War.... (Historical: 9/11 discussion thread)

[dmm]

Maybe airliner pilots should be locked in their (bullet-proof) cabin at the airport, and not allowed out until they land. Terrorists would need explosives to gain access to the controls. (As part of our continuing efforts to "establish dialogue" with disaffected Groups, run-of-the-mill hijackers could still communicate demands via the intercom.)

[Hotfoot]

Solar: It sounds like a nice idea, but it's impractical and downright dangerous. The second you take control away from the pilot in an emergency situation and hand it over to a computer, you've more than likely doomed them all. And it would make terrorism even easier. Terrorists wouldn't need suicide squads to hijack a plane a slam it into a target, they could just take control from a distance and do the same thing while sipping an mocha latte. Set up an alarm system, perhaps, if pilots don't enter a specific code every so often, or fail some other check-in requirement. And without the code, the plane sends out a distress call and locks itself at a specific altitude until the disarm code is entered (essentially giving it the all clear). That way control remains in the hands of the pilot, not the terrorists or a computer. And so long as the controls are locked, the terrorists wouldn't be able to pull off anything like they did yesterday.

Also, sealing the cockpit from the rest of the plane might help, but what about putting canisters of knockout gas into the ventilation systems? Something colorless and odorless, that would knock out the terrorists (and the passengers) while the pilots make an emergency landing at the nearest airport where police would be waiting to pick up the KO'd terrorists. No fuss, no muss, so long as the cockpit is seperated by an airtight seal, that is.

[geoschmo]

Aircops aren't a viable deterant to what happened yesterday.

Put aside for the moment that bullets and pressurized aircraft cabins don't exactly mix. There is a reason they call it "explosive decompression" afterall.

Why do you think the terroists used knives instead of guns? I can tell you it wasn't because guns are harder to get past airport security, because they aren't. They couldn't risk having a firefight bring down a plane without accomplishing their mission first.

Now you could have aircops armed with mace and tazers I suppose. But one aircop isn't going to stop a team of hijackers except in the movies. So unless you wan't to have a dozen aircops on every airplane, forget that idea.

Sleeping gas is an intriguing idea. But the risk of an accident where the crew is incapacitated along with the passengers is kind of overwhelming no?

Geoschmo

[Baron Munchausen]

quote:

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Originally posted by dmm:
I can't help but rebut some comments posted here. Here goes:
... <snip> ...
5) To say that Islam is really a nice, sweet religion is pure BS. Maybe this is true of most Muslims in the West, but it certainly isn't true worldwide. Fact: there is not one Muslim country in the whole world that has real freedom of religion. Even in relatively progressive Muslim countries like Egypt or Saudi Arabia, Muslims who convert to other religions are routinely murdered and the government does nothing. Maybe the majority of Muslims in those countries don't condone that behavior, but they don't stop it either. Their reaction is never more than "tsk tsk" and a slap on the wrist. The Islamics worldwide who hate America don't hate us because of our wealth or our power -- they hate us for the same reason that they hate the Israelis: because we are not Muslims, plain and simple!

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Yeah, and how is this different from assorted Christians in the not-very-distant past hating everyone who wasn't a Christian? And specifically the exact same narrow denomination of Christian as themselves... Until the 18th Century there was not one 'Christian' country that allowed freedom of religion. You were either a member of the state denomination of Christianity or you were murdered in a public ceremony to scare everyone else into submission. It took a long time for any degree of tolerance to emerge. Meanwhile there were authorized conquerers chanting about 'Christianizing the heathens' while slaughtering, raping, and pillaging the people of the 'new' world. Hardly any less horrible than the Muslim "Jihads"...

Both of the "Monotheist" religions claiming to derive from Judaism are responsible for an incredible catalog of crimes, too many to even begin to list, many of which would qualify for the labels 'crimes against humanity' and/or 'genocide' today. Yet, there have also been both 'Christians' and 'Muslims' through history who actually read their scriptures and recognized that their religion said things like 'do not kill'. Islam may not be a "nice, sweet" religion but it's no more responsible for lunatics who use it to justify their lunacy than Christianity is to blame for the brutal conquest of the Americas or thousands of other crimes committed by criminals trying to use it as justification. Cultures have phases of development, much like people. Just think of Muslims today as Medieval Christians and you'll see there's no real difference between the religions.

