Posted on 09/12/2001 8:09:27 AM PDT by Michael Rivero
It's been about 24 hours since the attacks against the Pentagon and the World Trade Towers. There has been a lot of news reporting, some of it accurate, and some of it wildly speculative.
But there is one item conspicuously absent from the news reportage.
There has not been a single report that any armed hijacker was arrested on the way TO an airplane yesterday morning.
Think about that.
We are being told that four teams of at least three armed hijackers each got past all the security at three modern airports, and not one of them was detected.
A 100% success rate? For terrorists operating in a strange country far from any support? That is a bit hard to accept.
Reports that did escape from the aircraft following the hijacking reported that the hijackers succeeded in wresting control of the aircraft using only knives, possibly as small as ordinary supermarket carton cutters. So, along with a 100% sucess rate at getting past all that security, add to that miracle the fact that all four hijacking teams managed to select aircraft that did not have a sky marshall on them (which according to a recent Discovery Channel Wings program are still being used on flights).
100% success evading modern airport security. 100% success rate choosing flights without sky marshalls. Pretty damned hard to do for a group of terrorists.
But far easier for a nation-state with the intelligence resources of a nation-state to pull off.
The world has changed. In the name of an embattled nation stop the internicine squabbaling.
Stay well - Yorktown
Not as pathetic as your good buddy Silly.
I've been here for three years. I've been to protests, so folks know me. No one here seems to know you. Try again.
You know, some people just love to portray themselves as the heavies of FR. People here know ME too. Although I can't go to FR protests (as there AREN'T any in this area), I've posting articles and replies on FR for over 2 years. Just because YOU don't know me personally, doesn't mean others don't. It is your loss, not mine.
Like hell. You have the gall to say that we are being anti-American for asking Rivero to cut his usual B.S. posts at a time like this.
WHERE THE HELL DID I SAY THAT?!
I was responding to Silly for referring to me as Rivero. As much as I might agree with Michael Rivero on certain other issues, I don't agree with him here. Sorry Michael.
But I DO have the right to defend my name, and I was telling Mr. Silly to lay off, as we don't need his crap at a time like this.
He's pissed at me for hitting the abuse button when he trashed Commander Donaldson's memorial thread, which is likely what got him banned. So he decided to start trouble here by insinuating that I'm really Michael Rivero. He's obviously been effective in turning YOU against ME.
That is what is truly contemptable. You might be able to goad someone else into a flame war so you can press the abuse button, but you picked the wrong hombre this time to try that lowbrow tactic with.
You've been goaded, but not by me. You posted to me first, and I hadn't said a damn thing to you to provoke your inflammatory post to me. I simply told Silly to lay off me and that he should respect our Country, especially now, and not try to start a flame war with me.
Obviously he's been successful at starting one between you and I.
Lame. Lame, lame, lame. I bleed red, white and blue. And I have enough respect for the dead to not defame them like Rivero does with his insinuations.
Semper Fi.
Good words -- I second them.
Stay well - Yorktown
Sigh.
As usual, Michael, you're going off half-cocked. Or a quarter-cocked, at most.
You base your wild "it's a conspiracy!" scenario (do you ever have any *other* scenario??) on two suppositions:
1. It's (allegedly) fiendishly hard to get a knife on a commercial flight, much less four times.
2. It's (allegedly) unlikely to randomly pick a flight that doesn't have a Sky Marshall on it, much less four times.
Your assumptions are completely wrong on both counts.
As for the first, several people have told you, but you have yet to actually grasp, the fact that IT IS PERFECTLY LEGAL to carry pocket knives, small utility knives, and personal grooming knives/razors onto commercial flights. I myself have carried a full sized Swiss Army Knife onto more than two dozen flights. I didn't even have to "smuggle" it on -- I use it as a keychain, and every time I pass through the metal detector, I put my pocket change and keys (and thus also my bright, red Swiss Army Knife) into the little bowl by the metal detector. Every time, the airport employee has looked at it, shrugged, and handed it back to me after I have passed through the metal detector. This was not a fluke -- SMALL KNIVES ARE ALLOWED ON PLANES. It doesn't take a fluke or a "nation state" to get one (or a dozen) of them onto a plane. The terrorists quite simply looked at the regs which listed what items were ALLOWED on a plane and chose weapons which would sail through the security check BECAUSE THEY WERE ALLOWED. No muss, no fuss. And no "nation state".
