Into buildings. Killing thousands.

Are all saudis bad no. But seems prudent we would not continue to do this.

Don't let fear take over reason.

They can learn to fly anywhere in the world. They don't need our flight schools to train. But they can't repeat 9/11 if we implement a more effective version of your racist plan and just ban them from planes.

I understand how this might be a natural thought. But if hope you can accept that has flaws.

That is all your own extrapolation.

I'm explaining how your plan is both racist (banning 40M people by national origin), and pointless (they can train anywhere).

So pointlessly racist, if you will.

I'm offering an equally outrageous extrapolation, because at least it would not be pointless. It would keep people from the planes directly.

I'm hoping you'll notice how misguided your plan was and become comfortable knowing that you don't have to fear people just because they are from Saudi Arabia.

There are other, less racist and more effective screening techniques than banning 40m people at once.

None of the 9/11 terrorists learned to fly from the United States. They trained themselves using simulation software.

Think you are wrong in this case.

Cessna type planes was as far as they got in their training here.

The only one who really 'knew how to fly a Jumbo Jet' was Hani Hanjour. The one who hit the Pentagon.

all.



My bad.

They all learned to fly in the US and one was training on the 737 in Arizona. See my responses to others for links, if needed.

Frankly, I thought this was common knowledge, but it's apparently not so common.

"Upon his U.S. arrival, Hanjour housed himself with Nawaf al Hazmi in Mesa to continue training on multi-engine aircrafts at Arizona Aviation. He continued to have trouble in his classes because of his limited English.

In early 2001, Hanjour began training on a Boeing 737 simulator at the Pan Am International Flight Academy in Mesa."

https://www.abc15.com/news/crime/old-time-crime-arizona-was-a-training-ground-for-the-september-11th-attackers

I would bet it was briefly. Did he get any sort of certification on flying jets here?

Edit ... your article, continued ...

"In early 2001, Hanjour began training on a Boeing 737 simulator at the Pan Am International Flight Academy in Mesa.

Flight instructors "found his work well below standard and discouraged him from continuing." However, Hanjour pressed on, continuing his training until March 2001."

So ... at the very most, for 3 months.

I guess he got a commercial cert for flying multi-engine planes in 1997 in the US, doesn't say that includes jet planes, presumably not.

Hanjour was recruited late in the process though, he legit wanted to be a real pilot at one time, he wasn't just training for the 9/11 operation, IOW.

Which I suppose in a way advises us not to trust even the 'legit' pilots from KSA.

in a 747 simulator, but his instructor soon turned him in when he expressed no interest in wanting to learn how to land and was otherwise behaving strangely.

prior to 9/11 ... couldn't get a warrant supposedly, even though they'd detained him.

No need, I suppose.

"Upon his U.S. arrival, Hanjour housed himself with Nawaf al Hazmi in Mesa to continue training on multi-engine aircrafts at Arizona Aviation. He continued to have trouble in his classes because of his limited English.

In early 2001, Hanjour began training on a Boeing 737 simulator at the Pan Am International Flight Academy in Mesa."

https://www.abc15.com/news/crime/old-time-crime-arizona-was-a-training-ground-for-the-september-11th-attackers

"The three hijackers lived in Venice (Florida) for six months in 2000 as they learned to fly at Huffman Aviation and the Florida Flight Training Center. "

https://www.heraldtribune.com/news/20190827/judge-rules-fbi-must-release-details-of-911-sarasota-investigation

Anyone with the money can. But did aroused suspicion because they didn't train so much on takeoffs and landings.

That's along the lines of banning all Muslims because some of them are terrorists.

Or banning all white guys because a few of them are mass shooters.

Got some stats for that?

Saudi Arabia is a country. Actually most Arabs (people who speak Arabic) are Caucasian fwiw.

Suppose we were debating whether to train an ethnic Russian pilot to fly US military planes. Wouldn't matter if he was so white he was transparent - it's the allegiance to an avowed adversary.

I'll get back to DU.

and may I remind about the Saudi shooter yesterday/. I don't want to train Saudis for anything.

Background checks to ensure we are not training terrorists.

I thought the rules changed after 911 to prevent this.

At a military base?

Please rethink your stance.

It's about citizenship and not being an American.

are laws allowing foreign nationals to purchase firearms. I plead ignorance on the actual laws, but I venture it's easier in Florida than a lot of other states.

it seems likely that the Saudi national didn't acquire the firearm legally. Finding one on the black market is not difficult, however.

