Asymmetrical Information

From the desk of Mindles H. Dreck:

Guns 'n' Media

Alex Del Castillo reprints in full a chillling email apparently making its way through his "service buddies". The memo details Al Qaeda training exercises filmed and released on video.

The major take home lesson here is that although the enemy is known to be seeking the ability and opportunity to use weapons of mass destruction and of an unconventional nature, such as hijacked airliners, they are also spending a lot of time training to carry out attacks the old-fashioned way. Attacks executed by small groups of dedicated personnel equipped with little more than small arms.

There is information to the effect that the "perfect day" as seen by Al Qaeda would combine attacks designed to produce the maximum number of casualties with attacks that would give them the opportunity to get "face time" on the news channels to deliver their rhetoric. For maximum effect these attacks would take place nearly simultaneously at multiple geographically separate locations.

If you find yourself in the middle of one of these attacks, there will not be time for the SWAT team to intervene on your behalf. Compliance will buy you only a very little time. If you are identified as a potential problem to the terrorists you will be shot! (They are training to spot Law Enforcement, Security and Corrections Officers as well as armed citizens.) If, by feigned compliance, you make it through the first cut you can expect to be physically restrained and then controlled with threats to the rest of your group and to the other groups. "We will blow up the women and children in the next room if any of you do not do exactly as we say!" Your ultimate fate, if you do not resist, is to be ritually executed in front of the television cameras.

In my opinion the best time to act is most likely to be at the initiation of the attack. Once the terrorists are consolidating on the objective it will be very difficult to take effective action. You must plan on providing effective resistance at the first opportunity! Shoot, move and communicate. Seek cover, use your weapon as required. Attempt to acquire a better weapon system at the first opportunity (do you know how to place an AK into operation?)

So the plan is to kill as many people as possible while simultaneously getting a bunch of scared yanks in front of TV cameras.

In addition to allowing citizens to arm themselves, as Castillo suggests, I hope the media is planning for a way to thwart their objectives. If they are planning to kill everybody anyway there is certainly NO legitimate reason to put 'em on the air.

Which brings up one question - what would they say if they did have air time? The faux laundry list of abstract demands in the last Bin Laden videotape would be awfully strange in a hostage situation, and it was clearly directed at the Muslim world anyway.

I also think if Al Qaeda or other terrorist operatives try this on U.S. soil they will have sorely underestimated our capacity and willingness to interfere with every aspect of their "decision loop", as Alex puts it.

Posted by Mindles H. Dreck at August 30, 2002 08:54 AM | TrackBack | Technorati inbound links