| Submit your comments on this article |
| Home Front: WoT |
| N.Z. Bear: the unexamined success of 9/11 |
| 2004-04-14 |
| The Bear seems to be the first person to have noticed this: After all the hearings that the commission has had on the failures of our government to prevent 9/11, or even to respond effectively while it was happening, shouldn’t there be at least one hearing to discuss what went right on that day? Where is the session devoted to studying the actions of the passengers of Flight 93, and their success at foiling the terrorists they confronted? Is there nothing at all to be learned from their actions, and their sacrifice -- or is the comissison just more interested in finding fault than in actually recognizing success? Or is it a more basic blindness --- is the 9/11 commission, and our government in general, incapable of recognizing a defense against terrorism that merely consists of individual Americans willing to fight when it becomes necessary? That a defense that doesn’t require a huge appropriation bill and a massive administrative army simply doesn’t fit with the Washington mindset? He’s right. Everyone involved in this inquiry seems to have forgotten the 93rd Volunteer Infantry. We shouldn’t. Let’s roll! |
| Posted by:Mike |
| #6 Hell, I pity the fool who tries to get up that first 30 minutes out or the last 30 minutes into Reagan National. Two words: Sock. Party. |
| Posted by: eLarson 2004-04-14 8:55:51 PM |
| #5 Zenster: You and me both. My family and I flew to Orlando just after Christmas '01. I had no worries. If anyone messed with that plane, I was going to get out of my seat and kill them--and I was confident there were at least 50 other people on that MD-80 that would be with me. No one will ever hijack an American domestic flight again. |
| Posted by: Mike 2004-04-14 2:24:32 PM |
| #4 I cannot speak for anyone else in this matter, but I know that on 9-11 my own personal traveling protocol changed forever. If anyone tries to hijack a plane I am riding on, I will do my best to kill them. Not hurt them or disable them, kill them. They will not get a second chance to do any harm and I will encourage all other passengers in assisting me to snap the spine of anyone who tries to commandeer a plane I am on. I am amazed that the very few hijackers since 9-11 didn't come out of their planes in body bags. |
| Posted by: Zenster 2004-04-14 2:09:19 PM |
| #3 Great article, great comments. Not to mention the status reports being phoned in from the other planes, or the heroic performance of some of the WTC tenants, such as Rick Rescorla, who was mentioned here the other day. |
| Posted by: Matt 2004-04-14 2:08:48 PM |
| #2 ..One thing that I'm sorry isn't being seriously looked at and looked at HARD is the way USAF interceptors were deployed that day. I am proud beyond words of the way the USAF aircrew, support people and NORAD - both US and Canadian, BTW - handled the emergency once it broke. These folks live up to the highest traditions we have. (I am reliably advised that the pilots who were intercepting FLT 93 stated afterwards that if it had come down to it, they were prepared to ram the airliner if they had to.) On the other hand, there needs to be some explaining as to why: 1. Washington DC was defended by aircraft stationed at Langley AFB, VA...200 miles SOUTH. 2. Many of the aircraft on alert that morning - and BTW, there were fewer than 20 for the ENTIRE US - were carrying no live ammo. 3. Even our most pacific Allies maintain CAP over their capitols...but we don't. Mike |
| Posted by: Mike Kozlowski 2004-04-14 1:55:38 PM |
| #1 Also the way the emergency services responded, the way NYC wasn't looted and burned that day, how the nation turned itself inside out to help when we came under attack. Feh. |
| Posted by: Seafarious 2004-04-14 1:51:14 PM |