NEW CONGRESS WARNING ON NUCLEAR EMP THREAT

World Net Daily ^ | Joseph Farah

[-=[_Super_Secret_Agent_]=-]

What do you think is worst: another terriost attack or no electricity for one year??

[little jeremiah]

Does it have to be either/or?

[Free Vulcan]

If this happens, it's game over in post-apocalyptic, Mad Max kind of way.

[DoughtyOne]

If we were talking about a three to ten thousand casualty rate, I might opt for the electrical outage as being worse. Frankly, I'm not able to assess all the variants that might take place in a serious prolonged electrical outage.

Commerce would be severely broken IMO. Major unemployment would probably ensue. Regional depressions might follow. Societal breakdowns of varying degrees would probably follow that.

What's your take?

[Alamo-Girl]

Thanks for the ping!

[flutters]

Emergencies & Disasters - Planning & Prevention

[IrishCatholic]

bookmark for later printing.

[sefarkas]

There is no other country in the world that has anything like our sophistication in electronic equipment, and no other country in the world is so dependent as we are on our national infrastructure.

This type of nonsense is hardly worth making a post for and discredits the whole article. Every modern economy on the planet is keenly dependent on the infrastructure that is disabled by a EMP. It is fair to say that the largest 50 economies on the planet could not survive an attack on the scale described here. However, the US military is certainly capable of a full scale retaliation -- and the fact that no EMP attack has been launched (even on a limited scale) says that our opponents have a great disincentive to launch such an attack. The Soviets did not attack because they wanted what we had and thought that "better off red than dead" appeasers would surrender it. I suspect that the islamofascits would rather control our economy than destroy it. That is why they only launch vanity attacks rather than the devastating ones postulated here.

[RightWhale]

That would be about right. Some may come calling even sooner. If it is neighbors and they seem at least semi-competent, would you band together?

A man or family alone would have a tough time and probably wouldn't get far.

[RightWhale]

Try to find metal screening. Chickenwire would be too gross to do any good. You need windowscreen mesh, and copper would be a plus.

[DoughtyOne]

I think that's a wise idea. What would probably be a bit better if possible, would be to billet together with relatives.

It's really hard to tell how neighbors would react as things went down hill. They may seem rock solid until their comfort zone crumbled down around them. People form a certain image of themselves almost (perhaps completely) subconsciously. When the job, the car, the items that made up that image seemed to shed away, they might become unstable.

At least in a family, you have a chance of the relations holding things together.

Then there's my ex's famiily. NEVERMIND!

LOL

[Mike Darancette]

"For example, a nuclear weapon detonated at an altitude of 400 kilometers over the central United States ...

And N. Korea or Iran will accomplish this feat without being atomized how?

[CBart95]

Love Joe Farah. He knows better. But he loves a "Tabloid Lead"...sells papers....etc.
The people who oughta know. Know.
Hardening is in place and actively underway...for a long time now.
Only it's a MILITARY and a National Defense Secret.

Still is.

[expatguy]

"Any nation or group that implemented such an attack would very shortly cease to exist on this earth...[sic]"

/yawn

Saudi Arabia still exists - and so do Muslims for that matter.

[Tarantulas]

That could very well be true. The old vacuum tube electronic gear was much less susceptible to EMP than the newer transisorized products. Microcircuits are even more fragile. Any Integrated Circuit chip or computer circuit board is always shipped inside an anti-static bag, because any tiny spark of static electricity can destroy them. Now consider a big spark of static electricity that travels down every power line, every phone line, every cable TV line, and destroys all the circuit boards in your house, in the traffic light controllers, in the power plant switchyards, the banks, the grocery stores, and anywhere there's a microprocessor in the loop. Sure, the military stuff is all shielded against EMP, so they could still fight, but that doesn't help you much when you can't buy gasoline or groceries. It especially doesn't help when the policemen and firefighters (and Border Patrol) have radios that will not work any more because their insides are fried.

Back in the mid-80s I saw a test facility at the Air Force Base (Kirtland?) that adjoins Sandia Labs in New Mexico. The guy said they could put a fighter plane or a tank in there and set off a localized EMP to test out its electronics. But I don't think there's a way to set off a truly big EMP without using a nuke.

This issue is not something you can brush off as mere paranoia. It is a real danger, and regular civilian electronics are unshielded and vulnerable to its effects. Back in the 1960s when the US military was still conducting above-ground nuclear tests, they put a warhead on a missile and detonated it at the edge of space. In Hawaii, thousands of miles away, the EMP caused circuit breakers to trip and phone systems to go dead. But that was back in the days of vacuum tubes. If the same thing happened today I think the islands would be devastated.

Pleasant dreams...

[Paul C. Jesup]

I believe that people in the U.S. are in for a major shock in the not so distant future.

And what would you have american do? Lead shielded cases are not sold for personal use.

And even lead does not protect from microwave weapons.

[Wonder Warthog]

"So? The terrorists are prepared to die. We civilians would still be screwed."

The Islamists "are" a special case. They "are" prepared to die. What they are NOT prepared for is for Mecca, Medina, and the rest of Muslim "holy" sites to become large holes in the ground covered by green radioactive glass. Kind of hard to "do the hajj" under such circumstances.

[Wonder Warthog]

"Saudi Arabia still exists - and so do Muslims for that matter."

Sorry, but even 9/11 is miniscule compared to the reaction that will happen if any kind of nuclear device is detonated on US soil.

People talk about "fear and panic" as a reaction, but they are also forgetting ANGER. There WILL be a full-bore nuclear retaliation to such an event---the citizenry will demand it.

[BeHoldAPaleHorse]

To generate enough EMP to cripple the entire country would require a very big warhead--the yield would be higher than anything currently in either the US or Russian nuclear arsenals. Getting a big weapon to burst height would require a very large rocket.

[CBart95]

Total Anihilation. It is a concept we (our brain trusts) abandoned in the late fifties. We have the means (deterrent) to do this but the resolve (will) to never do it.
The Al Queda mindset is not of the same mind. They are bent on anihilation by any and all means...military or not...witness the the all out war on share of mind, including public opinion, they are currently winning.
Panic,confusion,division,disunity is all evident on this thread.