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| The 9/11 Commission; blaming everything but terrorism | |
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| Tweet Topic Started: May 19 2004, 01:43 PM (138 Views) | |
| doctortobe | May 19 2004, 01:43 PM Post #1 |
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Speak softly, and carry a 57 megaton stick!
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It seems that the 9/11 Commission has concluded that the NYPD and NYFD are somehow supposed to share the blame for 9/11. Apparently, because they were unable to coordinate, the 3000 people in the two towers died. Now, this is despite the fact that there were numerous rescue parties in the towers working their way up when they collapsed. I suppose that if the police and firemen had just tried harder, that they could have went up the stairs faster and carried down a couple hundred people at a time. Pathetic. My prediction for the next 4 groups or people to be blamed for 9/11: 1. The WTC employees- if they had escaped faster, they wouldn't have died. 2. The Air Force- if they had planes flying patrols over NYC and Washington before the attacks, they could have shot the planes down. 3. The passengers on the airliners- if they had overpowered the hijackers, 9/11 would have never happened. 4. The terrori...... President Bush. |
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| ImpulseEngine | May 19 2004, 02:11 PM Post #2 |
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Admiral
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First let me say that it seems ridiculous to blame police officers or fire fighters at all. They were obviously doing their best to HELP. Do you have a link? Are you sure that they are BLAMING them or are they constructively observing that better coordination might have helped save more people? If the latter, then improving coordination might be an area that could save lives in the future and they are right to point this out. Blame, however, shouldn't be applied to the police officers or fire fighters IMO. On the other hand, I also don't make the assumption that terrorists are the only ones to blame. They obviously are first and foremost to blame. But, if the evidence shows that we had information that could have been used to stop this tragedy and we failed to act on it, then should the people who failed to act be free of blame? Should we really say, "don't worry, even though you could have saved those thousands of lives and didn't, it was just a mistake that you didn't even try"? That would be like saying if team 1 wins a football game because team 2 made little real effort to play properly that team 2 is not at all to blame for losing. (Forgive the analogy, I am NOT comparing 9/11 to football - only the concept of blame.) The terrorists are the real criminals and anyone who failed to act is not even in the same category. But that doesn't mean anyone's failure to act should go unanswered or unaddressed. To do so would be to excuse it and also would risk the same errors/irresponsibility in the future. |
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| 8247 | May 19 2004, 02:28 PM Post #3 |
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Apparently we look like this now
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The 9/11 families are blaming Motorola because the radios werent working. They are also now trying to point the finger at RudY Guliani.
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| Fesarius | May 19 2004, 02:34 PM Post #4 |
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Admiral
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Don't forget the SisterTrek community. ;( |
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| Dandandat | May 19 2004, 02:34 PM Post #5 |
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Time to put something here
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My main problem with this place the blame game - is the old saying that "hind sight is 20/20" and that every one seems to be forgetting that. So what happens if we find out that some one did have information that COULD have prevented 9/11? Do they get strung up by default or do we take into account that every day bits and peaces of information come in and not all of it can be acted on – there just isn’t the time and resources. So even if some one some where had information that looked at with hind sight is significant, does not necessarily mean that before the event it was any more significant then all the other hundreds of leads they must get everyday most of which aren’t real. We need to stop looking for some one to blame people, that was the past and we already know who to blame. In my opinion if the commission truly want to do something good, they had batter place very little blame and stick mainly with saying how things can be improved. But some how I doubt that will happen.
If one saw first hand what these brave men and woman did on that day - where many didn’t even come home, this would be a very sickening thought indeed.
