Terror Attack on Ireland.

tunaman

Maskhadov wrote:

We are a prime location for a terror launch seeing that we are between England and USA.



Lets grow up and secure our air defences. The fact that we havent done already is a disgrace.

People try to tell me the government/media propaganda and scare tactics don't work...

democrates

bug wrote:

Very true, and very shameful, but money seems to make the world go round. Apparently the economic US investment here is too much to put at stake to make a stand.

That's it bug, we Paddies have played the international tax-competiition game well and our 'economy' has grown rich. Sadly while certain foreign and local elements make out like bandits, any fallout from the game which makes us enemies must be borne by taxpayers. No sign of Intel, Dell, or Microsoft offering money for this crucial protection. Another example of privatising profit and socialising risk.

exiztone

clown bag wrote:

what has any of that got to do with buying fighter jets. Fighter jets wont stop a plane being hijacked here for the purpose of attacking Britian or the states and even if we had them all the Irish on board would be shot down and killed anyway.

That's what I was thinking. 22 Fighter Jets isn't going to stop people bringing liquid explosives into Dublin Airport.

Sparks

Discussed (to death) before.

Does Ireland need a modern fighter Squadron?

[Article] Big guns brought out for Bush

How many jet planes does a government need?

Ireland's Potential 911...an interesting scenario

At long, long, last

The actual aircraft themselves don't, that's true - they run to between 25 and 100 million, depending on make, model, etc. But the amount it would cost to field an operational squadron, even a four-aircraft squadron, would be the guts of a billion euro, if not more. Not only do you have to buy the actual aircraft, you have to upgrade facilities, train pilots (which requires you to buy more aircraft to act as trainers, as well as invest in a lot more ground equipment because flying fast jets is a very demanding task and there are major differences between a Cessna and a Fouga, let alone a Cessna and a MiG-29). Then you have to allow for armament, including a budget for live-fire training exercises for training; maintainance costs including spare parts, training, extra people and so on (and those costs are not just for the four-fighter squadron, but for the training aircraft as well), and all you get from this is four aircraft. Now the thing is, four aircraft can't provide fighter cover on a 24-7 basis. You can't simply keep aircraft on 24-hour call all year round. You can't even do it on shifts. Aircraft have wear-and-tear problems, jets more than piston-engined aircraft because of the way the engines work and the higher dynamic stress. Ergo, you need nearly sixteen aircraft to do the job. That's four aircraft per unit, with one unit on standby on the runway, one unit in training, and two in maintainance on a rotating shift basis. And the aircraft won't last for long even at that level of usage - two to four years at the outside.
So, well over a billion (16 aircraft - even at the bargain basement price of 25 million each - comes to four hundred million before you even buy jet fuel) euro spent, and you have two to four years of coverage which will do the wonderful job of arriving overhead a smoking hole in the ground two minutes after it used to be a 737...

To say nothing of the damage caused by the CIRA/RIRA/UDF/whomever, who kept leaving carbombs all over the shop, against which the fighter jet is as much a deterrent as a giant foam tennis racket, and the Gardai we need to prevent this aren't there because the billion-odd euro spent on the fighters was taken from a budget which was supposed to pay for 2000 extra gardai, but something had to be cut to come up with the billion euro; and of course we have no air ambulance service and in fact the ground ambulance service is now somewhat underfunded because of the budget cuts in the Health service; the capital spending programme on roads and schools and so on has been slashed; and in fact, there's not much investment going on in any of the "non-core" areas because of the new fighter squadron.

And of course, there's the fact that airforces with fast jets have accidents. Training, bird strikes, equipment failure - they're all pretty close to unavoidable, unfortunately. Which means that one day, one of our 30-million euro jets may smack into a pigeon over Trinity College at 270 knots, and the now-critically-injured pilot will do what every fast jet pilot is trained to do in such a situation - he'll try to point the nose at Dublin Bay and pull the ejection handles. Maybe it works - and maybe we get a MiG-29 with live weapons and a tank or two of jet fuel slamming into O'Connell street because the pilot passed out during the turn.

Offhand, and you realise this is just a looney-left, tree-hugging, long-haired pinko commie hippie's opinion, I'd say it's a bad idea...

2 milliion workers times 52 weeks times 2.10 euros times 20 years = 4.368 billion euro. So yes, we probably could afford a squadron of fighters if we spread the cost over 20 years. (Of course, some costs can't be deferred that long, but let's let that go for now). Now, this weekend saw the opening of the killybegs community hospital. Modern, state-of-the-art place with 42 beds, designed to handle the sort of thing that a community hospital faces - namely stuff that doesn't get classed as major surgery, things that get treated medically rather than surgically, and so on. 42 beds. Total cost: 4 milion euro. Why don't we have one in every community? Money. How long did it take to get this one built? 25 years - because while construction only took a year or two, it took the guts of three decades of lobbying by killybegs to get that much cash sent their way for something that saves lives. And you'd like to see us blow the funds to pay for a thousand such hospitals on some toys that by your own admission above are useless as anything other than exhibition?

