Right. So, in essence, you've advocated--very forcefully, I might add--that you wanted the military to LOOK like it was doing something instead of ACTUALLY doing something useful. That is my point. You prefer symbolism to substance.
I said repeatly that they might have been able to distract the hijackers.
The only distraction that would have actually worked would have been the distraction of an F-16 or F/A-18 smacking into Flight 77 with a great deal of "smash" (closing velocity) on, or else hosing the plane with a load of 20 mike-mike, or shooting the plane with an air-to-air missile.
When someone is willing to fly an airplane into a building, their mind is literally not in our neat, ordered, rational world. What might work against someone like you (distraction maneuvers) will NOT work against someone who is stone crazy and fixated on doing something that horrific.
So you believe air defense did the proper thing by WATCHING on TV Flight 77 hitting the Pentagon, as you believe nothing else could be done or tried?