I wrote this a year ago and it somehow got misplaced. Reading it through again, I find nothing to change but the dates, but there is a little to add: Things are worse now.

The National Intelligence Estimate was partially leaked recently, and the Fascists in the White House selectively leaked some more. They seem to think these new leaks refute the old ones, but add it all up and one conclusion is reached. We are breeding more terrorists in Iraq than ever existed pre-9/11. Win or lose in Iraq (and I see no scenario for winning other than the Vietnam solution: declare ourselves the winner, and deny, deny, deny), even more people will hate us as every year goes by. Supporters of this un-elected regime are crowing that, five years later, we haven't been attacked again. But we will be, the only questions are when and where and how. Bush has ensured it.

Afghanistan is getting worse. Basically, we control Kabul, sort of. The Taliban, warlords, and drug lords control everything else. (The opium harvest is the best it's ever been. Ever.) After 5 years we haven't caught or killed Bin Laden. He's almost certainly living carefully in Pakistan. Pakistan is our friend. (Except for 99% of the Pakistanis, that is.) The national debt is nearly  $9,000,000,000,000 and skyrocketing. (Many of those markers are owned by China and other Asian bankers.) There is talk of war against Iran, but at our current state of readiness and troop strength we'd have a hard time knocking off Venezuela, which Bush might actually do if his assassination plans fail. Any way you look at it, a new war will mean bringing back the draft ... and I almost wish that would happen, as it's the only thing I can think of that will make a lot of people FUCKING WAKE UP!!!

But the economy is thriving (only for the richest) and taxes are down! (Also for the rich.) And the Smirking Chimp sez: "What? Me worry?"

October 9, 2006 - Chill

© 2006 by John Varley; all rights reserved

It's been over five years now since that black day, September 11, 2001. We're all still angry, and apparently most of us are still fearful. It will happen again, and it could be even worse. Everybody seems to think so. And in a world where just two or three guys can fill a rental truck with explosives and bring down an entire building full of federal workers, including women and babies—in a world where there are people who would want to do that, and see it as a good thing—I'm certainly not going to say very bad things are not going to happen.

But how likely is it? More to the point, how likely is it to happen to you?

There's been a lot of bullshit slung around since 9/11, and a lot of it has been accepted as fact. Partly this is because stories of potential catastrophes are sexy on the evening news. We watch in horror at what could happen, and we get scared. Partly it is because terror is not only good for terrorists, it's good for government. A scared population is a malleable population. They willingly surrender their liberties with the unified shout of Protect me! Save me from those bad people! Do whatever it takes!

So ... how many terrorist attacks have there been in the United States since 9/11/01? By my count ... none. We caught a guy trying to sneak explosives over the border from Canada, and we caught a pathetic mope trying to blow up his shoes on an airplane. There were a few more thwarted attacks, but I can't recall the specifics.

Were there more that we caught before they happened? Maybe. Probably. The government says so, and they don't lie, do they? I certainly can't say that the increased security hasn't caught people who were promptly stashed at Guantanamo and never seen again, or even quietly assassinated on the spot. People make the argument that the CIA is actually an extremely effective organization rather than the inept assembly of bunglers they usually appear to be ... because their greatest successes are top secret. They can't tell us about them, but if we only knew! ... whew, boy, would we respect the CIA! Maybe the War on Terror is like that. There's no way I can prove a negative, and unless they declassify all their files (in your dreams), they can't prove their contention, either. We're in the dark, and will stay that way.

But whatever you believe about that, my contention is that, every day since 9/11, we have been playing right into the hands of the terrorists. They have set the rules, and we have done exactly as they intended us to do. It's their game, and we have done everything stupidly.

President George the Incompetent loves to say that "They hate freedom!" Well, it's true, in the sense that they wish to destroy the country that, before Bush, had some of the freest institutions in the world. After 9/11, Bush and his chickenhawks set about doing the terrorists' work for them by systematically destroying our freedoms. We now live in a country where the First, Fourth, Fifth, Sixth, and Seventh Amendments to the Constitution have been gutted, all in the name of increasing our security and catching terrorists. We live in a country that has repudiated the Geneva Conventions, that practices torture on prisoners and refuses to repudiate it when exposed, that practices preemptive war and invades other countries without justification under international law. We have ignored the United Nations when it suits us. We are the only major nation not signatory to more international treaties than I can list here. We have few friends overseas, and none in the Muslim world. (Pakistan? Don't make me laugh. The people of Pakistan despise us.) We have squandered the enormous sympathy and good feeling that was felt worldwide in the days after 9/11, and are now the most hated nation on Earth.

