No Comment Necessary Department

Well I guess we will just use the numbers above as justification for what? 200 billion a year for a war is pretty cheap if you consider.

1990 dollars WWII cost 2.091 trillion without benefits and VA post care
1990 dollars Vietnam cost 346 billion without benefits and VA post care
1990 dollars Gulf War cost 61 billion without benefits and VA post care computed to reflect 1990 equivalents

Now we get to Iraq and for some reason the NYT calculates all of the post care, the kitchen sink and everything else because by golly it sure looks better to put the real costs of war into a single number when there is a presidential race on.... Spin? Bullshit? Call it what you want. The annual cost of the war in Iraq is actually about 110 billion. The cost of Iraq is about 60 billion and some slop. 40 billion is being added for the annualized costs of post service.

So I am confused as to what this says above. Is this more just a public service announcement that it costs money to fight a war? That we should revert 100 million to UHC? That more money should go to cancer research?

Lets take some really interesting numbers that are not up there. Cost of losing in Iraq. Cost of Social Security that you will never see. Cost of Medicare that just got a prescription drug benefit that is totally unfunded and accounts for get this 1 trillion dollars in the next 25 years. Oh sure, we cant fight wars anymore because of the costs. So we end up being terrorized all over the planet or watch China who has embarked on a 25% per year military "defense" program with a land based missile interdiction system that apparently works, outfitted their military with hardware from all over the world and we are just supposed to sit back and say "well, it just costs too much."

Washington said the same thing at Valley Forge. Learn to speak Chinese and do be sure to mention the cost of wars and prescription benefits and social security that was fomented onto the population in the interests of public health. We know the Chinese have UHC... it works so well there. Fact is that if the plug gets pulled on the military we are going to be in deep trouble fast. Feel free to disagree. I guess history will write the epitaph on someones grave that they were right and the other guy was wrong. Bragging rights is all we are going to get. Revere, if you think that a 25% military budget in China isnt something we have to respond to you are sadly mistaken. We are slipping fast and I like others said we couldnt fight a three theater war without using nukes. Cut the budget for the military and Iraq and you will see a nuke or two going off before the end of the decade.

I love the phrase "losing in Iraq." What, exactly, would that look like? Would Iraq descend into chaos, civil war, escalating violence, become a haven for terrorists?

And what would "winning in Iraq" mean? Would we root out those weapons of mass destruction? Unseat Saddam Hussein? Help Iraq hold democratic elections?

When the enemy is defined as "Terror" there is never going to be a way to win. I seriously suspect that those who claim that we must "win" in Iraq would actually prefer to see the war go on indefinitely.

Have we ever been able to fight a three theater war? IIRC, even our cold-war planning was for a two-theater war, or sort of a 2.5-theater war if you let in sea battles. And it's kind of a hazy, best-case scenario 2-theater kind of war.

That number of theaters also did not refer to simultaneous onset of war; it always assumed that we'd be able to establish some quick victories in the first and the shift resources to the next.

Not that anyone actually wanted to fight in multiple theaters; it's about deterring opportunistic enemies from attacking when we're distracted.

200 Billion a year is a lot for a war that is accomplishing nothing except making our enemies stronger and ignoring the real problem which sits just inside the border of Pakistan. The war in Iraq is lost and that is a moot point unless you want to talk about complete military mobilisation and by this I include a draft. The American people are tired of the lies and half truths of this administration and anyone still promoting this farce of a war is either consumed by blind faith or is a moron!

Hey boys and girls, I am not disagreeing with what you are saying. I am saying that the cost of doing business on this planet just went up. To lose in Iraq will make them all opportunistic and hey we can hit the giant and kill him slowly with the death of a thousand needle pricks.

I also can tell you that something cataclysmic is coming and soon. What in particular it will be will start to unfold soon and we will start to get the big picture. We have about a year left in Iraq one way or another. If we leave as we did in Vietnam it wont change a thing in this country for a couple of years. Then suddenly you will see China go for Taiwan, Iran goes for Iraq, Israel goes for Iran and suddenly we are in the biggest fur ball since WWII. Since the Dems are into social programs they always take from the military and spend it on the poor that will always be poor because they cant get elected otherwise. Then when the poo-pooh hits the rotary grinder having destructed the military we are going to lose thousands and for the first time we might have to lose a real war or worse win it in the most despicable manner.

