Almost from the very beginning, the Clinton administration insisted on a mechanical failure scenario, eventually settling on a theory that fumes in an empty center fuel tank exploded when sparked by defective wiring. To date, no one has been able to duplicate an air-fuel explosion triggered by an electrical spark in a center fuel tank. That theory has yet to be proven even under the most controlled laboratory conditions. The other oddity, in my opinion, was why would a passenger airliner that was departing for France from New York have an empty center fuel tank?

Then there were those pesky 159 eyewitnesses, some of whom had prior or current military experience, who saw a fiery object rise from the water and shoot up into the atmosphere where they saw a flash explosion. The military-types described what they saw as a SAM–a Surface to Air Missile. I do not normally give much credence to eye- witnesses, but what got my attention was the consistency of non-military eyewitnesses describing the flight of the object as "zigging", which is consistent with the flight of a SAM as it makes course corrections toward the target.

Fireworks don't zig.

Once I became convinced a missile brought down Flight 800, the only remaining question was, "whose missile?" Sure, the Navy could have made a boo-boo, as they did when they unintentionally shot down an Iranian airliner heading for their Aegis warship a few years ago, but the Navy didn't even try to deny that colossal blunder, so why would they try to hide a similar blunder off the coast of Long Island? It just didn't make sense. People would eventually talk, and the FBI found there were no Navy missiles that were unac- counted for.

The only remaining possibility was a terrorist attack, but it was a terrorist attack the Clinton administration seemed to expect by the way they reacted to it. Some conspiracy nuts might automatically assume Clinton had some nefarious hand in it. After all, Bill Clinton is so crooked that, when he dies, we'll have to screw him into the ground. Clinton, however, is crooked in an entirely predictable and selfish way, and a successful terrorist strike on an airliner using a missile would have had anything but a positive effect on the Clinton economy.

Had the Clinton administration admitted it was a terrorist attack, the chill on the already weakened American airline industry would have gone into pneumonia. How many other missiles did the terrorists have, and where might they strike next? Would you have been eager to fly? That's why they lied to us, but what if those terrorists had more missiles and struck again? How many other people would have had to die to protect the American airline industry? That question has always bothered me.

One thing we have confirmed is that Middle Eastern terrorists have Russian SA-7 shoulder-fired missiles that can reach 17,000 feet–4,000 feet higher than our Stinger shoulder-fired missiles. Flight 800 was at 13,700 feet when it came apart.

Coincidentally, investigative reporters Jack Cashill and James Sanders have released a study titled, "First Strike"--a study on the downing of Flight 800. In "First Strike," Cashill and Sanders have largely come to the same conclusions as I did. One gap they helped fill in was that an advance, non-specific terrorist threat had been given to the Clinton administration, which certainly explains why they were ready for it.

Remember American Airlines Flight 587? That's the airliner that crashed into a Queens neighborhood on November 12, 2001, just two months after the attacks of 9/11/01, killing all 260 people aboard. We now know that Middle Eastern terrorists like Richard Reid will attempt to commit suicide by blowing up a shoe bomb inside an airliner, killing every- one on board. The feds told us the tail section on Flight 587 inexplicably fell off into Jamaica Bay after the plane hit turbulence. Yeah, like that happens all the time, and like the bogus theory of mechanical failure in the Flight 800 incident, the cause of the Flight 587 crash has yet to be duplicated or determined. In both cases, the feds "ruled out" a terrorist attack, but unlike just about every other air disaster that has ever been investigated, those two remain unsolved. Go figure.

There were two eyewitnesses that were looking directly at Flight 587 when it came apart. One was a retired police officer and the other a retired fireman, both of them trained observers, and unaware of each other's testimony. Both men insist to this day they saw an orange ball of an explosion that emerged from the side of the airliner before it fell apart and came down. They both insisted the plane didn't come apart until after the ex- plosion, and they both exhibited great frustration for not being taken seriously.

FOX News is currently running a video of an airplane, demonstrating the destructive force a simple shoe bomb can have when detonated inside. It blows the side of the air- plane out, and is certainly enough to bring the plane down. The moment I saw that footage, I remembered the testimony of those two credible eyewitnesses to Flight 587's demise, and I'll bet they jumped out of their seats when they saw it too.

We now have airport security that is so unpleasant and invasive that, unless I have an emergency, I'm just not going to fly at all. I will not allow anyone to go through my checked baggage outside of my presence, and everyone knows there will be cases of theft, because that just happens to be Murphy's Law. I also do not want to be targeted or investigated just because I've got a Glock automatic or other firearm packed in there, and I don't go anywhere without one, so they can do without my money and my smiling face.

As for the probable terrorist attacks on Flight 800 and Flight 587, the feds will tell you that never happened, and it won't happen again. But with all this airport security they have implemented, they still don't have any real defense against the next terrorist and his Russian-made SA-7. Food for thought for the truly thoughtful.

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