All of this in the name of security. Keep us safe, Mr. President! Don't let them hurt us!

I've been doing my own threat assessment for some time now, and my conclusion is: There will be more attacks. They're bound to get lucky again sooner or later, simply because we have the impossible task of trying to protect everything and everyone, and they only have to score every few years or so to keep us running around like headless chickens, which is what we've been doing for four years.

But how bad will it be? That, no one can answer with certainty. And I'm no expert, I'm not pretending to be. But one thing seems crystal clear to me, and in light of that, I offer this bit of advice:

CHILL OUT, AMERICA!!!!

Life is risk. In my lifetime, though, America has been gravitating toward the notion that all risk can be eliminated, if we just take a few simple steps ... All risk, my fellow Americans. Just think of it. A world where you never stub your toe or bark your shin.

Some of the steps we've taken have been good and reasonable. Seat belts, which we never had when I was growing up. Which, in fact, were attacked as a crackpot concept. What we were, jet fighter pilots, fahchrissake? We're talkin' cars here, we're only goin' 80, 90 miles and hour or so ...

... oh. Well, that is sort of fast, if you're going through the windshield face first, isn't it? Okay, let's wear seat belts. Child safety seats. Air bags. Bicycle helmets. All good ideas. Magnetic refrigerator seals, so kids won't get locked inside. Why not?

Then there are the ideas slightly less useful. My car has an emergency trunk release, so if I'm kidnapped and shoved inside, I can get out. (If my kidnapper doesn't have a pair of wire cutters to snip it off.) And yes, this device will probably save two or three kids who hide in a car trunk this year and maybe one kidnap victim, and it costs about $10 per vehicle, so it's probably worth it, right? I'm sure you can think of other examples where a small change was implemented to save a small number of lives.

I'll bet you can think of a few cases, too, where a big change was made to save a small number of lives, or even a small amount of damage. McDonalds is serving its coffee at a much lower temperature now because one woman who should have known better scalded herself. Or even cases where a big change was made because one person did something, that may or may not have hurt someone. The shoe bomber comes to mind. One jerk fumbles his attempt to bring down an airplane (which most experts believe would not have worked even if he'd ignited it), and 300 million Americans now suffer the indignity of removing their shoes at the maximum security prisons we laughingly refer to as "airports."

And the proposals keep coming. It has been seriously proposed that airlines be prevented from serving peanuts because some folks have an allergic reaction to them. Or, failing that, peanut-free seating.

In this atmosphere, it is easy to understand why, in the face of the horrific, televised incineration of 3000 innocent people, the cry has gone up:

KEEP US SAFE, MR. PRESIDENT!!!!

Happy to do it, Mr. and Ms. Public! Heh heh! Just sign this little "Patriot" Act (and you'd be un-patriotic to oppose it, heh, heh!), and The Eyes of America will be upon yo' asses, all the livelong day! Er, I mean, on your neighbors' asses. You ain't done nothin' wrong, you ain't gotta worry!

And in the background, Osama bin Laden is snickering. This is exactly what he had in mind when he planned out the atrocities of 9/11. He has crippled us, and is well along the way to wrecking our free society. Damages from the World Trade Center attacks were something like (I can't vouch for this figure, I'm guessing) $100 billion. The larger impact, if you include things like a war we didn't need to fight, is in the trillions. Not bad for an attack that probably didn't even cost a million to plan and execute, including the first-class tickets for the 19 hijackers. We are rapidly approaching the point where more Americans will have been blown up by roadside bombs in Iraq than died on 9/11. As for Iraqi deaths, we literally don't even count them. This seems to be a price Americans are prepared to pay, as long as you KEEP US SAFE!!!!

