On Oct 2, 2006, at 5:05 PM, William Chops Westfield wrote:

>> Plenty of jets in the military over all. Very few assigned
>> to defend our country.
>
> At least, not under the control of NORAD.  I'd say there were
> probably jets in ie the national guard that could be used.

Oops, this escape a bit early.

Arguably, since the continental US has never been attacked by
air, and is/was not expected to be so in a manner that was time
critical, it makes a lot of sense than NORAD has a rather limited
set of chase planes.

Arguably, there is nothing any number of NORAD planes could have
done in the case of the 9/11 attack that would have resulted in
any less controversy than we have now.  (I didn't read the tapes.
Did they claim otherwise?)  American fighters shooting down american
passenger jets full of americans would not have been a good thing.

(Yeah, we're safer now than before the first terrorist attacks.  I
wish I had confidence that we're safer now than we were immediately
after the passengers of flight 93 decided it was better to risk
their own lives than let the hijackers crash their plane into the
intended target.)

BillW
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