Almost Home

[pecunium]

Yesterday was the end of my class at Ft. Lewis. I now have three semester hours in whatever course they credit one, when one has completed, "Intelligence in Combatting Terrorism". Interesting stuff,and I wish I could have taken the resident course (where among other things one has to take part in a group research project, to plan a terrorist attack... you don't want to know some of the ones which have been proposed, all of them feasible, most of them horrible, and most of them, pretty much unstoppable... I now know how to take out Las Vegas, and E.L.F. would love to know the plans I have for... should I?, No, I I guess I better not.).

None of it was new, but most of it wasn't anything I'd ever had to put together in that way. It was figuring out the threat to an area, and the countermeasures to take. I got a 97 on the exam, and three of the points I was dinged for were bullshit. :)

The flight to L.A. (that is why I'm almost home, not until tomorrow, around midnight, will I be home again. Monday I get to cook dinner) was gorgeous. I saw steam rising from Mt. St Helens, and there was a large area od bare rock, where snow ought to have been. Because United lets one listen to the radio traffic I know there is a 13,000 ft interdict on overflight.

The prettiest part of the flight was watching the sun rise in the west. As we climbed over Puget Sound the angle changed and a sliver of orange became a blob, and then a disk. After which it began to settle again to the water, slowly melting into a puddle of liquid gold. In the meantime it colored the clouds, and we were in a haze of rose colored mist, a tunnel of pink and violet.

Would that I'd had the weekend, or even a free day. There were places I wanted to visit (Lark in the Morning Music, shops in Seattle and San Francisco) Kells (a pub, near Lark in the Morning), the Tacoma waterfront, Nisqually (wonderful photo ops) Snoqualmie Falls. But I had not the time.

I did get to see libertango and akirlu, as well as the irresitably cute, Sara-monster, for dinner at both Mashiko (think of it as jazz sushi... experts doing riffs on a known theme, with focus, and direction, but no score, and lots of talent) and to Pano's Kleftiko, a wonderful Greek taverna, near the Space needle.

The company of friends, over food and conversation; in what is the most comfortable time of year for me. I like autumn, the lingering evening, the crisp air, the colors of the trees. A sense of preparednes, and quiet (Mole End). Settling in for the winter, getting prepared for snug fires, and warm drinks. Cozy evenings of blankets on the couch. The holidays run from Hallowe'en to New Years, lingering with friends, conspiring to make through the harshness of the coming winter.

So seeing them made up for not seeing my girl, my dog, or my bed for the past two weeks. For hotels, and restaurant meals, and isolation. For Texas having Indian summer at the start of November).

Autumn is, for me, a time of refreshment. Spring is rebirth, but autumn is restoration.

Comments

[i-come-undone.livejournal.com]

ah, you were so close! hope you have a wonderful reunion with your girl and your dog.

[editrx.livejournal.com]

Glad the reunion is so soon and you will be home in time for the end of autumn; you're right, it is indeed the best time of year. I think for me it's the wind (in New England) mixed with the crispness of everything -- it's invigorating.

[tongodeon.livejournal.com]

you don't want to know some of the ones which have been proposed, all of them feasible, most of them horrible, and most of them, pretty much unstoppable

I was involved in a discussion like that at a conference in November 2001. The "best" scenario we came up with would be trivially easy to accomplish, cause serious food supply problems in Los Angeles and blackouts in Arizona, Southern California and Nevada.

[pecunium.livejournal.com]

This is more than just wargaming... this is a feasibilty study, mostly to get people thinking about how many things there are to defend against.

Forget the food supply... I know how to curtail, for years, the water supply. If I was going to be really serious I could put L.A. out of outside water for at least two weeks.

I know ways to, effectively, stage a biological attack nationwide, with relative simultinaety, and no obvious links.

And, the one which was discussed this week, would kill between 30-70,000 in Las Vegas.

All with easily obtained supplies, and no real defense.

TK

[tongodeon.livejournal.com]

All with easily obtained supplies, and no real defense.

That was pretty much our group's conclusion. The format was broken into "what could they do" and "how could we stop it", and unfortunately there's far "better" ideas in the former than in the latter group.

