Beyond Boxcutters

Someone sent me a nasty e-mail a couple years ago, after I wrote that on 9/11 "a handful of thugs managed to murder 3,000 people at once with a few boxcutters." Didn't I know, he asked, that they actually had bombs?

I didn't take him as seriously as I should have (note to future correspondents: a crankish tone and personal abuse will not help you sell your case), but I've since read some good reasons to believe that he was onto something. Now Gail Sheehy, writing in the New York Observer, is asking some of the questions that naturally follow:

…The independent commission is in a position to demand such answers, and many more. Have any weapons been recovered from any of the four downed planes? If not, why should the panel assume they were "less-than-four-inch knives," the description repeatedly used in the commission's hearing on aviation security? Remember the airlines' first reports, that the whole job was pulled off with box cutters? In fact, investigators for the commission found that box cutters were reported on only one plane. In any case, box cutters were considered straight razors and were always illegal. Thus the airlines switched their story and produced a snap-open knife of less than four inches at the hearing. This weapon falls conveniently within the aviation-security guidelines pre-9/11.

But bombs? Mace or pepper spray? Gas masks? The F.B.I. dropped the clue that the hijackers had "masks" in a meeting with the Four Moms from New Jersey, the 9/11 widows who rallied for this independent commission.

The Moms want to know if investigators have looked into how the pilots were actually disabled. To think that eight pilots -- four of whom were formerly in the military, some with combat experience in Vietnam, and all of whom were in superb physical shape -- could have been subdued without a fight or so much as a sound stretches the imagination. Even giving the terrorists credit for a militarily disciplined act of war, it is rare for everything to go right in four separate battles….

Comments

[J. Alexander Lowman]

Jean Bart, I now remember an Egypt Air flight a few years ago that crashed into the ocean (iirc). One of the flight crew had been switched at the last minute, and the thought was that he was a possible terrorist. On the flight recorder, you could hear him praying (someone was praying, at least, I'm not sure if it was known to be him)before the plane crashed. Of course when it was suggested that this was a suicide mission, many people in the Arab world protested that Islam forbids suicide, etc, etc. I was following the story very closely when all the sudden, most all coverage of it stopped. And it stopped right around when the Arab world was really getting pissed about the claims of a suicide thing and it seemed the US was about to 'apologize', or at least were backpeddling on the issue.

Does anybody else remember that event? I remembered it soon after the 9/11 thing and thought, "Wow, that was probably some sort of practise run."

[glenn]

On the EgyptAir flight, Debka file pointed out there there were some elite antiterrorist folks on that flight. So this *could* have been an assasination.

[Ken Hagler]

It's become popular to say that there will never be another successful hijacking, because the passengers will take out the hijackers. However, I have not yet seen any reason to believe that is true. In fact, what evidence is available suggests that it would _not_ be true: this incident, for example.

[joe]

Ever wonder if traditional hijackers are pissed at Al Qaeda for ruining their gig?

[Shannon Love]

Jean Bart,

You shouldn't be surprised that their are numerous inconsistencies in the various accounts of 9/11. There are always numerous inconsistencies in the accounts of event large or small. You are no doubt aware of the man studies of eye witness testimony were a dozen people can witness the same event under controlled conditions and yet report twelve different descriptions of the event. Large scale events involving thousands of people are even worse. Pick any historical event at anytime and you will find a seeming blizzard of "contradictions."

The only people surprised by contradictions are conspiracy theorist. At heart, conspiracy theorist believe the world is easily understood and controlled so if a seemingly chaotic event occurs, it must really be the result of conscious action and planning of some cabal somewhere. They would rather believe that somebody evil runs then world than to believe that nobody really knows what is going on.

But you are correct that the U.S. government in general could have anticipated the 9/11 or something similar. Indeed, the 1993 attack on the WTC and the 1995 plot to destroy bridges and tunnels leading into Manhattan were intended to produce casualties on par with 9/11. Yet, the government under both Clinton and Bush largely ignored these facts.

I suspect they did so largely because it would require a huge shift in institutional and political thinking. Politically, stopping mass causality attacks requires a preemptive doctrine. The handful of deaths caused by political theater terrorism can be addressed reactively by law enforcement and criminal justice but thousands of deaths must be prevented, not avenged, using every tool in the national arsenal.

Considering the shitstorm that the preemptive doctrine provoked after 9/11 its difficult to imagine a politicians bold and imaginative enough to risk cramming their career into that particular chipper shredder before the bodies piled up.

A conspiracy of complacency is all that is regard to explain 9/11. Nobody wanted to rock the boat.

[J. Alexander Lowman]

Shannon, sounds like you're pro pre-emption. I'm still bothered by the pre-emption thing, myself. Sets a bad precedent for other countries, besides throwing away years and years of US restraint, which I think made us morally superior to others in a lot of ways. When I heard about 9/11 (on the morning of 9/11, of course), I said, "That's the price you may have to pay for living in a free country." That may have been a cold thing to say, but I still believe it. Too bad not everyone (our current administration, especially) agrees with me.

[steve]

Yeah, it's too bad our leaders don't agree with Mr. Lowman and just let us get murdered. "Oh well, shit happens. That's the price you have to pay."

[jfk]

It's one thing to follow the orders of hijackers to land a plane safely somewhere else, it's another to surrender the controls of the aircraft itself.

All we can do is speculate whether the pilots would surrender with a struggle or without one. But it is also true that we can only speculate about the box cutters, there is no proof that box cutters and plastic knives were the weapons. (It would be a nice liability-reducing fact if they were.) Putting the two together, did all the pilots of FOUR planes surrender to a physical threat of box cutters? That's where the "four battles" arguement rests.

[J. Alexander Lowman]

How does having the freedom to travel without bullshit regulations that don't really stop determined terrorists amount to letting us get murdered? I suppose that you're one of those people who believes that sacrificing some of their essential freedoms for the feeling of safety is necessary. Well I'm sure I'm not the only person who would disagree with you there. And what, pray tell, would you have done differently, steve? Would you have attacked Saudi Arabia, Egypt, Iraq, etc, etc before they murdered us first? That makes sense.

[Shannon Love]

J. Alexander Lowman,

Your point is completely valid. You may in the end be correct. It's very much a gamble and judgment call.

I believe that military pre-emption and a slight extension of intelligence and police powers pose less of long term threat to our freedom. I believe this because I observe that more states have slipped into tyranny due to ineffectiveness and chaos than from a slow and lawful growth of power. (Though that presents its own dangers)

Reflect, that if we had been just a little more imaginative and aggressive we could have prevented 9/11 and all the subsequent expansion of government power. If we had put boots on the ground in afghanistan after the Africa bombings. If we had used more aggressive profiling on immigrants and visitors or more strictly enforced visas. If we had allowed better communication between law enforcement and intelligence. If we had done any of these things we would not have the Patriot Act and another Cold War like conflict today. Yet every one of these steps were opposed by the very people who now decry the sudden expansion of state power.

My greatest fear is that really large scale chemical, biological or nuclear attack will drive us into a surveillance state. If we remain on the defensive and let the terrorist strike at us from oversea sanctuaries I believe another large attack is inevitable.

I would rather run the risk inherent in a preemptive doctrine than risk a mass attacks that may trigger a fast slide to tyranny.

[Steve in CO]

I hear you J. Unfortunately that argument seems to no longer be operative.

The "we have to do something," crowd forgets that "something," doesn't have to be an even more belligerent foreign policy sure to beget further blow-back.

[joe]

Shannon, you aren't arguing for "preemptive" action. You are arguing for "preventive" action. When Israel saw Syrian armor massing on the border, it knew an attack was coming, and preempted it. Iraq, on the other hand, had no intentions of attacking us, nevermind being in the process of putting such an attack together. That war was preventive, and getting the commentariat to use the word "preemptive" is one of the great newspeak coups of all time.

Just to be clear, preemption is "that guy with a gun is about to shoot me, so I'm going to get him first." Prevention is "that guy with a gun could decide to shoot at me some day, so I'm going to get him before he gets any ideas."

[Tardy]

It wasn't bombs, knives, boxcutters or gas that caused 9-11. It was our neocon hyperventionaist policys.

