The final word, which most people haven't heard, is that there were no torpedo boats in the Gulf of Tonkin that night. They were chasing radar echoes from interference and beam curvature that were known to produce phantom returns, and the "torpedoes" were their own and each other's propellors echoing off the bottom and rudders, again a known problem but misunderstood in the chaos.
Again, Johnson took advantage of an unrelated "opportunity" and gave us the nasties from Viet Nam. "Shrub" did it with 9/11, and we aren't done with this edition yet. Oh, by the way, there was an interceptor just a few miles behind the plane that hit the Pentagon, but you gotta remember, this was all out of a clear blue sky so far as the air defense command was concerned. Takes a while to determine that a plane no longer responding on a normal day has been hijacked, as hijackings in the US itself are quite rare these days, and longer to understand that it wasn't a ransom hijack. Add to that the fact that we don't fly a military patrol of the airways, and the response wasn't too bad at all. The only way it could have been prevented was for the Air Force to be already patrolling for hijacked planes headed for buildings, and if that had been the case, there wouldn't have been an attack. Peter _______________________________________ http://www.okiebenz.com For new parts see official list sponsor: http://www.buymbparts.com/ For used parts email [EMAIL PROTECTED] To Unsubscribe or change delivery options go to: http://okiebenz.com/mailman/listinfo/mercedes_okiebenz.com
