Who is responsible for 9/11?
Good question. Obviously, a bunch of whackos are to blame but trial lawyers are having a go at blaming the airlines. But this piece argues, that using that logic, the government is actually to blame:
The first thing to remember is that airline traffic in the USA is heavily regulated by the Federal Aviation Administration, which governs all procedures, including construction of the planes themselves. (Airlines have some say about routes and fares, which is about the extent of the vaunted industry “deregulation.”) That means the placement of every wire, every piece of steel, and every doorway on the Boeing planes used as weapons of mass destruction that fateful day was approved and overseen by the FAA.
While it makes for good press for attorneys and judges, the idea that Boeing on its own could have ordered “secure” cockpit doors is a laugher. Any unilateral attempt by any aircraft maker to act without FAA direction is always met with swift action against the manufacturer; to put it another way, it would have been illegal for Boeing to make planes with impenetrable (if that is even possible) cockpit doors before 9/11, something that Schiavo and her fellow attorneys (and Judge Hellerstein) already know. Furthermore, as John Lott has pointed out, there are many questions of whether or not FAA-approved (now) secure doors are even secure.
James Bovard writes:
According to supporters of the Patriot Act, the FBI was fatally prevented by excessive concerns about civil liberties from securing a search warrant for Moussaoui’s belongings — thereby thwarting the feds from gaining key data on a possible hijacking conspiracy.
In reality, as two bipartisan congressional reports concluded, Moussaoui’s computer was not searched prior to September 11 because of the FBI’s gross incompetence.
Instructors at the Pan Am International Flying Academy in Eagan, Minn., became suspicious of Moussaoui because, according to later press reports, he wanted to learn how to fly a 747 jet in mid-air but had no interest in learning how to land or take off. Moussaoui had no pilot’s license or aviation background. But he showed up with $6,800 in cash and a passion to learn a few flying skills as quickly as possible.
After phoning the local FBI office four times, a flight instructor finally reached the right FBI agent, relayed the suspicions on Moussaoui and bluntly warned, “Do you realize that a 747 loaded with fuel can be used as a bomb?”
The next day, Aug. 16, 2001, FBI agents came and, after ascertaining that Moussaoui’s visa was expired, arrested him. The INS agreed to hold Moussaoui for seven to 10 days — exploiting the flexibility in its regulations to protect the public from a potentially dangerous alien.
Minnesota-based FBI agents notified the CIA and the FBI liaison in Paris, seeking further information; French intelligence sources reported that Moussaoui was “a known terrorist who had been on their watch list for three years.” The CIA alerted its overseas stations that Moussaoui was a “suspect airline suicide hijacker” who might be “involved in a larger plot to target airlines traveling from Europe to the United States.”
On Aug. 18, Minneapolis FBI agents sent a 26-page memo to headquarters warning that Moussaoui was acting “with others yet unknown” in a hijack conspiracy. Three days later, Minneapolis agents notified headquarters: “If [Moussaoui] seizes an aircraft flying from Heathrow to New York City, it will have the fuel on board to reach D.C.”
But when Minneapolis agents sought FBI headquarters’ permission to request a search warrant to check out Moussaoui’s belongings, an agent at the FBI’s Radical Fundamentalist Unit refused permission. Instead, FBI headquarters insisted that Minneapolis agents file a search warrant request under the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA), a 1978 law that created the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court to authorize searches of agents of foreign governments and foreign organizations. FISA sets a much lower, easier, standard for securing search warrants than is required by other federal courts.
Another interesting side note:
Third, once the hijackers made their actions known aboard the planes, everyone on board obeyed the law by following the hijackers’ orders. Ironically, the passengers on the UAL’s doomed Flight 93 broke the law by attacking their assailants. Yes, it is doubtful that the passengers would have been criminally charged had the flight somehow landed safely, but nonetheless, prosecution of Todd Beamer and others who charged the cockpit would have been a legal (but not politically feasible) option for U.S. authorities. To put it another way, in the eyes of U.S. law, Todd Beamer was not a hero; he was a felon.
