Copyright 2001 Boston Herald Inc. The Boston
Herald
September 26, 2001 Wednesday ALL
EDITIONS
SECTION: NEWS; Pg. 006
LENGTH: 667 words
HEADLINE: WAR
ON TERRORISM; Armed cockpit . . . that's just
BYLINE: By Howie Carr
BODY: Arm the airline pilots, arm them now. And tell
all these Clinton holdovers and Sen. Patty Murray to shut up.
The last few days, I've been getting faxes from a former naval aviator
who is now a commercial airline pilot. For obvious reasons, he doesn't wish to
be identified, but this guy - call him Pilot X - seems to speak for most of his
fellow pilots, considering the president of their largest union was before a
congressional committee yesterday demanding the right to arm themselves.
"The public is NOT going to fly again until somebody fixes
this," he wrote Monday night. "When the public doesn't fly, I don't have a job.
Nor soon might everybody else employed in the airline industry. When we don't
have an airline industry, we don't have much of an economy. Get my drift?"
Pilot X started writing last Thursday, after The Wall
Street Journal printed a story about "makeshift" defense tactics pilots were
employing. Like, for instance, arming themselves with crash axes and blocking
the cockpit doors with drink carts.
"Please," he wrote,
"rather than treating us as part of the PROBLEM, treat us as part of the
SOLUTION! Just ask any El Al pilot how they perceive their function in Israel's
chain of airline security."
Of course, the PC crowd is
still anti-gun, even in the cockpits. Common sense in these Clinton-lovers is
rarer than an American flag in Harvard Yard.
Yesterday,
Pilot X got into a debate with one of his fellow pilots, who is in the minority
opposed to arming themselves.
"He's from Vermont,"
explained Pilot X, "so that explains a great deal."
Let's call the anti-gun Vermonter Pilot Y.
"How do you totally prevent the terrorist from obtaining it?" wrote
Pilot Y. "He might be wearing Kevlar."
Then, Pilot Y,
you shoot the savage in the head.
"It is not
inconceivable that the bad guy ends up with the gun," Pilot Y continues. "What
about the cowboys who may be a little hot and trigger-happy? At this point in
time we are all hot."
To which Pilot X replies, "Even
if a suicidial terrorist-hijacker does end up with your firearm the situation
remains no worse. . . . The terrorist is going to kill you either way and drive
your jet into his intended target. Thousands may die. On the contrary, if you
are armed with a sidearm and able to put a bullet between his eyes, you've
terminated the threat with extreme prejudice, immediately."
I think pro-gun Pilot X wins the argument.
Yes, the feds are going to hire more air marshals, which will help.
"But that's darned sure not going to happen overnight," Pilot X said. "In the
meantime, the traveling public's only assured defense is sitting in the cockpit.
We are the last line of defense until we get these other problems solved."
Like everyone else, Pilot X is appalled by FAA boss Jane
Garvey. This woman is a Dukakoid, a Clinton holdover whose only previous claim
to fame was her sleazy husband, the sheriff of Hampshire County, who was once
cited by the State Ethics Commission for using county employees to build him a
tennis court at his home.
If for no other reason, she
should be fired because the bum who appointed her, Bill Clinton, pardoned the
last bunch of terrorists who bombed New York.
Why is
Jane Garvey still on a government payroll?
"She is,"
writes Pilot X, "out of altitude and ideas, as we say in my business. Amazing
how this (hearing last week) was the first time since the disaster we've even
seen Ms. Garvey in public. I'd be hiding too with her record."
Then there's Logan International Airport. Like everyone else, Pilot X
has noticed the severe shortage of Americans at the security gates.
"Let's cut the crap and fix this now!" he wrote. "And for
God's sake, in the meantime provide employees at the Boston-Logan security
checkpoints who speak some damned English! Perception is reality."
Arm the pilots. It's a start.
Howie Carr's radio show can be heard every weekday afternoon on WRKO-AM
680, WHYN-AM 560, WGAN-AM 560, WXTK 95.1 FM or online at howiecarr.org.
Document 115 of 142. 