Re: [dvd-discuss] Re: Sen. Hollings plans tointroduceDMCAsequel :The SSSCA

[steve bryan <steve_bryan(at)mac.com>]

At 1:47 pm +0200 9/13/01, Lars Gaarden wrote:
>If the US starts to indiscriminately kill people, they will just
>produce more hate. Hate, that in turn will produce more Bin Ladens
>(or rather, more young suicidal people that leaders like Laden can
>use to perform these kinds of attacks).
>
>Terrorists will be unable to perform these attacks unless there are
>people out there that have a hatred so strong that they are willing
>to die for the cause. If you can remove that hate, you deny them
>the ammunition they need.

I don't wish to suggest I support indiscriminate bombing of innocent 
people (I'll leave that to Bin Laden and his ilk) but I think it is 
important to observe that the rest of your speculation is nonsense. 
The era of hijacking as it has existed since the 60's is over. It 
ended before this incident could conclude in the fourth jet. There 
has been an implicit 'agreement' which has always been foolish but 
widely accepted by all except Israel. It was that everyone was to 
mind his own business, accept the horrific interlude, and in almost 
all cases everyone would emerge unscathed. In the future people who 
attempt to hijack a plane will be slaughtered by the other 
passengers, pilots, and flight crew. The assumption now is that 
everyone on board will be killed and the terrorists plan to use the 
jet as an instrument of mass destruction. It has almost never been 
the case that the terrorists truly had control of a jet in anything 
like a military sense. But because of the implicit agreement people 
were unable to act. But that was a fragile agreement and now that it 
is gone it can never come back.

Never again will there be innocent bystanders, everyone on board will 
assume the worst so there is nothing to be lost in using their 
superior numbers to overwhelm and kill anyone reckless enough to 
attempt a hijacking. The jet, like the fourth jet on September 11 
might crash and kill everyone. But they were all as good as dead 
already. I don't mean to diminish the heroism show by the passengers 
of the fourth jet, only to point out it has always been a forbidden 
but available option. An important characteristic of this horrific 
event is that it is a tool that can only be used once. Bin Laden has 
used it and it will never be available to terrorists again.
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