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| ImpulseEngine | May 19 2004, 03:06 PM Post #6 |
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Admiral
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Dandandat, Yes, all factors must be weighed. Before blame should be assigned, it would need to be shown that someone(s) clearly should have known and clearly could have acted, but didn't. If what you say about hindsight is truly accurate, then you just nullified the worth of our whole court system. Most investigations occur after the fact and then those are always hindsight when blame is placed. A lot can be told by evidence... |
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| Dandandat | May 19 2004, 09:28 PM Post #7 |
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Time to put something here
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I don’t quite understand what you mean here. If some one commits a crime - say a murder, there is no "hind sight" involved we ether prove or disprove that some one committed the crime. In cases where we look at the actions "not taken" which may lead to some one being at fault we must remember that "hind sight is 20/20" and make sure that the person being ruled upon is not begging blamed because of something that is obvious after the fact, but might not have been before the fact. I am not saying we should not place blame at all - I am saying we should be diligent in the fact that we understand why we are placing the blame and if that blame is truly disserved. In other words we have to ask our selves. If I was in their shows at the time, and I only knew what they know at the time (not what I know now) would I make the same dictions as he did or would I make a different ones. It’s the “not what I know now” part that’s important. Yes its easy to say now that two plains have flown into the world trade center that any information pertaining to the event was important, but was it obvious before the attacks? Case in point, The NYPD and the NYFD are being blamed for not being fully prepared for the events of 9/11. Its easy now to ask why weren’t they prepared for two jumbo jets flying into the towers and having them crash down. But before – these events where hard to even imagine let alone prepare for. How do you prepare for something this immense when you haven’t seen anything like it, or could barley understand it. Its things like these that make me believe the 9/11 commission is nothing more then a tool to upset the republican party. They came to my home town and are trying to use the pain of this cities people to their own advantage. And no sir I dont like it. |
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| captain_proton_au | May 19 2004, 10:02 PM Post #8 |
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A Robot in Disguise
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Yeah, I saw this on the news, absolutely ridiculous. Of course the emergency services werent perfectly co-ordinated, that kind of situation doesnt happen everyday, peoples emotions would have been running very high, and a sense of panic would have gripped those involved, they were all under intense pressure. Every if you study the situation and put in plans for any future catastrophes, it still will not be perfect, there are always unknown variables. I heard the line "NY emergency services may have hindered more than helped at the WTC" - that is the biggest load of rot I have heard in a long time, it implies that the victims would have been better off without the emergency services - ridiculous!!! |
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| ImpulseEngine | May 20 2004, 10:45 AM Post #9 |
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Admiral
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Then I think we are in agreement. I certainly believe in the diligence you described. Here's an example though of something that I would like answered. We knew about the possibility of using planes as weapons back in Clinton's administration. We also knew of the likelihood that some unknown terrorist activity was brewing from the August memo. Given that airplane hijacking is a common terrorist method as well as the knowledge that the airplanes could be used as a weapon, an obvious first step that should have been taken upon reading that memo IMO was to step up airport security. Maybe we couldn't have known about specific airports, but if we heightened security at them all, it might have helped. I'm not assuming guilt, I just want an explanation. Maybe we were working on this and it takes longer than I realize. Maybe there was some other valid reason for not doing so. However, without having heard an explanation, this looks suspiciously like a possible failure to me. Regarding my point about hindsight, maybe an example would help. Let's say a security guard saw some signs of an intruder and didn't bother to check because he assumed those signs didn't really mean anything. But then someone got killed by the intruder. Would he be guilty of murder? No. But could he be held responsible for his inaction and receive consequences? Yes. Could evidence of the intruder signs (broken locks, video surveillance tapes, etc.) be used to prove what he should have known and acted upon? Yes. The court system may not be the best example since most court cases involve proving an action rather than proving an inaction (but some of the latter do end up in court), but I was really trying to point out that there are real world examples of placing blame in hindsight for inaction all the time. There's nothing wrong with doing so when there is evidence to support the blame. |
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| Dandandat | May 20 2004, 12:01 PM Post #10 |