[yelowd]

I'd never thought about the issue of subduing the pilots. Maybe they went easy just like any number of other hijackings. Some sort of gas would be interesting and that would subdue an entire plane. But still, the flight that crashed in PA, people were able to call so they didn't "win" all four battles.

[Jesse Walker]

But still, the flight that crashed in PA, people were able to call so they didn't "win" all four battles.

Good point.

[yelowd]

Well, having now gone to the linked site, the conspiracy theories have me hook line and sinker. Good bye, productive friday.

[Shannon Love]

Jesse Walker,

I think you're missing a critical detail. It was not necessary for the terrorist to overpower the flight crew. The flight crews would have surrendered without a fight.

Prior to 9/11 flight crews were legal required to obey the orders of highjackers. Since all previous hijackings had been precursors to extended media events on a tarmac somewhere, flight crews were trained not to resist hijackers but to follow orders, land the plane and let the drama play out.

To seize the aircraft on 9/11 all the terrorist had to do was to hold a knife to the throat of steward or passenger and the flight crew would have stopped resisting. (In fact, if memory serves, one of the flight crew reported on a telephone call that the pilots were with her unharmed at the rear of the plane)

The critical failure leading up to 9/11 was the misapprehension that terrorism had evolved from the Cold War era political theater with few or no civilian casualties to a new brutal form that sought to inflict mass casualties on the general population.

Post 9/11 it does not matter how much firepower you smuggle on board the aircraft because both the flight crew and passengers will fight to death to keep control.

[JD]

I had similar thoughts. "it is rare for everything to go right in four separate battles"? Earth to Sheehy: everything didn't go right for the hijackers, unless you think that they meant to crash one plane in an empty field.

I'm also perplexed by the statement, "We can't imagine that passengers were able to get a cart out of its locked berth and push it down the single aisle and jam it into the cockpit with four strong, violent men behind the door." Why? The carts are locked up, but they're not exactly bank vaults, and anyway, some of the flight staff was still back there with the passengers, so couldn't they have gotten it out? And the passengers apparently had more than four strong, violent men on their side.

I agree that there are a bunch of unanswered questions, but I'm not sure how important most of them are. The hijackers claimed to have a bomb, but only one person reported actually seeing one, and that doesn't mean it was even a real bomb. (It probably wasn't, given the terrorists' demonstrated MO.) We do know that they started off by killing people with edged or stabbing weapons, apparently as a psychological tactic more than anything else, and it seems to have worked. Why all the fuss over exactly what they used?

[Ben]

I had always assumed what Shannon describes was what happened. It a period with armed air marshals and F-16 escorted jumbo jets, its easy to forget what it was like pre 9/11.

[Jason Bigaldo]

Slit the throat of a passenger, grab two stewardesses, have one guy threaten that he has a bomb. Once you have the pilots' attention, explain that you want the navigator and co-pilot to leave the cockpit and the pilot to fly the plane somewhere. They say no, slice up a stewardess' face, start her screaming. Still say no, kill one. Repeat with second stewardess.

Prior to 9-11, I don't think there was a single pilot that wouldn't have complied by this point, hoping to save the life of the 2nd stewardess. Once the two are out of the cockpit and tied up, the pilot gets killed.

I'm not saying that gas, etc. weren't used, just that 4 or 5 guys with only knives probably could have pulled it off reliably 4 out of 4 times (they did take the cockpit on all 4 flights, it was ,however, either taken back off of them on flight 93 or about to be ).

[Jesse Walker]

JD: Because it has implications for airline security (and liability). If the terrorists smuggled in already illicit stuff like bombs and mace, that was a failure by the airlines to enforce the already existing security rules. If they pulled the whole thing off with knives less than four inches long, then hey, it's just the rules that need fixing, right?

Shannon: You're almost certainly right, and as some other posters have noted Sheehy is wrong about the hijackers winning all four battles anyway.

[xray]

"they didn't "win" all four battles"

The hijackers took control of all four planes away from their flight crews. That was a success. One team failed in the next step of the plan - to take out a building. But to say they failed is weak. Terrorists destroyed an airplane and killed everyone inside it. On any day except 9/11 that would be a terrorist success.

