>>>My thoughts exactly. First thing I thought of was non-metallic knives. You CANNOT prevent this kind of thing from happening.
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>>How about removing interior access to the cockpit. Have a seperate external door.
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>Problem is, hijacking and crashing a plane is only one of many ways to conduct terrorism.
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>Hilmar.

Hilmar,
you are absolutely correct. But all of the ways involve money and people who believe in the approach. We need to go after the money, the 'reasonable' people who paid for the operation and make them suffer. By that I mean organizations that donate funds to bin Laden and states that support him. We can't stop lunatics from existing but we can make it hard for them to build an organization. By going after the money I don't mean assassinating the head of an arab charitable organization that gives money. On the other hand a stiff prison sentance (after all he didn't know *exactly* what the money was for) seems appropriate. The Brit's have a similar complaint with the US, by the way: American-Irish have been feeding the IRA cash for decades.

But we also have to win their minds. That means that they have to see a way out. It's a chinese proverb that it's easier to win a city if you leave one gate unguarded. The trapped rat and the like. That means we can't just use the stick we also need the carrot -- the rewards. The US has been suceeding in this approach slowly. Libya really could be taken off the states supporting terrorism list, and Iran, while it supports Shiite groups in Lebanon that are involved in Israel is far less active than in 1982. Syria is also pretty much out of the international terrorist picture. Egypt is as large a recepient of aid as Israel. I think around three billion dollars a year go to Egypt.

It's the sucesses of the US in the Arab world that are directly responsible for the attack: namely the defense of Saudi Arabia. We were guests in that war and outside of palestine had wide though ambivalent support in the arab world. It's our support for and friendship with Saudi Arabia that has made us the target. I think this attack is one of desperation and if we react wisely will allow us to win the real war that has been going on between Islamic Arab Fundamentalism and liberalism for the last twenty years.