September 11, 2001 - What Did NOT Surpise Me
- Juju57
- seneca54
- WellStar
- seneca54
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» WellStar - My Only Surprise Was The Surprise
A friend called me that morning and asked,"Have you seen it?" I asked him what, and he told me.As I watched the TV screen I saw the collapse of Tower II as it made its agonizing plunge. I saw views of the Pentagon in flames, and all the time people kept commenting on how surprised they were that such disasters had taken place. I was angered more by their surprise I think than that it had happened.
A few years ago there was a similar attempt to blow up the World Trade Center. Everyone, particularly the Media, treated the incident as a ridiculous attempt by a bunch of idiots to do the impossible. No one spent any time attempting to determine just who these people were, their motivation for doing so, or just how easily they had been able to do what they did do. This was proven by the later disaster in Oklahoma City which utilized the same scenario.
Since World Trade Center Bombing I, we have, almost unwittingly, discovered plots to blow up the Holland Tunnel and, last New Year, a man was arrested attempting to smuggle a truckload of explosives into the United States from Canada to blow up the Golden Gate Bridge.
At least twice in the past few years TV News organizations have aired exposes on the lack of security in America's air terminals. Not only did they point out the weaknesses in existing security regulations, but that what regulations which did exist were being violated or ignored by those responsible for security at air ports. One such expose was aired on Sixty Minutes no less than three weeks prior to September 11.
In early June of this year Osama Bin Laudin issued a proclamation that he was about to unleash an unprecedented attack on the United States.
If the FAA regulation concerning Cockpit doors being locked whenever an aircraft is in flight had been adhered to, it is highly possible that none of the disasters which had taken place would have happened that day. If the security arm of our government had understood the person, the motivations, or the capabilities of Muslim radicals like Bin Laudin, they might have moved to shore up the security we had so painstakingly designed to be in place.
If they were surprised, they were sleeping at the wheel. I certainly wasn't.
-- posted by WellStar
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