The Devastating Threat to Our Security!

[Jake Martinez]

What’s wrong with this picture?

Posted on The Heritage Foundation-On August 11, 2011:

“It sounds like something out of a movie. A nuclear weapon detonates at high altitude, generating a burst of electromagnetic energy that devastates the United States–destroying electronics, collapsing communications, halting transportation, and shutting down all electrical power. Unfortunately, the threat of an electromagnetic pulse (EMP) strike is all too real, and it’s time America’s leaders wake up to the reality.

But a nuclear weapon isn’t the only way an EMP can be generated. Even unusually powerful solar activity could produce catastrophic destruction in the United States. No matter how it’s generated, the chaotic effects are the same. First, the electromagnetic shock can disrupt electrical devices. The second effect is similar to lightning—a power surge that would burn circuits and immobilize electronic components and systems. The third is a pulse effect that flows through electricity trans mission lines, damaging distribution centers and fusing power lines. Any of these can cause irreversible damage to an electronic system. And the United States would effectively be sent back to the 19^th century, to a world without cars, cell phones, computers, or any other electronics.

If history is any guide, an EMP would be catastrophic. In 1859, British astronomer Richard Carrington observed an unusually large solar flare. Later, the flare reached earth. Telegraph operators were knocked unconscious. Their machines caught on fire as the EMP effect from the flare surged through the lines. When this event occurred, only a small portion of the world was electrified. A solar flare of this magnitude today might have a much more devastating impact.

“An event that could incapacitate the network for a long time,” stated one participant in a U.S. National Academies of Science study, “could be one of the largest natural disasters that we could face.” In the film 33 Minutes: Protecting America in the New Missile Age, Dr. William Graham, chairman of the Congressional EMP Commission, explainswhat that disaster would look like:

“Medical services wouldn’t be available because they need electric power. Telephones wouldn’t work. The traffic lights would stop working. Big traffic jams. Transportation would be shut down. Electronic fund transfers wouldn’t work so you wouldn’t get your paycheck. You wouldn’t be able to use your credit card. Food stocks would run out very quickly. Everything we know about life today that makes it convenient and efficient would be shut down.”

On August 15, 2003, 55 million people received a brief object lesson in what life would be like after an EMP event when a major blackout occurred throughout the northeastern United States and Canada. For the most part, services were restored within a day. That would not be the case after an EMP event. Heritage’s James Carafano explains in a new paper the potential impact on the United States–and the world:

“The result of a massive EMP event could be devastating. Communications would collapse, transportation would halt, and electrical power would simply be nonexistent. Not even a global humanitarian effort would be enough to keep hundreds of millions of Americans from death by starvation, exposure, or lack of medicine.

Nor would the catastrophe stop at U.S. borders. Most of Canada would be devastated, too, as its infrastructure is integrated with the U.S. power grid. Without the American economic engine, the world economy would quickly collapse. Much of the world’s intellectual brain power (half of it is in the United States) would be lost as well. Earth would most likely recede into the “new” Dark Ages.”

Yet despite the threat—and the fact that six national commissions and major independent U.S. government studies have independently concurred with the significance of the danger—Congress has merely deliberated it but has not taken substantive action. Meanwhile, the Administration and federal agencies remain mostly ambivalent.

Carafano recommends actions the U.S. government can take to guard against an EMP attack: funding comprehensive missile defense to intercept and destroy a missile bound for the United States; developing a National Recovery Plan and a plan to respond to severe space weather emergencies; and more research on the EMP threat to ensure that the United States fully understands the scope of the danger and can prepare cost-effective countermeasures.

That’s why it is time to make August 15 National EMP Awareness Day to wake up America’s leaders to the looming threat. An EMP strike should be recognized as a clear and present danger—one that could be devastating if it finds the nation ill-prepared.

On August 15, 2011, Heritage is hosting a panel event on the EMP threat from 11:00 a.m. to 12:30 p.m. ET. Click here for more information or to watch the event online.”

Source:

http://blog.heritage.org/2011/08/11/morning-bell-the-devastating-th...

Note: The following articles and/or blog posts relate to this disturbing issue-You Decide:

I. How to Defend America in the 21^st Century! (Part 1)

Posted on Floyd Reports-By Guest Writer-On August 5, 2011:

“In 1914, on the eve of the Great War, the Duke of Cambridge wrote, “There is a time for all things. There is even a time for change; and that is when it can no longer be avoided.”