So what should we do? I suggest we take a page from the book of Alcoholics Anonymous, whose pledge goes something like this:

Grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change; courage to change the things I can; and wisdom to know the difference.

Serenity. Chill out, America. No one can protect you from everything. Not George the Unthinking, not the Department of Homeland Security (they can't even protect you from rising water), not your local police, not your tank-like "SUV" Hummer, not your arsenal of handguns, not Mother Teresa's ghost. Look to God if you want, but I warn you, he didn't look out for those people who died on 9/11, and I don't think he'll take any special effort on your part. Life is risk. Accept it.

But what should you do? What is worth worrying about? The government is doing a few wise things and a whole lot of stupid things, and there's not much point in worrying about any of them because there's nothing you can do about them, at least not until we unseat these chickenhawk fascists, take our country back, and start the long process of making America respectable again in the eyes of the world. Still, we are at war, whether we want to be or not; these people do want to kill as many of us as possible, and do it right here in America if they can. How should we be prepared?

I already said I'm not an expert in threat assessment, but browsing around the other day I came upon somebody who sounds like he is. He is Army Master Gunner Red Thomas, and he's been circulating a message on the Internet. I found him at Snopes.com, so he's real. He has some advice, and most of it sounds reasonable to me.

I don't offer him as an infallible guru:

He blames the media more than the government for our current situation of perpetual hysteria, and I myself believe they are about equally culpable.

He admits in his last paragraph that no advice is good advice for all situations, and you can find fault here and there.

He seems to give rather short shrift to nuclear weapons. On the other hand, he says rightly that they are the only real weapons of mass destruction. His advice on dealing with nuclear aftermath is accurate.

He doesn't deal with airborne viruses, but that's because terrorists are unlikely to get them, probably wouldn't use them (not because they care about us, but because such diseases are indiscriminate and more likely to kill their own people than Americans). My own feeling is that if a really strong airborne virus gets going, we're all fucked, whether it comes from terrorists, from the US or Russian arsenal of such things, or from Vietnamese chickens.

And he doesn't deal with what, in my opinion, is the terrorists' best bet: radiological weapons. Nothing would give you more bang for the buck than a dirty bomb. Not because they would be very dangerous (they are not) but because everybody panics when the word "radiation" is used. One such bomb could empty an entire city, and no amount of government assurances would get people to go back.

But that aside, he makes a lot of sense. Basically, he is saying what I've been telling you, but with a lot more facts to back him up. (He could use an editor to clean up his punctuation, but I'm leaving it alone):

So I turn the floor over to you, Gunner Thomas:
 

Since the media has decided to scare everyone with predictions of chemical, biological, or nuclear warfare on our turf I decided to write a paper and keep things in their proper perspective. I am a retired military weapons, munitions, and training expert.

Lesson number one: In the mid 1990's there were a series of nerve gas attacks on crowded Japanese subway stations. Given perfect conditions for an attack less than 10% of the people there were injured (most were better in a few hours) and only one percent of the injured died. 60 Minutes once had a fellow telling us that one drop of nerve gas could kill a thousand people. Well he didn't tell you the thousand dead people per drop was theoretical.

Drill Sergeants exaggerate how terrible this stuff was to keep the recruits awake in class (I know this because I was a Drill Sergeant too).

Forget everything you've ever seen on TV, in the movies, or read in a novel about this stuff, it was all a lie (read this sentence again out loud!)! These weapons are about terror, if you remain calm, you will probably not die. This is far less scary than the media and their "Experts," make it sound.

Chemical weapons are categorized as Nerve, Blood, Blister, and Incapacitating agents. Contrary to the hype of reporters and politicians they are not weapons of mass destruction they are "Area denial," and terror weapons that don't destroy anything. When you leave the area you almost always leave the risk. That's the difference; you can leave the area and the risk; soldiers may have to stay put and sit through it and that's why they need all that spiffy gear. These are not gasses, they are vapors and/or air borne particles.

