Posted on 09/09/2002 4:50:26 PM PDT by hc87
Short answer: the only fighters there are National Guard and Marine Corps Reserve units. Additionally, there were no aircraft "cocked and locked" because our overall air defense readiness was tied to Russian bomber operational readiness.
Guess they couldn't even have sent unarmed planes to try and distract the hijackers.
BTW - Where did all our $trillions over the years for national defense go?
Social Engineering. Berets made in China, that had to be re-ordered. Pork pet projects of Senators.
OTOH, one AIM-9R costs about $84,000, one AMRAAM about $386,000, one tomahawk is $500,000 today, and that's the cheap stuff.
Normally there would be a set of Rules of Engagement (ROE), if we were anticipating some sort of conflict. Prior to 9-11, rightly or wrongly, we weren't expecting this sort of thing.
When someone is hell-bent on crashing a plane into a geographically fixed point, distraction ain't gonna work.
BTW - Where did all our $trillions over the years for national defense go?
Breast cancer research. Environmental cleanup. Stupid peacekeeping missions in Bosnia, Kosovo, and every other worthless s**thole where our national interests were not (and still aren't) at stake. Acquisition programs where we paid for everything up to and including production tooling (i.e., the really expensive stuff) and then terminated the program to "save money" (i.e., not very much money) by not building the hardware.
We're now looking at the price tag. The 82nd Airborne no longer has an organic armor battalion--the M8 Buford light tank was intended to replace the M551 Sheridan in the airborne armor role, but it got cancelled literally AFTER the last minute (United Defense still has a complete Buford factory, gathering dust and rust). The F-22 Raptor and RAH-66 Comanche were stretched out so far during the Clinton years that our ability to actually produce these aircraft--computer hardware that was bleeding edge when these aircraft went into RDT&E is now obsolete and going out of production unless we ramp up orders NOW. The Navy is headed to a point below the 300-ship mark unless we start building new ships right now. Clinton expended almost our entire stockpile of PGMs during Operation Allied Farce, and never ordered sufficient replacements.
So are you are saying that our air defense did right by merely watching from the ground Flight 77 hitting the Pentagon?
No, I'm saying that the only way you were going to stop that bird was to have the interceptor pilot ram it.
I'm not the sort of guy to sit in a comfy command and control bunker and tell some young hotshot to commit suicide. I'd have to strap on an airplane and do it myself.
No one is telling any pilot to commit suicide.
What we are saying is DO something, distraction, etc., rather than watch Flight 77 hit the Penatagon.
The mission is to stop Flight 77 from hitting the Pentagon. There's only one thing that will work in the absence of armed airrcaft, and that's ramming.
What we are saying is DO something, distraction, etc., rather than watch Flight 77 hit the Penatagon.
"Doing something" in the name of looking like you're doing something is exactly what got us 9/11. We could--and should--have been serious about terrorism since 1993. We weren't; Clinton engaged in vigorous yet purposeless activity for eight years.
You need to do something effective. And in that case, if I were in tactical command at Andrews, and I knew that a plane was inbound towards the DC area, target unknown but undoubtedly of high value, I would have strapped on an unarmed F-16 and gone hunting. And I would have rammed Flight 77.
And yet you support the decision to do NOTHING, which is what was done about Flight 77.
Sounds inconsistant to me.
Read up on the kamikazes. Many pilots were approached, few accepted. The ones who didn't accept the mission were never criticized by the program's backers--because that decisionw was correctly viewed as a very personal one, with no predetermined "correct" answer. It required a lot of soul-searching on the part of the prospective kamikaze pilot.
Sounds inconsistant to me.
No, it's an understanding that you really can't morally order someone to do something like that.
You have a choice to either (a) do nothing and hope you can get armed aircraft up in time, or (b) go out and gain entrance to Valhalla on one's own hook through glorious self-sacrifice.
I'm not going to speak ill of the guy who doesn't go for Option B. It's an intensely personal decision. And I'm not going to speak ill of a guy who doesn't go for a PR-related action to LOOK like he's doing something.
Why it all went to building "HAARP",of course...<=========Sarcasm
The HAARP (High frequency Active Auroral Research Program) transmitter is operated jointly by the U.S. Navy, Air Force and several universities and is located in Gakona, eastern Alaska.(But that's a whole other ball of wax.)LOL
Doesn't the knowledge that this is being broadcast to the entire world make everyone just a little more secure? /sarcasm
I don't believe two planeloads of ball won't bring down a passenger liner. Shoot up the cockpit area and it'll come down. A 20mm bullet doesn't have to blow up to hurt.
Read up on the kamikazes.
I never advocated that our F-16 pilots be kamikazes.
I said repeatly that they might have been able to distract the hijackers.
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