[Maximilian]

8:21 a.m.: So that leaves about 20 minutes for the United States to make and execute a decision to shoot down civilian airliners over the heavily inhabited northeast.

8:21 was the time of the phone call from the flight attendant. The air traffic control signal went dead and the plane stopped following orders at 8:13. The second plane didn't hit the WTC until 9:03 AM. That's 50 minutes. Flight 77 hit the Pentagon at times published as between 9:37 and 9:43. That's 90 minutes. Flight 93 crashed at 10:06 AM. That's just 7 minutes short of 2 hours.

[js1138]

By your clock, an hour and twenty minutes elapsed between evidence that a plane had been hijacked, and the time the last plane struck the Pentagon. About thirty to forty minutes elapsed between the first hit and the last.

During that period, at most about 45 minutes, the U.S. is going to make the unprecedented decision to shoot down civilian airliners?

You are insane.