The agent must be delivered in sufficient quantity to kill/injure, and that defines when/how it's used. Every day we have a morning and evening inversion where "stuff," suspended in the air gets pushed down. This inversion is why allergies (pollen) and air pollution are worst at these times of the day. So, a chemical attack will have it's best effect an hour of so either side of sunrise/sunset. Also, being vapors and airborne particles they are heavier than air so they will seek low places like ditches, basements and underground garages. This stuff won't work when it's freezing, it doesn't last when it's hot, and wind spreads it too thin too fast. They've got to get this stuff on you, or, get you to inhale it for it to work. They also have to get the concentration of chemicals high enough to kill or wound you. Too little and it's nothing, too much and it's wasted.

What I hope you've gathered by this point is that a chemical weapons attack that kills a lot of people is incredibly hard to do with military grade agents and equipment so you can imagine how hard it will be for terrorists.

The more you know about this stuff the more you realize how hard it is to use. We'll start by talking about nerve agents. You have these in your house, plain old bug killer (like Raid) is nerve agent. All nerve agents work the same way; they are cholinesterase inhibitors that mess up the signals your nervous system uses to make your body function. It can harm you if you get it on your skin but it works best if they can get you to inhale it. If you don't die in the first minute and you can leave the area you're probably gonna live. The military's antidote for all nerve agents is atropine and pralidoxime chloride. Neither one of these does anything to cure the nerve agent, they send your body into overdrive to keep you alive for five minutes, after that the agent is used up. Your best protection is fresh air and staying calm. Listed below are the symptoms for nerve agent poisoning.

Sudden headache, Dimness of vision (someone you're looking at will have pinpointed pupils), Runny nose, Excessive saliva or drooling, Difficulty breathing, Tightness in chest, Nausea, Stomach cramps, Twitching of exposed skin where a liquid just got on you.

If you are in public and you start experiencing these symptoms, first ask yourself, did anything out of the ordinary just happen, a loud pop, did someone spray something on the crowd?

Are other people getting sick too? Is there an odor of new mown hay, green corn, something fruity, or camphor where it shouldn't be?

If the answer is yes, then calmly (if you panic you breathe faster and inhale more air/poison) leave the area and head up wind, or, outside.

Fresh air is the best "right now antidote." If you have a blob of liquid that looks like molasses or Karo syrup on you; blot it or scrape it off and away from yourself with anything disposable. This stuff works based on your body weight, what a crop duster uses to kill bugs won't hurt you unless you stand there and breathe it in real deep, then lick the residue off the ground for while. Remember they have to do all the work, they have to get the concentration up and keep it up for several minutes while all you have to do is quit getting it on you/quit breathing it by putting space between you and the attack.

Blood agents are cyanide or arsine which effect your blood's ability to provide oxygen to your tissue. The scenario for attack would be the same as nerve agent. Look for a pop or someone splashing/spraying something and folks around there getting woozy/falling down. The telltale smells are bitter almonds or garlic where it shouldn't be. The symptoms are blue lips, blue under the fingernails, rapid breathing. The military's antidote is body working for five minutes till the toxins are used up.

Fresh air is your best individual chance. Blister agents (distilled mustard) are so nasty that nobody wants to even handle it let alone use it. It's almost impossible to handle safely and may have delayed effect of up to 12 hours.

The attack scenario is also limited to the things you'd see from other chemicals. If you do get large, painful blisters for no apparent reason, don't pop them, if you must, don't let the liquid from the blister get on any other area, the stuff just keeps on spreading. It's just as likely to harm the user as the target. Soap, water, sunshine, and fresh air are this stuff's enemy.

Bottom line on chemical weapons (it's the same if they use industrial chemical spills); they are intended to make you panic, to terrorize you, to herd you like sheep to the wolves. If there is an attack, leave the area and go upwind, or to the sides of the wind stream. They have to get the stuff to you, and on you. You're more likely to be hurt by a drunk driver on any given day than be hurt by one of these attacks. Your odds get better if you leave the area. Soap, water, time, and fresh air really deal this stuff a knock-out-punch. Don't let fear of an isolated attack rule your life. The odds are really on your side.

Nuclear bombs. These are the only weapons of mass destruction on earth. The effects of a nuclear bomb are heat, blast, EMP, and radiation. If you see a bright flash of light like the sun, where the sun isn't, fall to the ground!

