Posted on 01/01/2006 6:41:58 PM PST by DAVEY CROCKETT
Weapons of Disruption
C 2006 Frederick J. Cowie, Ph.D.
Whereas we have no masses, it certainly would be seriously challenging to deliver a "weapon of mass destruction" in the vast majority of geographical areas in the American West, as well as in many areas in the East and South. For instance, Montana is approximately the size of Germany, yet the population hovers only around a million (we have one representative in the House). There is no "metropolitan" area anywhere around, though Spokane is about three hundred miles away. Wyoming has more sheep than people. Utah has Salt Lake City and a few nearby populous areas. Nevada has two populated regional areas, Las Vegas and Reno. North and South Dakota have, well, a few folks here and there. Idaho folks are few and far between. I swear you can drive from San Antonio to El Paso without seeing a city policeman, because I've done it several times. Then there are Arizona, New Mexico, eastern California, inter alia. The point is we have a few population points, while the rest of the states are empty excepted for isolated small communities.Thus, out West we probably need to talk more about "weapons of disruption." (Some folks say "weapons of mass disruption," but we have no masses!)
You must ask yourself: What would I do if I were a terrorist (or a terrorism preparedness instructor) looking into the ramifications of launching a rural terrorism attack? Personally, I would concentrate on considering the consequences of disruption rather than mass destruction. Here are a few scenarios you might want consider when your local rural emergency management/response group gathers to discuss terrorism exercises.
1) Wildland Fire Incidents: Incendiary (mostly wildland) warfare has been used by military strategists for at least 2500 years, over a thousand years before the use of gunpowder. The western U.S. is disrupted, seriously disrupted, every year by wildland fires. Quite a few are started by humans, accidentally and purposefully. Starting dozens of major fires in a dozen western states could be a brilliant line of attack if militants wished to disrupt America. Thousands of security personnel could do nothing and the perpetrator/s would probably never be implicated, much less captured. Are you prepared?
2) Railroad Chemical Incidents: Many railroad main lines go through tunnels. A few strategically placed armor-piercing shells in a series of chlorine cars, along with appropriately staged derailments leaving the leaking cars in the tunnels, could shut down many main line routes in the West. Spin-off scenarios are numerous. Ready?
3) Flammable Liquid Incidents: Bridges are not easily brought down from below and approaches to bridge support structures are often highly visible and randomly monitored. However, on CNN we all have seen many tanker truck accidents involving burning hydrocarbons which have made bridge structures unusable. How hard would it be to have a few terrorists steal trucks and drive them (as opposed to hijacking planes and flying them) to strategic bridges over wide rivers or narrow gorges, ignite the gasoline (or diesel or crude), block the approaches with other incendiary or chemical releases, and make the structures extremely dangerous and impassible to highway traffic? Gotcha!
There are many variations of these themes. You probably have or can make up many more plausible, novel, and easily implemented rural-specific attack scenarios. Design exercises around them. If you want to stop terrorist events you must think like a terrorist and quit fighting last year's war!
Peace, thanks, Fred
Please check out my website at fredcowie.com
To find recent presentations, Google (with quotation marks) "Fred Cowie"
Frederick J. (Fred) Cowie, Ph.D. E-mail: fredcowie@aol.com Phone: (24 hr cell) 406-431-3531 Website: fredcowie.com
Davey, did you hear the last hour of C to Coast?
A young man phoned George and told him he had a video of his families graves in Thailand, where the Hmong escaped to during the Viet Nam war.
He said the Chinese are digging up the graves for the bones.
He is upset, as I would be.
So I googled and here is the link to the story.
http://news.google.com/news?client=googlet&q=Hmong+graves+being+dug+up+in+Thailand&sa=N&tab=wn
The Hmong man did not know why it was done, I wonder why?
He said his culture, believed that there was a curse on those who dug up bodies and possibly on those who did not protect the grave.
Not surprising, as I was also raised to think that there was a curse on you for digging up graves.
Not something I have ever considered doing, but I am curious, is it in the Bible?
I more or less thought that it would make good sense to leave them alone and not take a chance on digging up some disease that we do not want.
You must admit, this is the "oddest" of the night.
More on the Hmong graves.
http://www.google.com/search?client=googlet&q=Hmong%20graves%20being%20dug%20up%20in%20Thailand
5 am ABC news on Radio.
Pilgrim Babtist Church, has burned.
