Posted on 09/29/2011 1:21:40 PM PDT by george76
It's bewildering. Pathetic. Frightening. And it seems that the mainstream media avoids talking about it for fear that Americans will panic. Well, Americans ought to be panicking -- anything to get them to bang on Congress's door and force our representatives to immediately act on the pending legislature now in Congress called the SHIELD Act -- a bill based on the previous HR 5026 -- that unanimously passed in the House of Representatives on June 9, 2010.
The disaster I am referring to is an electromagnetic pulse (EMP), which can easily be caused either by Mother Nature as a geomagnetic solar storm or by an enemy with a low-cost, short range, ship-launched missile armed with a nuclear warhead. The national consequences of an EMP destroying our electrical grid are far-reaching, with long-lasting, continent-wide crippling effects to our electricity-dependant infrastructure.
At the press conference organized by EMPactAmerica on September 23, 2011, this dangerous threat to our national security was exposed for what it truly is -- the most likely event to happen to the U.S., naturally or man-made, that has the potential to bring the country to its knees.
The National Academy of Science points out that protecting the grid against this threat is critical, and getting a bill passed is necessary to do that. An EMP, if not deflected, will shut down and paralyze our country. Just think about the role electricity plays in water, food, heating and cooling, communications, transportation, distribution, the economy and banking.
(Excerpt) Read more at americanthinker.com ...
The only problem is that the Democrats are simply UNABLE to perceive ANY threat to this country or its people. That simple.
That rule applies to individuals (i.e., why they hate jailing criminals), to the Soviet Union, to Islam, to China now, to terrorism, and to EMPs.
We can prove them wrong EVERY TIME, but they simply are unable to deal with threats. It’s something that is wedged in their mind and it’s why they need to be DEFEATED, and then TOTALLY IGNORED. That really is our only hope.
I am amazed at the lack of common sense by these types of threads, so I usually just ignore them and they usually go away. Unfortunately, with the prepping thing getting popular these threads are becoming more commonplace.
“If one high altitude burst was really that big a threat it would have become the primary nuclear strategy of both us and the USSR. It didn’t, that proves the point.”
I stand corrected. There actually is some common sense on these EMP threads. You are dead right. If EMP was that big a killer we and the Soviet Union would have made it our central plan. We didn’t. They didn’t.
The EMP would not be the killer, in either case. Oh, maybe a few, but the real bloodbath would come when the lights stayed off, whe no one could find out why and for how long.
At present, we have a situation where the population is primed to riot and fight, between the class warfare angle to the racial one. Put that in urban environs with a rapidly shrinking food supply, and major cities will be trashed within a week or two.
Recall, the opening shots in Serbia were graphite filament bombs (BLU-114/B) aimed at taking down the power grid.
Our angle during the Cold War was to take out the population and military of any aggressor. We even developed a bomb designed to preserve infrastructure and eliminate people, not the other way around.
However, we have become increasingly dependent on electronic devices, from waking up, to keeping time, to inventory, shipping (barcodes/readers) from rail cars to envelopes, and in the virtual regulation of processes from HVAC to electrical generation. Points of exposure exceed anything the Y2K problem could have impacted, because even 'dumb' devices would be affected in a cascade of failures--IF the systems are vulnerable.
For a third-worlder, it would mean they would have only to deliver two or three effective devices to bring down the US, a major coup for a third world wannabe strongman.
Better to have them pursue this than a bioweapon (which just might get the job done and could be far tougher to interdict of control.
Hopefully, your assessment of the actual vulnerabilities is on target, and our enemies are chasing a worthless goal.
A lack of common sense, and probably people who do not have a math-engineering-science background.
There is trouble any time politics crosses science.
As for preppers, well, if fear of EMP causes people to be more self-reliant, they’ll be more self reliant when the blizzard-hurricane-earthquake hits.
You bring up a more important situation than EMP will ever be: Our weakness of simple attacks.
A coordinated attack on our electrical lines, sub stations, and other electrical delivery systems could have significant impacts. We, of course, would recover within a few weeks but is a window of opportunity for an enemy to do other damages.
That said, I don’t want to be the Soviet Union, afraid of everything and locking down everything; passes to go to the town next door, a pass to buy gas, a pass to so much as fart.
30 miles over Pittsburgh, at the top of the stratosphere, way above where planes fly, past the reach of high altitude balloons. The math just isn’t there. Look at that map with the circles again and the altitudes involved, the small circle is for an altitude higher than the best high altitude balloon can get to by about 1/5 of their capability, the biggest circle is almost 20 miles ABOVE the international space station. Who’s getting nukes up there? We aren’t even getting nukes up that high.
Usually I let the doom and gloom crowd have their fun. But once in a while I just gotta come in and point out the simple math. I doubt I talk sense into any of them, but maybe a couple of lurkers stop and think.
For that you do not even need a nuclear device. It can be driven by conventional explosives (I will not go into the details of what else is involved, except for no fissile material), and on the surface it appears to have been a car bomb attack (just think of what if the Times Square car bomb worked).
The jihadis are not all just a bunch of stupid goathumpers. There are some among them with engineering degrees - just look at the educational background of the 19 hijackers of September 11.
relatively small rockets can go as high as 300 miles....these would be at suborbital velocities so they do not have to travel the requisite 17,000-18000mph that would be needed for orbital velocity...but they would still be at orbital altitudes....
“Relatively” being the operative term, as in relative to what. 300 miles up puts you above the international space station, which is of course achievable, but it’s not the kind of thing Iranian terrorists are going to be launching off cargo ships from shoulder mounts.
It’s my excuse to my wife why I want an old used M35A2. Not just playing in the mud.
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Yah, this lurker feels better from your posts.
Cool, nice to have a positive effect on the world once in a while.
Yes I am aware of the operating principles of the device described. I simply did not wish disseminate any of the information to those that may attempt to use it.
“The inner cities, yes, but not where I live. I am confident that our neighbors and citizens of our town and county would rally”
You really have to read “One Second After”. It was mind-blowing. A little hokey, but filled with food for thought.
Frank Gaffney, @SecureFreedom , @frankgaffney , about threats to the electric grid.
https://soundcloud.com/jacki-daily/jacki-talks-with-frank-gaffney
“the grave threat of an electromagnetic pulse (EMP) in America is not being talked about”
Because it is an Internet nerd topic, not a valid scientific one. No, I am not going to argue with the scientifically illiterate Internet crowd about it. This scare about EMP is nothing but proof that our education system has created ignorant idiots arrogant enough to think they do know it all.
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