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Politics : View from the Center and Left -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: ManyMoose who wrote (90952)	10/21/2008 5:25:51 AM
From: thames_sider	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 541102

Actually IMO the obvious one would be Mexico. Police are corrupt, bribable or scared (or all three), plenty of gangs, entry into the country should be reasonably easy. And I doubt they're heavily on the watch for terrorists. After that they're very close to US airspace so taking a flight bound for (say) NY and aiming for somewhere like Houston, LA, or Las Vegas (now there's a worthy symbol of decadence) should give not much time to react and leave plenty of fuel. Cuba would be a bad pick. They're heavily policed from inside and out, I don't believe the state would connive still less cooperate, and I'd imagine the airspace from there to the US is very heavily monitored: and I would guess there aren't even direct flights anyway. Same probably applies to Venezuela: I can see Chavez turning a blind eye, or simply not having any security in place, but it's a long way off and I don't know if there are many such flights. Pakistan? Well, the plane would have no fuel left, but it could be carrying anything, with any number of possible suspects. That's a failing state and IMO in a few years will be a rogue state to dwarf Somalia, never mind Afghanistan. In no small part thanks to our (US/UK) policies in the last few years. <edit> And how would Obama deal with them? In the case of Mexico, I don't know that there would be much if any time to deal with a jet hijack/suicide scenario. "Best" case is that the plane gets shot down or taken down by the passengers themselves... I'm not so sanguine about either. Pakistan? Assuming a plane with a nuke came over? I don't like the idea of war with them... too, too destabilising. But occupation would make Iraq seem like a pleasure cruise. That's the problem with not looking ahead, you can get to a situation where there are no longer any good answers.