My question is more along the lines of: what will we say if/when it actually happens? It's really just a matter of time, right?
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Fairly easy to predict, I think.
Should the USAF shoot down a hijacked plane over people, some will call it a *tragic necessity* essentially placing the folks killed by the descending wreckage into the collateral damage category (this is totaler krieg against *Islamo-fascism* we're told so such things - horrible though they may be - will happen).
Others will say that it was a wreckless display of mechanized machismo and that negotiations with the jackers or some sort of diversion was possible.
An emotionally overwrought Congress will pass yet another ka-razy law expanding the powers of DOJ and DOD and requiring measures (such as shadowing all passenger jets with fighters) that will be impractical.
The most expensive elements will be dropped but the expanded snooping and intrusion powers will remain.
In the discussion melee, nearly everyone will forget the obvious: once things move to the hijacking phase, your police and intel folks have failed to do their jobs and all choices are bad ones.
Ashcroft will give a typical speech about the *urgent need* for thus and so. He'll answer no questions about DOJ's inability to intercept the jackers but will insist that shiny new laws will help prevent the terrorists from spilling American blood again.
DRM