NORAD? Um, nope!
Politics 05/10/2003 |There’s a very interesting site that I found via Atrios that, among other things, has a very comprehensive look at the events of Sept. 11th in this timeline. They seem to have done a good job of piecing together the various news reports about the events of that day, comparing them and questioning the many inconsistancies that exist.
From there, I started browsing through the rest of the source site, the Center for Cooperative Research. Looking at another page on the site, a more straightforward timeline of Sept. 11th, imagine my surprise when I saw a picture captioned ‘NORAD’s war room in Cheyenne, Wyoming,’ that, rather than being a picture of the Norad control room, is actually a screen shot from the 1983 adventure/suspense film Wargames!
As important as I think it is that we continue to investigate the events of Sept. 11th, and the events surrounding it, when a site does something like this — no matter how good their overall intentions may be — it only serves to damage their credibility. The webmaster of the Center for Cooperative Research should either replace that photo with a real photo of NORAD (if such a photo exists in the private sector), or simply remove the Wargames photo. Leaving it there can only damage how seriously people take their site, no matter how much effort they’ve put into their research.
Update: I e-mailed my concerns about the picture to the webmaster, and they’ve replaced the former photo with one from Discover magazine. While I’ve never been in NORAD, and therefore can’t assert to the photo’s accuracy firsthand, it does look far more likely to be the real thing (more realistic graphics on the monitors, more realistic computer terminals, less flashy overall — and I don’t recognize it from a movie!).
[See also: Twenty Questions | 9/11 could have and should have been prevented | 9-11 Quiz | Metroblogging | Backpedaling ]
One Response to “NORAD? Um, nope!”
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schinji
dang
Cheryl
Bertamum
Michael Hanscom
May 10th, 2003 at 2:58 pm
A disaster in the making, A classic example of what happens when leadership is far removed from actual events.
A big part of the problem in the US today and in our Government as well as big business in general. Is the plain and simple fact that the further away the decision maker is from actual events the worse things are going to get. It’s bad for companies, and is a poor management style. Political or Corporate. Weather your talking about the President of the United States or the president of Xerox the sad fact remains that being so far removed from everyday life they simple can’t make correct decisions because they never have the all facts. I read the 9-11 time line minute by minute and am sickened buy lack of response, poor planing, and intentional miss-leading. This happens time and time again, and not to pick on Bush or the republican party as the Democrats can be just as good at it. When one person and only one person can make the decisions everybody just stands around waiting for something to happen, and afterwards play a game called CYA. Failure to allow regional decisions to be made at the local level hurt us. Look back through history and you’ll see it time and time again. Dictators such as Hitler, Stalin, Lenin and many others refused to allow anyone other than themselves to make any decision whatsoever, and that’s what caused their downfall. We don’t even have to go that far back! Nixon tried to run the War in Vietnam from the White House rather than let local commanders have any say. Targets were picked by people thousands of miles away with out any idea of what was really happening. The Gulf war went as well as it did precisely because the White House stayed out of it and told the commanders, Go do your thing. And I’m not just talking about government, big business is just as guilty. For the moment I’ll bite the hand that feeds me and use Xerox as an example. Some one in Rochester NY is deciding how our print shop in Tukwila should be run. As much as they want to, and as much as their heart is in the right place they simply can’t run a shop effectively from afar. To even break it down further our shift supervisor will not allow any decision to be made regardless of how small or insignificant without her say so. Managing in that manner cripples companies. If the decision maker is absent nobody has any idea what to do and even if they do know what to do they are still afraid to do anything for fear of retaliation. This management style is what’s killing the Unites States. When you train people ( employees ) not to make any decision of any kind, loss of leadership brings everything to a halt.
Go read the minute by minute again and you’ll see people did nothing for hours! Everybody was waiting for someone else to make a decision. The fact the nation was already on alert when the attack started only serves to prove my point. They were standing by at the ready and still couldn’t do anything. Everybody waited for Bush, who either didn’t have a clue of what was going on. ( Very bad ) Or he knew about it and felt reading a book with children (and the photo op it was) was more important then the United States being under attack. ( even worse )
There are so many failing in this time line I wouldn’t know where to begin. A small pane tries to sneak pot into our country and the might of the US Government is on it in a minute, Shooting it down if necessary.( without calling anyone ) Four commercial jet loaded with passengers wander of course for hours and everyone watches the radar and says Hummmm…that’s odd? The first one crashes and it STILL doesn’t raise alarm bells ? It would appear we shot the forth one down, and at that point in time it probably was the right thing to do, So why lie about it? The lying, the deception, the cover up. That bothers me. Did the President really ask for a TV and get his information from CNN ? The FBI is listening to cell phone calls from the planes and says Hummmm that’s odd. The terrorist state over an open mike ” We have other planes ” NORAD is tracking other planes off course and nobody puts it together? They evacuate the Vice President but no one else ? They sound the ” All Clear ” at the second tower when half the government and all the Military know another plane is on it’s way? They tell all planes to land NOW. and an hour later they repeat it saying no really, we mean it, you have to land now. ? Worse… they grounded Military planes? Why ? A simple statement on an open frequency such as.
Attention…. All aircraft headed into or currently flying in US air space. The United States Government is declaring a state of emergency. Any aircraft that deviates from it’s assigned flight path or altitude with be shot down immediately, and without further notice. Please proceed to your designated destination and do as instructed buy the control tower. Non compliance will result in your plane being shot down.
That’s all that was needed.
And why did the Secret Service wait till Bush said he was ready. In time of emergency aren’t they trained to just run in and grab him?
Oh my…. I have to stop now,or my head will explode. I could go on for another hour but you get my point.
And to you Mr Wudi. thank you for making people think ! Please don’t stop.