Why don't they just pee out the side like train engineers do? :confused:

Your argument can be used to "justify" shoot-downs of civilian passenger planes by many countries. Is that what you want? I would hope not.

If say a NW passenger plane was flying toward an Iranian military facility, vehicle or nuclear facility, would you be taking aim at Iran if they shot down that plane? Or is it a shoot-down justifiable when "we" do it, but when it's "them" doing it, then it's not? I'll have to remember the answer to that. :rolleyes:

I've been keeping up with this thread since I last posted, and no one has taken on what I said. Basically, the idea that we're any safer is idiotic. I explained how simple it is to take over.

I guarantee that I'm 100% right. It all comes down to the flight you take. Odds are that none of us here will ever die in a plane crash, accident or terrorism.

It is necessary to hold the americans involved in the massacre of Iranian passengers accountable either legally or in the manner Israel seeks justice against those it is impossible to try in court. If the Govt. of Iran cared about it's people, it would and should utilize one of these options.

If individuals do not stand up and attempt to stop a hijacking, they themselves are complicit in the act. Besides, if the point of a hijack is to use the plane as an explosive device, you have no choice but to try everything possible to put a stop to it.

[QUOTE=PhlyingRPh;8663576]If individuals do not stand up and attempt to stop a hijacking, they themselves are complicit in the act.

:rolleyes:

As stated many times--that's a relatively new phenomena.

Well thought out list. Under number 1 is a method which was discussed publicly after 9/11, but then dropped off the radar screen: they rent an apartment or small office in a high rise, then over a period of months bring in a small amount of explosives each day in shopping bags or briefcase; then set a remote trigger, and bring down the building. Preventable only through a combination of really good routine police work, real intelligence, and lots of luck. Of those three prevention methods, I think the last, luck, is the only one in the DHS toolkit.

I actually wonder if the government harps on the risks least likely to see the light of day as the tool to justify many of their actions - yet sweep the real, scary risks under the rug to prevent panic and economic impact.

They can put on a show about water, shoe bombs and other nonsense at the airport - all threats with very low likelihoods of coming to fruition, but which justify the dog and pony show, all while ignoring or underplaying the threats that knowledgeable people actually lose sleep over.

What was the economic impact (from a ticket sales perspective) of the shoe bomb and liquid scare? Negligible. What if DHS made an announcement in the very same grandiose manner they reserve for aviation, that there is a high likelyhood terrorists will set off suicide bombs at major shopping malls around the country sometime after Thanksgiving - and as a precaution, customers may not enter shopping malls with any bags or parcels except with physical inspection by the police. What would be the impact? I suspect a crash in brick-and-mortar retail sales right at the time of year they need it most. Hence, the risk - although real and scary - is never really discussed. It's also the risk hardest to predict or mitigate.

Again, gotta raise the "that's not what I've seen" flag. I fully understand and enthusiastically endorse the notion that CIWS-equipped ships are more-capable survivors against missile attack, having that additional layer of defense (effective range up to ONE mile, not five). However, I've had the opportunity to be up on the flight deck of an aircraft carrier during a few pracfires, and one in particular stands out. We've all heard the stories about how planes towing gliders/drones have had CIWS march a line of projectiles up the cable after the towing A/C, I'm sure, which is why the pilot of this towcraft released the glider and got the heck out of Dodge. Well, in comes the glider well off the port bow, and the forward CIWS opens up - >brrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrt<, about a 3-second burst. Glider continues on about its business, never so much as twitching, passing down the length of the ship, and comes in view of the aft-port CIWS - >brrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrt<, again, about a 3-second burst. Glider again doesn't so much as twitch. Between these two attacks, that glider should have been hit by upwards of 300 20mm rounds (assuming that the first second's fire is required for the radar to track onto the target) weighing around half a pound each and travelling at Mach 3 or so. No lost pieces, no visible holes, no indication of any kind of impact on the glider. Did NOT ease my mind to know that the last line of defense for the ship I was serving on had no apparent impact on a test glider. Our Sea Sparrow launchers did rather better, hitting 2 of 3 shots against manuevering drones.

Yeah, I'd rather have CIWS on naval vessels than not, but it is demonstratedly FAR from infallible.

Or have kids that will die in a school fire, so we should just go ahead and take out the alarms and stop the fire drills.

Especially seeing how there hasn't been a death by fire in a school in a quarter of a century.

You took yourself on in your first post on the thread when you said it was more difficult to hijack a plane than it used to be.

It "harps" on the biggest threats based on impact and probability. The shopping mall bomb would be bad, sure, but would likely only kill a handful of people, while being essentially impossible to stop. The plane blown up or crashed into a building would have a bigger impact (hundreds dead) and is something that is more preventable.

We don't have the resources to stop every possible attack, so we have to prioritize. Are you arguing that it would make more sense to search every bag at every mall than to search for bombs at the airport?

Again, this is all well and good to write on a screen nice and safe and sound but it's not realistic when one realizes the mind-numbing terror that will be occurring.

If you've never been literally so scared that you freeze you won't know what I'm talking about. If you have, I wouldn't need to explain.

Personally, after researching Beslan that's number one on my list of Things That Would Suck.

I believe the point being made is that our airport priorities are skewed. It doesn't help that the threat of airport terrorism is being used to manipulate the American public.

IMHO, it would help -a lot- if DHS/TSA simply stopped lying to us. I just read a Reuters article where the reporter once again trotted out the H2O2 "liquid explosive" shibboleth for the millionth time.

We all get the fact that airport security is necessary. What is primarily objected to in TS/S is that Hawley/Skeletor are indeed lying sacks when it comes to implementing actual security.

oooh, shibboleth! I haven't heard that one in ages!

Well done. I must start using it again.....