History Channel 9/11 special

[pwd72s]

Let's face it...Bush conspired to create 9-11-01. It's only a matter of time before perky Katie reports this as truth.

[GO DAWG GO]

John70t,

Pay no attention to the nonsense!

I don't understand your statement. Did you expect the building to fall faster than 1 gravity i.e., 32 ft/sec2???? I saw a silly movie called "Loose Change" and the conspiracy theorists gave examples of the buildings falling faster (exceeding the velocity of 1 G) than gravitational pull. These people are the type who worship Hale-Bop! and are abducted frequently. Don't believe it John....

Bob

[varmint]

if you're wonder where our fighter defense was on 9/11. here's a bit of an article from an air force magazine,interviewing john mccain, looking forward to the projected clinton budget cuts.

Between 1991 and 1998, he estimates, capabilities would shrink from twenty-eight Army divisions to fourteen, from thirteen carriers to eight, from 545 combat ships to 340, from fifteen carrier air wings to eight, from three Marine Expeditionary Forces to two, from thirty-six Air Force fighter wings to nineteen, and from 268 bombers to 141.

sadly, i don't think the missing squadrons could have stopped the attack. by definition, it is impossible to plan for the unexpected. our military was still focusing on a soviet bomber coming over the pole. not a civilian airliner coming from boston.



and the whole "reagan trained and financed bin laden" is one the more persistant lies out there. prove it or shut up forever.

[competentone]

Originally Posted by berettafan

i did not watch it. honestly i was dissappointed in my favorite channel for stooping so low as to generate income from such a horrible tragedy. people doing that are, IMO, no better than the sleazbags that ran the 2am commercials selling coins with flip up twin towers and so forth. i have no problem with documentary coverage. relish it even as it's a chance to look back on events and study them more carefully. but sensationalistic nonsense such as this is right there with jerry springer in my book.

to me the show is a sign that the big 'H' is going the way of all programming and dumbing itself down for the general public to increase viewership.

No. Your assessment is wrong.

I caught most of the program -- they did an excellent job of exposing the freaks creating the myths (they even got briefly into the psychology driving the people with the nonsense conspiracy theories) -- I'm sure they will rebroadcast it again; I'll be looking for it to watch it from start-to-finish.

It was not an aggressive "debunking" of the conspiracy-theory nut-cases; it was a very subtle exposure of their idiocy. A well done program -- giving the nut-cases enough rope and letting them hang themselves.

(I'm sure the nut-cases thought they were being taken seriously when being interviewed for the program; I'm sure they are now screaming about how the History Channel is part of the "conspiracy.")

[berettafan]

competent as usual you have given me pause....i will watch the show. i assumed (we know what that does!) from the title that it was more crap programming.

[Mo_Gearhead]

Quote: "sadly, i don't think the missing squadrons could have stopped the attack"
____________________

Exactly.

For discussions sake let's say that somehow the military found out about the plot, once the planes were airborne. Early on and nothing has happened yet. Given no prior such experience (commercial jets used as 'flying bombs') who (the President?... some General? ... the FBI?) is going to radio a young fighter pilot and order them to blow that civilian airliner out of the sky over the USA?
Answer... NO ONE!

Even after, the first two planes hit the towers, can you imagine the confusion (are there more?... which ones?) and angst (can we TRUST our information?)
to engage any such plane.

Then imagine the fighter pilot receiving that order? I would not want to be put in that situation.

[URY914]

You got that right. If I was that fighter pilot I would need to see the bad guy in the pilot's seat and it would have to be headed directly for the building before I'd pull that trigger to shot it down.

No way would someone other than the President would give the go to shoot down airliners.

[Rick Lee]

And can you then imagine the conspiracy theories had Bush been able and willing to give shoot-down orders on civilian airliners? Oh, it would never end. No one would have ever believed what might have been avoided. It had to happen once for us to take it seriously, though Tom Clancy wrote about something similar in Debt of Honor many years prior.

[kach22i]

Originally Posted by URY914

So someone is trying to imply Chaney had prior knowledge of the airliners and set our planes to the Arctic Circle.

Sure. Right. I get it.

Originally Posted by URY914

So someone is trying to imply Chaney had prior knowledge of the airliners and set our planes to the Arctic Circle.

Sure. Right. I get it.

No, not me.

I do however want to know if Cheney is and or was charged with the duty of managing the seamless integration of all training exercises. I don't think he really is that “hands-on”, but perhaps he is in a position to suggest new training exercises and halt planned ones. People say he has and has exercised more power than any other VP in history, this would fit into that that profile conveniently.

If Cheney is responsible for war games I’m not going to jump to conclusions about 9/11 being an inside job from the government. I just want some facts, facts that the 9/11 commission only brushed on. I think they said there were only five war games and only one involved actually moving aircraft about.

