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You are here: Home / Politics / War on Terror / War on Terror aka GSAVE® / Sheikh Ratbert

Sheikh Ratbert

by | 60 Comments

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For obvious reasons, this LA Times piece has me laughing:

Mohammed Atef was furious.

The Al Qaeda leader had learned that a subordinate had broken the rules repeatedly. So he did his duty as the feared military chief of a global terror network: He fired off a nasty memo.

In two pages mixing flowery religious terms with itemized complaints, the Egyptian boss accused the militant of misappropriating cash, a car, sick leave, research papers and an air conditioner during “an austerity situation” for the network. He demanded a detailed letter of explanation.

“I was very upset by what you did,” Atef wrote. “I obtained 75,000 rupees for you and your family’s trip to Egypt. I learned that you did not submit the voucher to the accountant, and that you made reservations for 40,000 rupees and kept the remainder claiming you have a right to do so. . . . Also with respect to the air-conditioning unit, . . . furniture used by brothers in Al Qaeda is not considered private property. . . . I would like to remind you and myself of the punishment for any violation.”

The memo by Atef, who later died in the U.S.-led assault on Osama bin Laden’s Afghan refuge in 2001, is among recently declassified documents that reveal a little-known side of the network. Although Al Qaeda has endured thanks to a loose and flexible structure, its internal culture has nonetheless been surprisingly bureaucratic and persistently fractious, investigators and experts say.

There is a solid SNL/Monty Python script in this story.

*** Update ***

Reader Interactions

60Comments

  1. 1.

    dbrown

    You mean a terrorist has to submit a vocher before he can blow people up? Next, we will discover that they have to read and understanding the American tax code and fill out a form 1040 to get ready for torture by the Americans …

  10. 10.

    Jen

    I would like to remind you and myself of the punishment for any violation.”

    What is the punishment? Is this where we get the suicide bombers from? They’re rupee-misappropriators?

    (Obligatory: This isn’t Riyadh, Samir. They’re not going to cut your hands off.)

  11. 11.

    Krista

    That is hysterical.

    It’ll really mess a lot of people up, too, as they probably thought of AQ as just a bunch of murderous heathens hanging out in caves.

  13. 13.

    sean

    “Oh, oh, and I almost forgot. Ahh, I’m also gonna need you to go ahead and blow up that nightclub on Sunday, too…”

    – Mohammed Lumbergh

  14. 14.

    Bubblegum Tate

    I really have to wonder what water-cooler talk is like down at the ol’ AQ branch office.

    “Hey there, yeah, death to the infidels, uh-huh…listen, would you mind covering for me at the suicide bombing planning meeting next week? I’m all out of vacation days.”

  15. 15.

    shera

    Contrast this with the Yoo torture memo, including that pesky footnote about suspending the 4th Amendment for domestic military operations (which are themselves restricted by the Posse Comitatus Act). Sheesh.

  16. 16.

    Jen

    I obtained 75,000 rupees for you and your family’s trip to Egypt. I learned that you did not submit the voucher to the accountant, and that you made reservations for 40,000 rupees and kept the remainder claiming you have a right to do so. . .

    Well, it BECOMES ours.

  17. 17.

    Dennis - SGMM

    So each side in the War on Terra is becoming like the other. Next thing you know, AQ will be outsourcing their suicide bombing jobs to the Chinese.

  18. 18.

    Jen

    what’s a TPS report?

    This could be a fairly obtuse thread for those who have not seen Office Space.

  19. 19.

    sean

    “Mohammed Lumbergh told me to talk to payroll and then payroll told me to talk to Mohammed Lumbergh and I still haven’t received my paycheck and he took my stapler and he never brought it back and then they moved my desk to cave B and there was garbage on it…”

    – Milton Atta

  20. 20.

    Phoenix Woman

    Here’s Hillary in 1995 essentially saying “Screw Working-Class White Southerners!”:

    In January 1995, as the Clintons were licking their wounds from the 1994 congressional elections, a debate emerged at a retreat at Camp David. Should the administration make overtures to working class white southerners who had all but forsaken the Democratic Party? The then-first lady took a less than inclusive approach.

    “Screw ’em,” she told her husband. “You don’t owe them a thing, Bill. They’re doing nothing for you; you don’t have to do anything for them.”

  21. 21.

    Karmakin

    “Mohammed Lumbergh told me to talk to payroll and then payroll told me to talk to Mohammed Lumbergh and I still haven’t received my paycheck and he took my stapler and he never brought it back and then they moved my desk to cave B and there was garbage on it…”

    – Milton Atta

    My thinking exactly. I actually can see Milton saying the things in the OP and it fits perfectly.

