Terror in the Skies, Again?
Charles Johnson
Thu Jul 15, 2004 at 6:50 pm PDT • Views: 592
At Womens Wall Street, a highly disturbing must-read (and I stress, must-read) article for anyone who flies often, by Annie Jacobsen: Terror in the Skies, Again? (Hat tip: Instapundit.)
Jacobsen recounts a white-knuckle flight from Detroit to Los Angeles, that she and her husband shared with a group of about 15 Middle Eastern men (they turned out to be Syrians) who were almost certainly (judging from her description) conducting a dry run for a repeat of September 11, with teams of hijackers prepared for passenger resistance.
Conventional wisdom in the post-9/11 crowd says that airline passengers will fight back and overcome any hijack attempt. But what if passengers are faced with a highly organized team of 15-20 hijackers, with unconventional and undetectable weapons, conditioned by a lifetime of indoctrination to commit mind-wrenchingly savage acts of violence? And what if our government is still too hobbled by political correctness to recognize threats in time to deal with them—before the hijackers board the plane?
We should not be too complacent about our ability to resist if we find ourselves in a hijack situation, oh lizardoids. As much as we admire the passengers of Flight 93, we must not underestimate the enemy’s ability to learn from their mistakes and exploit our weaknesses.
And we shouldn’t underestimate their desire to repeat September 11.
Frank says: