He could call a random drinking buddy, but since the Department of Defense dictates that he and the President are to be the lawful source of all military commands, it may make more sense call the President. Let's start there.
And where was the president at this time? Reading stories to children when he learns of the attack at 9:06. He finishes the stories at about 9:16 and doesn't leave the school until 9:29. So that's out.
Following your reasoning in this thread, why wouldn't he maintain an open line of communication with the President to field any potential requests for engagement rules? To attempt contact after the fact would cost time, and would increase the chance of a successful attack.
Mainly because he's not a field commander. He's an administrator/CEO role in the military. Something I have said over and over that you seem to ignore. But its the reality. Much of your charge is hindsight based, and puts too much on Rumsfeld role in this.
The scope of possible rules in this case was very limited. A plane that had failed visual recognition, was bearing onto a population center and had refused to break course, would be a threat and would be destroyed.
What if the passengers has retaken the plane while flying at a low altitude?
What if destroying the plane would result in the plane crashing into a populated area?
What if the plane is flying in a cloud patch?
The time to establish rules for engagement with such a threat is not after it has been discovered at a critical phase in such a movement.
No, the point is you don't establish ROE on the fly and then pass them down in the heat of battle for the decision to be made by a General. Its takes time to consider all possibilities and scenarios. The order must be made by the president in real time.
After visual placement, with a skilled fighter pilot that has been trained to his core, the chances are below consideration when pitted against the other possibilities.
Not at all. "Skilled" is not the issue here. The issue here, is Rumsfeld not being the one to make a decision of this sort on his own accord and being responsible enough to not try and work out ROE's to pass down to a fighter pilot in the heat fo the moment in the 30 minutes after the second attack. The idea if laughable and shear ignorance (no offense) on your part regarding how the military works.
By the way, if this is an attempt to explain Donald Rumsfeld's actions, it would suggest that he--and only he, as there wasn't communication with anyone else--had presumed, unilaterally, to know better of the proper cognitive handling of such a scenario than the people who are actually trained to do so, including the military pilot on the scene.
A flaw in your reasoning foreshadowing more to come later in this thread.
And the plane was to wildly careen into a city, rather than being purposely driven there?
It would still pass visual recognition.
refer above.
What if there were to be a dozen more attacks?
Then it wouldn't have mattered as it already didn't matter any way. Only 2 alert bases were in proximity to respond with few armed jets available. Again, as you constantly analyzed this in heindsight, nothing like this was prepared or planned for.
It was a joint power, requiring both.
I don't think so.
It is the only premise that would set the stage for the actions that took place. These otherwise strange behaviors were necessary to increase the chance of a successful attack while minimizing the risk for full exposure.
Because the behaviors were necessary for the goal, they took place. Because they took place, we can now examine them.
Is it Jack? Com on, be objective for just a moment. The "Only" premise? Your consistent use of logical fallacies as the basis for your charge is why most arguments on this matter aren't taken seriously.
Not sure what you're saying. If a shootdown request had been received, chances are very high it would have been granted. The necessary slant was toward minimizing risk for outright exposure, as the "war on terror" would have become a war on corrupt officials.
Probably not. There would have been a delay, BUSH would have likely hesitated and chances are the pilot wouldn't have followed through on the order. Additionally, people die either way as a result, but to pull the trigger and order the shoot down isn't taken easily as you seems to think it would have been. But of course, in hindsight things are easy to decide aren't they?
The order would have had to come from the National Command Authority. An order from any other source would increase the chance of a successful attack.
Nah, only the president and the Commander in Chief would give the order. He'd pass it down to NORAD who in turn would order Gen. Arnold to order NEADS who would order the plane. Or, a radio link would be set up directly with the fighter and Air Force One, but that would take too long. that's why much changed after 9/11 and now a 2-Star can make the order.
All of which............... is completely meaningless to this discussion because, Bush was in a class room, no further threats were identified and the military was still active and responding. And the bottom line is your charge is based on something that didn't happen in that the opportunity for a shoot down order never presented itself because there weren't any identified threats in the 30 minutes after the 9:03 attack.
You can't charge somebody for a crime for something they didn't do when doing it wouldn't have made any difference the end result other than potentially causing a horrific accident due to an incompetent order.
And you can't use a logical fallacy (make a charge based on an unproven or assumed baseless premise) to prove wrong doing.
PS: i think we got to the "what" to say, but you never did the "who" and "when."
PPSS: Every time i talk to some of the people i personally (not on the internet) know about this, who have had a life time of expertise and experience is this particular thing we are talking about, "Air defense, ATC, Flight operations etc." They often laugh and state the military doesn't operate like a video game or movie, they just aren't that fast to react to anything, especially things unplanned for. And they are not like minded skeptics for sure. One of them, i have had long debates with on the JFK assassination who in spite of on any solid evidence still believes JFK was a conspiracy and Oswald wasnt a lone shooter.
