In a message dated 03/11/2002 10:05:58 AM Eastern Standard Time, jckelly1011@hotmail.com writes: > You know, it really frosts me when folks who don't know what happened and > haven't seen the intel reports comment from an authoritative position on the > tragic events of that day. To ask rhetorically, "where was the Air Force?" > and then answer the question with an "X- Files" government cover-up slant > ignores the basic premise that the events happened way too fast for any > response to occur and prevent the tragedy. Sorry for the rhetorical post header JC (and all others)...I'm certainly not blaming the Air Force or inferring a govt cover-up. I don't think a conclusion was drawn. Prior to the guy who crashed his cessna or ultra-light into the White House, I don't think many of us even thought that was possible. [And in Russia I seem to remember some guy flew straight into some sensitive area. There's a lot of barriers/gates etc around all kinds of buildings these days...it seemed natural to believe/think the very most important had some kind of protection. Back in WW2 I think some bldgs even had antiaircraft guns of some type on them.] The tone carried over from the "Where's the Boeing" nonsense. For those who do subscribe to every sundry conspiracy theory under the sun, you do realize these folks get much of their information not from watching too much X-files on Fox, or watching Al Jazeer, but perhaps from watching ABC news report on books purporting that the "Joint Chiefs of Staff" evaluate (or heaven help us) approve plans to terrorize American cities and blame it on others. http://c1.zedo.com/OzoDB/0/q/7082/zz_PiggyBank.html > Much has been said about "combat ready" F-16 and F/A-18 jets based near the > Pentagon. Combat ready is not the same as alert ready or mission ready. > Again, there was insufficient time to intercept the AA B757 that crashed > into the Pentagon. > Yes, I was wondering about the Air Guard in DC, and you have answered that. I know for sure AirCraft Carriers were not built to sit off shore of New York city, so I'll chalk it all up to the ill-conceived "peace dividend". > Last, much criticism has been leveled at the Air Force for not being better > prepared for this type of event. My feeling is they can only be as prepared as we allow them to be. > This is not the time to ask "what happened?" and dwell on the event. Rather, > it is the time to ask "how can we prevent this type of event from occurring > again?" and then undertake the necessary measures to ensure it doesn't > happen again on American soil. > I'd still like to know the "what happened" bit anyway. I think it relates to the "preventing it from happening again". I don't blame anyone for not being better prepared, but in retrospect it was in the "air". Hollywood was developing a script vaguely similar, the two kids at Columbine wanted to do exactly what these terrorists did (not that they could) etc... > Regards to the list, > JCK > Tom