This one is winable yet and the best way to stop it is to hit Teheran and HARD. They are funding Muqtada and others. They were providing support to Al Zawahiri and we went politically correct while they did. "Cant we all just get along?" No, not really. We understand they dont want to disarm? Then fine take them out of the equation....completely. You can draw your own conclusions as to what that means. Or you can watch it disintegrate into civil war. The big picture will be that a Persian leader will be running Iraq. That would be very, very bad. It would be Saddam in a different color headband.

In short order as I said above, someone is going to have bragging rights, much to the detriment of this country. I suggest that regardless of how you feel about it that your support should be there to ensure a success rather than defeat. The costs of a defeat would be tremendous. February-Dark of the moon and dont be surprised if you hear a lotta racket of bombs going off.

Randy: So you think, "Why wait? Let's get the ball rolling right away with an attach on Iran and Syria." Good thinking.

Exactly my point Revere. Hit them now and forget rebuilding-Target them every three months for about a year and just as they start to get back up on their feet we hit them again. The people or the moderates in the military will see the folly and take matters into their own hands. One thing for sure though and its going to happen and that is that Bushehr is going to be a thing of the past in the near future and they will do whats necessary to eliminate that threat. So for once lets just use those thousand pounders to make a point, hit them so hard that it will take them 50 years to rebuild...at their costs for a change.

China covets I think our little Iranian friends. It should escape no ones attention that the US is no longer the largest user of oil on this planet, China is. Look you arent wrong and neither are any of the above Revere. Things that have happened in the last 35 or so years have all happened on our watch and only because we were politically correct. If we had bombed Hanoi continously for six months there wouldnt have been a bodly left worth burying and we lost because the targeting list was handled by the White House. Just as operational command of Desert 1 was to get the hostages out.

We are going to have to hit them and soon across the board and I would start with Assad, then Ahmadinejad, finally Kim. If they wait its going to cost more and more lives on our part and theirs. Their attitude is untenable, therefore so is our position. We wont have any willy-nillies in the White House in the next election as by then all the issues are going to be out on that table and if you want to cut the military, you are going to have to cut the problem children of the world out. Going to Iraq was a good idea and it still is. Saddam is gone from the gong show. NEXT bad actor please.

My reading is that the Kurds in the north & Shia in the south have local terrorists under control. It's only in the big-city multi-ethnic multi-denominational area around Baghdad that terrorists can operate with impunity.

So I have hopes that doubling the concentration around Baghdad might work.

From where we are at this point of time, with what we know, Bush is following the optimum strategy. A democratic Iraqi state, if it can be obtained, is the best solution.

This war and possibly one in Iran is a last desperate try to get our hands on the Middle East Oil. While I think it is a dangerous gambit, in fact as conventional ERoEI oil runs out there will be no universal health care, child care etc. Our lifestyle is based on the high quality energy we have feasted on since the first gusher - none of the alternatives will support this lifestyle. Better we accept it and begin to conserve and learn to live with less than start WWIII over the last of the oil.

The Neocons know its running out, Dick Chenney knows its running out, the Russians know its running out (and are enjoying playing the energy card), the Chinese know its running out and are busily securing contracts for oil all over the world. The Iranians know its running out and are banking on being able to use the oil card to stop and invasion. Mr. Chavez and Mr Morales know it is running out . The more sophisticated Europeans largely know its running out. Only the American people are living in lala land thinking that they can say "our way of life is non-negotiable" and make is so by the act of believing it is so.

Randy seems to mould his "facts" to support his rhetoric. Randy, the Chinese and the U.S. have at least one thing in common. Neither has universal health care.

Randy: Did I forget the sarcasm tag on my response to you?

Not really Revere. You arent wrong about the above and neither really is the NYT. I think that the troop surge is a good idea, just as the Clintons did right up until the time we did it. Playing politics with soldiers in the field is a travesty. My complee point is that UHC is going to be a highly politicized issue that will bring down the government in lieu of the realities of what is really starting. WWIV started the day the Cold War ended. Skirmishes, battles and now finally its beginning to dawn on people that the oil is indeed running out, that China will become the new Russia that we oppose and that globalized economies while connected always have a leader. We are again going to have to outspend to win. That in itself will ensure that no UHC ever happens. S.Security and Medicare will collapse, even though they will throw money at it. The Japanese up until the 90's were the largest purchaser of our debt. The Chinese are now. The day they quit buying it up in bonds and bills is when they will have us and the government will have to tighten the belt.

