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The veteran and USC professor who predicted 9/11

Apr 17, 2019
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On this day, I always remember Rick Rescorla.
Long story short, he was from Cornwall, UK, came to America, fought in Viet Nam, taught criminal justice at USC for 3 years and was later head of corporate security at the World Trade Center.
He predicted the 1993 attack and 9/11 and made sure that his people, even executives, would be ready.

Here is his Wikipedia -> Rick Rescorla
 
True that. He was actually ridiculed by many.

It does depress me that humans choose emotions over logic.
We love "remembering" and praying, but not prevention.
And we favor patriotism over accountability every single time.

True that. He was actually ridiculed by many.

It does depress me that humans choose emotions over logic.
We love "remembering" and praying, but not prevention.
And we favor patriotism over accountability every single time.

OP, thanks for this post. I had no idea Rick Rescorla taught at USC! What an amazing man and amazing life story! How lucky were his students to have been in a class taught by a man such as Rick!

He was a participant in the battle highlighted in the movie "We Were Soldiers Once, and Young".

*******************************

I know after the 1993 WTC bombing, there was a lot of concern and planning for another attack on the WTC. It is pretty amazing and fortunate there were not more people killed due to the numbers that were working in the Towers.
 
I read his Wikipedia profile and at the bottom it lists honors and recognition made by all he touched but there appears to be nothing that USC did. Sad.
 
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I read his Wikipedia profile and at the bottom it lists honors and recognition made by all he touched but there appears to be nothing that USC did. Sad.

Someone with first hand information of his classes, activities at USC should write brief summary fo his USC days. It could be a collaboration. Then the WIKI article could be updated. The more detailed a writeup, the better the tribute to this remarkable man.
 
To be fair, Tom Clancy wrote a best selling novel about an airline pilot crashing a jetliner into the US Capitol building in 1994 (Debt of Honor). Anyone with a brain knew this was a possibility, yet when it started on 9/11 the US couldn't get even two armed fighters airborne (the one they scrambled were unarmed). Plus the FAA had to look up the military bases with a phone book, there was no hotline between the military and the FAA. Complete negligence, IMHO. Guys like Rescoria are heroes. Bureaucrats that won't spend money to prevent problems, but approve 1000s of times that to fix them afterward are the anti-heroes.
 
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What years did he teach at USC? Pretty interesting story.
So did the Tom Clancy story give them the idea to do it? That's something to think about. There are a couple netflix shows out that pretty much reflect what is happening with corona virus. Those shows are from 2016, 17, and 18. And now we got the exact type situation happening in real life. 🤔🤔
 
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He died at the World Trade Center on 9/11, after going back up to save more people.
That almost brings tears to my eyes. Who does stuff like that?
To be fair, Tom Clancy wrote a best selling novel about an airline pilot crashing a jetliner into the US Capitol building in 1994 (Debt of Honor). Anyone with a brain knew this was a possibility, yet when it started on 9/11 the US couldn't get even two armed fighters airborne (the one they scrambled were unarmed). Plus the FAA had to look up the military bases with a phone book, there was no hotline between the military and the FAA. Complete negligence, IMHO. Guys like Rescoria are heroes. Bureaucrats that won't spend money to prevent problems, but approve 1000s of times that to fix them afterward are the anti-heroes.
That grinds my gears. We had hints about 9/11 but because of PCness and incompetence it happened anyway and to top that off to my knowledge no one was reprimanded.
To get political for a moment look who our POTUS was. Almost as bad as LBJ.
 
True that. He was actually ridiculed by many.

It does depress me that humans choose emotions over logic.
We love "remembering" and praying, but not prevention.
And we favor patriotism over accountability every single time.
Patriotism and accountability are intertwined, IMO. Patriotism without accountability is false patriotism.
 
History will remember Bush’s impromptu speech to the emergency personnel. Still, it gives me goosebumps.”....Soon the people that knocked these buildings down will hear you....”
 
We had no choice but to be patriotic after 9/11.
But this patriotism was an easy way out for Bush and others.

His administration quite simply failed to protect America like Rescorla and others would have.
But his approval rating exploded from 50% to 90%. In a way, 9/11 saved Bush.

...And he never found Osama way over in Iraq's oil fields.

History will remember Bush’s impromptu speech to the emergency personnel. Still, it gives me goosebumps.”....Soon the people that knocked these buildings down will hear you....”


Patriotism and accountability are intertwined, IMO. Patriotism without accountability is false patriotism.


That almost brings tears to my eyes. Who does stuff like that?

That grinds my gears. We had hints about 9/11 but because of PCness and incompetence it happened anyway and to top that off to my knowledge no one was reprimanded.
To get political for a moment look who our POTUS was. Almost as bad as LBJ.
 
