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EnviroTO said:
What was NORAD supposed to do on 9/11?

Is NORAD in charge of airport security? No.

Is NORAD in charge of immigration? No.

Is NORAD in charge of foreign policy? No.

Is NORAD in charge of air traffic control? No.

So of all the possible things NORAD could have done better was to shoot down planes which took off from domestic airports loaded with passengers and got hijacked without announcement. Seeing as the aircraft departed from northeast airports and were headed towards northeast targets that would give NORAD what, 30-45 minutes to work with? Radio problems happen... you don't just shoot down a plane because you loose radio contact. NORAD doesn't even find out what planes are having issues without the FAA telling them. The air traffic control system is complex with a myriad of zones, frequencies, and controllers. You don't find out an aircraft isn't talking to you immediately because once away from the airport pilots only intermittently communicate with controllers. Please tell us, without telling us to read Vanity Fair, what you expected NORAD to accomplish in 30-45 minutes on 9/11 and what you believe NORAD spent money on that was a waste.
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as much as i would like to believe that soo much more can be done to improve dealing with situations like these, the more details you get on the complexities the more difficult it is to believe that there is room for improvement. even if the planes had a remote control piloting system which allowed someone to take over the controls in case of a hijacking and fly the plane to safety, such a system could be exploited to do harm. what if a terrorist hacks into such a system to gain remote control of the plane and crash it? even if the data stream for control was encrypted, it could be hacked. these terrorist ORGs have lots of resources at their disposal, cash & all and the people who set out to do these acts aren't exactly stupid. they're extremely bright though with a sinister tinge, like a CF bulb.

but i hope that systems can and will be improved upon, even though it may seem impossible because there are soo many parts that can go wrong to the whole picture.

regardless of everything that didn't go accordingly, lets not forget those that are truly to blame, the ones responsible.
 
One can try to plan for certain events, but there is no way to plan for all possible events - particularly in an open and complex society.

Maybe jade lee doesn't recognize it, but any nation attempting to exert such an absolute control over so many elements of society would have to be a police state.
 
Of course those to blame had a well thought out plan and one wonders if they knew of the training exercise that was planned by NORAD on that particular day.....it's was such a handy helpful thing that did aid the terrorist attack. My point with respect to NORAD was that on that day (911) those hearing about the hijacking initially thought the information was part of the training exercise being conducted by Norad so obviously that information had be known, but it was the confusion and misinformation that resulted from this that did in fact slow the response down. Yes I did criticize NORAD and I do wonder what they spend their money on and yes I do hope they deal with the flow of information problems they have now learned about. Making excuses for their flaws is not helpful just as blaming them for the terrorist acts of others is not but the fact that Canada will pour money into this pending agreement that is suppose to protect our airspace might prove to be unhelpful in that the same cultural flaws exist and nobody is willing to openly admit to flaws, instead we have to wait for them to be exposed by magazine journalists and it's only then that they come clean with the truth.
 
Actually the hijackers took advantage of the fact that civilian authorities always negotiate first in order to maximize the chances of saving the lives of those in harms way. At the start, there was no way to know that the intent of those who had taken control of the aircraft was mass murder.

The terrorists involved probably knew nothing of the NORAD exercises. It would not have mattered anyway as any reaction time would not have been enough in the given circumstances. As has been noted over and over again, military aircraft would have required civilian government authority in order to fire on a civilian aircraft. That would have taken time. Why is that so hard for you to understand?

The primary responsibility for dealing with the events of that day lay with civilian authorities who at the time were trying to determine what that actual situation was, and how best to deal with it, as it unfolded. Expectations concerning what was happening changed after the first tower was struck. Even then, there was no way to immediately know what was happening ( because it was not fully clear what had actually transpired: was it an accident, an isolated act, or a conspiracy?). In the absence of such clear knowledge it was incredibly difficult to form a plan of action in a period of minutes, and to know immediately whether that plan was going to be useful, was actually warranted or could even be dangerous.

Again, your reliance on a magazine article belies any clear knowledge of the function and rules that govern NORAD operations - or even the military for that matter. It is easy to go on about flaws as if you expect perfection was part of the original plan. That's simply naive.

