mellow maromi

What about what bush did at 9/11? He heard the call from "osama", why didnt they scramble jets? The f16s couldve destroyed the air planes before they hit the buildings, but they didnt do anything.

Do you really think 3 terrorists with a box cutter and take over a whole plain with over 100 people? no.

bush let the terrorists attack, so that we had an excuse to go to the middle east.

Just like truman, he let the japanese attack pearl habor, so that we had an excuse to go to war.

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Barronmore

Why don't you back it up with PROOF! I'm tired of hearing about your hair brained conspiracy theories that don't' make sense in the light of day. If your so sure Roosevelt or Bush caused or allowed these things to happen then PROVE it. Until you can, kindly state that it's your opinion only. By the way, there is no proof. If there was proof the Democrats would have brought Bush up on charges by now.


But to address your points.

1. The President of the United States pre 9/11 would NEVER have fired military weapons on a civilian plane carrying American passengers. To even suggest that after the fact shows how little you know of pre 9/11 policy. Any President who did would be committing political suicide. Besides, there was no reason to believe the planes would be used as weapons. All previous instances of high jackings were done to take hostages for political purposes, not use the planes as weapons.

2. Three terrorists with a box cutter CAN and DID take planes hostage. They've been doing it for decades. The reason? Because even if your taken hostage you can survive the experience. Passengers on the two planes that hit the twin towers thought they were being taken hostage. They found out otherwise to late.

Once the passengers on flight UA93 found out that they were going to be killed anyway and the plane used as a weapon they DID successfully stop the terrorists from executing the plan and attempted to take back the plane.

Stop applying Post 9/11 mentality to a pre 911 situation.

Now about Pearl Harbor...why don't you go back and read Len's excellent post on the subject and stop playing the "Blame America First" game.

Instead of spouting off what you've heard from talking heads on TV...why not just think through the logical ramifications of what you propose. These theories are just THEORIES because they have no basis in FACT. If they did then charges would have been brought up against Bush now (and Roosevelt in his day) by his political enemies. But that hasn't happened yet, now has it.

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Chubz

Not sure if any of you have heard of the town/city of Coventry in Britain, but during World War II the Germans launched a huge bombing campaign which pretty much obliterated the city.

After the attack, there was a belief (which was quite prevalent up until awhile ago) that Winston Churchill had let the attack happen on purpose. The reasoning was that the Brits had just broken the Enigma Machine codes, and they had intercepted a transmission of the German's plans for the bombing campaign. If the Brit's acted on the information, then the German's would have known that the Enigma code was broken, so in order to keep that a secret the British allowed the attack to occur without warning the citizens of Coventry (who suffered major losses).

Anyhoo, that theory had been floating around but was proven false. While the British HAD just broken the Enigma code, and did intercept a transmission from the German's, it didn't actually divulge the plans for the bombing. Not unlike what Len was saying about the transmission received from Japan. It didn't divulge any critical information warning of an attack.


Anyhoo, as for opinion on the matter, no I don't think that Roosevelt let the attack happen. First off, it was a complete fluke that the majority of the American naval fleet weren't wiped out in the attack, because they had been stationed in Pearl Harbour up until the attack. The main fleet was out for training when the attack happened, thus narrowly avoided being blown up. Had that happened, America's naval power would have been almost completely destroyed. The Japanese wanted the Pearl Harbour attack to be one swift movement, and wanted to destroy the american fleet at once, but that didn't happen. They did inflict damage though on the fleet, but not on the scale they wanted.

America declaring war on Germany was inevitable, because if the allies in Europe failed, the next place Germany would set its sights on would be North America. Japan's attack just hastened America's declaration of war.

Also, just since it was mentioned, I'd like to give props to the Canadian Navy who were (next to the British Navy) the main force in the Battle of the Atlantic, and kept Britain alive by protecting and escorting vessels. Because of our main involvement in the Battle of the Atlantic, Canada's navy grew to be the third largest navy in the world (though after the war we never continued up with that, so now our navy isn't up there in size anymore). So yeah...just gotta give props hehe.

Now, back to conspiracy-esque thoughts. While I don't believe that Pearl Harbour or the bombing of Coventry were purposefully allowed to happen, I do believe that a government would most certainly allow the deaths of some of its citizens in a super critical moment of war, in order to save the majority.

I'm not gonna get into 9/11 (though I will say that there was NO conspiracy) because this is aboot WWII, but to use it as an example, while the government didn't shoot down any of the planes, if that event were to happen now and they knew a plane was about to smoke the white house (or let's say a building like the WTC), they would certainly fire on that plane at the last allowable minute, after using all other resources. At the last allowable time, they'd know that #1. The citizens on that plane are already dead, whether they shoot the missile or not, and #2. The government has to protect itself and cut its losses. They wouldn't just sit by and watch the plane smack the building.

Like, let's say a nuclear attack was about to happen and a government knew. The FIRST people that would be getting out of the way and given priority would be government officials. While citizens are an important part of a country, the government is far more important and can't work if the head is being cut off.

Pretty much priority would be #1: Government, #2: Military, #3: Medical, #4: Civilians. The country can't function without the government, so those people will be secured first. They can't fight wars and protect themselves without the military, so those will come second. Medics can go in after an event and help the wounded. Civilians can't do anything, except provide tax money. A few civilian deaths would be justified by a government to protect the majority.