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Time to put something here
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Do you think pre 9-11 the American public would have stood for that? Just look at how angry people got "after" 9-11 and they had to wait a few minutes extra to get on their plain. They saw the horror that could happen and yet they where still pissed off for having to wait. Like I always say, if you want to blame some one for 9/11 (other then the terrorists of cores) blame us all. We do not make it easy for the people in charge to protect us. We are still (after the fact) to preoccupied with the time and money to deal with the mundane of our lives, and be dammed any one who gets in the way for what ever reason. |
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| Wichita | May 20 2004, 12:32 PM Post #11 |
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The Adminstrator wRench
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Personal Response IE, I remember hearing on September 11th that there had not been a hijacking of a US plane in a decade. (I tried to look for a list of hijackings, but I would have had to go through pages of 9/11 stuff to find it.) Suddenly, on that morning, they had several hijackings as well as other planes that were not responding. Knowing that you have a hijacked plane and knowing where that plane was are two different things. The plane that crashed in PA was briefly in Cleveland air space so there was a great deal on the news about how it was handled. Although they already knew planes HAD been used as a weapon and this one was not responding to them, it was still pretty difficult for it to be tracked. Also, post 9-11, we might say it would be better to shoot the plane down, but pre 9-11 that was hardly the sentiment. What if they had shot down a plane that was simply a hijacking? What if they shot down a plane that was simply trying to get out of US airspace to Canada? Given the number of planes in the air at any given time and the fairly short time span, I thought it pretty amazing that they were able to isolate the PA plane at all. I agree that all dilligence needs to be exercised. However, we should also recognize how we currently handle terror alerts. Had we been told of that memo, would we have believed it? How could we have known which day that it would occur? I don't change my behavior on high alert days. Most days I really don't know what the alert status is. In fact, I don't know anybody who does react - and we have already lived 9/11. End of Personal Response |
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| doctortobe | May 20 2004, 12:38 PM Post #12 |
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Speak softly, and carry a 57 megaton stick!
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Also, note that the last major attacks in the United States have involved using bombs to attack buildings (OKC and WTC attack). Also, the tactic of hijacking planes hasn't been used recently. Terrorists have much more often bombed planes instead. While intelligence alledgedly stated that the terrorists were going to fly a plane into a building, what would we do about it? As Dan said, the public would not stand for tightened security with no attack to justify it. Also, there are dozens of different security reports each day. How do we know which claims are real? For example, how many times has the terrorism color chart been changed and nothing happened? |
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| ImpulseEngine | May 20 2004, 12:57 PM Post #13 |
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Admiral
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Dandandat, It doesn't matter if the public would stand for it. If the government believes there is valid reason to heighten security, they should do so. What is the public really going to do? The most they could do is stop flying until security was slackened again. IMO, it should never be slackened (and, btw, I thought so before 9/11). It it was never slackened, sooner or later the public would get used to it and fly again because they wouldn't be able to do without their destinations. Wichita, I was suggesting heightened security in order to prevent the hijackings in the first place. Even if that's true about the lack of hijackings for a decade, we had reason to believe a terrorist attack of some sort was likely. Then we should be considering what we could do about all typical types of terrorist attacks. That means there should have been heightened security at all airports, government buildings, and any other typical targets. Additionally, we should have considered our knowledge that airplanes were being considered for use as weapons by targets - considered not so much from the perspective of how to cope with a hijacked plane before it could be used as a weapon, but from the perspective of preventing the plane from being hijacked at all. I think that's all that could reasonably have been expected in that 1 month period.
I don't know that any typical person in the public would have changed anything that they were doing, especially since the memo wasn't specific about what type of target was to be expected. But, based on what I know without further details, it seems to me that the government should have responded by heightening security at as many likely (typical) targets as possible. And, as I said above, I think that security level should always be maintained anyway - that's not an issue about the current administration or even about 9/11. That should have already been in place from past incidents. Although it really surprises me that even post 9/11 every day isn't a high alert day. I definitely agree.
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They are also now trying to point the finger at RudY Guliani.



9:10 AM Jul 11