Mr-Shortcut on 911day

I was here in NY on 911day. My first thought upon discussing it on the night of September 11 was to question why the government didn't launch fighter jets from Ft. Lee, NJ, only ten to fifteen seconds away, where squadrons are maintained on alert and have been for decades. We're told that after the first plane crashed into the first tower, Cheney ordered jets to protect the White House. Less than three minutes from the issuance of his command, jets were flying formation over the White House.
Six minutes after that, the second plane, heading north, did something that attracted the attention of several air traffic controllers because none of them had EVER seen a commercial jet flying north suddenly turn around one hundred and eighty degrees, head back unannounced back towards New York City, and then dropped off the radar screen!
It was some twelve minutes or more minutes later that the second plane hit. Never mind Alert Crews trained to get airborne in three minutes or less; we're talking twenty-eight unendurably long minutes - unendurable in the most literal definition of the word, because almost all of the victims would absolutely not have died had the second tower been protected.

As quick as any of us are to discount and discredit the surfeit of conspiracy theorists, no sane investigator, no rational thinker can long operate under the delusions attendant upon and consequent to strings of facts being ignored or deprecated. let's be specific. There is no doubt that both government and non-government sources had clear and definitive information that the World Trade Center would be attacked by hijacked aircraft. Let us not be distracted from facts by Monday morning quarterbacks who insist that it's all too easy to cast identifiably responsibility after the fact, and that the unprecedented nature of the attack made it impossible to accurate predict. You see, "predict" carries a distinct connotation of talent, of an ability not available to all humans That's patently inaccurate.