Looks like the air marshals are cutting costs. Apparently stopping terrorist attacks is just not a priority for this administration.
I have nothing to debate here, but wonder if foreign airline carriers have their own version of air marshals. I think El Al is probably the best, in terms of security.
Well, that should get bush re-elected. Another succesful attack and he can do a bunch of flag waving. Things must be starting to slow down to much and he needed another distraction
I’ll just reiterate that the timing is simply impecable:
Well, one could argue that air marshalls are not necessary at all. The fourth flight that went down on 9/11 could be a case in point. Not to mention increased cockpit security and rules of engagement.
It’ll be tragic, but I don’t think that the fliers will allow another 9/11. Not for a good long time. Craters in the ground, yes, but I’m pretty sure that most people could get the courage to charge in order to prevent what happened happening again. 9/11 only worked because there were rules to being hijacked. Now the rules have changed on both sides.
First, Simultaneously issuing warnings of the PROBIBILITY of more suicide airline high jackings AND pulling armed guards off coast to coast flights might make a person wonder if 1) the warnings are just so much cover-your-butt hysteria out of the Defense of the Fatherland Directorate or 2) if the air marshals are all that effective. It can’t imagine that having an armed policeman or a flight would not be the best possible way to stop an attempted high jacking short of driving the aircraft into the ground. I can’t imagine that having potential high jackers think that there are armed police officers on board would not effectively deter high jackers. That being so, I tend to regard the warning as so much hype. If not, it ill behooves the administration to let down their guard just as the threat increases. If an unguarded flight is high jacked, or if there is an attempt to highjack an unguarded flight, I would think that there would be hell to pay at the next election. This has been given enough publicity that the Administration can hardly claim not to know about it.
Second, even though it is unlikely that air passengers will ever again regard a high jacking as a mere incontinence, and even though air passengers can be expected to resist a highjack attempt, and even though pilots MAY be armed and cockpits armored, it seems pretty irresponsible for the Defense of the Homeland guys to simply announce that airlines passengers are in future going to have to look out for them selves.
Perhaps someone from the Heritage Institute or the US Chamber of Commerce has done a cost analysis on the air marshals and concluded that it is cheaper to drive a multi-million dollar aircraft and a quarter thousand souls into the ground that to pay air marshals?
I agree that in this day and age, anyone trying to hijack an airliner in flight will have to deal with a cabin full of pissed-off passengers, instead of the former passel of passive sheep.
On the other hand, assuming this turn of events doesn’t get buried on page 14 and quickly forgotten, it’s still not going to look good to the Administration in any way, shape, or form. Even the folks who’d fight back wouldn’t want to be martyrs for their country – especially if the air marshalls are being pulled back to save money by avoiding an overnight hotel stay (“What do you mean, that our lives are worth less than a night at Motel 6?”).
I think you guys are being hopelessly naive if you think there’s no chance of another successful highjacking because the passengers are going to fight them off. First of all, you’re assuming that highjackers are going to attempt the same thing with boxcutters; they won’t. Remember that the “shoe-bomber” managed to get on a plane, post-9/11, with a large amount of explosives, and the only thing that prevented tragedy was that the stuff got wet and he couldn’t ignite it fast enough before he was stopped. We need to think past what’s already been done, because they aren’t likely to try the same thing again. I’m sorry to say, but a handful of heroic passengers isn’t going to prevail against guns or bombs. In fact, we don’t even know for a fact that the “heroes” were successful on 9/11. We know that they were planning to attack the highjackers, and we know that the plane crashed, but to this date the government has been extremely light on releasing any details of what happened in the interim. I think it’s folly to rely on the passengers to prevent highjackings. Air marshals were one of the few counter-terrorism measures that actually made sense.
Ah, yes, and OF COURSE that would be FAR BETTER than having an armed air marshall who could take the bastards down without killing everybody on the plane. It is FAR BETTER that EVERYBODY on the plane die than one pay for an air marshall.
:wally
Air marshalls would do jack shit against someone like the shoebomber. Anyone willing to blow himself up along with everyone on board isnt going to be afraid of an Air marshall pointing a gun at him.
Take note that the shoebomber was stopped by passengers and regular crew, not air marshalls. Alert Quick thinking passengers are better deterrents than an armed air marshal in every flight.
That wasn’t my point. The point is that it’s not impossible to get past security with weapons. The next highjacking attempt is not going to be with boxcutters. You’ve heard of plastic guns that can get past metal detectors, haven’t you? Please tell me how your “alert quick thinking passengers” are going to be more effective in that case than a TRAINED, armed sky marshal. You know what you’re gonna do as a passenger when the plane is highjacked and the highjackers have guns? You’re gonna piss your pants, and that’s about it.
I’m not saying air marshals are going to magically fix everything, but the one thing I know for a certainty is that relying on the passengers to fight highjackers is pure stupidity.
Presumably the Air marshal will have bullets in his gun.
I cannot believe that the administration would be willing to reduce the number of air marshalls if there really was a credible threat looming in the near future. They would be crucified if a plane was hijacked with no air marshalls aboard. No, it seems far more logical that they are reducing the number of marshalls because they see no immediate threat of a hijacking. Doesn’t mean they can’t continue to cry wolf to the sheep that blindly support their every statement.
Well, DHS says it’s a bunch of hooey: http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,93311,00.html
That article isn’t talking about the same thing andros. There wont be less air marshals. The air marshals just wont be on the flights that are deemed to be high risk anymore.
Oh, I realize that. It’s just funny to me that the administration is assuaging our fears by responding . . . er, to a completely different issue.
Dogface, I didn’t say it’d be pretty. I said it would be tragic. What I was responding to was the “another 9/11” section of the OP.
Air marshals would be a good thing, generally, as far as I can tell. Better airport security would be better. Frankly, as much as they screw with passengers, the crew of an airport still has holes, from what I read on the news.
So, let’s see. . . . the object was found in the crew quarters and it was in the possession of the crew. . . what was the danger? that it might explode?
Well thank God it wasn’t a fingernail clipper. They would have had to ship everyone off to Guantanamo Bay for interrogation.