What nationality is Khan? I understand that many foreigners are completely fluent in English & can use it as easily as their native tongue, but why were his files in English? Others have mentioned the possibility of mis-information. I don't know how clever it is to get caught in a 12-hour gunfight, then captured & hope that your enemy will find the disinformation on your hard drive but it does seem odd that the files weren't in Arabic.
http://www.mensnewsdaily.com/archive/m-n/marzullo/2004/marzullo080504.htm
War Gaming Terrorism, Part 5
August 5, 2004
by Tom Marzullo
This is the fifth part of a series of analyses that seeks to partially game out potential terrorist attacks from the terrorist’s point of view, using some of the realistic measures that we know or suspect are available to them.
What is proposed here is to game out certain basic types of attacks and what the Islamists hope to gain by their conduct. It will be a sometimes frightening, micro-look at the suppurating lesions on the body politic that have, so far, been seldom seen in our part of the world. After the basic discussions have been published, we will then look at the potential deployment of these actions against us. By understanding how such attacks are likely to be used, it is expected that our communities will be better prepared to go to where they are needed. This is, after all, the very solid basis for how our founders envisioned citizen participation in conflicts.
This series is an opportunity for every citizen, without a military background in guerrilla warfare, to learn of how our sworn enemies work in order that we may be better unified to do something useful about them. Forewarned is forearmed.
WMDs – Chemical Weapons
When we start into this dialogue, you must first try to free your minds from of the hobgoblin of mindless media hype you have frequently heard… for this is a more dangerous and pervasive problem than you might think.
A very great number of highly effective chemical weapons can be made in a matter of minutes with materials found in our markets, repair shops and industry. Nor does it take an advanced degree in chemistry to fashion them… We have already found “terrorist cookbooks” in Afghanistan with some such ‘recipes’ that will work and if one can read, use a stove, twist a valve, light a match, pour liquids from one bucket to another, then they are well enough trained for most of what is here.
Yes, there are indeed caches of what we classically think of as ‘chemical weapons’ and some of them are already in the hands of Islamist terrorists. You would know this if you followed all the news as well, but there have been other matters you elected to pay attention to instead. A WMD mass casualty scenario planned by al-Qaeda has already been thwarted in Jordan. Transporting more of the same weapons into the US is a relative snap, needing more in the way of housekeeping skills and creative shipping than any specialties of consequence. Our enemies also have the patience and time on their hands to probe for the weakest chink in our importation armor to send these items through.
But for sake argument, lets suppose that you still believe in Tom Brokaw, Peter Jennings and the tooth fairy… There are still the domestic sources of chemical weapons, both off-the-shelf and easily manufactured. While most of these home-brews lack the level of lethality of the more esoteric, chem-lab creations they are quite effective enough for a chillingly efficient application of terror.
Here is where I get to say ‘hello’ to the pro-Islamist sub-set of fans for this series… Sorry folks, no specialty recipes are to be given here… but a quick trip to your local college campus where there is a Muslim student organization should be able to put you in touch with an undergrad chemistry major of suitable temperament.
I will talk about some mixtures that are very widely known just to whet your appetites. So let’s settle on chlorine as our toxin-du-jour. Chlorine was the very first modern military chemical weapon, having been used with decidedly mixed results by the Germans in World War One - as wind direction was less predictable at that point in history, much to their sorrow.
A lethal form of chlorine gas is released by mixing common household ammonia and chlorine bleach, or better still with some HTH (chlorine granules for swimming pools). When this is released into the air ducts of one of our modern buildings (where the windows don’t open) and suicidal gunmen guard the exits wearing commercially available appropriate respirator/filter combos… Voila! Mass casualties as a blue-plate special. Cost? A half-dozen or so expendable fanatics sent to their reward by police, their gear and some cheap, near universally available chemicals. The media-created mass terror? Priceless… Take that Malvo…
In yesterday’s part 4, I alluded to how railroad rolling stock are useful as weapons. So just how do you think bulk chlorine arrives at factories? So just where are the rail lines relative to population areas in your region?
Lets turn to that recent theft of that big package of specialty explosives from the police impound lot in California. One of the items stolen was a quantity of linear shaped-charges, a very useful tool indeed for ripping open the side of railroad tank car. Add a ‘kicker’ charge on the other side of that tank and another voila! An effective explosives-driven sprayer. When rigged with the ever more popular Islamist cell-phone detonator technology, these tankers can be blown at the spot best suited to killing the most citizenry asleep in their suburban beds or running to catch the school bus.
There are literally dozens of such lethal applications I could rattle right off the top of my head and you can bet the farm that the Islamists have folks with my level of knowledge and better.
But using this kind of tactic crosses a very wide, bright ethical line, for us - if not for them. We all should very clearly understand that political correctness and pacifist notions are very attractive ideals of the West and that they are but a color on the patina of civilization that we seek to smear over the savage that lies within all humans. Scratch that surface and you find the mother sticking a knife into the throat of the intruder who would kill her child. And so it goes…
More is yet to come in this series and a summation of how these tactics could be combined in the coming Islamist assault.
Tom Marzullo
Reference:
See Part 1
See Part 2
See Part 3
See Part 4
Tom Marzullo is a columnist/physicist/educator who is a former US Army Special Forces combat soldier and US Navy Submariner with special operations experience in both services. He was the leader of the Internet-based effort by Special Forces veterans that debunked the false CNN/TIME magazine nerve gas story, 'Tailwind' and has provided testimony before the US Senate on military and intelligence matters. He resides in Colorado.
I was wondering the same thing.
OTOH, one will frequently find (dot) Indians talking to each other in fractured English.
If one is sufficiently bold and curious enough to ask then why, it's because they are from different areas of India, and their regional languages/dialects are so different that they can't understand each other!
English might be the common meeting ground for speakers of arabic, Urdu, Pushtu, Farsi...
Buying a special Arabic enabled copy of an operating system and associated utilities is going to be expensive and likely to raise a red flag. A U.S. English copy is common as sand. Completely under the radar.