[Jason Bigaldo]

What Shannon said, I type really slow and hadn't seen it yet.

And I meant flight attendant, flight attendant. Sorry, I'm old.

[Jean Bart]

Well, there are alot of inconsistencies in the 9/11 story. One for example we often hear is that the U.S. government could never have expected this sort of attack, yet in 1994 some Algerian terrorists tried to attack Paris the same way and their plane was stopped.

[thoreau]

Probably the most important point is that it will never happen again. They might try, but the passengers will fight back. We all used to be told that hijackers want some drama on a tarmac, followed by a trip to Havana. Now the passengers know that the plane will be headed to a skyscraper. So they'll fight. The hijackers will fail, and in the end those hijackers who survive the passenger revolt will indeed get a trip to Cuba, just no Havana.

[J. Alexander Lowman]

Shannon's right on the money. They didn't have to use much violence or threats at all, I'm sure. And you know what, the terrorists knew this and that is why their plan was so horrifically successful.

[Trey]

I've read before that resisting hijackers was a federal crime, and that the heroes of the flight that crashed in PA were actually breaking the law.

Is this true? If so, is it still true?

[thoreau]

Joe, sadly, some people here understand precisely what you mean but still think that preventive war is a good idea.

[Stephen Fetchet]

It happens that a friend of mine is the brother of the flight attendant who had her throat slit with a small blade, on the plane that was flown into the Pentagon, according to a cell phone call made from the plane by a passenger.

And FYI, Tardy, I don't think the "Neocon hyperventionists" had anything to do with the attacks, any more than they caused the 93 WTC bombing or the attack on the Cole - things that happened prior to the existence of the so-called NeoCons. Your history is asynchronous; I'd recommend reading less Marcus Greil. And FWIW, we'd likely be under attack whether Bush or Al Bore was president, whether Ferdinand & Isabella completed the "tragedy of Andalusia" in the Reconquista ain 1492, whether Charles Martel pounded the Caliphate at Tours in 732, or some guy named Henry left the toilet seat up last night at 3:10 AM on the Upper West Side. The Islamofascists hate us because they fucking hate us, nothing we did per se caused it, nothing we can do will alleviate it. Not everything has root causes; some things just are.

[Matthew Cromer]

Yes, restraining from intervention is clearly the moral high road. Who cares if a bunch of A-RABS get bulldozed into mass graves, anyway!

[Grumpy Bob]

Joe -- You defined "prevention" as "that guy with a gun could decide to shoot at me some day, so I'm going to get him before he gets any ideas." In the case of Iraq, the administration's reasoning was actually "that guy MIGHT have a gun and IF he does, he may decide to shoot at me some day, so I'm going to get him before he gets any ideas, regardless of whether or not I know for a fact if he even has a gun." (Assuming, of course, that "gun" is a metaphor for WMD.)

Shannon - I think it's interesting that in one post you say, "conspiracy theorist believe the world is easily understood and controlled so if a seemingly chaotic event occurs, it must really be the result of conscious action and planning of some cabal somewhere. They would rather believe that somebody evil runs then world than to believe that nobody really knows what is going on." But in a later post you wrote, "if we had been just a little more imaginative and aggressive we could have prevented 9/11...If we had put boots on the ground in afghanistan after the Africa bombings. If we had used more aggressive profiling on immigrants and visitors or more strictly enforced visas...If we had done any of these things we would not have the Patriot Act and another Cold War like conflict today." Seems to be a bit of a contradiction in your thinking, don't you think? I mean, in one post you argued that the flaw of conspiracy theorists is that they think that "the world is easily understood and controlled," but then in your later post you appear to be suggesting that the U.S. government is actually capable of taking certain actions--that is, "controlling" certain situations not just at home but around the world--in order to make the people of this country safer. Do you see how you contradicted yourself?

