posted on October 19, 2001 04:24:25 PM new
I haven't heard anyone speculate along these lines, perhaps it's sort of "out of the box" thinking.... here goes.
What if the bin Laden people were aiming for much, much more devasdating effects than have taken place? OK, the WTC horror was nearly overwhelming... did they even think the buildings would actually fall? Possibly... bin Laden worked as a construction engineer. But, even with that one segment of their attacks, perhaps it might have been far worse if the two planes had hit the buildings, say, on their 40th floors rather than as high up as they did? The weight above the structural weakness would have been far more and I'd think the collapses would have occurred faster.
But beyond the WTC? I think I saw early reports that had the Pentagon crash gone in 180 degrees across the building from where it did, Defense Secretary Rumsfeld and the entire Joint Chiefs of Staff might have died.
VEEP Cheney and large numbers of Senators and Representatives were sitting in their offices and no plane hit the White House or the Capitol. Within an hour, cell phone technology allowed the heros on Flight 93 to decide to go down fighting.... not to mention that our fighters were authorized to do shoot-downs by then. It seems that whole "use an airliner as a weapon" scenario may have been usable for a couple of hours of surprise, and now is nearly worthless. Also, there's those two guys with box cutters (and I just heard other highly incriminating manuals found in their apartment) who got off the grounded plane in St. Louis and were arrested at the Amtrack station. Dollars to donuts their 2 or 3 other planned accomplices got cold feet or whatever, didn't get on that plane, so left them shorthanded so they scrubbed THAT hijack... maybe for the Sears Tower or another D.C. target?
Now, the anthrax attacks... I personally have no doubt at all that this is a designed follow-up phase of the bin Laden terrorism. My guess is the spores came from Iraq and were distributed around to a few "cells" or individuals to start mailing around after the hijackings, maybe by that M. Atta as a main courier before he did the plane hijack. My thought is this, that these jerks thought they'd outright infect and kill hundreds of important media personalities, politicians, and their staff and visitors with those letters.
What HAVE they done? Killed one old guy working for the Nat. Inquirer and given a half dozen others boils. Our national hysteria about those letters HAS mobilized an incredibly effective effort that has in fact identified many problem areas and provided antibiotics to anyone at the slightest risk of getting sick! This isn't like HIV suddenly appearing nationwide, or something contageous and untreatable like smallpox.... Americans in general just have to look a little more carefully at return addresses and open letters with a little more caution.
What else have they done? Hmmm, evidently one of these contaminated letters went to Kenya, maybe another to Brazil. Wow, N&S America, Europe, Africa.... all having fears of germ terror warfare made clear to them. Recent report, Libya's Khaddafi decries this sort of terror as utterly unjustifiable and calls for an international response to stop it.
What a great plan by these guys. I submit they got lucky with the WTC and have royally, amateurishly, f**ked up on about every other thing they've done in the last month. They've been calling on the Islamic world to rise up in a jihad and been greeted by yawns. They're pathetic, and with a little luck will soon literally have their gonads being cut off by Afghan Northern Alliance people.
Don't forget, say in 1967, there was a certain terrorist (OK, OK, "revolutionary" named Che who was at work in the remote mountains of Bolivia trying to export the Cuban flavor of communism to other countries. HE wound up hog-tied in a mountain cabin with a CIA operative, apparently, putting a couple bullets in him. I doubt our special operatives will be any kinder and gentler nowdays if they find Mullah Omar in a room or cave....
No, I don't think this will all be over and done with very quickly. I just think we may be assigning a bit too much credit to just how clever these jackals are.
posted on October 19, 2001 06:11:13 PM new
pyth00n,
According to reports I have seen, flight 93 was delayed 42 minutes on the ground. Could the target have been the Capital? It's a very distinct possibility.
I believe when flight 93 was waylaid and did not get to it's intended hijack destination, any additional attempts were put on hold. I'm sure there were contingency plans in place for just such events.
Surely the terrorists didn't believe they would be able to pull off hijacking 4 or more commercial planes simultaneously?
I'm astounded by the feat.The odds of being successful to that magnitude are astronomical.
This is speculation on my part, but maybe the terrorists didn't plan on all air traffic to be shut down and had planned on implementing a biohazard attack with small planes. I mean what are the odds of the gov't shutting down ALL air traffic? That is unheard of.
Think about it for a minute. While emergency crews were rushing to the scene of the crashes, along comes a crop duster dropping anthrax on the personnel effectively wiping out any help to additional attacks.
