we don't need a lot of effort spent on this. It'll probably
never happen again, and there are better ways to prevent it. OK,
besides letting groups of Arab looking guys get on the same flight
with box cutters.

In a purely speculative sense, one would think that some common sense
measures that were mandated to be in place years ago - especially
secured cockpit doors and bulkheads proof against small arms - would
pretty much render the question hypothetical. While hijacker(s) of any
motive might get loose in the cabin with a box cutter or even a small
arm of some variety, if they can't get into the cockpit, they can't
control the aircraft.

A hijacker is essentially reduced to two gruesome options: threaten to
start carving up passengers if his demands aren't met - which, while a
psychological burden on the cockpit crew, it isn't likely a demand to
be met post 9/11, or threaten to detonate a bomb which will destroy
the plane - which is a possibility, but lack of control denies them
the aircraft itself as a weapon of any accuracy.

Not much point in shooting down an airliner that can't be hijacked
from its intended course, regardless of whatever tragedies might
occurring in the cabin.

hcobb wrote in news:652ccc48-41dd-4d32-923a-
:

On 9/11 random airline passengers were better prepared to defend
America than the USAF was.

What exactly has changed since?

Klintoon is out of office.
And we've had 8 years to think about the consequences of letting
our guard down. Plus ample demonstration of the kind of domestic
enemies who still think its 9/10.

IBM

150flivver wrote in news:e6533896-54b5-46bc-b1d8-
:

On Feb 1, 6:48*pm, hcobb wrote:
On 9/11 random airline passengers were better prepared to defend
America than the USAF was.

What exactly has changed since?

-HJC

Exactly how was the Air Force supposed to prevent 9/11? I guess the
Air Force wasn't prepared to prevent the banking crisis or global
warming either.

The Air Force wasn't at fault.
It was a massive and systemic intelligence failure made possible
by obstructions to the sharing of what we did know put in place by
Klintoon and krew.

IBM

Jeff Dougherty wrote in news:61f32a71-61f7-
:

On Feb 1, 10:18*pm, "dott.Piergiorgio"
wrote:

Trouble is, in a new 9/11 emergency, Pilots will have the will and
nerves to shoot knowing that they are killing also civilians ?

I'm fairly certain American pilots would, if they were in a 9/11 type

In a new 9/11 situation the hijackers wouldn't have made it out
of their seats. The other passengers would disembowel them with
plastic cutlery and use their guts to tie the remains into very
small bundles. Some looney went nuts on a plane here recently and
wound up subject to the undivided attention of some very ****ed
off fellow passengers.
Anything that looks even slightly hinky around me gets reported
and I start looking for something to use as a weapon until the
cavalry arrives.

IBM

"dott.Piergiorgio" wrote in
:

[snip]

a/c as weapon) the morale of the entire AF involved is guaranteed to
plummet to the very low, esp. of the people more or less directly
involved in giving executing that order.

In mission control at NASA there is a switch that destroys
the launch vehicle should it show signs of endangering
the civilian population.
That protocol includes the manned vehicles.
Its a bitch of a responsibility but necessary.

IBM

hcobb wrote in news:da77e6cd-ee43-4fcb-8644-
:

[snip]

Now if Europe fails to back President Neo against terrorist states and
so forces America to take action to take out the danger (that is even
more acute for Europe simply because they don't got no Atlantic moat
for the limited protection that offers in a global world), then the
blame for the hundreds, thousands or millions of lives to be lost does
not fall on America.

And of course the Eurabians including Il Dottore's country all
have enormous Mooselimb fifth columns resident therein and a
power elite that seems determined to hand them the knives they
will use to slit Eurabian throats.

IBM

150flivver wrote in news:359a3711-b5ea-4741-
:

On Feb 2, 3:08*am, hcobb wrote:
On Feb 2, 6:45 am, 150flivver wrote:

Exactly how was the Air Force supposed to prevent 9/11? *I guess the
Air Force wasn't prepared to prevent the banking crisis or global
warming either.

Which service is it that's supposed to at least intercept hostile
aircraft in American skies?

Perhaps this also should be handed over to the USMC?

-HJC

9/11 was a criminal act conducted by foreign criminals. Calling it

It was an act of war by a non-state actor. We quite properly
took it at face value and opened hostilities on the actors
and their supporters.

war doesn't make it so. Law enforcement is something I don't want the
military involved in. The FBI and CIA dropped the ball on this one,
not the Air Force. Shooting down airliners filled with hostages/
citizens is something the Soviet Union would do, not what the USA does.

