"Does this mean that all those skymarshalls will be out of a job???"
No, but it would be a last line of defense if the marshall failed to stop an attack.
"And if they are still taking to the skys, what sort of contingency is in place to prevent a captain from accidentally shooting a marshall that is trying to stop an assasin?"
I would suspect training and procedures best left off a public forum.
"Will the authorities/airline/airport concerned (i.e. lawyers) blame the pilot for not using his/her gun to foil it...? "
I believe as the pilots will be considered Federal Officers and are absolved of liability in performance of defense. Being an idiot outside this duty may not protect said pilot though from lawsuits.
"How many people honestly believe that the next attempt at a major attack will be a 9/11 copycat complete with 'storming of cockpits'?"
You would have to be an idiot to believe the Islamic fundelmentalist scum aren't still thinking of an 9/11 style attack. It was horribly successful. They liked the results.
knobbygb, anyone with the slightest cell of intelligence can only look at the 1983 Bombing of the US Marine barracks in Beirut. It was also a horribly successful attack. Now knobbygb, in 1984, would you also state "who would honestly believe the next attack would be with a copycat truck bomb?"
"how about an inside-job performed by a captain brought-up and groomed for the cause over his entire life perhaps? An Egypt Air style (alleged) crash?"
What if? What if? What if?
How do you face the fear by getting out of bed in the morning?Your "what if?" can happen with a gun, or without a gun. It is irrelevent to this debate.
"I guess what I'm trying to say is that I don't believe this fight can ever be won."
Maybe not. But then again you should never quit a fight in the first round. Personally I thing a couple things need to be done and one has started already. First, pull out of Saudi Arabia (already happening). They don't like us? I don't like them. Block them from the US while we're at it.
Second, push the Palestinian/Isreal issue to resolution. Since the Isrealis have started to scream bloody murder, I think the posturing and back channel pressuring has begun.
Third, if the first two are successful, much of the extraneous noise will be cut out and those hard core bastards will still exist, except it will be easier to weed them out. Then we continue what has already started. Kill those that can't be arrested or are of little value alive. Give many more a secret trip to Gitmo and dump them quietly in the Caribbean sea when through with them. Develope a excellent intel program to indentify instigators at the mosques. For the radical ones preaching death and mayhem for the US, run them over with a range rover while they cross a street. This method does open up a can of worms if used against simple dissent against the US or some US corporate interest locally.
After awhile if successful you end up like German FW190 pilots in March of 1945. Not very many of them, not trained well and easy to pick off.
Ok,
Let's try this again.
Which scenario of my Red and Blue quotes does the group prefer?