My view is this and sorry if I offend any one.
I think marshals are a good idea. Terrorists and the passenger's will not know who the marshals are! getting a weapon from one will not be easy. These people train and train to be able to deal with close up defence its very unlikely someone will get there weapon. If the taser things are also used then if the terrorist did get the weapon the marshal could quickly take out the terrorist while he was trying to work out how to use the weapon.
As has been said these people dont care if they die. In fact its better for them and there cause if they do. On flight 93 during the hijacking several passenger's tried to take back control of the plane resulting in it crashing and all being killed. They did however stop it from being flown into its intended target.
Im not sure if in this situation I would have the guts to fight. I would like to think that yes I would as im probably going to die any way. The other day though someone opened my car door while I was stationary on the phone parked and demanded I get out as they wanted my car. I completely craped myself and panicked. I tried to reason with the person (doh! how dumb am I). I wanted to go for the keys and start the car but was weighing up the options. Would he attack me before it started. Would it start? after probably just a few seconds which seemed to take for ever I went for the ignition and started the car and quickly drove of up the kerb almost going through a shop window.
I actually was trying to be carful trying not to run this person over. I got away and was a bit shaky but completely ok. It showed me though Im probably not as hard or as invincible as i sometimes think I am.
Same goes for the airlines. I would rather have a trained professional who has probably been involved in scary situations before who will know what to do and take control. If that fails and the plane is still lost and so are the passenger's my final thought would be that at least there was security and an attempt to stop what was in progress.
If your plane is hijacked the chances of you surviving in my mind are nil. The days of fly there and your all be ok is over.
As for the checks before hand yes these do need to be stricter but how far can they go with out the public getting the hump. I see there is already an uproar over the finger print system. If you got nothing to hide what is the problem?
There are weapons now that can go through security checks such as carbon fibre knifes. These apparently remain undetected and are as sharp as steel ones. At the end of the day you dont even need a weapon like this to take a plane. A tube of smarties with a few wires could be used as a fake bomb. Are you going to question this?
Since 9.11 I have had an interest in these people and why they are doing what they do.
Here are a few sites I visit on a regular basis which you may find interesting. Some of the ideas do seem far fetched but im sure if they had predicted 9.11 I would have said the same thing.
http://www.itshappening.com/index.php http://www.homelandsecurityus.com/
Bren out of interest and sorry for being nosey what is it you do in Israel? I read your post about the naked woman with the cigerate and the helicopters and just wonder what line you are in.
Take care
Jamie