Downing American Aircraft

June 18, 2004

Downing American Aircraft

The 9/11 Commission has released their criticism of the military’s action the morning of 9/11. The biggest criticism is that US military fighter jets didn’t shoot down unarmed civilian airliners fast enough.

What a bunch of monkeys. Have we forgotten our pre-9/11 mindset? Hijackers typically diverted a flight, chanted a lot in front of cameras, then released the hostages. It didn’t take long for our mindset to change – when Todd Beamer on the Pennsylvania flight said his infamous, “Let’s roll,” our attitudes had changed. We weren’t going to sit quietly in our chairs while hijackers rammed buildings. I’m pretty sure Americans would have been horrified that military fighters had shot down a civilian aircraft – we weren’t yet that steeled. We still aren’t that steeled – constant criticism of our actions in Iraq that we don’t have proof of WMD or links to Al Qaeda says the left doesn’t think we should take military action. But they’d be ok with shooting down a civilian jet that was off course and silent?

I don’t think so – I know *I* would want proof before shooting down Americans. We didn’t get any radio calls from the hijackers that day – “Hallo, zees is zee hijacker on American Air Flight 1234. Zees is a jeehad and we are going to crash into… wait, eez zat your F-16?”

Even after 9/11, that’s a slope we don’t want to go down if we don’t have to. I remember hearing that morning that the US may have to shoot down an aircraft – and then we thought maybe we *did* shoot one down, the Pennsylvania flight. The outrage was already starting to build against our military when we found out that heroes on board were responsible.

Our military is supposed to protect American, and reports to a civilian Commander in Chief for a reason. And encouragement to our military to take action on Americans ought to be 150% sure that we’re taking the right action.

So why is it ok to shoot down unarmed American aircraft, but not ok to take action against the mass-murdering, WMD-using, country-invading, Al Qaeda-supporting Iraq?

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Michael

Follower of Jesus, conservative, freedom-loving patriot.

5 responses to “Downing American Aircraft”

Courtney

June 18, 2004 at 8:19 am

I don’t think the 9/11 commission speaks the voice of America. I also don’t think people have a problem with taking action against Al-Queda supporters. You didn’t hear much backlash about Afganistan. What I think people have a problem with (and hey- I am not the voice of America, either) is invading an entire country and the innocent civilian deaths of those in Iraq. You can’t tell me no innocent Iraqis have lost their lives. I can see both sides in this issue. I would really love to see a non-biased poll of the Iraqis about whether this war has helped or hurt their country more.

I definitely agree that the idea of having to shoot down a civilian aircraft is a horrific thought, especially as the wife of an airline pilot.

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Michael

June 18, 2004 at 9:31 am

I can see how you’d be against having your husband’s plane shot down.

And I understand that objection; there was innocent life lost during the Iraq invasion. My counter to that is the loss of innocent life was far greater under Saddam Hussein; estimates over 10 years were as high as 1.2 million people. The US killed thousands, maybe, but it was collateral, certainly not intentional. Saddam killed them on purpose and showed no signs of stopping.

The Iraqi blogs I’ve been reading (unscientific, I know, but certainly better than having them filtered through big media) show that most Iraqis are glad Saddam is gone and they still want Americans there. They also want Americans to leave as soon as possible, which is understandable since we do, too. Their biggest complaint is that they feel Iraq was humiliated by the invasion.

I’ll inflict humiliation in order to save 1.2 million lives any day.

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Michael

June 18, 2004 at 12:19 pm

Nice post. Yeah that whole shooting down a civilian airliners *seems* like a good idea in hindsite. It’s easy to make judgement calls though, when you’re not on the airliner (or have family there) and you’re not the pilot pulling the trigger to shoot it down. I’m honestly not sure which would have been more terrible, the terrorist attacks being successful or the terrorists forcing us to kill our own people to prevent those attacks. Clearly the way things went, more people died. But the outcome was at least a brief period of unity against those who would attack us (how quickly some forget eh?). Had we shot them down, I think the fallout would have torn our country apart. Oh well, what do I know? 😉

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Stephen

June 18, 2004 at 5:44 pm

I heard this report on the way to work this morning and all I could think was “why are they all pointing their fingers at each other?” Nobody could of predicted this. We don’t think about hijackers ramming buildings. We do now.
If our leaders spend half as much energy learning from what happened as they do pointing at one another and placing blame, I think we could keep it from happening again.

p.s. I am learning to voice an opinion, how am I doing? 🙂

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Michael

June 20, 2004 at 10:28 am

Excellent, bro. 🙂

I’d love it if the Democratic Party would be trying to help America instead of finding ways to tear down Republicans. Our country is stronger when we’re working together.

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About Me

Michael, a sinner saved by grace, sharing what the good Lord has shared with me.

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