  22. 22.

    pharniel

    This could be a fairly obtuse thread for those who have not seen Office Space.

    or we coudl switch to The Office or old monty python..i mean basic burocratic passive agressive bullshit isn’t precisly a modern invention.

    the romans had to inventory the nails made for cuxifiction

  23. 23.

    nightjar

    This could be a fairly obtuse thread for those who have not seen Office Space.

    Speaking for the obtuse afflicted– TPS sounds akin to the Snipe Hunt.

  24. 24.

    sean

    from wikipedia:

    TPS report has come to denote pointless mindless paperwork after its use in the comedy film Office Space. In the story, a primary character is reprimanded by several of his superiors for forgetting to put the new cover sheet on his TPS report.

  25. 25.

    Jen

    One milligram of that poison can kill a monkey. Or a man. Prick yourself and you’d be dead within a day. Or longer. Different frogs, different times.

    Gareth, the (British) Office, since we’re elitists.

  26. 26.

    Dennis - SGMM

    TPS Report, from Wikipedia:

    TPS report became a term to describe any mindless paperwork after its use in the comedy film Office Space, which followed three software engineers who were fed up with their jobs. This came from a scene in which Peter Gibbons (the main character) had forgotten to put the new cover sheet on his TPS report, which his boss, Bill Lumbergh, informed him was a standard practice according to a recent memo. The explanation that “We’re putting new cover sheets on all of our TPS reports now before they go out,” is usually followed by “Didn’t you get the memo?” and comes from one of Bill Lumbergh’s lines.

    TPS Reports in the movie were probably Test Procedure Specification Reports, but in the popular context, “TPS” has become a backronym for “Totally Pointless Stuff”, “Total Piece of Shit,” “This Place Sucks”, “Totally Pointless Shit”, “This Project Sucks”, “Time-Pass Stuff”, “The Paper Shredder” or “Toilet Paper Sheets”.

  27. 27.

    calipygian

    Although Al Qaeda has endured thanks to a loose and flexible structure, its internal culture has nonetheless been surprisingly bureaucratic and persistently fractious, investigators and experts say.

    Actually, not suprising, considering al-Qaeda’s origin as an office to process Arab recruits into fighing the Russians in Afghanistan.

    It has its origins as an HR department. A MURDEROUS HR department…

  28. 28.

    srv

    Someone pointed Judge out to me at a restuarant in Austin back in the day. I was convinced he’d been overhearing my lunch stories about working at NASA, where we had TPS reports and I worked with a guy who was Miltons twin. Unfortunately, he didn’t hear the story about the coworker who had a radio in his office tuned to static. Or about the time we got so tired of freezing in the Mission Control building that we called facilities and had them remotely experiment. Melted a few computers that night.

  29. 29.

    dj spellchecka

    i recommended this article over on the open thread. it’s fantastic. the lesson: even anarchists have to spend most of their time in meetings….

  31. 31.

    b. hussein canuckistani

    It reminded me of the People’s Front of Judea proposing an emergency vote to bring a special item up before the committee for immediate discussion.

    Or was it the Popular Front?

  32. 32.

    Fe E

    They have SICK TIME!

    When Al Qaeda’s HR policies are superior to your ow employers, well…. it gives new meanig to the phrase “the terrorists have won!”

  33. 33.

    D0n Camillo

    Next, we will discover that they have to read and understanding the American tax code and fill out a form 1040 to get ready for torture by the Americans …

    Some might say that was part of the torture.

  37. 37.

    Tim (The Other One)

    “the (British) Office”

    Yes, the only Office actually worth watching. (fellow elitist here)

  38. 38.

    Paul

    @nightjar

    If you have *ever* worked in an office, or a cube, you will love Office Space for the essential truths it distills in comedic goodness.

    Now if you excuse me, I have to go get my swingline stapler back…

  39. 39.

    Jen

    Yes, the only Office actually worth watching

    I like them both. One has Tim, and one has Jim.

  41. 41.

    area man

    “Yeah, I don’t know if you realized, but we’re starting at the regular time today…”

    Can you call in sick for a suicide bombing?

    Al Qaeda’s HR department. Talk about the banality of evil, jeebus!

  42. 42.

