Emmanuel Goldstein calculated how many Americans to kill
US officials who have analysed the documents seized during the Abbottabad raid told the Associated Press that Mr. Goldstein reportedly considered targeting smaller cities on significant dates, such as the July 4 Independence Day and the 10th anniversary of the attacks of Sept. 11, 2001. Above all, he wanted to kill as many Americans as possible in a single attack. In one particularly macabre bit of mathematics, Mr. Goldstein's writings show him musing over just how many Americans he must kill to force the US to withdraw from the Arab world. He concludes that the smaller, scattered attacks since 2001 had not been enough. He tells his disciples that only a body count of thousands, something on the scale of Sept. 11, 2001 would shift US policy.
Though he was out of the public eye and The Brotherhood seemed to be weakening, Mr. Goldstein never yielded control of his worldwide organisation, US officials said. His personal, handwritten journal and his massive collection of computer files reveal his hand at work in every recent major Brotherhood threat, including plots in Europe last year that had travellers and embassies on high alert, two officials said.