If we leave, they’ll follow us here. It’s as simple as that.
-John Boehner, House of Representatives, Feb. 13, 2007The terrorists will follow us home if we leave
-George W. Bush, The White House, Feb. 14, 2007
Some liberal bloggers believe that such a scenario is impossible. How would terrorists be able to follow Americans 10,000 miles from Baghdad to the United States? But to suggest that this could never happen reflects a poverty of imagination. Indeed the tracking and following skills of the world’s most dangerous terrorists have been honed to a sharp edge over the past decade, and they are ready to pursue a variety of strategies that will result in their finding America.
on the flip…
The first and most dangerous possibility is what the terrorists refer to as “the Max Cady option”. In this scenario, the terrorists will hold on to the undercarriage of the Chinook helicopters and the JASDF C-130 transport planes used to ferry the troops back home from Iraq. The terrorists have studied this and concluded that, with the right tailwind and the proper gloves, they could hang on all the way to touchdown at Dover AFB in Delaware (see Fig 1-1).
(Fig. 1-1. The Max Cady Option (artist’s rendering))
Now, some would suggest that this would only get one terrorist to follow us home at a time. But military intelligence has acknowledged that there might be room for two in the space between the wheel well. And, as we have 140,000 troops as well as 100,000 additional security personnel serving in Iraq, and the C-130 only seats 130 passengers, you can see that Al Qaeda could be expected to transport over 1,800 terrorists using this technique, provided they don’t fall to their deaths somewhere just west of the Azores.
But this is but one of the options available to the terrorists. And another has everything to do with the faulty design of out transport vehicles. You see, both the C-295M Twin Turboprop Transport Aircraft and the IL-76 Medium-Range Transport Aircraft, and even the V-22 Osprey, in fact practically every vehicle in the Air Force fleet, emit bread crumbs (see Fig. 1-2). All an enterprising terrorist would have to do is pick up the trail of bread crumbs released out of the back of the plane, and they would have no problem tracking the flight.
(Fig. 1-2. KC-767 Tanker Transport Aircraft Emission)
Now, I have no idea why this was built into the Air Force design; no doubt it’s the insidious work of Big Bread Crumb (they’re always trying to insert their products into bloated defense appropriation bills). But the point is that we cannot backwards-engineer an anti-bread crumb device, or put “trailers” in harm’s way to pick up the bread crumbs and move them off the track, without compromising the mission and wasting valuable time. So this is simply something we’re going to have to deal with.
Some would argue that our military, the most experienced and well-trained in the world, would surely notice if terrorists were following their bread crumb trail. But the terrorists are way ahead of us on that. In fact, they are diligently schooled in the fine art of hiding behind trees so as to not get spotted. Most terrorist training camps are littered with large spruce, maple, redwood, sequoia, and larch trees (see Fig. 1-3), and would-be terrorists are taught how to make themselves small and to keep all body parts behind the tree to avoid being noticed.
(Fig. 1-3. Terrorist training camp – approximation)
This is going to be difficult to countermand, as “finding people hiding behind a tree” was recklessly kept out of the new counterinsurgency manual being used by the military. This was an oversight of epic proportions.
Should we fix the bread crumb problem, and should we scan the transport and cargo planes before takeoff to see if anybody’s hiding in the undercarriage, and should we become more adept at looking behind THE WHOLE TREE, not just glancing, there’s still another technique that the terrorists are sure to use. They may ask us where we’re going.
Here’s a sample of this technique in practice:
Terrorist Disguised As Fruit Salesman: Hey, where are you going?
Unwitting American Solider (getting on plane): Oh, back to the US, why?
Terrorist: No reason.
Soldier: You’re not thinking of following me or anything, are you?
Terrorist: No, why would I do that?
Soldier: Oh, OK. In that case, here’s an address where you can reach me.
(soldier scrawls down exact address of his base location in the United States)
Soldier: I put the address for a nearby nuclear power plant on there too, in case you want to take their tour.
Terrorist: Thank you! (smiles devilishly)
Obviously, we’re dealing with an enemy who is very proficient at extracting information that they can put to use later. And I hear there are even maps of the United States available for the terrorists to download and use once they find out where the troops are going.
I would not be so quick to dismiss these thoughts from Republicans that the terrorists would follow us home. They obviously have the skills and capability to do it. We need to be very wary of this possibility, and do whatever we can to throw them off the track. Only then will we be safe enough to win the war on terror.
D-Day is a military analyst for several websites, although not what anyone would call an “expert.” Still, his opinions are completely valid.
