Re: Why misc.survivalism should keep on talking about _THREAT MODELS_

On Mon, 19 Sep 2005 12:25:27 -0700, Tim May
<timcmay@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:


>The most important thing: threat models and how to deal with them.
>

Agreed. As I live on the east coast, mine are somewhat different, but
this is my take on the threats and their ranking by probability:

1st Threat: Cat 4 or 5 Hurricane. I live in Davie, about 12 miles
inland from Ft. Lauderdale. Current evac models for Broward County
suggest mandatory evacuation from US1 eastward for Cat 3 and above and
mandatory evacuation from about I95 eastward for Cat 4 and above (more
or less).

This is a joke. As was proved in Katrina and will be proved again in
a day or so somewhere in TX.

Very few structures survive a direct hit by a Cat 5 storm - whether
they are on the coast or 20 to 30 miles inland.

I have always said I would never leave for any type of storm as I
agree with your assessment of becoming a refugee and all that it
entails. That remains so for a Cat 3 and below, but a high end Cat 4
that could turn into a Cat 5 overnight? A tough call. And one that
can't be made when the storm is 5 to 10 hours from landfall. This is
something I have to reconsider and reformulate plans for. I still
lean towards "hunker in the bunker" at this point.

I am very well supplied with:

- camping gear (BOB gear)
- communications gear (scanners, short wave, ham radio, etc.)
- cooking gear (propane, stoves, etc.)
- energy (alternate sources of power including rechargeable batts,
solar panels, 18 amp hour batts, etc.)
- first aid
- food (months worth for several people)
- household goods (paper plates, portable toilet, etc.)
- water - hundreds of gallons
- weapons (suffice to say I could probably deal with "group conflict
resolution")

As a tangent to this, I have made one more decision after watching
what happened in NO after Katrina.

If LE or the feds decide to confiscate firearms after an "event" from
law abiding citizens (me) who would using those firearms to protect
myself and others who are defenseless against thugs and hoodlums who
wish to take advantage of the situation, this is where LE and the feds
become my enemy and I will shoot back to protect my right to be able
to protect myself and loved ones.

I guess this instantly makes me an "enemy of the state". Strange,
since I have taken CERT training (Community Emergency Response Team)
and have always viewed preparedness training not as something to
simply benefit myself, but also to benefit my community as well.
Prior to this decision to confiscate firearms, my first reaction to LE
showing up at my door would be to offer 'em food, beverages and
whatever communications information I'd been able to gather from other
hams to help them in their efforts. Since I am technically a member
of CERT, I might very well be one of those who would have been called
on to assist in this action of "protecting people from themselves"!

*** that.

I think the feds realized that there were (are) quite a few people who
feel exactly as I do and why after a day of talking about doing this,
they backed off. It was a wise move on their part for lots of
reasons:

- Maybe the troops just weren't up for blasting holes through their
American brothers and sisters.

- Maybe they realized that once the shooting started and LE became
the enemy, it wasn't a battle they were going to win.

- Maybe they realized that after the first cop put a bullet through
Joe Citizen's head for no other reason then he wouldn't give up his
only means of self defense, it would have changed forever the way we
look at cops.

Anyway, they did the right thing and backed off - one of the smartest
moves made during the entire Katrina debacle.

2nd Threat: Nuke attack by al-Queda ranks second in my list of
possible and probable upcoming events.

Some might view this as totally off the wall and extremely unlikely,
but depending on who you read (and I happen to think Bodansky has his
finger on the pulse of al-Queda better then anyone), al-Queda has
acquired enough nukes to take out a dozen or more American cities -
and probably do it simultaneously. Peter L. Williams (in his latest
book) lists a half dozen cities that are currently on al-Queda's "hit
list" or what he terms "America's Hiroshima".

Miami happens to be one of those cities which makes it close enough
where fallout could be a deadly after effect.

So lately I've been preparing new contingencies on how to deal with
this problem. Note: Fallout is a problem one has to only deal with
for a couple of months at most, unless they vaporize a nuke reactor
along with the cities. But using Chernobyl as a guide, I would say I
am well outside the limits of this presenting too much of a problem.
It would be more a psychological weapon of terror then anything else.
Except, of course, for the people at ground zero or nearby.