He concludes with:
Yes, in hindsight, by following U.S. Government policies from beginning to end, United and American airlines inadvertently aided those individuals who snuffed out nearly 3,000 lives through their vicious actions. Yet, in hindsight, we also know that to have thwarted those attacks would have turned some employees of United and American into felons.
While I think it is a stretch to blame the government for these failings (with the exception of the incompetence of the FBI ), it is totally asinine to blame airlines who were obeying the law.
December 5th, 2003 at 12:32 pm
Lawsuit aside for a moment, this line of reasoning underscores the need for an independent investigation into the run-up to 9/11 — something we still haven’t had yet. If we can’t learn from our mistakes, we’re doomed to repeat them.
December 5th, 2003 at 2:09 pm
I agree but the lawsuit is heinous. Smoke, mirrors, blame the evil Airlines while gummint hides stuff.
December 5th, 2003 at 3:40 pm
Of course the lawsuit is heinous. What do you expect from trial lawyers? You don’t sue the people responsible, you sue the people with the money. This isn’t about justice, it’s about making a quick buck.
And, by the way, this is a sneak peek at libertarianism at work. Since without regulation and regulatory agencies, the only course of action the victims’ families would have is lawsuits such as these.
December 5th, 2003 at 3:45 pm
Actually, that’s for Libertarianism. I am reminded of Clayton Cramer’s observation that he watched the TV show Cops just to remind himself why Libertarianism won’t work. The reason, the lowest common denominator, or the people you see on Cops.
December 5th, 2003 at 4:19 pm
Remind me again, specifically, where Libertarians and libertarians differ?
December 5th, 2003 at 4:22 pm
well, i consider myself one with a lower case l because the big l’s have some problems. For instance, big l’s oppose public education, tend to get into shootouts with people, seem to oppose all taxation, etc.
I guess little l would be moderate libertarianism (a laughable phrase). We get pissed about gun rights, high taxes, property rights, etc. but don’t oppose the government just because it’s the government.
December 5th, 2003 at 4:39 pm
Then I guess I’m a little confused at where libertarians and “South Park Republicans” differ.
December 5th, 2003 at 4:42 pm
Y’all miss the point I’m afraid: the government isn;t too blame because they had over zealous regs preventing the airlines from building barricaded doors. The government is to blame because each & every passenger was disarmed by federal law. If our Right to Arms was respected in the skies, then September 11th wouldn’t have been much different than September 10th.
The bulk of the blame lays on the hijackers themselves, but the government is at least a very big accessory to their acts. The government prevented the passengers from being able to defend themselves, while the terrorists took advantage of that.
December 5th, 2003 at 6:07 pm
Yeah, because if every passenger could have been armed, they all would have been armed. And they all would have had the special guns and ammo that air marshalls use to prevent you from blowing a hole in the fuselage and depressurizing the cabin.
Good thing our troops in Iraq and Afghanistan are armed, as this prevents any of them from ever being killed using terrorist tactics.
Thank you for that exceptionally insightful and intelligent commentary.
December 5th, 2003 at 6:09 pm
The passengers were all allowed to have their own boxcutters. Why didn’t they pull them out and use them?
December 5th, 2003 at 6:26 pm
Actually, there’s a great case to be made against the government, in the form of the FAA and the Air Force. The FAA that day waited, in some cases up to twenty or more minutes, before reporting problems with the hijackers’ flights. And this after hearing Arabic voices in the cockpit reassuring passengers that nothing was wrong, and after transponders had been turned off. The transponder thing alone has been a long-standing red flag, but the FAA waited before responding, other than asking nearby flights to check them out.
The Air Force planes sent out did not fly at top speed! They were flying at well below maximum speed, guaranteeing they would not intercept the planes in time.
