Monday, September 18, 2006

Bolstered spirits

Pretty Lady was none too happy about returning to The City simultaneously with a renewed and specific terror threat. She spent a good deal of the nine-hour drive meditating upon the mechanics and/or futility of bug-out tactics--which pair of boots to pack, how much water to store in the 4-wheeler, spare tank of gasoline, spare gun from little brother, etc. But the truth of the matter is, if a dirty bomb hits Manhattan, the BQE is going to be too jammed for her to get clear of the city limits before receiving a lethal dose of radiation. Period. So why worry?

Conversely, she considered bopping on down to the mosque on Atlantic and starting a friendly conversation, but she's waiting on orders from the Holy Spirit before engaging in that one. Meanwhile, she said a cheerful return hello to the sweet lady in the burqua at the corner store this evening.

Thus, the Sensible Article forwarded by her Sensible Sister came just in time.

What the Terrorists Want

On August 16, two men were escorted off a plane headed for Manchester,
England, because some passengers thought they looked either Asian or
them on board. The men were questioned for several hours and then released.

On August 15, an entire airport terminal was evacuated because someone's
The Transportation Security Administration decided that the flight crew
home the next day. The next day, a Port of Seattle terminal was

On August 19, a plane made an emergency landing in Tampa, Florida, after
the crew became suspicious because two of the lavatory doors were

On August 16, a woman suffered a panic attack and became violent on a
the incident.

And on August 18, a plane flying from London to Egypt made an emergency
the note was on board.


political goal and sometimes out of sheer hatred. The people terrorists

And we're doing exactly what the terrorists want.

attack on airplanes, and both the press and politicians have been
trumpeting the story ever since.

In truth, it's doubtful that their plan would have succeeded; chemists
have been debunking the idea since it became public. Certainly the
tickets, and some didn't even have passports.

explosives and planes were merely tactics. Their goal was to cause
terror, and in that they've succeeded.

political posturing and all sorts of false alarms as jittery people

Our politicians help the terrorists every time they use fear as a
campaign tactic. The press helps every time it writes scare stories
actions, and increase the effects of their terror.

understanding its various causes and effects are vital for understanding
how to best deal with it.)

resources that could be better spent fighting the real threats and

Another thought experiment: Imagine for a moment that the British
government arrested the 23 suspects without fanfare. Imagine that the
TSA and its European counterparts didn't engage in pointless airline
security measures like banning liquids. And imagine that the press
way, then the terrorists would have truly failed.

It's time we calm down and fight terror with anti-terror. This does not
intelligence and investigation -- and not focusing on specific plots.

together checking their watches. There are approximately 1 billion
the cacophony of other interests trying to use terrorism to advance
political careers or increase a television show's viewership.


alarms. I've stopped keeping a list.

The chemical unreality of the plot:


This essay also makes the same point that we're overreacting, as well as
describing a 1995 terrorist plot that was remarkably similar in both

My previous related writings:

This essay originally appeared in Wired:,71642-0.html


Details on the British Terrorist Arrest

Details are emerging:

* There was some serious cash flow from someone, presumably someone
* There was no imminent threat.
* However, the threat was real. And it seems pretty clear that it
would have bypassed all existing airport security systems.
* The conspirators were radicalized by the war in Iraq, although it is
impossible to say whether they would have been otherwise radicalized
without it.
* They were caught through police work, not through any broad
surveillance, and were under surveillance for more than a year.

conspirators early, the police squandered the chance to learn more about
leaking plot details to the press, hampering their case.)

overreaction. As I said on a radio interview a couple of weeks ago:
terrorists get to see our security measures before they plan their
is that investigation and intelligence work.
The above URL is unavailable in the UK:

My initial comments on the arrests:


More Than 10 Ways to Avoid the Next 9/11

On 10 September 2006, the New York Times published a feature called "Ten
Ways to Avoid the Next 9/11": "The Op-Ed page asked 10 people with
experience in security and counterterrorism to answer the following
the nation do in order to avoid attacks in the future?"


Despite what you see in the movies and on television, it's actually very
difficult to execute a major terrorist act. It's hard to organize,
plan, and execute an attack, and it's all too easy to slip up and get
caught. Combine that with our intelligence work tracking terrorist
cells and interdicting terrorist funding, and you have a climate where
reason we haven't seen another 9/11 is that it isn't as easy as it looks.

Much of our counterterrorist efforts are nothing more than security
the difficulty isn't killing or arresting the terrorists, it's finding
that our best defense is intelligence and investigation. Rather than
spending money on airline security, or sports stadium security --
effective -- we're better off spending money on measures that are
effective regardless of the plot.