As for endless emphasis on a Vanity Fair article, I don't have to read it in order to understand what NORAD is or how it operates. Try to expand your horizons a little more.

Making excuses for their flaws is not helpful just as blaming them for the terrorist acts of others is not but the fact that Canada will pour money into this pending agreement that is suppose to protect our airspace might prove to be unhelpful in that the same cultural flaws exist and nobody is willing to openly admit to flaws, instead we have to wait for them to be exposed by magazine journalists and it's only then that they come clean with the truth.
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Yeah, you might want to think this through to be more clear about what you want to say.

Again, you have not considered what the alternatives ought to have been on that day. And once again, what exactly was supposed to happen on that day? Given the reality of the actual situation - civilian, military, legal - how would you have carried out the situation assessment? What actions would you have initiated? In what time frame? Once more, think it through and try to avoid facile or baseless conclusions - and Vanity Fair. Like I said earlier, I'll comment on any shortcomings.

Remember, your actions could cost hundreds of innocent civilian lives - regardless.
 
What, Vanity Fair?

Once again, what exactly was supposed to happen on that day according to you? Given the reality of the actual situation, how would you have carried out the situation assessment? What actions would you have initiated? In what time frame? Once more, think it through and try to avoid facile or baseless conclusions.

But you won't, will you.
 
FAA doesn't think to update NORAD. NORADs fault? NORAD has old equipment. NORADs fault? NORAD only has 4 planes. NORADs fault? Then you talk about how NORAD is waste of money? That is illogical. Everything in that article points to underfunding and your conclusion is to spend less?
 
>>We found that NORAD, which had been given the responsibility for defending U.S. airspace, had construed that mission to focus on threats coming from outside America's borders. It did not adjust it's focus even though the intelligence community had gathered intelligence on the possibility that terrorists might turn to hijacking and even use of planes as missiles. We have been assured that NORAD has now embraced the full mission. Northern Comand has been established to assume responsibility for the defense of the domestic United States.<< 911 commission report pg 428
This information has nothing to do with funding, the fault of others or justifiable human error, it was pure neglect and backward thinking of an organization that appeared not to listen to others with intelligence warning of dire consequences.
Take note that it was later found the representatives of NEAD and NORAD were not honest with the 911 commission about what happened on that day, 911, but later came clean about the sequence of events when it was found to have been stored on audio tape! I am saying that any joint venture in the future should be scrutinized continuously if funding is to be provided otherwise it's a big waste of our tax dollars to fund egos bigger than should be acceptable among good competent people! I might consider the new but I do reject the old NORAD as it did not keep it's eye on the ball when it was needed most. Failure is only acceptable when among other things it is readily admitted.
My recommendations for a better NORAD? Cut the bullshit!
 
We found that NORAD, which had been given the responsibility for defending U.S. airspace, had construed that mission to focus on threats coming from outside America's borders.
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Think carefully jade lee. The issue here is creating a causal relationship between to the events within a one-hour time frame, the lack of knowledge about was actually happening on board a handful of aircraft on a busy day of aircraft movements under civilian management, and the problem of determining what an appropriate course of action should be during a rapidly changing situation taking place over a very short period of time - all after the fact. It would appear that you have demanded perfection, but have failed to offer any informed or reasoned explanation on what ought to have been done. Blame is always easy given complex situations and events that stretched halfway around the world.

For over four decades the mission that NORAD was given was the responsibility for defending North American airspace from outside threats (the 9/11 commission couldn't even get that right). After the end of the Cold War and the collapse of the Soviet Union and the Warsaw pact, as well as the rapid decommissioning of many nuclear weapons and delivery systems, NORAD was scaled back and set off on rather silly missions such as anti-drug interdictions. Like all organizations, it is affected by alterations in national policies and changes in geopolitics. For a decade after the end of the Cold War NORAD was in neutral while undergoing internal and external reassessment, and was never directed to change its policies towards the movements of civilian aircraft within internal American airspace - which was and still is governed by the FAA.