Lastly, the two New York flights, even after the FAA knew there was trouble, flew over any number of military installations of varying kinds. No action taken at any!
http://www.rense.com/general18/atcd.htm
December 5th, 2003 at 10:00 pm
tqirsch,
Slow down there pardner.
Not every passenger would have been armed if the feds hadn’t stepped on their Right to be so. Perhaps not even a majority. & it’s entirley possible that the attacks would have been succesful despite armed passengers (although unlikely).
However the government took away an individual’s choice: whether to be prepared to defend his/herself or rely on someone else for that.
That’s why I hold them accountable. Same as I hold government partly accountable for every school shooting in a gun free zone. Armed teachers may not have prevented Columbine from being worse than it was, but ya see it’s all about choice. Should you decide if you should be capable of self defense or should someone else?
& before you berate someone for making an “intelligent” comment I’d recommend you learn more about depressurization than what you’ve seen on re-runs.
Airplanes are not air tight. They continually have air from the outside coming in & going out. It’d take a pretty substantial hole to cause the depressurizing effects you’ve seen in one too many movies. Simply wouldn’t happen with a bullet. Hell, it’d take an all day range session & a couple of hundred rounds to come close to making a hole that big.
So lemme try this again – because the passengers were disarmed by the government they did not have the means to defend themselves (& subsequently their country) from this particular attack. The government, by disarming them, became responsible (to a degree) for their safety. They took away their choice in the matter. They said “you cannot have Arms” & created a situation where men with boxcutters did what they did.
As for why the passengers didn’t pull boxcutters themselves – using edged weapons requires a certain amount of skill & physical prowess. In short it’s much more risky than say, pulling a revolver & telling them to drop the boxcutters or shooting them if they don’t. (not that shooting doesn’t require skill). They could have used other common objects as weapons – and the passengers on 1 flight did attempt that – but again, the government policy was to go along with the demands of the hijackers. I’m sure the people didn’t think it’d go down like it did otherwise there’d have been more of a resistance, even without weapons. But that as well is partly due to the governments advice of co-operate instead of fighting back.
Lastly, disarm the troops in the middle east, then see how much the terrorist attacks increase. There’ll still be attacks on armed troops, but not nearly as many as on unarmed troops, & not to the same degree of success.
But ya see, the whole point is about choice: the passengers on board those planes didn’t & still don’t have a say in their own affairs. They’re disarmed by a government in contradiction to said governments Constitution.
For that they’re an accessory.
December 6th, 2003 at 1:43 am
So, you’re honestly arguing that allowing everyone to carry whatever the hell they want onto an airplane wouldn’t cause more problems than it “solves?”
By your standard, the government is an “accessory” to virtually every crime that has ever been committed in the history of government. Turning the silly “make guns illegal and only criminals will have guns” argument around to its silly counterpart, if you repeal all the laws, there won’t be any criminals!
And the “personal choice” argument is pretty weak, too. By allowing people to carry weapons onto a plane, you’re taking away MY choice to not travel with people carrying weapons. It works both ways.
I’m sorry, but arming the passengers is not very likely to be an effective deterrent. If arms as deterrent is your solution, than the intelligent way to do it is to have trained armed guards on all the flights. (And if you’re opposed to the government spending money on such things, fine; require the airlines to pay for it — but oh, wait, that would be excessive regulation. Hell with it, it’s probably oppressive for the government to take away the pilot’s choice to have five or six drinks before his shift, too…)
December 6th, 2003 at 1:48 am
But that as well is partly due to the governments advice of co-operate instead of fighting back.
Gee, that wouldn’t have anything to do with the fact that, prior to 9/11, that was by far the best thing to do, would it? (It’s also why something like 9/11 can never happen again; not like that, the passengers would never allow it. It would have to be an empty flight or a cargo plane or something.)
December 6th, 2003 at 10:18 am
I should disclaim that I’m not necessarily opposed to arming pilots.