As for your second allegation, yes, the Sky Marshall program is still in effect, as you note. However, as you have failed to note, it is an empty shell of its former self. Due to defunding and manpower shortages, and the complacency that was engendered by many decades of very few highjackings, it is very rare for any flight to actually have a Sky Marshall on it. One pundit on Fox News last night put the figure at about 1 out of 100 flights.
So in order for terrorists to have the "amazing" (*cough*) success rate of 4 out of 4, they'd only have to beat 96.06% odds (0.99^4). In other words, they'd only trip over a Sky Marshal on 4 out of a 100 statistical trials of 4 attempts each. Piece of cake. Or put another way, they had a 96% chance of avoiding a Sky Marshall on ALL FOUR hijackings. Hardly a difficult feat, nor one that requires a "nation state".
And they probably chose to increase their odds by performing their act on a Tuesday, which is traditionally a low-volume flight day (several people have noted that the four flights were very lightly booked). The fewer people on a plane, the lower the odds of a Sky Marshall being among them (mostly because the few Sky Marshalls are usually reserved for heavily booked flights, under the theory that larger passenger populations have more chances for some sort of onboard disruption -- not necessarily a hijacking -- that might require a Sky Marshall).
So your "it was so difficult a nation state had to be involved!!" paranoia actually reduces to, "the terrorists had the 90IQ necessary to figure out which weapons would be allowed through security, and that Sky Marshalls are rare enough that most likely they wouldn't run into a Sky Marshall anyway".
Like all too many conspiracy theorists, you always seem to prefer the more complicated, baroque, world-spanning explanation instead of the most straightforward ones. Why is that?
11 Posted on 09/12/2001 08:20:17 PDT by Michael Rivero
You mean like Israel? I've read some rather interesting posts on your views of Jews and Israel. Go ahead and spew your hate, it is expected of you.
35 Posted on 09/12/2001 08:56:51 PDT by Michael Rivero
But you know, don't you, "Secret"?
39 Posted on 09/12/2001 09:03:37 PDT by Inyokern
Bingo!! He's too gutless to say it, but old "Secret" blasts the newsgroups with his anti-Israel, anti-Jew posts. He gets careless now and then, and leaves his Rivero signature, don'cha, "Secret"? he's been a busy boy during his recent absence from FR.
Rivero, you're a lowdown, lying, racist dog. How's that for ad hoinem? Wanna hit the abuse button on me? Do it, you cheap huckster.
40 Posted on 09/12/2001 09:05:41 PDT by Silly
You got that right, Silly. Sadly, there are still a few dumb enough to listen to his anti-American crap.
BTW, Silly is not Fred25, I can guaran-damn-tee that.
Do you think this could have been pulled off by the same folks who assassinated Princess Di and shot down poor little John-John? Those bastards!
Are you also the one who believes the moon landings were faked, or is that somebody else?
14 Posted on 09/12/2001 08:23:40 PDT by Michael Rivero
Probably because you look as dishonest as you are.
FWIW, when I departed my home airport on 2Sep, I was not asked for ID. On my way out from Newark, I was asked at curbside, also at check-in for ID.
Yeah, but he's been marginalized some time ago. As long as you folks show up to expose him, new visitors will catch on.
I doubt he cares enough about you to be "pissed"; however, he gained more credibility over that one deal, than you and your alter-ego have in 3 yrs.
Oh yeah, and he only told the truth--you *did* exploit Cdr Donaldson for your whacked-out theory. No need to start one here, because while these tragedies are consoiracies, they damned sure aren't from this proud nation.
75 Posted on 09/12/2001 18:42:10 PDT by Paulus Invictus
Oh, you mean Klintoon, the sleazy WH rapist? Rivero voted for him twice, and has repeatedly lied about when he left the Democrat Party--I found at least 4 dates--I suspect he is still a Democrat, and like the rest of them, out for their own good, and don't care what happens to this country. Unlike the Dem politicos, Rivero has no pot, no window, only a computer and access to the whacko websites.
74 Posted on 09/12/2001 18:39:45 PDT by A Navy Vet
He's also left a trail of embarrassed people behind, and I'm one of them. I actually believed him for a few months, back in '95.
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