Who could have anticipated the attack?

[tw]

Originally posted by sycamore
Some PA National Guardsmen are saying that they were not allowed to carry loaded weapons at Philadelphia International Airport, while patrolling it post-9/11.

Reminds me of marines guarding barracks in Beruit Lebanon some years back. They too, upon order from Washington, were not allowed to load their weapons.

But then terrorists were not going to storm a plane in a wild west, through the front door, guns blazing attack. Those National Guardsmen were not there to solve a security problem. An M-16 armed Guardsmen would not have stopped any previous hijackings even back to the 1960s.

But if that Guardsman stands there with an M-16, then some people actually felt government was addressing reasons for security breaches (and ignore the fiasco called National Airport). Too many will not, instead, read the above cited Economist article.