Our fix may lie in the destabilization of the Chinese government where true democratic moderates would somehow take over. Tianamen Square almost did it. There needs to be another. Les, I wasnt moulding anything. Purely sarcastic about how all these other countries that really pay nothing for their defense and leave it to us to defend them have UHC. K is a blame Bush for everything person because he reviles Dick Cheney and others. Thats fine, he has the right to say what he wants. I would remind him though that it was Clinton who was offered Osama and let him go. WMD's were UN verified in Iraq and they just simply dissapeared and if you want to start moulding those facts to anyones way of thinking then do so. I just get tired of the constant barrage of what we need is UHC without any possibility on the horizon of paying for it and all of the other bullshit that has been dropped on the country. We beat the Russians with one thing. That was spending on the military. The B2 alone would have cost them 1/3rd of their entire GDP just to defend against. Now we are going to have to build a space based defense system against China's ability to stop our missiles now. They fielded it, we didnt, now we have to.

They start knocking down GPS satellites as an opening round and we will be in very deep trouble. The US has stated that this will be an act of war. It also would turn space into a flying shotgun blast and destroy communications satellites for years to come. Not to mention the fact that one of their subs deliberately surfaced inside of one our battle groups last month undetected. One nuke tipped torpedo would and could change the balance of power on this planet. Then the "How did they do that" come into play. Provocative? Thats twice in two months. For months the Chinese have had several nuclear capable cruisers in the S. China sea near Indonesia which wasnt and isnt public knowledge. So what in Hell are they doing way the Hell down there near the largest oil producer on that side of the planet? Its 110 degrees this time of the year, surely its not a cruise.

China is flexing its muscles and they are heading into the ring. UHC is a dead issue and wil never pass or if it does. It will be dropped like a rock in lieu of more important things. Its no longer cheap shit terrorism, it will be big country sponsored intimidation. Get used to a really turbulent time coming.

I sit on the Health committee of a rural county in Wisconsin. That is my basic frame of reference for talking about money allocation, and I have to say there is no local money for public health, diminishing State and Federal monies and growing needs that will imperil our community more than China having the bomb. My common sense says that this terror threat should have been treated as a police problem, not a war. Had we not burned every bridge in the western world and beyond, we might now be able to imprison terrorists, put them on trial and dispense with the threat in a civilized way. Now that we are in a corner of our own making the options are few, but the realities hit the ground hard in this small corner of the world.

Well I guess we will just use the numbers above as justification for what? 200 billion a year for a war is pretty cheap if you consider: 1990 dollars WWII cost 2.091 trillion without benefits and VA post care. 1990 dollars Vietnam cost 346 billion without benefits and VA post care. 1990 dollars Gulf War cost 61 billion without benefits and VA post care computed to reflect 1990 equivalents.

Wow! If I had known what a bargain the Iraq war is, I would have bought two!

Nancy: LOL.

There's a special tonight on Fox Cable News Channel, 8 p.m., 'Smokescreen'. David Asman is hosting it, don't care for him however, the subject matter is interesting. Hezzbollah in America.
MRK: You know I am with you all the way.
Iran, Iraq, Syria and all the others are small potatoes compared to China. If anyone can get their hands on some history concerning their invasion of Tibet it might serve you well to read it. Research and find information on how the Red Chinese treated the Buddist Monks. Beyond brutal is an understatement.

Ah, its okay. The libs outnumber the conservatives about 50 to one on this blog. Revere throws those things out in front of me just to get a rise. Pretty good guy though. If there were no wars or the need for them I might be on his side but never a lib.

In another discussion on this article, someone -- forgive me for forgetting who -- made the excellent point that the $100 million for universal healthcare is a poor way to represent the cost of healthcare, since we now spend twice what anyone else does for worse outcomes overall. Getting good, high quality and equitable healthcare would presumably save us big bucks, not cost us half a war as seen here. Just something to keep in mind.

Aside to M. Randolph Kruger: "liberals", please, not "libs". God forbid anyone should confuse me with a libertarian. Thanks.

MRK you wrote "K is a blame Bush for everything person because he reviles Dick Cheney and others. Thats fine, he has the right to say what he wants. I would remind him though that it was Clinton who was offered Osama and let him go."

I assert again that the war in Iraq and the one that is being considered in Iran has nothing to do with Osama. If you will read the Neocons on blueprint, The Project for the New American Century, you will discover that Iraq and Iran were in their sights for a long time. In fact they asserted that the warmongering they were lusting after would only be acceptable if there was a "New Pearl Harbor" type event to galvanize public opinion. Whether they engineered that event or Osama stupidly supplied it, they got it on 9/11.

