Not everyone walked off the flight on which pressurization was lost.

As to your being "greatly impressed at the level of sophistication,
simplicity and
cleverness of the plan that the terrorists put forward. In a very simple,
very well thought-out cascading series of events, they were able to bring
down the World Trade Center towers and profoundly sadden a great nation
using
not much more than razor blades," let me just state a few things.

The plan worked because up to now we have always felt secure separated by
two oceans from the rest of the world.  Terrorism was something that
happened, over there, on the frontiers so to speak.  When McVeigh bombed
Oklahoma City, it was dismissed as local homegrown terrorism and more or
less ignored.  When the WTC was bombed the first time, it was also
dismissed because it failed, since the WTC was way too big to destroy that
way.  When the embassies were bombed overseas, that was dismissed also and
our ex-president simply lobbed a few missiles and declared victory.  We
never imagined human beings could perpetrate a crime on the scope of what
we have seen.

Now we know better.

People will be much more vigilant and be ready to fight back now that we
know monsters are walking among us.

Kind regards,

Denys. . .

Denys Beauchemin
HICOMP
(800) 323-8863  (281) 288-7438         Fax: (281) 288-7438
denys at hicomp.com                             www.hicomp.com


-----Original Message-----
From:   [log in to unmask] [SMTP:[log in to unmask]]
Sent:   Thursday, September 20, 2001 2:28 PM
To:     [log in to unmask]; [log in to unmask]
Subject:        Re: OT:  United Flight 564

Denys writes:

> Having had the dubious privilege of being on board a plane that
experienced
>  decompression, let me just say I would rather fight the terrorists hand
to
>  hand than go through that again.

On the other hand, you and everyone else on the flight is here to write
about
how unpleasant it was and none of the people who did fight back are.



>  The article to which Jeff V. referred really outlines how the terrorists
>  were able to accomplish their goals on the first three flights and we
now
>  understand how they did not succeed on the fourth one.

One of the things about all of these corrective scenarios is that they're
all
fixing the last threat, not the next one. There is essentially no defensive
mechanism to predict or prevent the next attack, other than root out the
core
cause.

I was greatly impressed at the level of sophistication, simplicity and
cleverness of the plan that the terrorists put forward. In a very simple,
very well thought-out cascading series of events, they were able to bring
down the World Trade Center towers and profoundly sadden a great nation
using
not much more than razor blades.

The next attack will undoubtedly be just as simple and clever, and just as
unexpected, something on the order of nuclear weapons transshipped into the
US through Rotterdam and Yokohama, sitting in marshalling yards, disguished
as tractor parts.

All security is an illusion. In all of the history of fixed defenses,
beginning with the castle building epoch 1200 years ago, the advantage has
always lain with the attacker, so long as he's clever enough to go around
the
fixed fortifications.

Wirt Atmar

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