Mark, actually after more thought I think that Zeev is right that the answer is not in the cockpit at all. Even in your idea, suppose the "hijackers" start killing one passenger a minute until the pilots open the door? Next you will want a time lock so they can't open it for the duration of the flight no matter what happens, I suppose.
If it is indeed bin Laden who is the problem, then I presume the US will warn Afghanistan to hand him over or face a declaration of war (by the entire NATO pact, not just the US). Note that if we do this, it will be markedly different than the case of Iraq. In that case, with no declaration of war, the job of the US military was simply to displace Iraq from Kuwait, and they had no grant of authority to invade Iraq, kill Saddam, or capture the Iraqi army. Any damage they did to Iraq was incidental to the purpose of driving Iraq out of Kuwait. By contrast, if we declare war, our military will have the authority to completely destroy Afghanistan, a markedly different mission.
The sad thing is that Afghanistan is laboring under the delusion that they are invincible on their home ground. History is littered with invaders who unsuccessfully attempted to conquer Afghanistan, including the British and, most recently, the Russians. Therefore I expect that they will not fear us, either, and will refuse to turn over bin Laden. If the US were to invade Afghanistan, using the techniques of the past, we would probably meet a similar fate, so I don't expect that. Just as they used techniques different than used in the past, I expect that we will, too. Indeed I expect they will be bombed into the stone age. Note that, in Iraq, the US military made a conscious effort to exclude civilian targets. I don't expect them to make any effort to do so this time, however. Unless Pakistan provides support and homes for their refugees, as they did when the Russians invaded, Afghanistan will have a difficult time surviving, even with no ground invasion at all, and even with no nuclear weapons.
My suspicion is that the new policy of the world going forward will be much more aggressive towards any country that harbors known terrorists. Sadly whatever purpose the perpetrators may have had, such as to push us away from support of Israel, or to make us less active globally, I have little doubt that the effect will be the reverse. There are already signs of active discrimination against Palastinians in the US, so even innocent people of Palastinian descent will suffer from this action. For example, in my town there is a cafe run by a palastinian, and I suspect his business will see a dramatic decline in business.
Carl |