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LenMiyata

Grumble Grumble Grumble
This isn't quite correct either. The main battleship fleet WAS IN PERL HARBOR, which resulted in the crippling of the US Pacific fleet, clearing the way for the Japanese invasion and occupation of the Philippines. What wasn't in Perl Harbor, out on training and supply missions were the primary targets of the Japanese attack, the three Pacific fleet aircraft carriers. (which by US doctrine at the time, were primarily used for scouting missions for the battle line...) The dive bombers that were assigned to attack the carriers, instead went after battleships, which resulted in the fluke hit and destruction of the Arizona. Modern studies of the Arizona hulk has come to the conclusion that one of the bombs (where were converted 6 inch artillery shells with fins attached) must have fallen through an open deck hatch into the magazine...

The Perl Harbor attack essentially left only 2 modern US battleships in the Pacific to defend the West Coast of the US. In the long run, the crippling of the Battleship line was a favor for the US, as it forced their rapid rebuilding and rearmament with modern dual purpose anti-aircraft guns, used for defending aircraft carriers from air attacks. It also forced the US Navy to change its operational doctrine from one built around battleships, to a long range air strikes from the carriers. This led to the carrier launched B-25 raids against Japan (mostly for propaganda), the battle of the Coral Sea (a tactical loss for the US, but the first time a Japanese invasion fleet was forced to abort) where for the first time in Naval history that the ships involved in the battle never sighted an enemy ship, and battle of Midway...

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Barronmore

Actually, back in the Clinton admin there was a fellow who DID fly is passenger plane into the white house. He did it on purpose to kill President Clinton. It was not shot out of the sky. Instead, they evacuated the building.

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Chubz

That also happened just a bit after 9/11 as well, but it was just a pilot who had gone off course, but they evacuated the White House. My hypothetical situation would be assuming that whatever event was about to happen was absolutely dire (and it was immenent and impossible to avoid), and mass damage was going to be caused, including a high amount of loss of life.

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Barronmore

No Chubs, it did not happen after 9/11. It happened in the Clinton Administration. The plane was detected, hit the white house lawn and slid into the building. The pilot died and it was assumed that it was an assassination attempt. While the government reserves the right to 'take action' no action was taken.

Here's an article on the subject.

Radar Detected Airplane before White House Crash

I'm telling you, strait up, in the pre 9/11 world it would be political suicide for a president to order the military to shoot a civilian plain out of the sky. People would have been up in arms over it. Even in a post 9/11 world it would be a very risky manuvore for a president to order military fighters to shoot down a passenger plane. The investigation would have to PROVE without any doubt that he was in mortal danger for their not to be an outcry over it.

And that's the thing, people are trying to apply post 9/11 thinking to a pre 9/11 situation. That's all im saying. Why didn't Bust do this or that? Because on the morning of 9/11 such thoughts either had never been thought before or the political landscape would not allow such an action to take place without dire consequences.

Hindsight may be 20/20 but that doesn't mean you can just pick and choose when and where your going to apply it.

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Chubz

The event I listed in the last post was a different one (which is why I said 'also). It happened awhile after 9/11, where a civilian plane was off course and was flying within Washington D.C towards the White House, so they evacuated it. I wasn't debating your event, I was mentioning a similiar one that happened after 9/11. However, here's something from the Washington Journal that talks about the possible shooting down of a civilian aircraft, post 9/11:

Civilian Plane

And this link is about the event I was talking about (civilian off course, triggering white house evacuation):

Civilian Airplane, off course

I'm not trying to argue anything about what Bush did or didn't do, or what happened on 9/11. I was using the event as an example (as in, if something like that were to happen again). I'm not debating what ACTUALLY happened on 9/11.

When reading this part, keep 9/11 out of mind, just so we don't get confused. What I was saying in my original post was that Roosevelt would not have allowed the Pearl Harbour attack to happen, and I also cited an example where people thought that Churchill had known about the mass bombing of Coventry (both of which are false). BUT, I do believe in a dire situation (and I mean dire) a government would allow the death of civilians if it meant that it would save more. (And I don't mean like a hostage situation, where they'd say "okay, shoot five people, let 10 go").

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Barronmore

Sorry. I guess I'm just really touchy this week. I didn't see also (or didn't register it) and kinda got upset. Again, I apologize.

I'm getting really tired of all these conspiracy theories. I wouldn't mind them if they actually made SOME sense but when they just kinda exist despite any logic that completely shows it to be without merit I get really tired of seeing them all the time.

Honestly today, I would fully support military defense against a civilian aircraft if it was proof positive that it was being used as a weapon and the passengers on board were deffinatley going to die. But I still think any president who did it would be very worried about the ramifications of doing it.

I think i'm gonna take a few weeks (minimum) off from the site. I'm burned out and losing my temper to easily.

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Chubz

That's no problem, your post didn't seem touchy or anything.

You're right that shooting down a civilian aircraft would be a SUPER touchy thing, and a tough call for a president to make. Even if it was a dire situation, and the government did have to shoot down a civilian plane to save more, you'd probably still have a couple people who would complain about militaristic tendencies and whatnot, and blame the government either way. It would be a 'damned if you do, damned if you don't' situation for the president.

For awhile I did believe the Winston Churchill conspiracy theory (at the time I thought it was fact, not a theory). But that's because my family is from Britain, so when I was growing up this was what was told to me, and the history books I had read didn't mention that this wasn't true. It wasn't until awhile ago that they actually dispelled the theory (if you're interested, here's a link to an article about it. Coventry Bombing myth).

But yeah, conspiracy theories just bend any type of logic to the extreme. One of the universities I've been too had a movie night where they played a whole bunch of conspiracy movies about 9/11, and I decided to show up. While there were a couple of movies that weren't radical conspiracy stuff (a few where just about the inner workings of government), most of them were just these fabricated theories that couldn't possibly have happened.

I completely agree with you about supporting military defence if it was proof positive that it was being used as a weapon, and there was no other alternative to bringing the plane down. While it is a horrible thought of having to fire on civilians, unfortunately if it would save more people then the tough call would have to be made.

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