Tom, please. I've already presented numerous instances of clear indications of a threat from the "direction" of skyjacked airliners.

If you want to quibble about the meaning of "blind side," be my guest, but most rational people, I believe, understand this term as I do, in accordance with its dictionary definition, sense 2: 1) To hit or attack on or from the blind side. 2) To catch or take unawares, especially with harmful or detrimental results. (American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language)

I'll get to your planes in a later post, but for now let's just focus in on one of the many items listed in my post above - the three-day exercise conducted by the Pentagon in October of 2000:

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October 24-26, 2000: Pentagon officials carry out a "detailed" emergency drill based upon the crashing of a hijacked airliner into the Pentagon. [Mirror, 5/24/02] The Pentagon is such an obvious target that, "For years, staff at the Pentagon joked that they worked at "Ground Zero", the spot at which an incoming nuclear missile aimed at America's defenses would explode. There is even a snack bar of that name in the central courtyard of the five-sided building, America's most obvious military bullseye." [Telegraph, 9/16/01] After 9/11, a Pentagon spokesman will say to the press, "The Pentagon was simply not aware that this aircraft was coming our way, and I doubt prior to Tuesday's event, anyone would have expected anything like that here." [Newsday, 9/23/01] FTW

(FTW, btw, is 'From the Wilderness' - ex-LA cop Mike Ruppelt's excellent alternative news site. More on this later)

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So the brass (and probably everyone else who worked there) recognized that the Pentagon was an obvious target, for nukes certainly, but also for hijacked passenger liners.

OK, I'll grant you that we can't do much about the ICBMs once launched (other than retaliate: MAD), but certainly there are numerous obvious and easy defensive measures to counter the threat of suicide jetliners.

Andrews AFB is just a hop, skip and jump from Pentagon, and two formations of fighter aircraft were based there on 9-11 according to reliable information I've seen.

Our military also posseses some highly lethal (and mobile) SAMs. It's not too much of a stretch to imagine that the Pentagon would be guarded by a battery or two of these.

Further, many of our choppers are now armed with AAMs such as the familiar Sidewinder, and you could easily base a few of those right on the grounds of the Pentagon itself.

Finally, all military installations have some kind of local security force - APs, SATs and the like. How difficult would it have been to have armed these forces with Stingers or other MANPADs?

It is my belief that probably all or most of the defensive assets I've mentioned here, and some that I have not, were probably in place at the Pentagon on September 11, 2001, but were not used for reasons which remain obscure.

If adequate defensive preparations were not in place at our nation's military nerve center and HQ, then such a lack of readiness against an obvious threat amounts to criminal negligence.

If the defensive weapons were available, but not used, then it is within the rights of American citizens to ask:

Why not?

sp