Securing Middle East oil for the US on the downside of Peak Oil is the only way to go if you want to maintain the current American Lifestyle. I would assert however that it is not worth it and Americans can live well with less - all our Founding Fathers and Mothers did. I would also assert that their would be other ways to secure it for the US over China. But none of those things is why you are seeing the rats deserting the ship. They are deserting Bush because Bush, Chenney, Rice and Rummy flubbed it. They had a chance given to them by 9/11 to get more control over the remaining oil and they have really blown it (I think - they might have some devious plan that succeeds through apparent failure but I doubt it).

poughkeepsie: Very good point. We are already paying it and getting less for it.

This is not a comment.

Er, that was interesting.

Re: M. Randolph
So, if liberals are "libs," does that make conservatives cons?

K... You are absolutely correct. The current gig is not about Osama. Its to provide a buffer between Iran and to split the Persians from the Saudi's. Iran isnt building reactors for peaceful purposes and even Jordan now is starting to talk nukes. If you are a student of history Iran, Iraq, Syria, parts of Jordan and Saudi Arabia were a mishmash of sultanates, and largely under the control of the Ottoman Empire until the outbreak of WWi when Turkey backed the wrong horse. http://unimaps.com/iraq1914/

A lot of these countries were simply run together by the Brits and French and they are fiercely individualistic...But off to the west always lay Persia. We know about the Persian Army and they were baddassed in their time. But they always attempted to take Persia. Iraq actually used to be Syria/Iraq and part of Persia. So then in 1914 oil was discovered and suddenly everyone wanted a piece of their rocks. What is it about now? Oil and the economy of the entire world. This next map shows what the French and Brits did and talk about home rule and colonization it is exactly the same thing the Brits did in the 1920's. They carved it up and established borders. Kuwait was a hold out because no one wanted that marshland down at the base. http://unimaps.com/iraq1923/index.html but the Brits left it there as a beach head if it were ever needed.

Now we move to the 90's. They're Baaaaaaack! It was about oil then and the oil now. There are no cheap and easy answers any longer and the its all about the price of oil. As long as oil was at 80 bucks a barrel, the alternative cars were cost effective. Why in heck do you think its in the 40's today? The heir apparent to the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia said it himself. "Any oil that is greater than 35 dollars a barrel makes alternative technologies cost effective." So for you to assert that Americans can live with less is a BIG presumption on your part because you just think so. Some share your views. Okay, go in and turn off the plasma TV and your radio and move into a smaller house with solar cells that pollute the environment when they are done, drive your NiCad battery car that when used cadmium is released into the environment is ten times worse than anything oil could do, or if its lead/acid type bateries be sure to dispose of the acid and the lead properly as they are just terrible as well I want you to remember that its your idea to dump big oil K. Too many environmentalists think that they have the "BIG ANSWER" and I applaud them for trying but so far no one has come up with anything cost effective...and safe. When the price of "BIG OIL" goes to 100 or so, then safety will be dumped in lieu of "Big Hydrogen" or something like it.

My bet? A deal with the Chinese and we decapitate the leadership in Iran via air strikes or invasion. They get their little pipeline going back east or a continous tanker flow and we (the rest of the world) get the rest. Should start seeing this unfolding soon. Else its a big war coming. Fight a war over oil? Yep its already begun. I wont buy into the conspiracy theories of 9/11. Too easy to prove, too many people to silence to get away with it. But had we gone ahead and killed Saddam in the 90's we would have been a lot better off for it. We might have actually seen the Middle East as we would have liked it.

200 billion is cheap compared to 100 dollar a barrel oil. Its all about the numbers.

MRK - Myself and my partner (of the opposite sex so you don't go getting off on that tangent) live on $12,000 a year. We own our house and land so I acknowledge that people who have to rent or pay a mortgage would have to spend more. We live in a 625 sq foot "recylced home" - it was going to be torn down and we had it moved here. I wash clothes in a hand washing machine and heat with a wood cookstove. Our vehicles are late 80's - so no fancy non gasoline stuff there - but we repair them rather than trash them and buy something new. We shop clothes at goodwill and grow about 1/2 our own food. As I interact with other people who live farther up on the scale I observe that we are happier than most. For one, by not taking a highpaying fulltime job I have more spare time and less stress.

