The reason there aren't more terrorist attacks isn't because various security agencies around the world protect us from them. It's because there are extremely few terrorists.
Pre-9/11, the expectation was you don't draw attention to yourself, wait it out, you're going to have a long day and a story to tell. Post-9/11, the expectation is you fight for your life.
Better cockpit doors and access hygiene probably come second.
"Post-9/11" began minutes after the first planes found their targets. Flight 93—the one that crashed in Pennsylvania—never made it because the passengers revolted after hearing about the other planes.
It only took a few minutes for the calculus to change. Knowing what was up, those passengers flipped from wait-and-see mode to fuck-you mode. This is pretty good evidence that you're right: the biggest increase in security was and still is that passengers will not be meek anymore.
This recent video by RealLifeLore drives it home: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=550EdfxN868&t=1504s
the last time in history that Sovereign American territory was invaded and occupied by a
hostile foreign power was between 1942 and 1943 when the Japanese occupied the
small and sparsely populated Alaskan islands of ATU and Kisa which they struggled to reinforce with supplies and
were only able to hold on to for a year before getting overrun by much better supplied American and Canadian soldiers
Later in the video: https://youtu.be/550EdfxN868?si=gpTplY4Z36tJPxLv&t=2706
that doesn't mean that the US cannot be hurt or have its interests disrupted in other ways the US Mainland
can obviously still become the subject of major attacks from hostile foreign powers if not outright invasions and the
biggest and worst attack that ever befell the US on its own territory happened recently only 23 years agoNot especially accurate. The US and Canadian forces that landed on Kiska had no opposition because the Japanese had already left. They did not overrun Japanese forces that were not there.
Wikipedia describes this as: "On 15 August 1943, 1st SSF was part of the invasion force of the island of Kiska, but after discovering that the island had been recently evacuated by Japanese forces, it re-embarked ..."
And yet, there were still friendly fire casualties, a point omitted from many descriptions of the invasion.
I have never heard of a plain clothes non-employee in cockpict jumpseat.
I’m pretty sure there is a second code on some planes that alerts the pilots someone is attempting to force the crew to open the door.
One of the more reasonable theories for MH370 is similar to the Germanwings case. Pilots can refuse access even if the person outside knows the access codes for the cockpit doors.
Unfortunately (as with everything else), even obvious improvements have potential downsides.
[1]: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Helios_Airways_Flight_522 [2]: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YaOvtL6qYpc
That's why I said "If the CA had entered earlier".
While that may be a factor, there's never any news about this happening, except maybe shortly after 9/11 with shoe or underwear bombs.
Hijackings used to be common, they're not anymore post 9/11. There were 27 hijackings in 2000 worldwide. There were none in 2017, 1 in 2018, etc.
The attacks of September 11th 2001 are fundamentally not reproducible irrespective of whether there is _any_ security screening at airports.
The default assumption before that morning was that a hijacked plane would fly around for a bit, then land. The default assumption afterwards is that it will be crashed if a hijacker is allowed to gain control, so the calculus on passenger intervention is quite different.
How so? The delay between the hijacking and the crashes in the buildings for both planes were around 40 minutes... even if there were jet fighters ready to go at the time, the lack of knowledge of the hijacking being in progress for much of this time and the short delay make this kind of attack still feasible.
What was actually improved our chances to avoid such attacks are the limited access to the cockpit and processes pilots must follow in case of hijacking.
The measures at the airport are to limit the risks of hijackings to begin with.
Passengers have intervened in several other terrorists attacks and now regularly intervene for other (non-terrorist) threat passengers.
It is extremely easy to get weapons into the boarding area, people do it accidentally every day all over the country and the TSA's own testing show that their screening misses the majority. Doors and procedures absolutely help as does the passenger response. Airport screening, OTOH, is primarily security theater.
There's plenty of terrorists, but destabilisation of Middle East diverted them away from continental US. Wasn't that the whole point of Afghanistan and Iraq wars?
I put on my critical thinking hat and look at the timeline of "US meddling in the Middle East" and "first terror attack in the US by a middle eastern".
I then notice that the years are 1948 and 1993 respectively and that wet roads actually do not cause rain after all.
The US did not supply Israel in any way until 2 decades later, and it was Eastern European arms dealers first, France second. The first weapons sold to Israel by the US were in 1962 (anti air missiles), followed by some tanks and aircraft later in the decade. Things ramped up considerably after 1967 due to Arab states aligning with the USSR. [1]
RFK was assassinated by a Palestinian terrorist in 1968. [2]
0. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Partition_of_the_Ottoman_Emp...
1. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Israel%E2%80%93United_States...
2. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Assassination_of_Robert_F._K...
The US had nothing to do with Israel forming beyond being part of the UN vote
True for the U.S. at the government -- but not for the U.S. as a country. One of the earliest major Zionist associations (the Federation of Zionist Societies - a forerunner of the modern ZOA) was formed in New York in 1897. The movement would continue to receive key funding from American backers, and held one of its key meetings in New York in 1942:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Biltmore_Conference
The movement's ideological (some would even say "spiritual") underpinnings can be traced to the mid-19th century writings of this American playwright and utopian activist - said to be the originator of the idea of resettling Jews in Palestine, predating the efforts Herzl himself by half a century:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mordecai_Manuel_Noah
So American meddling in the region goes back quite far indeed.
I put on my history hat and check the books
> Liberia's Ambassador to the United States complained that the US delegation threatened aid cuts to several countries.
> After a phone call from Washington, the representative was recalled and the Philippines' vote changed.
> After considering the danger of American aid being withheld, France finally voted in favour of it. So, too, did France's neighbours, Belgium, Luxembourg, and the Netherlands.
> [......]
Mind you that I am not calling foul play here, this is par for the course for politics. This is just to refute the quoted point above, unless you consider bribery and threats of sanctions a "nothing".
The planning for 9/11 took several years, $500k in financing, and had a lot of moving parts between recruiting, research, travel/visas, flight training etc. It's hard to believe that people motivated at that level would truly be deterred by what you see happening at the typical American airport these days.
So are they stopping anything serious? It's a safe bet they're not.
From https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Guantanamo_Bay_detention_cam...:
> As of August 2024, at least 780 persons from 48 countries have been detained at the camp since its creation, of whom 740 had been transferred elsewhere, 9 died in custody, and 30 remain; only 16 detainees have ever been charged by the U.S. with criminal offenses.
Given what we do know about the secretive and illegal activities of the federal government during the War on Terror I don’t think it’s a reasonable assumption that everyone accused of terrorist activity got their day in court.
But the counterpoint to that is that a gunman almost succeeded in killing Trump despite showing the behaviours online and offline of your stereotypical amateur assassin.