    Sock Puppet of the Great Satan

    “They may have imposed the blindingly obdurate nature of Egyptian bureaucracy,” said a senior British anti-terrorism official who asked to remain anonymous for security reasons. “You see that in the retirement packages they offered, the lists of members in Iraq, the insecure attitude about their membership, the rifts among leaders and factions.”

    Retirement packages????

  45. 45.

    qwerty42

    JFC, the article sounds like the basis for Dilbert (and the evil HR director is Catbert, btw). I assume there are many pointy-haired bosses and there has to be a Mordac, the Preventer of Information Technology. I’ll assume there is also a Phil, the Prince of Insufficient Light. What are their auditors like? (and let’s not get started about IT security audits — I assume they base those on the IBM recommendations, so maybe that is where Mordac comes in).

  48. 48.

    jake

    accused the militant of misappropriating cash, a car, sick leave, research papers and an air conditioner during “an austerity situation” for the network. He demanded a detailed letter of explanation.

    Change five words and you have about another day in Congress.

  49. 49.

    jake

    accused the militant of misappropriating cash, a car, sick leave, research papers and an air conditioner during “an austerity situation” for the network. He demanded a detailed letter of explanation.

    Change five words and you have another day in Congress.

  50. 50.

    Krista

    I wonder if Al-Qaeda office workers also spend most of their day commenting on blogs.

    For all we know, there could be an Arabic doppelganger of Balloon-Juice, with its own versions of John Cole, TZ, demi, myself and all the others.

    And instead of pie, their trolls heartily enjoy baklava.

    This is getting kind of weird.

  51. 51.

    ThatLeftTurnInABQ

    “They may have imposed the blindingly obdurate nature of Egyptian bureaucracy,” said a senior British anti-terrorism official who asked to remain anonymous for security reasons. “You see that in the retirement packages they offered, the lists of members in Iraq, the insecure attitude about their membership, the rifts among leaders and factions.”

    Retirement packages????

    401AK-47s

  52. 52.

    ThatLeftTurnInABQ

    “They may have imposed the blindingly obdurate nature of Egyptian bureaucracy,” said a senior British anti-terrorism official who asked to remain anonymous for security reasons. “You see that in the retirement packages they offered, the lists of members in Iraq, the insecure attitude about their membership, the rifts among leaders and factions.”

    Retirement packages????

    All joking aside, I’m currently reading Phillip Bobbitt’s new book “Terror and Consent” and this makes perfect sense if you buy into his hypothesis that AQ is a malign form of the Market State. Their organizational structure and internal processes may very well resemble a large and decentralized multinational corp., “Office Space” with bombs and guns, as it were.

  54. 54.

    jake

    I wonder if Al-Qaeda office workers also spend most of their day commenting on blogs.

    For all we know, there could be an Arabic doppelganger of Balloon-Juice, with its own versions of John Cole, TZ, demi, myself and all the others.

    And instead of pie, their trolls heartily enjoy baklava.

    This is getting kind of weird.

    I HAD A MIND. BUT U BLOWDED IT.

  55. 55.

    b-psycho

    I wonder if Al-Qaeda office workers also spend most of their day commenting on blogs.

    For all we know, there could be an Arabic doppelganger of Balloon-Juice, with its own versions of John Cole, TZ, demi, myself and all the others.

    Great, now you have me wondering what the content of the blogs they link to as targets of ridicule is like…

  56. 56.

    TenguPhule

    In two pages mixing flowery religious terms with itemized complaints, the Egyptian boss accused the militant of misappropriating cash, a car, sick leave, research papers and an air conditioner during “an austerity situation” for the network.

    Al Queda, like the government, but with better benefits.

  57. 57.

    bago

    As a programmer on a quad proc dual core xeon, if it ever gets cold in my office I just write up a little app that launches a thousand threads that wait for on ms. The context switching alone raises the temp ten degrees. If I started running some FPU operations or made some DX calls I could probably crank this office up to 90.

  59. 59.

    Sock Puppet of the Great Satan

    I said:

    >>Retirement packages????

    ThatLeftTurnInABQ Said:

    >401AK-47s

    ThatLeftTurn wins the thread.

    Seriously, though, I’d have thought the ‘retirement package’ for a suicide bomber was a brick of C-4.

  60. 60.

    Sock Puppet of the Great Satan

    I said:

    >>Retirement packages????

    ThatLeftTurnInABQ Said:

    >401AK-47s

    ThatLeftTurn wins the thread.

    Seriously, though, I’d have thought the ‘retirement package’ for a suicide bomber was a brick of C-4.

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