Originally Posted by
roberino
No. Like I said before, it actually guarantees the terrorists a means to have a plane blown out of the sky. They would just need to say they have a bomb and demand access to the cockpit to get shot down.
What you describe doesn't seem to make sense unless I'm misunderstanding you. If they
say they have a bomb, make demand and actually gain access to cockpit, they don't need the fighter escort to destroy the plane. They could do it themselves. If they can't access to the cockpit, the pilot would just land the plane.
Originally Posted by
GUWonder
I want to read the above as being sarcastic, but it probably wasn't intended to be.
I'm surprised that anyone in their right mind would implicitly assume that OBL&Co would have been opposed to the idea of the US Government killing large numbers of US citizens in the US using US military power. What I find laughable is the idea of them being deterred by the idea of the US Government attacking US persons in the US too. "Giving Americans a taste of their own medicine" -- as with US military power being used to kill people in the name of "defense" -- "opportunities" would not have deterred OBL/KSM -- rather it seems like it ought to have encouraged them .... to do more attacks.
If terrorists can so easily bait a government to attack its own citizens (by, for example, having the government send up fighter planes that in one way or another kill civilian passengers on a plane in the government's own or neighboring territory), the terrorists opposed to such government have an ally in the government terrorizing its own population and even killing its own citizens in extrajudicial ways.
OBL&Co is not the only terrorist organization. Just because OBL&Co will not be deterred doesn’t mean other groups will not be. Before you and I go down several pages of points and counterpoints, let me state that none of us can prove/disprove if deterrence works or not from our keyboards, so there is no point going down this road.
If you called the fire department would you want them to show up immediately OR wait for you to make a second call to confirm you can’t put the fire out yourself?
At the end of the day, if a disturbance is reported, there is no telling whether this is false alarm or not. The authorities can either go with a wait-and-see approach and wait for an all-clear from the cockpit (which may never come and at that point scramble fighters and lose valuable time) OR send fighters up at the first sign of disturbance and have an extra pair of eyes and be in position to take appropriate action if required.
Originally Posted by
Spiff
All it serves to do is terrorize those on the plane for no good purpose. Does anyone here think a passenger is going to see an F-16 an feel safer? It's a horrible abuse of passengers.
The fighters are not there to make the passengers feel safe. Let’s face it. If it was a real 9-11 plot, a happy outcome is unlikely for those passengers. The fighters are there to limit causalities on the ground.
Originally Posted by
emrdoc
There is no way in hell the US government would order the military to shoot down a civilian aircraft in US airspace. It is a nice exercise in strategy but it will NEVER happen.
If today was Sept 10, 2001, I would agree with you. Depending on where a hijacked airline is heading, a shoot down order would not be inconceivable.