Intelligence and investigation have kept us safe from terrorism in the
have been another failed attempt. Coordination has gotten better, and
those agencies are better funded -- but it's still not enough. Whenever
data mining programs or new airport security measures, think about the
number of intelligence agents that the same money could buy. That's
where we're going to see the greatest return on our security investment.


Anonymous said...


If you mean when/if a thermonuclear device is detonated in Manhatten...well, assuming you survive the initial x-ray/gamma ray burst, overpressure wave and firestorm, the fallout and whatnot that occur afterwards are not neccessarily lethal.

If you're referring to a device of some sort consisting of a chemical explosive strapped to some radioactive materials - the odds of dying or even of getting sick from that are very low. It's a question of mass - even a coupla pounds of finely ground plutonium won't be distributed very far by a chemical detonation. And plutonium is the densest natural element so it's not something that travels far easily. That kind of detonation would kill somewhere in the range of 0-500 people, mainly due to direct absorption of material into the lungs. (Another words, if you 500 feet away from such a detonation when it occurred, you might inhale some of the material before it had a chance to settle, whereas if you came within 500 feet several hours later, you might not even be directly exposed.) If it isn't clear, imagine strapping a coupla grenades to a case of tomato sauce. Pull the pin, run like hell, and watch where the sauce goes; you might get some tomato 'dust' (or 'sauce vapor'), but most of it is going to wind up spread all over nearby cars and buildings.

Reactor accidents and thermonuclear detonations are different, because then you have a fire and lots of fizzing going on that creates short-lived radioactive isotopes out of assorted elements that are typically not radioaction, such a iodine-91. The fizzing makes the isotopes and the fire(s) carries them up into the sky to settle down far away. The isotopes that are made are often much more deadly over the short term and in much smaller particulate form than either plutonium or uranium.

If someone knew how to manufacture the hellishly radioactive short-term isotopes short of using a nuclear weapon, then yes, a dirty bomb would be potentially devestating. But no one knows how to do that. If terrorist types could get ahold of large amounts of refined, weapons-grade uranium or plutonium that might be moderately dangerous if placed in the presence of a chemical explosion except if you've got bomb-grade plutonium, why make a dirty bomb at all when you can have the real thing?

Making a bomb is really hard work tho, so really, the terrorist weapon of choice is still C4 (or equivalent) and a bunch of ball bearings or a box of rusty nails. Cheap and easy to make, hard to detect, good kill ratio!

I personally expect that sometime in the next 10 to 50 years a Western city will buy it via a nuke. New York is an obvious target but it's not the only target by far. So I expect that it is far more likely you will die of old age, bathtub slippage, car wreck or mugging in Manhatten than from a terrorist attack. Or war with China, even.


Pretty Lady said...

Well, you have inexpressibly relieved my mind. ;-)

Anonymous said...

Excellent post Pretty Lady. And you too Max.

This is yet another reason that I find the GWB crowd to be so reprehensible. So two faced.

I'm headed up to Brooklyn for a wedding next month and occasionally I get the irrational terror worries... but I know what Max knows, and I also suspect that it would be Manhatten, not Brooklyn that would receive the blow. Or the tunnels and bridges...

That would suck hard, but probably not be deadly... unless we get trampled by a terrorized mob.

Anonymous said...

Despite your nine-hour adventure, I would heartily recommend a bug-out bag packed with 72-hour essentials.

Make sure that this backpack has nicely padded straps, and a belt. I am continually amazed everytime there is a natural disaster, Hurricane Katrina comes to mind - that we do not see evacuees sitting on top of cars and hanging off buses, since whenever I see photographs of refugees in the Middle East trying to unass an area they will literally hang twenty people off a truck to get away from whatever the Bad Thing of the Week happens to be. This never seems to happen here in the US - most of the Katrina people were either standing around like sheeple waiting to be herded unceremoniously into the Guantanadome, or were too busy looting and pillaging to flee the rising waters. I can guarantee you that if I had lived in N.O. and did not have a car I would have been either riding a bike, sitting on the hood or in the bed of someone's truck, or humping a trail out of the flood zone.

You have mentioned you own a bike, you can cover a fair distance in just a few hours on a bike and not have to worry about fuel availability or gridlock on the 59th St. Bridge. Your friend Max's analogy of the Prego bomb is accurate, and on a bicycle your chances of successfully evacuating an area before you absorb too many rads is much better than your chances in a cab or car.

You can buy a decent mil-spec (unless it's "fuck the budget, I've got Mastercard" time, then buy milsurp) CFP-90 backpack that will handily carry water, food, clothes and toiletries in it with little discomfort. It is nice to know that you can leave your flat and be gone in under 30 seconds in case of a fire, or any other emergency and know you have enough gear to carry you through the next three days.


Anonymous said...

Well spoken, Crom. Be prepared.