Earl Croasmun -> Ed Hulett wrote:

 ->> Actually their goal is to kill and injure as many innocent people as
 ->> possible. Otherwise they would wait until no one else was there and
 ->> just blow up the building.

 EC> If they wanted to kill as many people as possible, they wouldn't have
 EC> aimed planes at the White House and Pentagon.  There were targets with
 EC> more people and less protection.

The WTC was targeted for collateral damage. They not only got a symbol of
western society, they also were able to kill as many people as possible.
The White House and the Capitol building were targets because they were the
center of our government. The Pentagon was a secondary target when the
pilot of that plane overshot the White House.

 EC> The 1993 World Trade Center bombing used a huge car bomb parked in a
 EC> parking garage.  The goal was to topple the tower into the other tower.
 EC> As I recall from some of the news coverage, one of the important parts
 EC> of the 2001 plan was to have lots of fuel and hit in the middle of the
 EC> building so the fuel would softed the beams and cause a cascading
 EC> effect.  Hitting lower would have trapped and killed more, but would
 EC> have less chance of bringing down the whole tower.

They knew they would kill a large amount of people if they brought down the
buildings.

 EC> Of course they wanted to kill people.  They certainly weren't trying to
 EC> minimize the deaths.  But that was not as important as going after
 EC> symbols of the enemy and doing it in a highly visible way.

Simply going after symbols would have terrorized people as much as the fact
that a large number of people were murdered in the process.

 ->> In Ackley's world there would be no freedom of the press.

 EC> He expressed an opinion on what the press should cover.  I don't think
 EC> he favored censorship by the government.

And how was he planning on getting the press to not cover it?

Ed

-- 
"Strive to be the greatest man in your country, and you may
be disappointed.  Strive to be the best and you may succeed:
he may well win the race that runs by himself."

-- Benjamin Franklin (Poor Richard's Almanack, 1747)

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