NORAD and the FAA are not integrated organizations. They have different tasks. The CIA and NORAD are not integrated organizations, either. They do share information, but on 9/11 there was a considerable gap on what was happening aboard the aircraft in question. Even when details came together that aircraft were under hijacker control, there was knowledge about potential outcomes. Knowledge of general threats do not necessarily provide vivid details about actual situations. On that day NORAD personnel would not have known any better about what was actually happening on board those aircraft than the FAA personnel did.

Northern Command was set up after 9/11, and still requires the request of the FAA to act on a potential threat within continental airspace on a civilian aircraft. Any military military aircraft under NORAD command (or any military aircraft not in a war situation) would still require civilian authorization to fire a weapon. They can watch civilian air activities, but their services must first be requested by civil authorities in order to act because civilian authorities manage the movements of civilian aircraft. Before that call to the military can take place, the actual situation must be carefully assessed for a variety of reasons. When it comes to the lives of hundreds of passengers, such decisions can't be taken lightly.

NORAD does not gather or assess intelligence in other countries, that is the responsibility of other organizations. It receives that information. If the 9/11 Commission could not take the time to distinguish between the responsibilities of these different organizations, then that is their failing. Regardless, assessing threats is not easy work. People who do not want their activities to be known still have an advantage.

If you would read the 9/11 Commission report, you would find it to be a rather political document. After any tragedy, there is always the desire to not only understand what happened, but also a desire to point fingers. What often gets lost in the process is that post-event incident assessments are not the same as an actual unfolding of an event. Needless to say, within two hours of 9/11, North American airspace was secure. That time was required to get civilian aircraft on the ground as safely as possible. Even then, the primacy of passenger safety took precedence over complete security. Aircraft short of fuel were not turned away from North American airspace if they could not safely make it to another destination.

Terrorist always take advantage of open societies. The only option is to live in a total panopticon of a complete police state. Would that make you feel more comfortable, jade lee?
 
Nobody claims that NORAD gathers information, it was determined that they did not consider the information that was gathered and communicated to them about domestic attacks and airplanes used as missiles which is indeed what happened.
I agree the 911 commission was political, in that they wanted to present a clean historic record to the American public most of all and to the rest of us in the world who were also rather curious to view how America would deal with the aftermath of a terrorist attack. It's an agreed upon fact that the commission is less valued for the questions they asked and answered, than for the questions they omitted or failed to ask.
For your information the 911 commission did review the information gatherers and they failed to inform the public about how the bush government was hand picking information to push forward their agenda to go to war in Afghanistan and Iraq, information that you no doubt don't believe was hand picked and that the current war is justified and working out well to defend your brand of democracy?
 
If you look carefully, there was no clear assessment of whether an attack was under way - even immediately after the first aircraft struck the WTC. And even then, when the determination was made that some form of organized conspiracy was unfolding, there was a significant problem of what to do with those commercial jetliners not responding to ATC communications. Either way, the timelines for response were too short. So this was the information NORAD had to content with: very partial, hypothetical and undetermined in scope. Not a very good situation to be in if you were to be asked to chase and shoot down a passenger airliner over a city.

For your information the 911 commission did review the information gatherers and they failed to inform the public about how the bush government was hand picking information to push forward their agenda to go to war in Afghanistan and Iraq, information that you no doubt don't believe was hand picked and that the current war is justified and working out well to defend your brand of democracy?
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Now that you have shifted your attack from NORAD onto me (in a run-on sentence, no less), let me inform you that on many occasions I have posted my opinion here that the issue of WMD's in Iraq was an illegitimate rationale for going to war. Clearly you are ignorant to that fact. Afghanistan is a different situation, and is supported by NATO.

As to your vacant musing on my attitude towards democracy, you've actually said nothing, and have clearly illustrated an incapacity to define differences between the responsibilities of defence organizations and democratic principles and practices. You clearly missed the fact that neither Iraq nor Afghanistan were democracies before their subsequent invasions. It is you who has, all along, been unable to understand that military action require civilian authorities and democratic governments to make decisions on how the military is to be used. As to exactly what you mean by "brand" of democracy, maybe you want to cough up some form of explanation.
 
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