If the order was meant to preserve the greatest amount of life, and our military pilots are skilled, capable professionals, how would it be irresponsible?
Because an order would have been made to shoot down a passenger jet that was hijacked when there were no identified planes that were hijacked, no visual confirmation, no contact with hijacked planes, and hundreds and hundreds of planes flying around the are that morning. That's a recipe for disaster which could include a mid air collision as well as a mistaken shoot down.
ANDEven if he did, it still wouldn't have mattered because they didn't have a target
IN TIMENo one can tell the future, or predict the exact timing of events. So from Rumsfeld's perspective at the time, what was a subordinate to do if an immediate and deadly threat presented itself in the form of a hijacked airliner?
What difference would that make? So you are basing your charge on a hypothetical?
com on man.
Still............... I should ask these questions to you, again.........
because they are related to the question you just asked that i did answer:
Which plane do they shoot down out of the hundreds flying around in the air that day?
On top of that, how do they know for 100% sure that the transponder isn't malfunctioning with out a visual attempt at communication?
Are you suggesting we should have shoot any plane down immediately that didn't respond to our communication attempts without visual confirmation?
At 9:04 where is this "maybe just in case" plane or planes? Which one is it? Where does the visual confirmation come from? Where are the nearest jets? How many are there available and where do you send them to at 9:04? At 9:14? At 9:24?
What if the passengers overtook the hijackers but the transponder and radio was disabled by the hijackers? Should have shoot them down because we couldn't make contact with them on the radio?