I can't find it now, but one article I read a few years ago said that their were as many as 300 jet fighters in Alaska that day, almost half of which were in the air. There were also reported to be a dozen or so air-to-air refueling tankers in the sky to service them.

Even if we had typically been able to stack 100 fighters near or around Alaska and the Arctic Circle for an emergency, this report/article said there were an extra 200 on top of that. This would have been a grand scale operation so how could something like than be kept quiet?

Again my interest is not in making claims, I just want some facts, and facts history should be able to look back on with accuracy.

[Rick Lee]

Why in the world would Cheney be in charge of something like that? He has no military experience and I don't think any military authority. At least Rumsfeld really was a Navy pilot and, IIRC, later a flight instructor. With Rumsfeld's personality, I can't imagine him just nodding his head and going along with some off the wall order by Cheney to conduct training exercises near the Arctic.

[kach22i]

Originally Posted by Rick Lee

Why in the world would Cheney be in charge of something like that? He has no military experience and I don't think any military authority. At least Rumsfeld really was a Navy pilot and, IIRC, later a flight instructor. With Rumsfeld's personality, I can't imagine him just nodding his head and going along with some off the wall order by Cheney to conduct training exercises near the Arctic.

Wasn't it Cheney which had his own operations office inside the Pentagon that everyone had to report to in the build up to war against Iraq?

I'm mean Rumsfeld I understand would have a much more "hands-on" on daily operations including war and or war-games. But lets remember Rumsfeld also has a cabinet position just as Cheney does.

I don't this this administartion was/is "business as usual" in many ways.

Rick Lee, please go over with me the "chain of command" as you understand it.

[FOG]

Kach,

Don’t know and don’t care how many fighters were in Alaska. I seriously doubt they had 300 airborne just due to logistics issues. The numbers would be an effort to put together, you would have to find out what units were up there and what units flew into the area, etc.

I just don’t see the relevance of the number of fighters up there at the time. Please explain.

S/F, FOG

[kach22i]

Originally Posted by FOG

I seriously doubt they had 300 airborne just due to logistics issues.

Half of 300 is 150 which is what I said............why the confusion/diffusion?

Here is one "Chain of Comman" I've found.


http://www.motherjones.com/news/feature/2004/01/12_400.html

[Rick Lee]

It's been a while since I've read up on this, but I'm pretty sure the Sec. Def. exists mainly as a conduit for orders to be passed from the Pres. on down to the generals. It's sort of a stop-gap measure to make sure no one person has too much power. Of course, the Pres. can fire Sec. Def. at anytime just for being in a bad mood that day. But when it comes to major military operations, IIRC, the President's orders have to go through Sec. Def. Just like there's a staffer who carries the "football" which contains launch codes for our nukes. While the Pres. has the legal authority to use that stuff, the guy carrying the "football" is one more link in the chain to make sure no one person can do it all without others' cooperation.

[FOG]

Kach,

No confusion that half of 300 is 150. My point being is why is that relevant to 9/11? It’s not as there weren’t enough fighters/tankers on the East coast that day.

S/F, FOG

[kach22i]

Originally Posted by FOG

Kach,

No confusion that half of 300 is 150. My point being is why is that relevant to 9/11? It’s not as there weren’t enough fighters/tankers on the East coast that day.

S/F, FOG

To get the facts straight and concede to the truth is relevant because reality is relevant.

Like my dad used to say; son there is only one truth.

You may wish to protect the president or the VP, don't let that get in the way of the facts. Like I said I don't have the facts, no one seems to, and that is the source of my fustration about this topic.

VP is not even in this chart (1947):
http://www.globalsecurity.org/military/library/policy/army/fm/100-7/f1007_5.htm

[FOG]

Kach,

Not protecting anyone. The question of how many fighters/tankers were airborne (only way they’ll be) above the Arctic circle is as relevant as how many attack subs the USN had in the Med. or how M1A1s the USA had in Australia. These numbers are also reality as are other facts that have no bearing on assets being available on the east coast.

Maybe the Kadena, Osan Kunsan, Iwakuni or Atsugi boys could have flown the intercepts?

S/F, FOG

[kach22i]

Originally Posted by FOG

Kach,

Not protecting anyone. The question of how many fighters/tankers were airborne (only way they’ll be) above the Arctic circle is as relevant as how many attack subs the USN had in the Med.

Look at a map, Alaska is about as far from DC as you could station that many planes. It just looks real bad, don't mean a thing.

Bunch of charts here, again no VP - but what does that mean?
http://www.fas.org/man/dod-101/dod/docs/pub1_97/Chap2.html

[kach22i]

A simple chart on the "chain of command".
http://they-let-it-happen.blogspot.com/


A simple chart as practiced on September 11, 2001.
http://they-let-it-happen.blogspot.com/

[Rick Lee]

So Kach, you really believe the second chart is what happened? Bush said "you bet"? Uh huh.