Cause unknown.
One of the oldest and most famous churches in Chicago.
Not surprised, it googles as a Sacred Place. I mis-spelled
pilgrAm and got the lists of meta words....
http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&ie=UTF-8&client=googlet&q=Pilgrim+Baptist+Church+Chicago&spell=1
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1553438/posts
Breaking: HazMat Crews Checking Water at
Vandalized Water Reservoir in Los Angeles
KABC 7 News ^ | January 6, 2006
Posted on 01/06/2006 6:15:28 PM PST by bd476
Edited on 01/06/2006 11:33:10 PM PST by Admin Moderator. [history]
Channel 7 KABC News Los Angeles just reported on scene with
helicopters overhead at the Mandeville Canyon Water Reservoir.
HAZMAT Crews, Los Angeles Police Department and Los Angeles
Department of Water and Power officials are investigating damage
done by vandals at the Mandeville Canyon Water Reservoir.
They reported that damage was done after someone broke down a
door to a control room at the water reservoir.
Water is being tested. Thus far, there are no reports of any hazardous
materials in the water.
__________
Update: 11:10 PM KABC Channel 7
Live Report from Mandeville Canyon Reservoir:
All day investigators have been there after the reports of cut locks and
vandalism to the area leading to the water supply.
The water reservoir serves mostly residents of Mandeville Canyon.
The reservoir is near Mulholland Canyon.
Locks had been broken at the gates which led to the water supply.
LAPD brought in their dive team. HAZMAT came. They tested the
water, then bypassed the water supply and shut off the water from
Mandeville Canyon Reservoir which had been supplying the residential
area.
No contaminants were found in the water.
Interesting reading.
5 am radio news said, man and wife, and $10,000 flushed each day.
granny.
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1553569/posts
Counterfeit clog; Cops Forced to Launder Money
koaanews.com ^ | 1/06/06 | unknown
Posted on 01/07/2006 3:41:20 AM PST by beyond the sea
Counterfeit charges are no simple matter, but it got even more
complicated for Pueblo Police officers Thursday when they found
hundreds of pieces of evidence had disappeared down the drain.
Police says two people who live on Song Sparrow in Pueblo West felt
authorities were getting too close, so they tried to get rid of the
evidence by flushing it down a toilet. "It was pretty obvious when we
saw the plugged drains and the overflowing utilities, that's what we
were dealing with," said Pueblo Deputy Chief John Ercul. Ercul
estimates $10,000 worth of "dirty" bills ended up as evidence.
You put that rather well, Granny. These threads are not competing. They are complementing.
I never post an article or picture, but I do like to pop off my mouth every now and then.........and keep informed.
Thank you. That was my first thought also. Why educate them? What is it about our culture that we feel we must openly instruct the terrorists?
Per CNN Britain has closed it's embassy in Jordan due to terrroism threat.
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/news/1553594/posts?page=1
Imam busted in gun rap (Praised 9/11 Attacks)
NY Daily News ^ | 1/7/06 | JOE MAHONEY, JEGO ARMSTRONG, ALISON GENDAR
Posted on 01/07/2006 5:41:55 AM PST by jimbo123
A controversial Muslim cleric who defended Sept. 11 terrorists was
busted on gun charges and computers were seized from his Bronx and
upstate homes, authorities said.
Imam Warith Deen Umar, 61, a former top Muslim chaplain for state
prisons, said FBI agents and NYPD detectives grilled him on possible
terrorist ties after he was arrested Dec. 30 in a fight with a tenant in a
Bronx building he owns.
"They started questioning me if I knew about Al Qaeda, suicide
bombers and the first World Trade [Center] bombing," the cleric said
last night.
"I don't know why they would ask me those kinds of questions. If you
have anything to do with Islam or are Muslim you are automatically a
terrorist," he said.
Umar created a storm of opposition when he was quoted in a 2003
Wall Street Journal article supporting the 9/11 terrorists.
"Even Muslims who say they are against terrorism secretly admire and
applaud" the hijackers, The Journal said he wrote in an unpublished
memoir. He also said the prisons were ripe for radical converts. Umar
claims he was misquoted.
After the article, the New York State prison system barred the cleric
from all its facilities. He had served the prison system more than 20
years, training a generation of Muslim chaplains to minister to the
prison population. Umar said law enforcement have been gunning for
him ever since.
