After seeing the following paragraph today in Nafeez Ahmed's latest piece on 9/11, I thought maybe I should post this on blogger.

Here is the paragraph from Nafeez's piece:

There are related issues here of public safety. For instance, technologies were in place to remotely direct the hijacked aircraft to avoid the terrible scenario unfolding. “Most modern aircraft have some form of autopilot that could be re-programmed to ignore commands from a hijacker and instead take direction from the ground,” Jeff Gosling of the Institute of Transportation Studies at the University of California, Berkeley, told the New Scientist one day after 9/11. Why were these technologies not used to save the aircraft? Why did the 9/11 Commission not bother to ask the same question?

Norman Mineta stated during his testimony before the 9/11 Commission:

"During the time that the airplane was coming in to the Pentagon, there was a young man who would come in and say to the Vice President, "The plane is 50 miles out." "The plane is 30 miles out." And when it got down to "the plane is 10 miles out," the young man also said to the Vice President, "Do the orders still stand?" And the Vice President turned and whipped his neck around and said, "Of course the orders still stand. Have you heard anything to the contrary?"

During this testimony, Lee Hamilton made sure that Norman Mineta eventually "agreed" that the order was a "Shoot-Down" order.

MR. HAMILTON: Let me see if I understand. The plane that was headed toward the Pentagon and was some miles away, there was an order to shoot that plane down.

MR. MINETA: Well, I don't know that specifically, but I do know that the airplanes were scrambled from Langley or from Norfolk, the Norfolk area. But I did not know about the orders specifically other than listening to that other conversation.

MR. HAMILTON: But there very clearly was an order to shoot commercial aircraft down.

MR. MINETA: Subsequently I found that out.

As you can see, Norman Mineta didn't find out until later that it was a "Shoot-Down" order. We have no idea what that order was. The "young man" was never brought before the 9/11 Commission that I know of. If he was, it wasn't mentioned in the 9/11 Report.

The biggest question I have about this part in Norman Mineta's testimony is why would the "young man" feel the need to run in and out of the room if he was given a "Shoot-Down" order?

I would think, and if you're in the military, please correct me if I'm wrong, but I would think that if the "young man" was given a "Shoot-Down" order, he would wait for confirmation of the shoot-down, and then go tell Cheney about it.

He wouldn't run in and out of the room, finally asking if the orders still stood would he? The very question itself indicates that whatever the orders were, he questioned them.

I have speculated in the past that the order he questioned was in fact, a "Stand-Down" order. It made sense because the plane was never intercepted, and ultimately crashed into the Pentagon.

The problem with that theory is that the young man questioned the orders at 10 miles out. Would they have been able to stop the plane with an intercept with such short notice? I don't think so. I could be wrong.

The other possibility for a "Stand-Down" is for the Pentagon's defenses. Whatever they may have been at the time. According to April Gallup, the Pentagon had missile batteries. According to Wayne Madsen, the Pentagon didn't have missile batteries at the time, but did have what are known as "Phalanx Close-In Weapon System (CIWS)." According to WorldNetDaily, the Pentagon didn't have any defenses.

Defense Department officials actually considered a terrorist scenario in which Islamic fundamentalist martyrs crashed planes into the otherwise impregnable Pentagon, but they ruled out countermeasures, such as anti-aircraft batteries and radar, as too costly and too dangerous to surrounding residential areas, a senior Pentagon official specializing in counterterrorism told WorldNetDaily in an exclusive interview.

If the Pentagon, America's Military Headquarters, is undefended, then I would certainly fire whoever is in charge of the Pentagon's security.

Some have speculated that the reason they won't release the Pentagon's video tapes is because they may show the Pentagon's defenses being activated, and that's "classified".

Anyway, back to the "young man". If the order he received that he questioned was not a "Shoot-Down" order, and was not a "Stand-Down" order, then what kind of order was it?

Some of you may remember former state secretary of the German Federal Ministry of Defense (1976-1980), and former Minister of Research and Technology (1980-1982) Andreas Von Bulow.

He once said:

"The Americans had developed a method in the 1970s, whereby they could rescue hijacked planes by intervening into the computer piloting [automatic pilot system]."

According to Joe Vialls, it was DARPA who was contracted to develop this technology.

I've never been able to verify that this technology was developed. My whole theory can fall apart right here. It does make sense though considering 4 planes were simulateously hijacked on September 12th, 1970.

However... what if the "young man" was questioning an order to guide Flight 77 into the Pentagon? We all remember hearing how Cheney had at his disposal technology that superceded everything else that day.

If Cheney was the "Maestro", then maybe he was in charge of those "Live Fly" drills from the PEOC. What if the "young man" simply used whatever technology he was using to take over the "hijacked" aircraft, and guide it into the Pentagon?

Or...

Perhaps the "young man" was in communication with those who were in control?

My theory is essentially, he was questioning whether or not to guide Flight 77 into the Pentagon.

Feel free to blast this theory to shreds.