The heat will be over a second. Then there will be two blast waves, one out going, and one on it's way back. Don't stand up to see what happened after the first wave; anything that's going to happen will have happened in two full minutes. These will be low yield devices and will not level whole cities. If you live through the heat, blast, and initial burst of radiation, you'll probably live for a very long time. Radiation will not create fifty foot tall women, or giant ants and grasshoppers the size of tanks. These will be at the most 1 kiloton bombs; that's the equivalent of 1,000 tons of TNT.

Here's the real deal, flying debris and radiation will kill a lot of exposed (not all!) people within a half mile of the blast. Under perfect conditions this is about a half mile circle of death and destruction, but, when it's done it's done. EMP stands for Electro-Magnetic Pulse and it will fry every electronic device for a good distance, it's impossible to say what and how far but probably not over a couple of miles from ground zero is a good guess. Cars, cell phones, computers, ATMs, you name it, all will be out of order. There are lots of kinds of radiation, you only need to worry about three, the others you have lived with for years. You need to worry about "Ionizing radiation," these are little sub atomic particles that go whizzing along at the speed of light. They hit individual cells in your body, kill the nucleus and keep on going. That's how you get radiation poisoning, you have so many dead cells in your body that the decaying cells poison you.

It's the same as people getting radiation treatments for cancer, only a bigger area gets radiated. The good news is you don't have to just sit there and take it, and there's lots you can do rather than panic. First; your skin will stop alpha particles, a page of a news paper or your clothing will stop beta particles, you just gotta try and avoid inhaling dust that's contaminated with atoms that are emitting these things and you'll be generally safe from them.

Gamma rays are particles that travel like rays (quantum physics makes my brain hurt) and they create the same damage as alpha and beta particles only they keep going and kill lots of cells as they go all the way through your body. It takes a lot to stop these things, lots of dense material, on the other hand it takes a lot of this to kill you.

Your defense is as always to not panic. Basic hygiene and normal preparation are your friends. All canned or frozen food is safe to eat. The radiation poisoning will not effect plants so fruits and vegetables are OK if there's no dust on em (rinse em off if there is). If you don't have running water and you need to collect rain water or use water from wherever, just let it sit for thirty minutes and skim off the water gently from the top. The dust with the bad stuff in it will settle and the remaining water can be used for the toilet which will still work if you have a bucket of water to pour in the tank.

Finally there's biological warfare. There's not much to cover here.

Basic personal hygiene and sanitation will take you further than a million doctors. Wash your hands often, don't share drinks, food, sloppy kisses, etc., ... with strangers. Keep your garbage can with a tight lid on it, don't have standing water (like old buckets, ditches, or kiddie pools) laying around to allow mosquitoes breeding room. This stuff is carried by vectors, that is bugs, rodents, and contaminated material. If biological warfare is so easy as the TV makes it sound, why has Saddam Hussein spent twenty years, millions, and millions of dollars trying to get it right?

If you're clean of person and home you eat well and are active you're gonna live.

Overall preparation for any terrorist attack is the same as you'd take for a big storm. If you want a gas mask, fine, go get one. I know this stuff and I'm not getting one and I told my Mom not to bother with one either (how's that for confidence). We have a week's worth of cash, several days worth of canned goods and plenty of soap and water. We don't leave stuff out to attract bugs or rodents so we don't have them.

These people can't conceive a nation this big with this much resources. These weapons are made to cause panic, terror, and to demoralize. If we don't run around like sheep they won't use this stuff after they find out it's no fun. The government is going nuts over this stuff because they have to protect every inch of America. You've only gotta protect yourself, and by doing that, you help the country.

Finally, there are millions of caveats to everything I wrote here and you can think up specific scenarios where my advice isn't the best. This letter is supposed to help the greatest number of people under the greatest number of situations. If you don't like my work, don't nit pick, just sit down and explain chemical, nuclear, and biological warfare in a document around three pages long yourself. This is how we the people of the United States can rob these people of their most desired goal, your terror.

SFC Red Thomas (Ret)
Armor Master Gunner
Mesa, AZ

Unlimited reproduction and distribution is authorized. Just give me credit for my work, and, keep in context.