The FBI and CIA had been knecapped by Jamie Gorelick at Klintoon's
behest. It was more than your career was worth to ask inconvenient
questions or, god forbid, share information. Many of the necessary
dots were already plotted. They just could not legally be connected
and it took an enormous effort against determined Dhimmicrap
opposition to change that situation.

IBM

On Mon, 02 Feb 2009 20:25:48 -0600, Ian B MacLure
wrote:

Jeff Dougherty wrote in news:61f32a71-61f7-
:

On Feb 1, 10:18*pm, "dott.Piergiorgio"
wrote:

Trouble is, in a new 9/11 emergency, Pilots will have the will and
nerves to shoot knowing that they are killing also civilians ?

I'm fairly certain American pilots would, if they were in a 9/11 type

In a new 9/11 situation the hijackers wouldn't have made it out
of their seats. The other passengers would disembowel them with
plastic cutlery and use their guts to tie the remains into very
small bundles. Some looney went nuts on a plane here recently and
wound up subject to the undivided attention of some very ****ed
off fellow passengers.
Anything that looks even slightly hinky around me gets reported
and I start looking for something to use as a weapon until the
cavalry arrives.

IBM

The one all purpose carry on weapon still allowed is the big heavy
cowboy belt buckle. Slip off the belt and raise hell.

Sorry for the rant and the unrealistic scenario, but it just blows my
mind that only slightly more than a dozen fighters were on station.
Might as well phase out NORAD altogether except for missile defense
and retaliation.

TL

On Mon, 02 Feb 2009 20:45:03 -0600, Ian B MacLure
wrote:

hcobb wrote in news:da77e6cd-ee43-4fcb-8644-
:

[snip]

Now if Europe fails to back President Neo against terrorist states and
so forces America to take action to take out the danger (that is even
more acute for Europe simply because they don't got no Atlantic moat
for the limited protection that offers in a global world), then the
blame for the hundreds, thousands or millions of lives to be lost does
not fall on America.

And of course the Eurabians including Il Dottore's country all
have enormous Mooselimb fifth columns resident therein and a
power elite that seems determined to hand them the knives they
will use to slit Eurabian throats.

Could I humbly sugggest that you look into muslim populations
before you spew your tripe? The US has a larger Muslim population
than any European country but Russia. On a per cant basis it is
near the European median.

That or use smileys.

Peter Skelton

On Feb 2, 9:51*pm, Ian B MacLure wrote:
150flivver wrote in news:359a3711-b5ea-4741-
:

On Feb 2, 3:08*am, hcobb wrote:
On Feb 2, 6:45 am, 150flivver wrote:

Exactly how was the Air Force supposed to prevent 9/11? *I guess the
Air Force wasn't prepared to prevent the banking crisis or global
warming either.

Which service is it that's supposed to at least intercept hostile
aircraft in American skies?

Perhaps this also should be handed over to the USMC?

-HJC

9/11 was a criminal act conducted by foreign criminals. *Calling it

* * * * It was an act of war by a non-state actor. We quite properly
* * * * took it at face value and opened hostilities on the actors
* * * * and their supporters.

war doesn't make it so. *Law enforcement is something I don't want the
military involved in. *The FBI and CIA dropped the ball on this one,
not the Air Force. *Shooting down airliners filled with hostages/
citizens is something the Soviet Union would do, not what the USA does.

* * * * The FBI and CIA had been knecapped by Jamie Gorelick at Klintoon's
* * * * behest. It was more than your career was worth to ask inconvenient
* * * * questions or, god forbid, share information. Many of the necessary
* * * * dots were already plotted. They just could not legally be connected
* * * * and it took an enormous effort against determined Dhimmicrap
* * * * opposition to change that situation.

* * * * IBM

IIRC Clinton left office in January 2001, the FBI and CIA continued
their feud that says "I won't tell you anything you can use", and FBI
telephone taps that should have been tied to that "Osama bin Ladin
wants to do harm to the US" line in the PDB. As near as I can tell
that division still exists, perhaps expanded by the NSA being able to
say "I know something you don't". We now have an extra level of DNI to
add to the various inter service and interagency versions of that same
attitude. I would bet that more useful intelligence gets stuffed into
burn bags than gets into the PDB.