I do not question those of our traditional allies but there needs to be extreme caution with Saudi Arabia and Turkey.

Of Evil. He doesn't consider our allies, allies at all. Saudi Arabia is one of our allies in his eyes.

They don't even have to teach them how to land the plane...

Oil Corporations and Coruption.

The buyer says he'll take the planes if his people get trained in how to fly them.

pilots and ground crews. Big bucks are spent and this is a long standing agreement. My dad was involved in pilot training programs in the 60s - 70s. They were extremely polite and my dad said many were the younger sons of royal princes. They were US or British educated so language was not a problem. We regularly had these Middle Eastern pilots (don't remember which country they were from) over for weekend BBQ, and dad organized camping and hunting trips with them and USAF officers.

Yes.

I had a friend who had a Bachelors degree in Arabic. She was hired by Lockheed to babysit Arab pilots who were in Atlanta to be trained on their planes. Big buck purchases.

military power in the Persian Gulf region.

The other one being Israel.

Iraq was a 3rd and the most effective of the three but of course Dubya screwed that pooch by (calamitously) replacing its Sunni regime with an Iranian-aligned Shiite one.


Saudis make interesting pilot trainees. They are Western-educated and bi-lingual, so all that's good. But yes many are royalty-linked, too, and that's a mixed bag. Many arrive with their own needs for kid-glove handling. As well as lots of money for all kinds of off-hours fun here where it's very available for purchase. (And if their fun gets them into serious trouble here, they rarely pay consequences beyond monetary ones. All part of America's longstanding special relationship with their country.)

Generally speaking Saudi male children, royals and not, are raised as very privileged. In their families their sisters and mothers cater to them. All the world's women really should be subservient to men, is the culture.

They tend to have negligible experience with hard physical work. Saudi Arabia imports foreign guest workers to do nearly all work that entails a man getting his hands dirty; it is seen as beneath the native born Wahhibi sons. Lots of flowing, immaculately clean white men's robes worn there signal, "I never get dirty."

Most arrive here not well accustomed to receiving criticism.

They can be sophisticated and worldly young men, especially compared to many from other Arab countries (Kuwait and the Emirates excepted). But prima donnas can be sophisticated too.

All generalizations, of course. Everybody's different.

But, learning to fly a military jet has over-inflated many a young man's self-regard, even those from a middle class background and not already raised to regard himself as some kind of prince.

When I was in the Navy, I had Saudi classmates while attending "A" school.

The fact that the Saudi was a flight student has no bearing on the shooting that he did on the ground with a hand held weapon.

with many global (and USA) strategic financial interests and levers must be kept happy.

Now, I think it's because their check cleared.

The sale of the planes was about the country being an ally.

That has been going on since way before I enlisted in 1978. The military services have to train NATO and other allies that operate with each other for mission cohesion and tomitigate accidents during exercises and operations.
I'm actually surprised something like this hasn't happened before now in the US: it unfortunately happens frequently enough in OCONUS postings like Afghanistan or Iraq where hard-line conservative religion holds a major social grip on the general population.
Western liberal rights are anathema to dictatorships and theocratic politics, after all.

Haele

I’m amazed people don’t know this.

If the OP knew we sold them planes with cannons and missiles too, it would be a shocker.

for the acts of every other Saudi individual. As liberals, I thought that was not a thing with us, to make generalizations about a person based on the acts of others of their type.

We are the premier flight school location. Not every Saudi is planning a new 911. In fact, they were mostly muscle hijackers, the pilots were Egyptian, Lebanese, UAE and one Saudi.

and those greedy bitches demand more cherries from the rest of the world!

Wasn't there a warning briefing on Aug 6th or so that Dubya ignored?

We’ve sold the RSAF a number of very nice airplanes that of course we train them to fly.

This is just silly.

countries rightfully ban Americans from their universities no questions asked since some are mass murderers ?
It’s been occurring repeatedly for a long time and is an obvious danger doncha think?

Saudi also pays us a fortune for military equipment so we help train their pilots.

Personally I think the cost of supporting them is too high.

It would be bad energy policy and bad geopolitical policy.
It would also cost a lot of good jobs.

They should have done a better job vetting him.

Follow the fucking money. Every damn time.