BTW I won't do solar - I don't like the materials used to make it and when you count the batteries I think the return is minimal. When the power goes it will be candles and early to bed for me :)

To assert that one cannot be happy living with less is to assert that all the Americans in the early centuries of our country were unhappy (even the rich had in many ways had less energy at their disposal than most current Americans). I don't think that is true - in fact reported happiness in at least one study puts some Latin American countries in the top 10 and the UK at 108 and the US at 150.

But again, this is about oil, but not just about the price of oil. It is about securing the remaining oil.

Since none of the alternatives, renewables, etc have the same high net energy as oil and gas, they will not sustain our current lifestyle when oil is gone. Price is misleading when you are dealing with energy. What matters is how much energy it takes to get your return - the more energy needed to produce energy the less left for other uses. When oil returned 100 units of energy for each unit of energy imputed we could do anything. At 10 to 1 we still do a lot - most alternatives are at about 2 to 1 or less. So more of the society's energy goes into just producing energy and is not available for producing goods. If the return is 1 to 1 or less ain't no point eh? Corn ethanol is believed by Dr. Pimental of Cornell to be 1 to 1 or less - price supports for farmers hide the difference.

As far as 9/11 - War Games were the cover - Brother Marvin Bush and cousin Wirt Walker were principals in the security company in the towers - do you really think Hani Hanjour who couldn't adequately pilot a small plane at a puddle jumper school, flew the jumbo jet that hit the Pentagon at ground level without crashing into the ground and do you really think we had no antiaircraft weapons in Washington DC at the Pentagon? The official conspiracy theory is absurd. The alternative is mind boggling but not impossible.

K-I'll be honest with you totally here. My 13 year old has time in a MD11 simulator. Once you get past the basics its pretty simple. A few hours in a flight simulator for the type you want to fly and you have it. I put him in for an afternoon over at Fedex and they told me he was a natural. They thru fire warnings and unsafe gears and cabin depressurizations and you know what he remembered? He remembered that his former controller and pilot dad told him that in all cases, "Fly the plane." Be glad that little Semaj wasnt packing heat on his little SW airlines adventure. He might have gotten pissed and hijacked the damned things.

To answer your questions though. Do you think it would escape anyone that Marvo Bush and cousin Walker were prinicipals. Pretty dumb if you are trying to provide cover for a conspiracy. By law old son the DC is a weapons free zone and ONLY the Congress of the United States has authority over it. Its for a reason. Except in the instances of national defense the President really cant do jack shit in DC.

Anti aircraft weapons are now deployed at the White House, Stingers and I am told that there is a Hawk battery or two secreted along the Potomac. I know if you deviate from the flight path at all there is a specific NOTAM that tells pilots that they had better have swimming lessons in the departure briefing because you are going down. But that is now and then was when.

I wouldnt expend any more effort on conspiracy theory unless you have more than a theory. Uses too much bandwidth.

MRK - I had a closer look at the info presented in the documentary re 911 conspiracy (see www.loosechange911.com ) and although I'm usually not prone to conspiracy theories, I have to admit there certainly seems to be some major unanswered questions on this one. I watched the 911 horror live on CNN as I was up late that night here in Oz, and when I first saw the Pentagon hit and they showed the hole in the wall before the roof collapse, I remember thinking "There's no way a commercial airliner hit there, where is the damage from the wings?" And the lack of video coverage of the Pentagon hit that to my knowledge has never been released, does not ease my suspicions either. I'd be interested to hear what others think of that films information.

Ask anyone in the E ring if it hit. They will be able to tell you. Also, there is camera footage of the thing going in. Its crappy at best because the frame time. No, no weapons batteries inside of DC at the time. Bad stupid move on the part of Congress but by the same token, would you want to be a lib and know that there were military officers not more than 15 minutes away with some really baddassed equipment that could take control? I think that was ordered in like 64 or so because of the civil rights and anti war protests. Terrible tragedy could have occurred if they had been there in full military strength.

Going back to the start of this thread - the cost of war in perspective - while I agree that there are better things to do with the money spent on the current wars, this graphic promotes a common misconception about health care in this country. Most people have the idea that our health care system is a shambles because we don't spend enough money on it. Most of the health care "reform" plans require more spending. However, we already spend more than twice as much on health than any other country. We don't need to spend more to have universal access to care and a reasonable public health service. We need to stop handing the money over to insurance and pharmaceutical companies for administration costs and profits.

MRK - you are really good at answering arguments that weren't made and therefore looking and acting like you have an appropriate argument. The question is not - can a 13 year old who is a natural fly a plane after some time on a simulator - the question is can a person who has shown himself to not be a natural on a small plane fly a jumbo jet in a maneuver that includes a sharp tight turn, a very steep descent and a leveling out at almost ground level at high speed to crash into a building without scraping the ground.

