9/11 Retrospective

Trade Center Remnant -- Photo courtesy Wikipedia

by blogSpotter
When I think about 9/11, I'm boggled by the long list of improbabilities that in fact took place:

• 19 Arab hijackers commandeered 4 large airliners in flight. 4 out of 4 hijackings were successful. It's not known for sure, but it's suspected that the pilots and other cockpit personnel were killed or severely maimed with box cutters. Not one of the 19 hijackers was held or detained by airport security for any concerns.

• At the very least 4 of the hijackers completed flight and navigation training and were proficient enough to turn the planes back towards DC and NY, and aim them at specific targets.

• 3 of the 4 planes struck their designated targets in a very close time frame; the only reason the 4th one missed was due to a probable passenger rebellion. The plane that struck the Pentagon was surely inside 'secure' airspace that is subject to extra monitoring; it still made it through successfully.

• 2 airliners struck the World Trace Center towers with such exactitude and force that the steel shells of the buildings were weakened and both buildings collapsed after approximately one hour of fire from airplane fuel.

If prior to 9/11, Dino DeLaurentis or Steven Spielberg were to conceive a movie outline with such a plot, people would say, "Get real. That's more unrealistic than Speed or Jurassic Park.” And yet it is real -- it did happen. If you outline the terrorists’ action items, they succeeded at 95% of their goals, with little resistance from trusting airline personnel, passive passengers (except Flight 93), clueless security agents and a slow-to-react military.

Now five years later we ask, "Could it happen again?" I don't think it would happen exactly the same way -- "fool me twice, my fault" as the Indian proverb goes. Hijackers wielding fake bombs or box-cutters would get taken out by a passenger mob. Cockpit doors are reinforced and TSA is wise to box-cutters. If the terrorists wanted simply to blow a plane out of the sky without guiding it to a destination, they could probably come much closer to that objective.

We still have vulnerability, and terrorism certainly hasn’t been eradicated in 2006. Something tells me that the worst of this particular menace is past. Maybe it’s that the "infidels" now have positioned 150,000 more troops in the Holy land. There is also the knowledge on the part of peace-loving Muslims that all of Islam will suffer if fanatics have their way. In a part of the world where reason takes a back seat to religious extremism and violence, maybe the unreason of an oppressive occupation will also hold sway.

© 2006 blogSpotter.