December 6th, 2003 at 3:44 pm
Tqirsch,
You have the choice not to fly if an airline allows the passengers to have weapons. But right now, if you fly you have no choice as to whether or not the people on the flight with you have weapons. The thing is its either an air marshall or a criminal. So I find your protests about being on a weapon-free plane disingenuous since you obviously have no qualms about flying with armed people as long as the government approves of them.
But yes, stopping the disarmament of passengers would not create more problems than we’ve had with disarmed passengers. Granted, there’ll always be some who act negligently or maliciously, but you care to tally up how many incidents like that it’d take to match the death tolls from September the 11th?
Armed individuals do not revert to a 50’s western mentality. Look at any state where armed citizens are legal to one extent or the other. I think you’ve fallen for an Brady Campaign ad at some point, cause overall armed individuals don’t present the kind of risk you allude to.
& yes government is at least partly responsible for any harm that comes to anyone that was disarmed by government regulation. As for the more sweeping assumption you were attempting to make – come to me with specifics & we’ll chat.
December 6th, 2003 at 6:50 pm
You have the choice not to fly if an airline allows the passengers to have weapons. But right now, if you fly you have no choice as to whether or not the people on the flight with you have weapons.
You have the choice not to fly if you don’t want to travel without your weapon. It’s all how you spin it. Besides, if it were legal to carry guns on planes and certain airlines (the ones you suggest I could “choose”) decided to have policies forbidding them, the libertarains would sue that airline for violating their constitutional rights.
But here’s a question for you: on the first three flights, why didn’t the passengers fight back? Was it solely because they weren’t armed? No, as a matter of fact, that probably had nothing to do with it. They didn’t fight back because they didn’t know they were all going to die. They figured the hijackers would ask to go to Lebanon or wherever, land, negotiate, blah blah blah, only a few of them did. The reason the fourth flight fought back was because they knew what was going to happen. Whether or not they were armed had NOTHING to do with it. Zip. Zilch. Zero. Nada.
And what about the “personal choice” of the flight crew? Terrorist grabs flight attended, takes her hostage, and some loose cannon vigilante with a gun “decides” that she’s collateral damage and starts shooting, hostage be damned.
Now you’re probably thinking that wouldn’t happen, and you’re right. Almost no one would kill the innocent people the hijackers used as hostages to gain entry to the cockpits, because it would not have been clear until the very end what was happening, and by then, it would have been too late. So having armed passengers, as I said, would have done nothing to change the behavior of the passengers on the hijacked planes. Zip. Zilch. Zero. Nada.
If the government shares some of the blame for September 11th (and it certainly does), it’s not because they “disarmed the passengers.” Sorry, but that’s asinine. It’s because they had a pattern of incompetence in ignoring intelligence and failing to share information. It’s because Clinton failed to act at the end of his second term, fearing such action would hurt Gore’s chances. And it’s because Bush Jr.’s administration ignored the point blank warnings given to him by Clinton’s outgoing administration in the transitional meetings.
There’s plenty of blame to go around, but blaming it on “over-regulation” and “disarming the passengers” would be rather like blaming the entire Northeast power outage on some homeowner in Maine forgetting to turn his lights off. It misses the larger picture completely. (And frankly, it sounds like trying to use September 11 as an excuse to push a largely unrelated personal agenda, a la Bush charging into Iraq.)
December 6th, 2003 at 9:21 pm
I should have clarified that if there were no government infringement of our Rights, then airlines would decide for themselves whether or not to allow passengers to be armed. As such you could choose an armed or unarmed flight.
Actually the libertarians wouldn’t initiate any sort of legal action – they’d boycott the airline which prohibitied passengers from being armed. If it was just one airline, then that airline would probably get all the business of those who are afraid of individuals with Arms. The Libertarians would simply take their cash to airlines that did allow it.
