Terrorist Attack Mandates
       Change in National Defense Strategy
                   Editorial by Jeff Goolsby, Editor

      The terrorist attack in New York and Washington, DC, is a declaration of war by someone and probably Osama bin Laden.  The attack apparently murdered more people than the Pearl Harbor attack by the Japanese on December 7, 1941.
      These terrorist murders demonstrate that we must change our national defense strategy.  Clearly we have been focusing on the wrong method of preventing murders by the bin Laden murderers and other terrorist organizations.
           The terrorist murderers may think up new ways to murder people and have some degree of success but this last method can be prevented with close to 100% success with an idea that came to me based on the news article about the hijacking of flight 93 attack being diverted.  The following proposal should remove any fear from flying in commercial airline planes.
      The pilot compartment on all commercial airline planes now in use plus all future commercial planes should be converted to a totally secure pilot compartment.  The wall between the pilot and passenger compartment should be made of 1/4" steel and the door to the pilot compartment should be made of 1/4" reinforced steel and opening into the pilot compartment.  The pilots and the guards should be the only people allowed to have a key to the pilot compartment.  This should be done at Federal government expense as a national defense item.
      It appears obvious that we had some super heroes on flight 93 who overpowered the hijackers and prevented the plane from reaching their intended target which probably would have murdered hundreds, or even thousands, more people.  Most likely the terrorist murderers had already killed the pilots and the plane was being piloted by one of the murderers.  After overpowering the murderers, there probably was no one on board who knew how to fly the plane and therefore it crashed without doing the damage intended by the murderers.
      We need to change our national defense strategy to using either or both Army and/or Marines who are highly trained in hand-to-hand combat as national defense guards on all commercial plane flights.  They should be equipped with laser type stun guns that do not look like guns and should wear civilian clothes so that terrorist would not know who they are.  The laser weapons should be designed to be fired with concealed methods so that terrorist would not know when they are about to be subverted.  Weapons that fire bullets would puncture the plane shell and should not be used by the guards.  There should be one standby pilot with adequate training for the specific plane in each guard unit.
      We already have army and marine personnel trained to some extent in this manner and they are basically in a standby mode unless we are engaged in a military conflict.  I believe that about 4 to 6 guards would be adequate to take terrorist or other hijackers by surprise and prevent terrorist attacks similar to the attacks on September 11, 2001.  The guards should be rotated so that terrorist or ordinary hijackers would not recognize the guards or be able to identify them even if they had a spy in a guard unit.
      This guard system would not increase our national defense cost very much, if any, because we already have the manpower on standby for other type defense activity.  This expense should not be charged to the airlines because it is a national defense duty for which we already pay, but with a different strategy.
      I have noticed some comments about using U.S. Marshals for guard duty on commercial plane flights.  This would involve hiring and training additional people for this duty at unnecessary taxpayer expense and should not be necessary since we already have military personnel trained that can start and handle the guard job immediately.  Protecting U.S. citizens on planes is no different than protecting citizens from foreign attack otherwise.   It is simply placing military protection personnel in strategic places where the dangers are located.
      I hope Congress will realign our military defense strategy in this manner and this type terrorist attacks would be extremely unlikely in the future.  This plane Modification and National Defense Guard system should be in addition to a highly beefed up intelligence activity and highly beefed up security checks of passengers before entering the planes.
      This attack was a declaration of war against the United State and we should determine exactly who was involved in this attack then destroy them quickly and completely.  The destruction of these terrorist murderers should be especially aimed at the top echelon including leaders who support or finance the terrorist and not involve a trial court.
      Congress should make a formal declaration of war against the terrorist.  This would formalize and legitimize our actions as international war activity.  At this time we do not know exactly who should be included in our war effort target, but we should make an adequate determination very soon.
      Since most of the terrorist activity appears to be Islamic religious fanatics, we should demand that islamic nations declare their alliance with our effort to rid society of terrorist murderers or consider them to be part of our enemies.  If they declare their allegiance with our effort, they should ferret out terrorist fanatics in their countries and prosecute them to the fullest extent of their law as murderers.
      We have some religious fanatic terrorist murderers, not islamic, in this country who are murdering doctors and and other citizens.  We should locate the people who are supporting fanatic terrorist murderers like Eric Rudolph and prosecute them as murder accomplices the same as Rudolph.  Hopefully, these terrorist murders will cause people who know where Rudolph is hiding will now come forward and reveal his hiding place and collect the reward.
      This terrorist attack has taught us one thing, tall buildings are prime targets for terrorist.  According to a TV picture, the plane that destroyed the second building flew through the windows and between the floors so that the explosion would occur in the interior of the building instead of outside of the building.  This was carefully calculated and planned, which caused possibly 1000 times more damage than an outside explosion.
      In the future, terrorist murderers might infiltrate the security system of tall buildings and destroy them with strategic explosives during business hours and have the same results as the twin towers.  We need to limit by Federal law the height of all buildings in the future to six stories so that if terrorist should succeed in a similar attack again, the damage to six story buildings would be a fraction of the damage to super tall buildings.  Also, fighting fires would be much easier and safer for six story buildings instead of super tall buildings.
      We need to immediately commence tight security in all tall buildings and every place where there are large groups of people similar to the security systems in use today in government buildings.  We can prevent most future terrorist murder successes if we act quickly on defense security.  It is also reasonable to expect that the terrorist murderers are already planning and possibly in the process of executing attacks with poison and germ murders.
      Congress needs to borrow the money, not Social Security money, necessary to execute these proposed defense strategies and simultaneously commence the war effort to destroy the perpetrators and financiers of these terrorist murders as soon as we determine exactly who they are.  Clearly, Osama bin Laden and Saddam Hussein are the front runner suspects.

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