Khalid Sheikh Mohammed Designed a Vacuum Cleaner
He is responsible for the deaths of thousands. They tortured him for years. What to make of these strange moments of humanity?
In deepest secrecy, Khalid Sheikh Mohammed designed a vacuum cleaner. He is known as the principal architect of the 9/11 attacks, but his background was in mechanical engineering, so he asked to design a vacuum cleaner. He had been languishing in CIA black site prisons, his captors were worried that his mental fitness might degrade, and his value as an intelligence asset was shrinking. They were done torturing him, so they allowed him to design a vacuum cleaner.
They say he designed it based on schematics from the Internet. Did his captors search for and download the schematics or did he have permission to do it himself? Did he, as I so often do, end up far off track from his original research goal? Did he spend hours stumbling down wiki-holes? Do CIA black site prisons run site-blocking software? How fast is their connection? I bet it’s pretty fast. How many websites unknowingly furnished KSM with information on how to design a vacuum cleaner?
Is the vacuum cleaner any good? Does the vacuum cleaner designed by Khalid Sheikh Mohammed in a CIA black site prison advance the state of vacuum cleaner design? His background is in mechanical engineering. Did he focus, therefore, on the innards, or did he give much thought to the overall look and feel of the appliance?
Did he show his captors his handiwork as it was in progress? I imagine he had no choice. The AP says he used to hold forth like a professor. Chained to the floor, he’d lecture his captors “on his path to jihad, his childhood, and family. Tea and cookies were served.”
Did he also discuss the vacuum cleaner? Is there a particular feature, or surprising small innovation of which KSM is especially proud? Did he point it out to his captors in the CIA black site prison? What did they think of it? What did they tell him they thought of it?
Or was the vacuum cleaner something more personal? Was he really designing it for himself? Was it a way to carve out a little private space for creation, a harmless thing that he could hold in his own head, that no amount of sleep deprivation or water boarding would ever dislodge, because they’d never bother to ask.
Were his captors able to read the schematics? Was he able to hide anything among them? They say he was once caught trying to pass a message about Osama Bin Laden’s courier inside a Harry Potter novel.
Many designers prefer to think with their hands. Was Khalid Sheikh Mohammed allowed to prototype the vacuum cleaner he designed in a CIA black site prison? Were there user trials? Were his captors given variations on a handle design and did KSM ask for their feedback? How well does the vacuum cleaner deal with hard-to-reach corners? How does it perform on carpets?
Does the vacuum cleaner have a range of attachments? Does it have a variety of settings? It is bagless or does it use bags? If it uses bags, which bags does it use? Is there a company unknowingly manufacturing bags compatible with Khalid Sheikh Mohammed’s vacuum cleaner that he designed in a CIA black site prison?
Did he finish the job? In 2006, he was transferred from his prison in Romania to Guantanamo Bay. The AP was unable to determine the state of his progress at the time of the transfer. Could you build a working vacuum cleaner based on the current state of his schematics? Did his captors try?
The vacuum cleaner is a state secret now. It is as carefully guarded as whatever information KSM divulged about the networks that he ran and the attacks that he planned which caused the deaths of thousands. What little we know, we know only because CIA officials spoke with the AP “on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to talk about the now-shuttered CIA prisons or Mohammed’s interest in vacuums.”
Jason Wright, KSM’s military lawyer, was unable to confirm the AP’s story. Here is what the AP says he said: “It sounds ridiculous, but answering this question, or confirming or denying the very existence of a vacuum cleaner design, a Swiffer design, or even a design for a better hand towel would apparently expose the U.S. government and its citizens to exceptionally grave danger.”