Can you spell major, catastrophic disaster? (not that what happened wasn't catastrophic in it's own right.)
posted on October 19, 2001 06:49:59 PM new
This too is a different spin:
By now everyone has had drilled into their lives the mainstream media's glaring reports of the destruction and the rise of the death toll from the terrorist attacks on the US.These were deplorable acts that we will never forget. But it is now time to look at the other side of the coin. This coin is not a coin of happiness; but this other side is at least the more positive side of that coin, rather than the more depressing side that the media prefers to drill into our lives. This more positive side has not
been reported by the mainstream media, of course; because, sadly enough, they sell more when their news is scary and depressing.
This other, more positive side of the death toll coin is the SURVIVAL rate. Here are the survival rates -along with a bit more positive news:
*** The Buildings ***
* The World Trade Center -
The twin towers of the World Trade Center were places of employment for over 50,000 people. The missing list is over 5,000.
That means about 90% of the people targeted survived the attack.
* The Pentagon -
Some 23,000 people were the target of a third plane aimed at the Pentagon. The latest count shows that only 123 lost their lives.(The plane seems to have come in too low, too early to affect a large portion of the building. And the section that was hit was the first of five sections undergoing renovations designed to increase protection to the Pentagon. This section had recently completed straightening and blast proofing, saving untold lives.) The Pentagon had an amazing 99.5% survival rate.
*** The Planes ***
American Airlines Flight 77; the Boeing 757 that was flown into the outside of the Pentagon could ave carried up to 289 people. Only 64 were aboard. Luckily 78% of the seats were empty.
American Airlines Flight 11: This Boeing 767 could have had up to 351 people aboard, but only carried 92. Thankfully 74% of the seats were unfilled.
United Airlines Flight 175: Another Boeing 767 that could have had 351 people only had 65 people on board. Fortunately it was 81% empty. United Airlines Flight 93; a Boeing 757 was the smallest flight to be hijacked with only 45 people aboard out of a possible 289. It had 84% of its capacity unused. This is the flight where the people stood up to the attackers and thwarted a fourth attempted destruction of a national landmark, saving untold numbers of lives in the process.
*** In Summary ***
Out of potentially 74,280 Americans directly targeted by these inept cowards, 93% survived or avoided the attacks. That's a higher survival rate than heart attacks, breast cancer, kidney transplants and liver transplants -all common -and survivable- illnesses. From this perspective, it's not
quite as scary and depressing as the mainstream media prefers to make it sound, is it.
The Hijacked planes were mostly empty.The Pentagon was hit at it's strongest point.The overwhelming majority of people in the World Trade Center buildings escaped.And a handful of passengers gave the ultimate sacrifice to
save untold numbers of others' lives. The attacks were deplorable and saddening. But 90% on a test is an "A". America gets an "A". The attacks were a statistical failure. The odds are overwhelmingly against the inept cowards. Americans are survivors. We're winners. Don't allow the media's
endless reports to continue to depress you into fear. Quit buying into their hard selling of only how scary and dangerous our world is. Try this and you'll see:Turn off the TV and news radio and don't read the newspapers for a few days and you'll see that you can't help but begin to feel a little better! So what can you do to help others begin to recover, too? Share this
more positive viewpoint. When you want to change something, the first thing to change is your mind. Think positive. Act happy. Survive! Hell, flourish and prosper! You're an American!
This is from an email circulating among college students. Think positive and act with caution and survive. I think our young people may have the right idea.
posted on October 19, 2001 10:27:08 PM new
"been far worse if the two planes had hit the buildings, say, on their 40th floors rather than as high up as they did?"
The WTC was surrounded by buildings up to 60 floors. I don't think the terrorist flying skills were up to those in Hollywood movies.
"something contageous and untreatable like smallpox"
Contagious yes. Untreatable no. We eradicated it worldwide once before. It was an "ex-contagion." Extinct in the wild.
posted on October 19, 2001 10:34:30 PM new
Untreatable yes. If you get it, you either live or you die, probably die, there's not much you can do to treat it once you've got it. It's preventable with vaccination, but not really treatable.
posted on October 20, 2001 04:53:48 AM new
At the time it was gone "in the wild" as it were thas a real debate among scientista as to the morality of destroying all the samples of it because to many it was deliberatly making a species extinct.
Of course we don't have to worry about someone crop dusting us with Rhinoserous, and nobody hikes into the mountains to hear the plaintive cry of the smallpox and hope for a glimpse of it so that thinking is a little strange.
named Che who was at work in the remote mountains of Bolivia trying to export the Cuban flavor of communism to other countries. HE wound up hog-tied in a mountain cabin with a CIA operative, apparently, putting a couple bullets in him. I doubt our special operatives will be any kinder and gentler nowdays if they find Mullah Omar in a room or cave....