Nathan corrected: boeings, buildings, bureaucracy

RE earnest at tallynet.com
Thu Sep 13 11:07:15 PDT 2001



:While we're on the subject, and despite what you have read here, nobody on
lbo-talk has any real knowledge of the following topics (I am happy to be proved wrong)

real knowledge? Here's one collection witnessed statements of opinion and analysis.
>
> * how difficult it is to pilot a Boeing
There have been wildly varying estimates in media coverage, and I think the variation stems from different preconceptions regarding the terrorists' (ain't calling these guys guerrilas) organizational base. What has not been disputed is the great difference between flying an already airborne jet and getting it off the ground/landing it. After that, some people say, particularly regarding 757s and 767s, they are not hard to fly, and that flight-sim work would be enough, and others claim full training would be required. The interviews I watched have started to blur, but I think I saw one pilot in the "wouldn't be hard to fly it" group. I speculate that this is one reason why they went for 757/67s and not the larger, but harder to fly 747s.


> * what makes steel-frame skyscrapers fall down
I've seen interviews with three different structural engineers who say that the huge loads of jet fuel would be enough to sustain a fire that would burn through the insulation around the steel beams and cause them to melt. From there, as one nicely put it, the stored energy ("when they built those buildings in the 197x, they stored a lot of energy") was released. I believe that a key additional element is that the impact of the jet would screw up the sprinkler system enough to allow the fire to work on the insulation more powerfully. Of course, it's only speculation now that the terrorists selected LA bound planes because of the greater fuel on board, but that makes sense.
> * what the FBI, CIA or any other confidential agency knew at any time in
the last year. What they knew and what they could get noticed within the government are two separate questions. I was surprised (I still have some capacity for it) to see a posting of the Scheer article on Bush giving the Taliban over 70 million for drug suppression. = a big, powerful agency covering for them in policy circles ---> warnings get ignored, sent back for confirmation, buried under optimism about growing US influence/cooptation. Some boring political science classes may have me too primed to look for the influence of bureaucratic politics and inertia, but with regard to the War on Drugs, it has to be a factor. re


>
> =====
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more difficult, and a great public propaganda will be required to inaugurate it. -- Bertrand Russell
>
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