[Mr 5 0]

65GTO:

I believe you misread my post or missed by point. I'll attempt to clarify my position.

I didn't say anything about unbreechable security doors to the flight deck. I agree that that could be done, although the weight could be a problem and it's not a solution in itself as you seemed to imply.

What I said was that a flight crew barricaded behind secure doors while crazed - and now angry and frustrated terrorists - start murdering passengers, one by one, or worse yet, having a big enough weapon to blow a hole in the side of the plane (or even a door or window out) would lead to instant depressurizing of the plane and then havoc and panic in the passenger compartment. A determined few terrorists could effectivly kill many of the passengers or render the plane unstable and posssibly unable to land safely.

As I said, this would result in a plane landing with an intact, unharmed flight crew and many dead passengers or possibly a wrecked plane. Not very feasible.
Add to that the fact that anything devised by man (like a secure door) is going to immediately have another group of men looking for ways to disable it, and they'll find it.

I agree that our airport security is lax and needs to be beefed up, quickly, but that won't totally solve the problem, although it won't do any harm, that's for sure. There is no quick, easy answer and no one is ever going to be totally 'secure' in the air or on the ground either, but we can try.

Our biggerst problem is our own attitude. We've grown weak and complacent as a nation. We elect boobs like Clinton to our esteemed Presidency and he makes a fool of both the congress and the American people and shreads the constitution in the process. Americans give him a high approval rating.

Our military is demoralized and feminized; the bars are lowered so any female can 'pass' any physical 'test'. We worry more about homosexuals being comfortable in the armed forces than about building strength, loyalty and encouraging a sense of duty and honor into our young men serving the country as soliders and sailors. Now, it's just a job. I expect we'll have a soldiers union any day now. Collective bargining.
Sure, there are still real stand-up guys in the service, but they don't stay long and the officers are so afraid of their careers being stalled - or worse - they swallow all the PC B.S. and watch the services dwindle down in manpower and resolve, not to mention quality. If we ever have to fight a real war, not some fly-over war or a war where the enemy are so demoralized they surrender to TV crews as in Desert Storm, I'm worried. I hope I'm wrong.

Notice that with all the hours of TV coverage of this tragedy, no one has said "People will die for this outrage". No one has the guts to do so. I don't mean the President or some high elected politician; they have to be measured and calm. What I refer to are the commentators and newspeople. TV is dominated by the female perspective. The men are male models, little more. Attractive little things that wag their tails and yip but have no bite. The newscasters always focus on the immediate tragedy (O.K.) but then act as if it happened as some isolated incident with no real connection to anything else...like the near-war in the mid-east going on right now.
It's report, grieve, wring our hands and then, move on. Oprah is on at 4. She'll tell us how to have a better life. Right.
No real outrage shown..don't want to excite anyone. Grief councilors, etc are fine and needed, but where is the real sense of anger and resolve on TV. Not from those blow-dried women and men. No context either. It's sickening, and this is where America gets it's news....and often, it's attitudes.

As I've said in earlier posts; it's a war.
To Islamic extremists - and there are many - we are the enemy because we support (finance) Israel and always have. Without the U.S., Israel would have been destroyed decades ago.
These extremists see Israel as a rougue state, an illigimate country, an interloper. They want it destroyed and the Jews dead or at least, gone forever from the mid-east.
That will not happen and we will not stand by and allow it to happen. Of that I'm sure.

During the unending 'peace' talks last year, Barak gave Arafat the sun and the moon - everything Arafat said he wanted - and Arafat said "no". There will be no 'peace'. You can't negotiate with someone who wants to kill you - right now. The Arab Islamic extremists want to kill us - right now. We'll have to decide if we will smile and try to not think too much about it, or if we will fight back. That means blood on our hands and accusations of being murderers and worse from the liberal bleeding hearts who sympathize with the Palestinians and the extremists who plot to kill us in our offices and our markets, as they do in Israel every week. Can we deal with that? I wonder.

I don't expect 'Perky' Katy Coric or Diane Sawyer to tell us the truth and to show outrage over this massive attack on our country. No. Lots of sympathy for the victims, which is fine, but next week it'll be some story about how Bush didn't handle it right and how maybe we should cosy up to those folks who killed our relatives, friends and neighbors and show them 'we care'. Maybe then those Arabs will stop being mean to us. Please.

It's a tough situation. We took a very big hit and we look like pathetic fools for allowing this to happen. Now, we have to decide how to respond. I fear it may be all talk. Tough talk, but still just talk, with no action. I hope not. I hope we can do more than discuss how we can lock ourselves into flight cabins so the bad men won't get us and how strong a door we need to feel safe. That may be necessary for the moment, but I find it rather sad for the future.

As Ben Franklin once said; "Those who would trade freedom for security deserve neither".