The question that Rob posed is not - did nothing hit the Pentagon - of course something did hit the pentagon and pierce all the way through to the E ring. The question is can a jet liner hit a building and disappear into it making a hole smaller than the plane itself.

The question regarding the security company is not was it cover - the question is why did they shut down whole floors in the weeks prior to 9/11 as reported by people who worked in the building - the question is one of access to set the detonation devices for a controlled demolition.

The war games is the question of confusion and misdirection on the day. At least 4 separate war games were happening on 9/11.

I cannot find proof that there were antiaircraft on the Pentagon, but before 9/11 there were antiaircrafto on the WH so you assertion about being weapons free is false. They had 45 mins to shoot down the Pentagon plane. Do you really want to assert that our airforce is that incompetent. Contrary to news sources there were fighter jets at Andrews airforce base just 15 miles from the Pentagon.

This is not an idle question - if the government 19 hijackers conspiracy is correct, massive governmental incompetence has gone unpunished. If in fact a new pearl harbor was allowed to happen or was even planned our republic is in grave danger.

Have you seen any annual breakdown of the costs to curb global warming? I've heard the total figure pegged at 1 trillion (versus the total war figure of 1.2 to 2 trillion), but I haven't seen anything on how much it would cost per year (and for how long) if a realistic plan was put into place.

K. So you know what it is I have attached the story which pretty well describes the events. All of the call signs are fighter related. The call to NORAD was made by the FAA way too late. FAA radars do NOT track altitudes unless the transponders are Mode C equipped. I can assure you that a pilot wit minimal training even in a Cessna 172 can and could pilot an airliner. The basics are the same. No landing gears or flaps or the such were involved. Remember they were training monkeys to fly one way bombers in the 1960's and did so successfully.

As for triple a batteries there werent any in place at the Pentagon, otherwise they would have shot them down. The WH has shot planes down before. Gerald Fords administration. And during the Clinton Administration I think there was a C-172 driven into the side of it. As for the airliner into the side of the Pentagon I guess all of those eyewitnesses and parts that were left in the building must have had a contract to close all those Pentagon offices too.. Wouldnt want everyone to see the engine parts....
Anyone seen Zapruder, we need his film of this one. No K. the wings on an airliner are designed to take a hit and then shear at the wing root so that the fuselage will have a fighting chance of remaining intact. The hole almost exactly matches the wing span but there is some indication that it dragged the ground in front as that particular pilot tried to level it off. He stil hit his target. Be advised at 450 mph it would take almost 1/2 mile for it to stop if it were bellied in. The Pentagon was made of reinforced steel in many sections.

Weapons free is a term that is only used when the pilot of an aircraft has been authorized to engage a target. Launching a heat seeker at an airliner in the NE corridor would have resulted in a major disaster if it had missed. Many of these missiles have a 80-100 mile range. FWIW war games are conducted with missiles with seeker heads only. They dont fire missiles K. You get the lock and the kill is confirmed by a computer. NORAD birds are not stationed at Andrews. Thats not their mission. You can look up something called SCATANA if you want and dig even more out of the woodwork to shore up the conspiracy theory. Bottom line. NO they cant sort out a non squawking target in broadband radar because it doesnt show up! FAA radars CAN revert to narrowband which will give a raw blip target but no altitude. In otherwords a C-172 being picked up in MTI (moving target indicator) mode will display the same size blip as a 777. Sorry, its just not set up that way. Nor would they fire a missile unless there was no other way to defeat a hijacker? Why waste a 250,000 dollar missile when a two second burst would from the 20mm on the front would cut the wing off and explode the fuel?

An F-16 can close on any target in the burners just about any where in the east coast in under 30 minutes if there were fighters in say Wilmington. That is if they know where it is. You see the TV and all of those codes on there? Thats transponder equipped aircraft. Thousands of targets that are not radar identified INCLUDING birds are on the scopes at any time. It want incompetence on anyones part. The ones that were turning towards NYC had their transponders on, then turned them off. I think one still had his on though.

I wish I had more time to explain this stuff but feel free to look up SCATANA and KNEECAP. You will find that all procedures were followed once the FAA made the call. I can answer just about anything you throw and please do to memphisservices@bellsouth.net.

Or visit http://ecfr.gpoaccess.gov/cgi/t/text/text-idx?c=ecfr&sid=58adad8d2a7c76…