Had the American airlines taken prudent steps to secure their aircraft, such as locking the cabin doors & basic security checks at check in, then 9/11 would never have happened in the first place.
It’s not like they had no warning. I can recall two incidents from TV reports (and there were probably plenty more) where prior to 9/11 individuals had gained access to the cockpit. On one occasion, the crew managed to overpower the assailant but only after a very violent struggle and listening to their accounts of the incident I remember thinking that it was nothing short of an absolute miracle that they survived.
In the second incident the crew & passengers were not so lucky. The crew were shot & the only way the cause of the subsequent crash was determined was when the crash investigators recovered parts of a gun with human skin embedded in it.
So no, America is not safer because Bush is going around waterboarding terrorist suspects or starting wars all over the place. America is a safer because they are now doing what they should have been doing years before 9/11 & implementing proper security measures on their airlines.
Furthermore, America never had anything like a major terrorist problem to start with (leaving aside 9/11), so it comes as no great surprise to find they still don’t have one.
Alan.
http://forum.richarddawkins.net/viewtopic.php?f=17&t=38551&start=40#p741449
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Obviously there were security checks being carried out & the point I was really trying to make was that they were inadequate.
I should also have pointed out that the blame for this can be largely attributed to the activities of the aircraft industry lobbyists who thwarted many attempts to deal with security issues, for example, checking for small bladed knives at check in because it would have caused congestion.
In case anyone thinks I was exaggerating the attempted hijack incident, the details are here at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/FedEx_Flight_705
Calloway entered the flight deck and commenced his attack. Every member of the crew took multiple hammer blows which fractured both Peterson's and Tucker's skulls, severing the former's temporal artery.[1] A lengthy struggle ensued with the flight engineer and captain as Tucker, also an ex-Navy pilot, performed extreme aerial maneuvers with the aircraft meant to keep the hijacker off balance. The flight crew eventually succeeded in restraining Calloway, though only after moments of inverted, near-transonic flight beyond the designed capabilities of a DC-10. At this point Sanders took control and Tucker, who had by now lost use of the right side of his body, went back to assist Peterson in restraining Calloway. Sanders communicated with ATC, deactivated the auto pilot, and prepared for an emergency landing. Heavily loaded with fuel and cargo, the plane was also coming in too fast and too high to land on the scheduled runway 9. Sanders requested by radio to land on the longer runway 36. Using a series of sharp turns that tested the DC-10's safety limits, ignoring warning messages from the onboard computer, and being well over the designed landing weight, the jet safely touched down at Memphis International Airport.