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What years did he teach at USC? Pretty interesting story.
So did the Tom Clancy story give them the idea to do it? That's something to think about. There are a couple netflix shows out that pretty much reflect what is happening with corona virus. Those shows are from 2016, 17, and 18. And now we got the exact type situation happening in real life. 🤔🤔

Actually their first idea was to hijack dozens of planes over the Pacific and just crash them. This was a terrorist cell in Indonesia and it was found out and prevented by various countries intelligence services. So all the intelligence services knew the terrorists were focused on airlines and how easy they were to hijack. Yet nothing was done at the FAA or Air Force. Nothing was done to put a simple lock on the pilot's door.
 
That almost brings tears to my eyes. Who does stuff like that?

That grinds my gears. We had hints about 9/11 but because of PCness and incompetence it happened anyway and to top that off to my knowledge no one was reprimanded.
To get political for a moment look who our POTUS was. Almost as bad as LBJ.

If you meant Clinton who had 8 years to fix this, I agree. If you mean Bush, to be fair, he had barely been President 8 months, you can hardly blame him.
 
He could have prevented 9/11 during his first 8 DAYS in office by saying "Yo, start locking the cockpit doors, plz."
I mean, the average wise father protecting his family could have told him that.

The job of President is about proactive actions, not reactionary speeches.

If you meant Clinton who had 8 years to fix this, I agree. If you mean Bush, to be fair, he had barely been President 8 months, you can hardly blame him.
 
He could have prevented 9/11 during his first 8 DAYS in office by saying "Yo, start locking the cockpit doors, plz."
I mean, the average wise father protecting his family could have told him that.

The job of President is about proactive actions, not reactionary speeches.

Couldn't Clinton have done that during his 8 years in office? The book came out in 1995, he had a whole term plus. There were a lot of things screwed up during the Clinton years, Bush had his hands full fixing them. Plus there weren't locks on the doors, every plane would have to be refitted. There were no locks to start locking. Bush spent his first months worried about fixing the military that had been decimated. In February they caught Robert Hansen who had been passing top secrets to the Soviets. In March Bush spent time on missile defenses (something totally ignored for 8 yrs prior). In April the Chinese bring down a highly classified US spy plane. On May 1, President Bush calls for a "new framework" for national defense, including a missile defense system to shield the whole country against incoming missiles. In June he meets with NATO and called upon all European nations to cast aside their political divisions and become "truly united, truly democratic and truly diverse. So he was pretty busy shoring up our defenses to notice whether pilots were locking their doors and what FAA regs said about it.
 
Yes, Clinton could have. I guess he's lucky to have left office when he did.
Clinton is a very lucky man in many ways ;).

According to the 9/11 Commission Report:
"We do not know exactly how the hijackers gained access to the cockpit; FAA rules required that the doors remain closed and locked during flight...Perhaps the terrorists stabbed the flight attendants to get a cockpit key, to force one of them to open the cockpit door, or to lure the captain or first officer out of the cockpit."

We now know that Bush, and particularly Dick, were more like Steve Spurrier than Joe Lee Dunn. If you know what I mean. Their priorities were never about successfully defending us against the most probable and obvious threats, or even defending us from those missiles that never came. They wanted to go Fun n' Gun in the Middle East to enrich Halliburton and grab all that oil. And they did.

This is what I "remember" most about 9/11 and what it meant for our nation. It was a real nightmare which still continues to the present.

Couldn't Clinton have done that during his 8 years in office? The book came out in 1995, he had a whole term plus. There were a lot of things screwed up during the Clinton years, Bush had his hands full fixing them. Plus there weren't locks on the doors, every plane would have to be refitted. There were no locks to start locking. Bush spent his first months worried about fixing the military that had been decimated. In February they caught Robert Hansen who had been passing top secrets to the Soviets. In March Bush spent time on missile defenses (something totally ignored for 8 yrs prior). In April the Chinese bring down a highly classified US spy plane. On May 1, President Bush calls for a "new framework" for national defense, including a missile defense system to shield the whole country against incoming missiles. In June he meets with NATO and called upon all European nations to cast aside their political divisions and become "truly united, truly democratic and truly diverse. So he was pretty busy shoring up our defenses to notice whether pilots were locking their doors and what FAA regs said about it.
 
Yes, Clinton could have. I guess he's lucky to have left office when he did.
Clinton is a very lucky man in many ways ;).

According to the 9/11 Commission Report:
"We do not know exactly how the hijackers gained access to the cockpit; FAA rules required that the doors remain closed and locked during flight...Perhaps the terrorists stabbed the flight attendants to get a cockpit key, to force one of them to open the cockpit door, or to lure the captain or first officer out of the cockpit."

We now know that Bush, and particularly Dick, were more like Steve Spurrier than Joe Lee Dunn. If you know what I mean. Their priorities were never about successfully defending us against the most probable and obvious threats, or even defending us from those missiles that never came. They wanted to go Fun n' Gun in the Middle East to enrich Halliburton and grab all that oil. And they did.

This is what I "remember" most about 9/11 and what it meant for our nation. It was a real nightmare which still continues to the present.


If FAA rules already required doors be locked, then your complaint he should have said "Yo, start locking the cockpit doors, plz." doesn't make much sense as it was already federal regulation to do so. If Bush had asked: "Is there a regulation they keep the doors locked?" then he would have been told "Yes".
 
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