Nineteen terrorists armed with what were effectively pointy sticks took on the United States Air Force, the most advanced and the most potent airforce in the world, on a day when they were training for just such an attack, and they hit not one, not two, but three major buildings including the fscking Pentagon.

And you want us to believe that we can do better? A few lads in jet fighters sitting on the ground in Baldonnell, where the record (according to quotes from Dail Eireann debates) for a scramble launch of fighters is estimated to have been an hour and a half, are going to do what the USAF couldn't do? (I say estimated because they've never actually done a scramble launch for real).

Should a terrorist decide that the architectural details in Dublin Castle are sufficently repugnant to his ideology that he decides he's going to become a suicide bomber, and should he gain access to an airliner over dublin bay and aim for dublin castle, the absolute best case scenario is that he not be interrupted by people shooting at the aircraft. That way the damage is limited to dublin castle (usually relatively unoccupied) and the surrounding area of Dame Street and the south-western end of Christchurch.

Should we follow your advice, and try shooting it down, we'd drop large heavy chunks of red-hot, razor-sharp shrapnel and jet fuel in a large ellipse shape from the quays to dublin castle, and we'd kill a lot more people.

Of course, you haven't noticed the key part to this scenario yet, have you? The trick is - if the terrorist gets control of the aircraft. This is a case of a stitch in time being the correct solution. You introduce security at the airports and on the aircraft. (No, not air marshals, just a reinforced locking cockpit door). It's not glamorous, it won't show up at the salthill airshow breaking mach one over a crowd, but it will do the job far more effectively.

The simple facts are as follows:

1) 9-11 style hijackings cannot be defended against by jet fighters. Even if (and it's a huge if) you could get the fighter in a firing position and verify an airliner is hijacked and get permission to fire to the fighter, what happens? A sidewinder or equivalent will home on the greatest heat source - the engine. The explosion is rather small, and it would in all liklihood detach the engine leave it fall on whatever happens to be below (and if the target is Dublin Castle, that means you've just dropped a multi-ton, rapidly-spinning, red-hot jet engine on a crowded street from a few thousand feet up), while the airliner goes on flying. Sure, it can't maintain altitude or range, but it's a suicide hijacker, not a tourist - so long as most of the aircraft gets there, his job is done. Hell, if you start raining tons of shrapnel down on unsuspecting civilians, his job is done. So basicly, you've expended a billion euros to give you the choice between letting the terrorist fly an intact aircraft into dublin castle, or letting him crash just short of dublin castle, while dropping tons of shrapnel on the rest of the approach path - which means from the quays through trinity college through dame street. Wow. Wonderful defence there. Well worth the billion euros :rolleyes:

2) We can't afford to spend the billion euros required. Full stop.

3) Even if we could find a billion euros, there are far more pressing and vital things that need the money. An air ambulance service, a decent SAR service (tell why is it not embarressing to let the RAF do our SAR, when it's a national shame for them to fly CAPs?), a decent ground ambulance service, infrastructural spending, and all that is totally ignoring the fact that in a few years we are expected to start to become a net contributor to EU funds, rather than a sink for those funds. Now that is an EU obligation, not this toys-for-the-boys airforce.

4) Even if we had a squadron of JSF aircraft sitting continually on baldonnel's runway ready to launch on a 24/7 basis with highly-motivated pilots, well-trained and fatigue-free : there's not much that they could do against a car bomb, or six lads showing up at your door with shotguns and baseball bats at three in the morning, which are the usual methods terrorists have used in Ireland for the last thirty years.

So basicly, you're saying that we should spend money we don't have on an ineffective defence against a non-existant threat against a highly unlikely target, while ignoring our very serious domestic economic problems and our financial obligations to the EU.

We need schools and hospitals and doctors, nurses and teachers.
Get enough of them first, then worry about toys for the boys.

SeanW

I'm in the undecided camp here.

Sure we could use a bit more military power but then again we have this solution of saying we don't want something then letting Britain provide it for us, like air defense, abortion and nuclear power. And it seems to be working, so far. And given the extremely low likihood of anyone attacking us (history has shown that most of the whackos in the world have carefully chosen, bigger fish to fry) what's the point in changing the status quo?

I do think airport security should be beefed up though - stoping any whackjob before s/he can get on the plane would make more sense to me.

Scigaithris

If you look like a duck, and walk like a duck, and talk like a duck, don't get caught during duck season! Some countries maintain long periods of peace and spend very little on defense. Others spend a lot, and still get shot, because they make themselves into targets.