The one thing that's encouraging is that terrorists aren't necessarily looking to maximize actual total body counts and property damage. An equally important priority is sensationalism, because their real "audience" are their funders and recriuts whose support will keep their organization running. Sabotaging a water pumping station outside LA might cause the deaths of thousands but blowing up the Hollywood sign looks better in the papers. Or at least that's my hunch: I am a total armchair general where this is concerned, and I have no real knowlege of terrorist priorities beyond what I read in generally available literature.

[pecunium.livejournal.com]

But they do want body counts.

There are three targets in a terrorist attack.

1: Target of Violence. This is the victim,except for those rare occasions when the victim is chosen because of who they are (Lord Mountbatten, Anwar Sadat) they are not important, per se.

2: Target of Attention. The person(s) to whom the message is being sent. In insurgencies, and other small scale situations this may be the same as...

3: The Target of Influence. The person(s) who can get the terrorist what they want. The one large scale terrorism in which the second and third targets are the same is when the State is the terrorist, and the populace is the target. Stalin, Hussein, Pinochet, Peron, Tito, Mussolini, Franco, Caesar, all practiced this, "Establishment Terrorism".

The ideological terrorist doesn't need to impress his followers (except in those cases where he may be thought to no longer have the abilty/will to act.

So crippling, perhaps even destroying a city, by devastating the infrastructure needed to maintain it, is a wonderful tool to get the population to move the gov't.

If you can do it in a way which is both dramatic, and has immediate loss of life, to go with the longer term affect of depriving food/water, bonus points.

TK

[mcduff.livejournal.com]

Well, beats my ideas, but then you are the professional here.

The worst I've managed to come up with so far is a destabilising series of attacks on very low security civillian targets in Middle America, particularly "decadent" ones like nightclubs and gay bars. Low yield in terms of damage and deaths caused, but very high yield in terms of the relative increase in feelings of insecurity nationwide, especially when looking at dollars spent. I budgeted a two-month terror campaign at about $30K.

It's not "unstoppable," by any means, but then neither was the IRA.

Oh, and then there's the suicide bomber standing in that long, slow line to get past security at Dulles Airport. Anyone who's flown in and out of that airport since 2001 knows the one I mean. Looking at the yields in Israeli attacks, I reckon we'd be talking 30-100 dead, another 200 or so wounded, and, of course, shutting Dulles down for weeks, and probably Baltimore and National down for a couple of days. It would be a hugely psychologically effective attack, and that is how I at least judge the effectiveness of a terror campaign.

The only thing that confuses me is why we haven't seen this kind of thing happen before. My conclusion is either that the various terrorist cells are not actually as interested in shutting down the US as we think, and are instead going for the big, showy explosions that take more planning, more centralisation of resources and are easier to stop, or that they're plain ol' stupid.

So all we need is one smart guy with a mission...

[pecunium.livejournal.com]

The IRA is, pretty much unstoppable. They have operated, in a limited environment, against a single target, in multiple countries; and several ways, for decades.

Your understanding of what could be done, in that regard, is pretty good.

I think the reason there have no been attacks in he U.S. is the same as the attack on Madrid. They wanted Bush re-elected, and a slew of attacks would have undermined his chances.

The Madrid Bombing, IMO, was the same. It didn't change the election. The Gov't of Spain was going to change. But it looked as though the bombing was done to change the election. Which implied bin Laden wanted a gov't which would leave Iraq. Which he did. But it doesn't follow that he want's such a change in the U.S., and looking as though he did, was a feather in Bush's gov't's cap.

TK

She banned me

[moderndayknight.livejournal.com]

I got out in 1997. I served in the infantry from 89-91 and SF from 91-97.

She started the name calling, and I don't really give a shit what you think.

I served in A co, 2/20th SFG, on ODA 2044 (SCUBA team), under Captain Naylor until he left for 7th Group (same theatre of operations). Then I served under Captain Mason. On my team was asskicker extraordinaire Daryl Murphy -- he introduced me to Pearl Jam in 1992. Left-leaning, but I never held it against him, was my great friend, who I went through SFAS with, Will Hawkins. Tim White went to the 18C course with me, but ended up working at the liaison's office.

