Sunday, January 21, 2007

Proper Procedure?

9-11 Deniers love to claim that if the proper procedures have been followed, all four planes would have been shot down before they reached their targets. Of course, this would still have resulted in a 9-11 "Truth" Movement, just with different charges:

The airliners were shot down so that Ted Olsen could get out of his marriage! Todd Beamer had discovered something in the Oracle databases that indicated the Florida 2000 election should have been won by Gore!


Ad nauseum. But I've never really looked into the question of shooting down aircraft by the military. As it happens, there is a procedure, and the procedure as of June 2001 said that the military may not shoot down planes:

3. Procedures

a. General. Military personel will provide the following types of support: intercept, surveillance, lift, equipment and communications. Military personnel may not participate in a search, seizure, arrest or similar activity. This restriction would include the apprehension of aircraft hijackers or use of military aircraft (fixed-wing or helicopter) or other vehicles as platforms for gunfire or the use of other weapons against suspected hijackers.


Of course there could be a shoot-down order, because the Commander in Chief could supersede these standing orders. But the notion that shooting down the planes should have been automatic procedure is nonsense, like most of the other stuff the 9-11 Deniers say.

4 Comments:

At 21 January, 2007 11:05, Blogger The Artistic Macrophage said...

We should nickname them "Tom Clancyists"

 
At 21 January, 2007 11:09, Blogger Alex said...

Not to shoot down your theory (pardon the pun), but isn't this one of the things the deniers were confusing about? You said that this order was on the books as of June 2001, and, if I remember correctly, the deniers claim that the rules were changed around this time to make them more restrictive. Obviously the allegation is that Bush changed the rules so the airforce would have an excuse for not shooting down the planes.

 
At 22 January, 2007 15:36, Blogger Alex said...

awesome, thanks for the info, Rob.

 
At 23 January, 2007 08:05, Blogger The Masked Writer said...

"The employment of U.S. military forces in response to acts or threats of domestic terrorism may be requested only by the President (or in accordance with Presidential Decision Directives) and must be authorized by the President. All requests for assistance in responding to acts or threats of domestic terrorism must also be approved by the Secretary of Defense." (my emphasis).

So after the first plane hit, why weren't the other 3 shot down?

 

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