Victor

darkman2 wrote:

There would be no alternative to shooting it down. Looking at it realistically once an aircraft is hijacked by Islamic fundementalists the ppl on board know their fate anyway. People are making the assertion here that a fighter jet couldnt be scrambled quick enough to intercept a hijacked aircraft. This is absolutely not true.

The cost of having fighter aircraft in the air and on standby would be huge.

clown bag wrote:

How many jets had the Americans got and that didn’t stop September 11th from happening (although they were given the morning off ).

This is important, having the planes is not necessarily going to stop anything.

But on the otherhand NORAD dropped form something like 4,500 aircraft on alert in the 1960s to twenty-something in 2001.

Sangre wrote:

Who cares if they hijack a plane here to attack England?
Thats their problem.

Its mostly likely going to be an Irish plane, with a lot of Irish people on board.

Hobbes

A eurofighter isn't going to stop terrorism. It is going to cost the taxpayer more though.

Terrorists take the least path of resistence when attacking. Can't get onto a plane? Hit a train instead, can't hit the train? Hit the bus. Can't hit anything? Just spread the hint of a major terror attack instead and watch everyone fall over themselves.

Anyway Ireland is safe as we all got issued with iodine tablets over the last scare. Assuming they aren't out of date. :eek: :rolleyes:

Hobbes

I was just thinking if they were going to buy a plane it should one of those stealth plane jobs that can hook up to the plane in flight and have your Irish rangers take down the terrorists before the plane crashes.

I also had another thought.. I just realised we don't have to worry about one senario, and thats snakes on a plane! (Thank you St Patrick!)

.. To further expand. Irish airport security is not and has never been lax. Prior to 9/11 getting onto a plane in the US was like getting onto a bus and was so incredibly lax that it would of been possible to get onto a plane with someone elses ticket and with luggage that had never gone through an x-ray machine.

Times have changed now, however I can tell you that if there was ever going to be a terrorist attack here its not going to be on planes. They are more hassle then its worth. Take a look at the Real IRA over the last few days. They have a whole railway line shut down barely makes the news.

Spending more money on military will do absolutly nothing to counter terrorism. In most cases it just normally escalates it.

Maskhadov

Hobbes wrote:

Spending more money on military will do absolutly nothing to counter terrorism.

humm

Ciaran500

Maskhadov wrote:

humm

Terrorist attacks are stopped by intelligence, not by force. Spending more on the army won't help.

Heinrich

gilroyb wrote:

What target are you hoping to defend with these jets?

The BLUE house in Drumcondra opposite Fagans....

Thomas_S_Hunterson

Heinrich wrote:

The BLUE house in Drumcondra opposite Fagans....

Sounds dangerously like an invitation;)

TempestSabre

Hobbes wrote:

I was just thinking if they were going to buy a plane it should one of those stealth plane jobs that can hook up to the plane in flight and have your Irish rangers take down the terrorists before the plane crashes. ....

What you need is Kurt Russell. http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0116253/

darkman2

Hobbes wrote:

Terrorists take the least path of resistence when attacking. :eek: :rolleyes:

And that most certanly is Ireland. We are the weakest possible staging point in the EU. Someone asked 'Do I know that?'. Ive been all over Europe and several times to the US and no-one can doubt that security is most lax at Dublin airport. Add to that the fact we dont have really any visual deterrant at all. These are basics of international security and have not got it right.

Hobbes

darkman2 wrote:

And that most certanly is Ireland. We are the weakest possible staging point in the EU. Someone asked 'Do I know that?'. Ive been all over Europe and several times to the US and no-one can doubt that security is most lax at Dublin airport.

Your basing your premise on airports. Its flawed. The point was the method of attacks.

For example which of these is easier at this point.
- Hijacking a plane?
- Buying a bag of compost?
- Buying a couple of bags of peaches?
- Announcing your intention to conduct a terrorist attack on a certain date.

Which requires the least amount of work and will cause the most disruption?

Sangre

Victor wrote:

Its mostly likely going to be an Irish plane, with a lot of Irish people on board.

And as I mentioned earlier, what could we possibly do for then? If a plane has been effectively hi-jacked then the people on board are going to die anyway.

Do you purpose we shoot and kill them ourselves before the terrorists get to?

flogen

For my sins I read an idiotic piece in the NOTW on this whole thing; it seems like all the papers are going into overdrive.
I'm sceptical enough of that Murdoch rag to believe that it was being paid for by some company looking to make a quick buck selling weapons to Ireland.