But you're asking the wrong questions. Ask me who my SCUBA buddy was. Or fuck, just sign on to Yahoo Messenger and I'll show you my DD214, chuckledick. You'll see shit like SOTIC and Northern Warfare School on there.

You know what? Eat my ass, bitch. Who the fuck are YOU?

Re: She banned me

[mcduff.livejournal.com]

I've read this and the post that it's in response to five times now, and I still can't see the connection.

o_O

[pecunium.livejournal.com]

It is a response to a question I asked him in ginmar The fringe again.

The answer, while adequate for substantive content, is about par for his discourse in her LJ, and his. Rather than send his response to me in private (which might have been acceptable, though the question I asked was public, I was unware he had been forbidden to respond in that forum. Had I been so aware I'd have forgone, as it isn't fair to make such a request when an answer can't be made. I will be forwarding it, in toto, to Ginmar) or he might have made a public post on his journal.

But the styling of this is typical of his behaviour. Rather than look and see what I have made public, and rather (since he felt the need to defend his record) than merely post it here, he, perforce, was reduced to the stellar examples of reort and witticism you see here.

I apologise that this non-sequitor happened.

I can make no guarantee it shan't happen again.

TK

[moderndayknight.livejournal.com]

Fair enough, and I apologize for being so rude. But, you were rude too, and I really don't like my service being called into question. What's really funny is that she and I got off on the wrong foot because she thought I was disrespecting her service by having her on the list. I didn't know she was in the service when her name was submitted. When she mentioned something about it, I immediately asked her if she was in the service, with the intention of removing her name -- but instead she launched into a tirade about how I was some civilian chickenhawk, and then when I explained I wasn't, she mocked my service, without even giving me a chance to take her off the list first.

If she wants her service respected, she needs to show respect for the service of others, especially someone who has taken one for this country, in my opinion. Am I being a dick to her? Absolutely. But she can remedy that situation by not belittling the service of others as though she's in CAG (you should know what that is) and everyone else is file papers while she's interdicting priority targets.

Anyway, again, sorry for being an asshole to you -- you seem rational enough.

[moderndayknight.livejournal.com]

My SF unit drilled at Camp Shelbey, Miss in the 90s. A co 2/20th SFG. I will expect a public apology after you find out I am not a poseur. Will you be man enough to admit that you were you mistaken?

Last word on the subject.

[pecunium.livejournal.com]

You shan't get one. If I get around to checking, I will be more than willing to admit you are what you claim, but aside from that, I owe you nothing.

I said, based on my experience, you didn't seem to be of the SF mold. I asked for some character references. For all that you seem to have gotten your feelings hurt, it wasn't rude.

I didn't say that, if we accept your statements at face value, they are even more to be faulted, in that they fail to live up to the credo, and values of the NCO corps. You chose to be more than a tad; no I shan't mince words, you were made a very public ass of yourself with your suicide watch post, and when called on it you chose to be rude, intentionally offensive and then got sniffy because the victim of your hostility chose not to roll over.

Then you tried to trump her, rightful, idnignation by implying that your having been in SF was somehow more meritorius than her service, and that because you've been shot you were somehow entitled to engage in behavior that would merit a right cross and public beating were in done in public.

Your reflexive dismissal of the valor, worth and; as evidenced here, merit, of those who disagree with you is unbecoming of one who is so busily trumpeting the outstanding nature of both his service and the Army.

Past good deeds do not make up for present violations.



TK

Re: Last word on the subject.

[crisavec.livejournal.com]

All I can say to that is Thank you....for stateing what I was thinking, but not wishing to be attacked for(I try to avoid drama on LJ, I have too many other things going on offline)

Re: Last word on the subject.

[pecunium.livejournal.com]

I dislike such drama (and having it migrate here was, I confess, irksome) but I am far from a shrinking violet. I've had my name, honor, integrity and pretty much every other aspect of my personality impugned before.

Doesn't change the facts of me in the least.

But I care a great deal for civility, and for the Army, seeing the one breached; and the other made to look shabby, is rarely something I will sit still for. At times my hot-headedness, on both subjects has gotten no small amount of the aforementioned impugnation.

TK

[moderndayknight.livejournal.com]

http://www.livejournal.com/users/moderndayknight/100493.html?#cutid1