But no, I don’t have a choice right now: that’s because all airlines are off-limits to those of us who prefer to be armed. A choice in this situation would be either flying a passenger armed or passenger disarmed flight. But because of the fedsthat’s not possible. Hence I & a lot of other people drive.
Now to your question: they didn’t fight back because the governmental advice was to co-operate & they didn’t see the danger in following that advice.
But here’s one for ya: on the flight where they did fight back, do you think if they’d have had their personal arms with them that they might have succeeded w/o having to crash the plane in a field?
As far as any flight crew or passengers injured or killed by passengers taking out a hijacker – yeah, that sucks. But being cold about it, it’s a lot better to lose 1 or 10 or even 100 people than 3,000. So despite it not seeming fair to the hostage or any other bystanders, it’s better strategically & tactically to take out the hijackers whatever the cost.
I believe the notion of yours that armed passengers wouldn’t have changed anything would be addressed by answering my question concerning the outcome of those passengers that fought back if they had been armed.
& if I gather this right, what you’re advocating is simply having the government do a more effecient job of protecting us. For some reason you think that they can & will do a better job & that not disarming passengers is unspeakable. The government cannot, will not & should not protect you. You should be responsible for your own protection. You might not be successful, but I trust that you’ll put forth more effort protecting yourself than a government employee will.
But if you’d rather rely on government to protect you that’s your choice. But you are advocating that government take away my choice & everyone else’s & reduce us to the dependent state which you seem to be comfy with. That’s where your mistaken & that’s where you’ll be suprised at the levels of resistance your notion is faced with.
To put it as simply as I can, by not disarming individuals simply because they wish to fly on a private airline, you increase the deterence for an attack as well as letting the passengers have the option of defending themselves from attack & the tools to be successful at that defense.
But when the government disarmed the passengers, they stripped them of their Right to Self Defense & should be held accountable for the harm that occurred from the attack that happened upon them while they were defenseless.
& no, it’s not an unrelated personal agenda – it’s a directly related personal agenda.
December 7th, 2003 at 9:57 pm
But here’s one for ya: on the flight where they did fight back, do you think if they’d have had their personal arms with them that they might have succeeded w/o having to crash the plane in a field?
Probably not. From what I recall, the terrorists crashed the plane when the passengers revolted. There’s no reason to believe they would have behaved differently had the passengers been armed.
As far as any flight crew or passengers injured or killed by passengers taking out a hijacker – yeah, that sucks. But being cold about it, it’s a lot better to lose 1 or 10 or even 100 people than 3,000.
You’re familiar with 20/20 hindsight, right? Because you’re executing it here. It’s a nice luxury to have, but the passengers on those planes didn’t have it.
& if I gather this right, what you’re advocating is simply having the government do a more effecient job of protecting us. For some reason you think that they can & will do a better job & that not disarming passengers is unspeakable.
As a matter of fact, yes, I do think the government can and should do a better job protecting us. That’s why we have a government.
And what I’m saying, frankly, is that allowing passengers to take arms on a plane will cause far more problems than it solves, and will make air travel considerably less safe.
The government cannot, will not & should not protect you.
Good. When do we start disbanding the military? All sarcasm aside, no matter how many firearms I can own, they won’t protect me from some guy with a nuke or a ryder truck filled with fertilizer. Even if I get to carry those guns on my person.
& no, it’s not an unrelated personal agenda – it’s a directly related personal agenda.
It may be related in your dream world where armed passengers would have prevented 9/11, or where guns are a panacea, maybe it’s related. But as I’ve already firmly established, there are much bigger reasons why the government was partially responsible for what happened on 9/11, and “disarming passengers” isn’t even a blip on the radar.
April 23rd, 2004 at 10:32 pm
Let me say this: 20 hijackers which 15 are Saudis, Sheikh Mohammed, Hambali, the Taliban dictatorship, and Osama Bin Laden are held responsible for the horror. Now President Bush is terrorizing Osama Bin Laden and all his cronies.