NYPD, FBI and local police searched Umar's upstate home in
Glenmont, outside of Albany, yesterday for weapons. Computers were
seized but no weapons found, a police source said.
A prospective tenant, Juan Burgos, said the cleric threatened him with
a 12-gauge shotgun, and threatened to "f------ kill him" during a rent
dispute at Umar's Union Ave. apartment building.
Police seized the shotgun and .22-caliber rifle from Umar's apartment.
He was charged Dec. 30 with menacing and weapons possession.
The cleric claims agents and officers who searched his Bronx
apartment desecrated his Koran by ripping off its cover and tossing it
on the floor.
Umar, who has served time on weapons charges and was arrested in
the 1960s for conspiracy to kill a cop, claimed the gun was not loaded
and that he never pointed it at the younger man.
Good Morning.
Boy are you in for a change.
If I can figure out how to post an article, so can you.
Do you realize that I do not have anyone to help me with my
computer? and am self taught, you know, a dap of this and a pinch of that.
LOL - I still do not know what to do with the "Cut" that is up there hiding in Edit.......and a few million other things.
Please join us in posting, maybe Davey should make it a
requirement, as "You, will not be able to see the words, if they are not posted".
I only learned the "copy" and "paste' functions a year or
so ago....
So much out there and I can't read it all......but do try.
I feel good about our 2 threads, even if labels don't quite fit them, but then, in the planning, we were not maping out an empire, more like "I am tempted" "OK" "what will we name it"?
I still laugh, the name took 3 days to find.
I think that this thread like the Threat Matrix, will breathe its own breath and who knows how it will go.
I am glad to see more and more people reading and posting.
I heard that, as well. Wonder what's up.
Are you ready for another "red flag" fire day? Does not sound good for you guys today and tonight.
Prayers up.
>>>Wyoming has more sheep than people.
And Brokeback Mountain isn't helping...<<<
sorry, I just felll off my chair. I evven can't type I'm laughing so hardd. Being frum WY Ive heard all the sheeep jokes hahah LOL
"No officer, I wuz just trying to push that sheep through the fence"
Bareback Mountain wont be watched by me. Trash in trash out. Even so called good trash is still trash!
Jordan, Ammen, al-Qaeda bombed, the gals didn't go off.
Jordan, rockets fired at U.S. ship and at a school in Israel,
from a warehouse.
How about that, I typed the above, before I googled, it as I thought, already under heavy threat.
http://www.google.com/search?client=googlet&q=al-Qaida%20threat%20to%20Jordan%202006
I spent 25 years in Wyo. (where the men are men, and the sheep are nervous) I heard all the sheep jokes, too. Beautiful state and I cannot see the natives flocking (pun intended)to "Brokeback Mtn."
As the crow flies, I am only 50 miles from Wyo. now, and still go over the Hills to visit family and friends a couple times a month.
I was always taught as a child to never touch a dead anything. Never stopped me from pokeing it with a stick though. Are these children picking up dead, infected birds or what?!?
This avian flu, if its not too late, could be snuffed if we use good hygene and common sense. Test all the "domesticated" birds, chickens and ducks and such, and dont touch any others. Unless H5N1 is an airborne where direct contact isnt required then this would just solve the human infections it wouldn't it?
Lord help us if it makes it to the states. We'll have to start teaching our children pre-60s mentality/wisdom. And thats all but lost with the majority. . .
What would be the economic inpact of blowing up a major oil or Nat Gas pipline crosing a rural area? May not kill a lot of people but sure would get headlines and hurt the economy. How do you defend against it?
What would be the economic inpact of blowing up a major oil or Nat Gas pipline crosing a rural area? May not kill a lot of people but sure would get headlines and hurt the economy. How do you defend against it?
I hadn't heard that on C2C but I did have a hmong friend at work ask me out of the blue . . . "do you know what the chinese are doing with the hmong bones they are digging up". I had no clue what he was talking about until now. He thought maybe they were making medicine with them or something. I dunno
Thanks for the articles guys!!! I must research
I'm staying home today.
The Governor has announced that they fear arson has started many of the new fires that popped up yesterday.
Neighbors and I are supposed to be going to the big city on Monday to drop her husband at the airport, but that means leaving three dogs home alone. We count on each other for rescue in case something starts, so I may need to stay here on Monday as well.
It's warm here already and the wind is starting up slowly as I look out the window at the many trees outside. Prayers are definitely in order!!
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