You have commented 339 times on Rantburg.

Your Name
Your e-mail (optional)
Website (optional)
My Original Nic        Pic-a-Nic        Sorry. Comments have been closed on this article.
Bold Italic Underline Strike Bullet Blockquote Small Big Link Squish Foto Photo
Fifth Column
Nader’s 9/11 Plan
2003-08-12
Uh, I know that the PC crowd likes to rewrite history but sheeessshhh the cajones on this guy!Likely 2004 third-party presidential hopeful Ralph Nader thinks the 9/11 terrorist attacks wouldn’t have happened if he had been president. He claims that amid all the big decisions new presidents have to make after inauguration, he would have ordered cockpit doors to be hardened against attack. He says an old report warning about how easy it is to get in the cockpit still sticks with him. What’s more, he would have wiped out Osama bin Laden and his gang without a shot being fired. How? Bribe Osama’s friends to hand him over.
Posted by:Secret Master

#3  So he thinks he would have been able to order an immediate stand-down of the whole passenger air fleet redesign and refit equipment on every kind of airliner between inauguration 01/01 and 11/01 ? Without being impeached over the airline bankruptcies, massive layoffs and economic disruption? He would have, I guess, waved the report around and said, "I just saved you ungrateful jerks from certain terrorist attack." The two most discouraging thoughts that come to my mind are 1.) He has a constituency to whom his couterfactuals seem plausible, 2.) None of the above mentioned follow up questions seem to have occured to the interviewing journalist.
Posted by: Anonymous   2003-8-12 9:26:21 PM  

#2  Talk to any airline pilot about hardened cockpit doors and they will tell you it's a double edged sword. In case of emergency, the door may be the only way out for the pilots. Any deformation in the airframe may cause the door to be un-openable. In such a case, a normal door may still be forced open, perhaps with an axe, but with a hardened door, it may be that much harder to do so. This is perhaps why that "old report" Nader mentioned had been dropped.

But of course, I doubt that Nader ever thinks about things like this.
Posted by: Raphael   2003-8-12 7:41:16 PM  

#1  Riiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiight........
Posted by: Raj   2003-8-12 7:12:55 PM  

00:00