During his surprise Christmas Eve trip to Iraq, the defense secretary alluded to the fact that we shot down Flight 93 over Pennsylvania. This has always been one of the mysteries of 9/11, and despite the "let's roll" comments of Citizen Beamer on the plane, a lot of people have wondered if we did indeed shoot the plane down. This was the plane that could have conceivably gone to Washington and attacked the White House and other monuments.
Do we now have a policy about taking out commercial flights that are controlled by terrorists? Would this really be a national debate? Everyone on board is doomed in any case...
Click on the title for a link to the story... /jack
2 comments:
If you read the actual comment, you'll see he was referring to the terrorists on the plane:
"I think all of us have a sense if we imagine the kind of world we would face if the people who bombed the mess hall in Mosul, or the people who did the bombing in Spain, or the people who attacked the United States in New York, shot down the plane over Pennsylvania and attacked the Pentagon, the people who cut off peoples' heads on television to intimidate, to frighten – indeed the word 'terrorized' is just that. Its purpose is to terrorize, to alter behavior, to make people be something other than that which they want to be."
It's just a simple error to say the terrorists "shot down the plane" when he meant that they crashed the plane, which is clearly audible on the cockpit voice recorders.
No - I realize now Rummy probably was not referring to us downing the plane. The more interesting issue to me is "would we?" I think the answer is yes...especially if the plane was targeting the White House...as this one apparently was. The whole "let's roll" business is somewhat dubious... I guess the bottom line is that the US did not have it together enough to shoot down the plane...even if we wanted to...
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