One point I laughed at was when the writer said that we are lucky enough to be a mainly white country, and that any Islamic terrorists going to the Airport to case it would stand out like a sore thumb... firstly that means that all non-whites should be treated as suspects and it also assumes that you have to be arabic or black to be Islamic... moron.

gandalf

Buy 22 planes to counter terrorism. Sorry sounds like a complete waste of money. Spending money on counter terrrorism measures and intelligence gathering would be alot more effective and maybe beefing up security at the airports.

Bit of a non thread this really. Might lock it soon.

daveirl

This post has been deleted.

Hobbes

On the same question, who are we expected to get invaded by?

InFront

Since 2003 when they voted on it, Switzerland has been downscaling its military on a large scale. Finland, Liechtenstein, have they got big armies? I think Austria has, but they only spend an extra .2 of a percent of GDP on their army than we do.

Rule Hibernia, Hibernia rules the waves...

SeanW

daveirl wrote:

This post has been deleted.

Exactly. The whole point of being Neutral is that you can defend your soveirngty yourself and don't need to get into mutual defense arrangements. That's why the Swiss have traditionally had a large army and a national draft.

Notice they didn't get knocked over in World War II, hardly because Hitler and Mussolini "respected their neutrality" when they were knocking over countries left right and centre.

As for our "Plan B" well we know that the British wouldn't be too happy if some whacko dictator moved in next door, so they'll come bail us out. As would the Americans whose companies and military have a lot of interests here.

Indeed, given our size, the lack of risk etc, I'm not disagreeing with the de-facto policy, but just saying isn't strictly Neutral since it relies on allies.

DublinWriter

luckat wrote:

Gimme a break. The people attacking Britain and America are attacking countries that are causing grief to them and theirs. Ireland scarcely falls into the same category!

Sorry but the whole "ah sure it'll do begorrah!, shure we're Irish! Diddly Diddly Idle!" approach to domestic security doesn't cut the mustard with me.

We're already allowing US troop flights re-fuel and go duty free shopping in Shannon in full combat fatigues here, not to mention the contentious CIA flights that have allegedly gone through Shannon.

Personally I think we're sleepwalking on this whole issue. The stories in the press today about the 'liquid-bombers' using Dublin airport as a dry-run confirms my worst nightmares. We're a soft target and what's worse, we're known as being a soft target.

My nightmare scenario is 'corporal' O'Dea having to weasel his way out of explaining a coulpe of dozen civillian deaths at Dublin/Shannon Airport on 'Questions & Answers'.

Being the Minister of Defence in this country was always seen as a bit of a soft-auld job, a bit of a junket for the good auld loyal party lacky who towed the party line althrough his/her career.

tallaghtoutlaws

Ireland as a target get real people. When terrorists pick target to blow up it is for a reason. Ok take if they did blow something up here how on earth would it affect the US or UK seriously. Do you honestly think they would be affected by a bomb going off in Ireland? (And I do not mean personal feelings and sadness etc...)

As for security here being lax the Air Corp do have planes that could take down a 747 or any commercial airline. They may not be the most technological advanced planes but travel at a good speed and can carry weapons.

As for Airport security I recently travelled around the globe hitting 10 different countries including the UK and the US and I have to say there was no difference between the US UK and Ireland and Australia.

Think about it how would terrorists benefit from striking Ireland other than peeing off a few million Paddys and creating another enemy that will most likely get involved in self defence.

jbkenn

InFront wrote:

Since 2003 when they voted on it, Switzerland has been downscaling its military on a large scale. Finland, Liechtenstein, have they got big armies? I think Austria has, but they only spend an extra .2 of a percent of GDP on their army than we do.

Rule Hibernia, Hibernia rules the waves...

They may be downsizing, but their current Air Force assets include (From the Swiss Air Force website) http://www.vbs-ddps.ch/internet/luftwaffe/en/home.html
F/A-18 Hornet Number in service: 33
Northrop Tiger II/F-5E.- F-5F Number in service (E+F): 85
Pilatus PC-7 Number in service: 38
Palatus PC-9 Number in service: 11

We on the other hand have, 8 Pilatus PC-9's

jbkenn

Sparks

We on the other hand have, 8 Pilatus PC-9's

They spend some 2.5 billion euro a year for their advantage.

BTW, why is it that we're comparing our armed forces with switzerland instead of our medical system, our educational system, or even our system of government?

daveirl

This post has been deleted.

TempestSabre

Sparks wrote:

They spend some 2.5 billion euro a year for their advantage.

BTW, why is it that we're comparing our armed forces with switzerland instead of our medical system, our educational system, or even our system of government?

Exactly. Worry about your own populations basic services before anything else.

Dirk Gently

Sparks wrote:

BTW, why is it that we're comparing our armed forces with switzerland instead of our medical system, our educational system, or even our system of government?

Best point in the thread so far.