[Puke]

knockout gas? why not happy gas? let us all get high on our flights, and i bet people would not hate flying as much. locking the cockpit aint a bad idea, but where would they pee? airlines ARE cheap, and another bathroom is probably a bit much to ask.

as for explosive decompression, its only explosive when you have gaping holes ripped into the plane. and low calibur sidearms, especially with frangible or hollowpoint rounds, would probably be stopped by the fusealage. tazers, shock batons, KO gas (even in a canister delivered by the skycop) or gel rounds would be perfectly effective. I would stand by bullets tho, they have a long track record for getting the job done, and sometimes the risks are sufficient to mandate their use.

hell, i dont care if he only has an expandable ASP baton, just having the guy on the plane would be an effective measure. its called a deturant force, it does not matter if he is passenger 47 or not, as long as he is one more obsticle that potential hijackers would have to deal with.

[Baron Munchausen]

quote:

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Originally posted by dmm:
I can't help but rebut some comments posted here. Here goes:
1) Israel's military occupation of the West Bank began after they defeated a bunch of enemies, INCLUDING THE PALESTINIANS, who tried to push them into the sea. Question for all you SEIV players: What do you do with a defeated enemy? Give him all his planets back, and no apology necessary?
2) This occupation has not been brutal, as alleged on this forum. In fact, the West Bank has seen unprecedented prosperity over the Last 34 years. The West Bank Palestinians are much wealthier than the Syrian or Jordanian Palestinians. And it wouldn't have gone on for 34 years if the PLO and other Palestinian Groups had not made it their mission to destroy Israel.
3) To compare the "intifada" casualties to the recent US deaths is pure BS. First, most of the intifada deaths either occurred during a riot or were assassinations of known terrorists (or harborers of terrorists). Innocent civilian deaths, although certainly tragic, have been a small minority. Second, the numbers of intifada deaths, innocent or otherwise, do not approach 30,000, not even after 34 years of supposedly brutal military occupation.
4) To compare the economic casualties of the intifada to the recent US destruction is pure BS. The whole West Bank isn't worth one World Trade Center tower.

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Now, to deal with your other comments (though this will appear before the comment on your final remark...)

You first four points actually are one single point. And not a pleasant one.

Actually, Israeli occupation begins in 1948. They NEVER HAD ANY RIGHT to the land to begin with. It's been one long invasion, just like the creation of the United States from the 'new' world, that just happened to have several million inconveniant natives. Do you challenge the historical record that the Palestinians had been living there for centuries? Or are they the wrong color to have rights to land they've occupied for centuries? They were trying to 'push them into the sea' because they CAME FROM THE SEA. They were invaders. The SE IV analogy is just as relevant on the other foot. How do you deal with an invader? Give him your territory with a smile and wander off to die? Or fight back?

The small technical differences between the Israeli occupation and some other historical parallels, that the Palestinians have not been slaughtered en masse but piecemeal, or that the people who are courageous enough to resist openly are more likely to get shot hardly makes it morally right. Living in this media-saturated age, they know they can't get away with open mass-murder. If not for the ubiquity of cameras, I have little doubt they'd find ways to reduce the population of Palestinians more quickly.

But you really betray the vulgar American mindset that makes people angry by your final comment. The 'value' of the West Bank is irrelevant. These people want the right to live their own lives, with self-determination and dignity, not performing menial labor for Israelis at pittance wages when their mood is good, and cowering in the ramshackle homes their wages can buy when their mood is bad. Human dignity is not about money, and having a lot of it doesn't make a stupid dork a better human being. Both Israelis and Americans are unable to deal effectively with the Arabs (of which the Palestinians are just one sub-division) precisely because they cannot think of them as anything but grubby primitives who don't know their place. Until this attitude changes, both nations are going to continue to have problems like the intifada and the WTC event. Not that such behavior is "justifiable" but it is pretty much inevitable when you oppress people that some of them will snap and start doing crazy things. Unfortunately, as usually happens with violence, the propogation is mostly random. The 'revenge' of some twisted true believer will end up hitting other innocents rather than the actual oppressor. The thousands of office workers in the WTC are hardly responsible for US foreign policy supporting Israeli conquest. I can only hope that the US does not continue the cycle, but takes considerable care to properly identify the individuals behind this WTC attack and acts intelligently to punish only those individuals.


[This message has been edited by Baron Munchausen (edited 12 September 2001).]

[LazarusLong42]

Quick PBW note: PBW games have been set to turn over only after all turns have been uploaded, in case any players are unavailable. Also, the PBW front page has some links that may be useful in this time of crisis... although those same links are pretty much everywhere now.

LL