Stephen - Your profound prognosis that "Islamofascists hate us because they fucking hate us, nothing we did per se caused it...some things just are" was truly insightful. But there's just one thing I can't figure out. After so many years of keeping their Islamofascist ways in their own part of the world, why was it that in the 1990s they decided to start attacking our troops abroad and carried out the first WTC attack in '93? I mean, these bastards keep their bastard ways in their own back yard for so long, but then they suddenly attack a U.S. ship at sea and innocents on U.S. soil. They just suddenly decide for absolutely no reason whatsoever that they're going to start carrying out attacks on the U.S.? Just like that. No reason, just blind hatred? Nothing in particular set off this hatred?

People - As for me, I do not as an American believe that I and the U.S. government are one. Quite the contrary. The U.S. gov't has for years gradually been expanding its power not just at home, but all over the world. There are now U.S. troops in 140 countries. It uses its influence in such so-called "international institutions" as the UN, the WTO, the World Bank, the IMF, etc., to essentially force foriegn markets to be more amenable to its interests--or rather, the interests of those who are able to buy access to the corridors of power in Washington, D.C., and have the balls to claim to do this in the name of "free trade." These politicians wouldn't know free trade if it popped out of the toilet and bit them on the ass.

Now, does any of the above rationalize or justify terrorism? Of course not. There can be no justification for ANY mass slaughter of innocents. My point is, can't you at least consider for just one moment that possibly, POSSIBLY, our Wise and Benevolent Masters in our nation's capitol had, in their boundless, arrogant quest to expand their own power, accidentally set a match to a powder keg that they either did not understand or had underestimated?

And what's their prescription for our current situation? Why, it's what Big Government always prescribes when faced with the massive failure of its own policies: MORE OF THE SAME. Why yes, of course! More foriegn interventions! More telling people in other countries what they can and cannot sell on the global market! More telling them what to do and how to do it, right down to the last detail of how they govern themselves and even deliver their own mail (see: IRAQ).

There's my windy two cents. I'll step off my soap box now.

[thoreau]

Grumpy Bob-

Knowing how things are around here, somebody will point out that the Islamo-fascists hated us before the 1990's. They'll perhaps point to the attack on US Marines in Beirut in the 1980's. Or to other incidents. And then some will try to argue that those weren't Islamo-fascists, those were instead left-leaning terrorists.

We can go around and around forever on the details, but the fact is that we haven't always had enemies from the Middle East. Or at least they haven't acted on their enmity in the past. For instance, Islamic terrorists didn't try to exploit the American Civil War and attack us in a moment of turmoil. Middle Easterners didn't hijack the Titanic and ram it into Ellis Island. There's no apparent Middle Eastern connection to the assassination of William McKinley. The transcontinental railroad wasn't sabotaged by a Malaysian Muslim disguised as a Chinese railroad worker.

Clearly, there must be some reason why they turned their attention to us. And don't tell me it's because their societies were less oppressive in the 1800's. Ah, yes, the good old days!

[Jack]

Thoreau,

I've been making the precise same argument since the afternoon of 9/11. The Wahabbis were even bigger fanatics in the 1920s and 30s than they are today (bin Laden would be considered an apostate because he allows his photo to be taken and his voice to be recorded), and yet not a single hijacking occurred, even though it would have been trivally easy to bring weapons on board an airship or airplane.

[Grumpy Bob]

Good point, Jack. Obviously, SOMETHING changed that gave these religious fundamentalists the idea to start attacking the U.S. after years of basically keeping it on their own turf. A person doesn't just willy-nilly decide to start hating someone or something just out of the blue. Someone doesn't just wake up one morning thinking to themselves, "I hate that guy! I just wanna KILL him!" unless something happened that set him off against the guy he now hates with a passion.

[conspiracy nut]

Didn't you know that Benedict Arnold was a devout Muslim?

[Grumpy Bob]

Thoreau --

Why, how dare you question the "official story!" You unpatriotic, terrorist-loving traitor! You should be ashamed of yourself for even suggesting that anti-American terrorist attacks could have been provoked by U.S. gov't policies! Now go pledge allegiance to the flag before a framed portrait of George W. Bush to redeem your treasonous ways!

[Grumpy Bob]

I think I did read that somewhere, Conspiracy Nut.

Did you know that Pearl Harbor was NOT attacked by the Japanese, as so many historians have deceived us into thinking? It was actually Islamic fundamentalists. Shocking, but true.