What *is* the problem is what happens after DC, NY and other key
cities are wiped off the map. Will law and order be maintained? Will
a working government even exist? Will a working *United States* even
exist?

These are huge unknowns and the way I see it, the answers aren't going
to be pretty.

On a positive note, my guess is there won't be a living Muslim left in
the US 72 hours after the attacks. They will most likely be dragged
from their homes and burned alive in the streets.

Ditto for the middle east. It will be vaporized inside of an
afternoon.

As it should.

I know your feelings about the US steering clear of foreign
entanglements (as well as the framers suggestions to do the same).

But the world is what it is and the battle between Judeo/Christian and
Muslim factions has been going on long before the US was ever a
country. This world war is and was going to be fought no matter what
we do or don't do.

Arguably, some would say it started on 9/11, but to me it started when
Tehran took our embassy back in '79. One could even go back further
to the Black September killing of the Israeli's in the '72 Olympics or
even the formation of the Muslim Brotherhood back in the 20's or 30's.
***, for that matter, you could go all the way back to Wahhab and his
creation of this split from "moderate" Islam back in the mid 1700's.

No matter. We are where we are. bin Laden seems to be a brilliant
military tactician and his adherence to Patience - until patience
wears out patience - has allowed him to succeed in his attacks and
escape capture thus far.

We "win" only if we can break apart his network and figure out where
and when the nuke attacks are supposed to happen.

Hopefully the CIA and pals are playing productive games like "Pin the
Black and Decker Drill Bit on the Islamocist" or "Your Daughter - The
Wild Boar Whore" with the likes of KSM and Abu Zubidah and their
families, et al.

*** 'em. It's time we teach them what terror is all about and spill
what they know before it's too late.

We have very little time left to find these cells and thwart the next
big attack - the one we won't recover from.

3rd Threat: The Avian Flu business and mutating viruses. Laurie
Garret wrote an excellent book some years ago called "The Coming
Plague". It's lofty, but I strongly recommend it.

It's time to order some Tamiflu I suppose and polish off some
quarantine procedures. I've maintained a supply of Cipro and
Doxycycline. However, if they have their hands on smallpox can you
imagine the train wreck that will be FEMA in charge of doling out the
vaccine? I called one place up in Orlando that was looking for
participants to do a smallpox vaccine study, but they wanted people
who could stay on-site to be monitored. I keep my eyes open for these
kinds of things. As soon as I can get my hands on some smallpox
vaccine, I'm going to be vaccinated. Why the US govt isn't allowing
people who want to be vaccinated get vaccinated is beyond me. This is
something that should be happening *now*, not later when an attack has
taken place.

Oh. I almost left out one of the most important items I keep updated.

That is a "Terrorist Emergency Procedures" document I prepared after
9/11. I keep a copy for myself and one for my wife. Basically, I
assume that after any major "event", communication is going to be very
difficult. In this document I keep an updated list of people for us
to contact in case of emergencies in case local comms are down and
dead (which was the case in NYC after 9/11). We might not be able to
call each other, but might be able to call others outside of the
affected area.

I also have a list of rally points in this document so we can get
together (or try to) even if we can't directly communicate.

It seems prudent to prepare something like this since it's pretty easy
to come up with a list of 8 or 10 people to contact and half a dozen
places to try to meet up around town if we can't make it home.

One more thing. As I have gone through preparations over the years, I
have kept and updated an Excel spread*** that details an inventory
of my preparedness items - books - gear and such. This is handy as I
keep items in separate worksheets based on category and can sort on a
"have/need" column (or, of course, alpha by item, etc.).

It has proven to be extremely helpful. For instance, with foods - I
can calculate calories consumed by day by person if I want to. I can
use it as a shopping list as well. I went through various "revisions"
of this until I came up with the format I now use. I'm sure many of
you have done the same with your "lists". Since this isn't a binary
newsgroup, I can't post it, but I think it would be helpful to those
who are new to this (and some of you who are seasoned old survival
hounds, too).

I believe a binary newsgroup - something to do with tools has been
used in the past to post these kinds of files - can't remember which
one it is off the top of my head.

I'd post a generic version of my list and if others do the same it
might prove to be helpful to the group.

Regards,

LiRM
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