I personally believe that the only reason we are fighting after 9-11 is that the attack was so public that the government could not cover it up. I'm getting to the point that if the government say something, I automatically wonder what the truth really is.
In my opinion, they WOULD want to cover it up at that time due to the failing of the airline industry.
They had already given the airlines 18 billion, and yet, people still weren't flying.
A terrorist act, just prior to Thanksgiving
and Christmas would have cut the industry off at the knees.
Rather than trying to get inside the mindset of the NTSB and FBI, why not try to look at the evidence? Here are a bunch of witnesses, who are swearing up and down that tehy saw explosions from the plane before it went down. What did they see, and how openly are their testimonies being received by the approporate federal agencies?
I think economics had a great deal to do with it but I also believe that we had already decide that we would go after Afghanistan because they were and easy target and really could not defend themselves against our strength.
Who know the saboteurs might have been from a country that would be better able to fight us and our weakness in that area would make it a difficult and embarrassing attempt.
After all we have expended in Afghanistan I seriously doubt we could militarily keep any rouge state from doing anything especially the Chinese or N. Koreans.
September 11th caught us completely by surprise. Hence, no one blamed the government for their inability to protect us. However, after 9/11, the public would have been pretty pissed off if the terrorists were able to destroy another plane when supposedly we were on high alert and our military was up there looking after us.
The occurence of another successful terrorist attack on an airliner in this country would have killed off air traffic for a long time and would have been the death knell of several airlines. It doesn't really matter what caused the crash of 587. The government WON'T let it be determined to be terrorist connected.
If it came out that one of Mohammed's boys had anything to do with it, there would have been muzzies swinging from the streetlights -- that's why.
Another terrorist air attack at that time would have had catastrophic effects on the travel industry and the holiday season, and subsequently, the econonmy. It was important for them to rule out terrorism quickly...whether true or not.
I think now that a shoe bomber has been stopped, now would be a perfect time to go ahead and admit this was probably sabtoage or terrorism. I think the people's psyche could handle that info now. I pray they will do the right thing.
In a phrase, it would destroy the airline industry.