Speaking of change, the current debt crisis could force drastic cuts in the Department of Defense budget, perhaps as high as 50 percent.

In the immediate post-Cold War era, DoD futurists envisioned a 25-year period of “strategic pause” before the nation faced a “major peer competitor” sometime between 2015 and 2020. In the 1990s, major candidates for peer-competitor status included China and a resurgent Russia. India and a nuclear-armed Iran were cast as lesser threats. In those heady days, terrorism was seen as a tactic and more the purview of law enforcement. The major emphasis was on being prepared for big wars against peer competitors—wars no world power can afford to lose. Preparing for those wars also satisfied each service’s need to perpetuate itself in familiar ways wrapped around developing and acquiring high-tech weapon systems. Programs like “The Army After Next,” “From the Sea,” and “Air Force Next” addressed future strategic paradigms focused on parochial core strengths.

To be sure, there were cuts in defense spending during the 1990s. The size of the American military shrank. The Air Force, alone among the services, reorganized its force structure from one based on strategic deterrence to power projection. Cuts were “salami slices” that, for the most part, reduced but did not reform outmoded force structures.

And then, September 11, 2001 changed everything. In the immediate aftermath, the Bush administration made a major mistake by declaring a “War on Terror” rather than specifying the enemy as Al Qaeda, associated groups, and nations that support them. With a generic “terror” as the enemy, the war easily morphed from one into two wars, with Operation Iraqi Freedom launched in March 2003. Ten years later, the fighting in Iraq continues, and what was originally a campaign to root out and destroy al Qaeda in Afghanistan has become an endless struggle against the Taliban. This war has exhausted the American military, contributed to our national economic nightmare, and derailed critical thinking about the future.

This exhausted force is also outmoded. Cutting such a force by a quarter, much less half, would invite aggression by nations like Iran and North Korea. Keeping the current force at the status quo would be expensive and also leave the nation vulnerable to current threats and unable to cope with a rapidly growing Chinese threat.

The U.S. military needs massive restructuring. Its current structure originated with the reforms instituted in 1903 after the Spanish-American War. A major overhaul on the eve of World War II made it possible to fight the Axis powers. The National Security Act of 1947 institutionalized the Industrial Age force extant today. Now, the armed forces of the United States would be hard-pressed to counter a North Korean invasion of South Korea without using nuclear weapons.

In fact, war on the Korean peninsula is one of our immediate threats. Iran, soon to be a nuclear-armed state, is bent on establishing hegemony in the world’s energy epicenter. Despite a predictably forthcoming declaration of “victory” in the ill-conceived War on Terror, al Qaeda and associated groups will continue to attack U.S. interests abroad while putting the nation on the defensive at home.

An anti-American alliance between Iran, Syria, North Korea, Venezuela, and possibly Cuba is not beyond the realm of possibility. If Mexico continues to descend into anarchy, that alliance could extend to our immediate and un-defended southern border; imagine the cost of trying to fortify it sufficiently to keep it secure.

Slicing the salami thicker will result in fewer divisions, cutting new weapons acquisition, and trimming at the edges by reducing costs associated with professional military education. This is like starting a weight reduction with a frontal lobotomy and removing a few fingers. What is needed is drastic restructuring of the armed forces, massive reduction in the associated bureaucracy, and major changes in the way officers are educated.

Meanwhile, China is building a first-class fighting force, one capable of global power projection. While Russia’s ability to project power remains questionable, its modernization programs focus on high-tech weaponry and on revitalizing nuclear forces.

Critics argue that the United States now spends more on its military than the next 10 nations combined. True. A lot of that goes to sustaining force structures that are redundant, unnecessary, and ill-suited for Information Age warfare. Much of it goes to personnel costs (including retirement), maintaining bases and posts that are no longer needed, and unnecessary civilian personnel. There is much that can be cut, but also much more that needs to be restructured if the United States is to survive the challenges beyond 2015.”

• Dr. Earl Tilford is a military historian and fellow for the Middle East & terrorism with The Center for Vision & Values at Grove City College. He currently lives in Tuscaloosa, Alabama where he is writing a history of the University of Alabama in the 1960s. A retired Air Force intelligence officer, Dr. Tilford earned his PhD in American and European military history at George Washington University. From 1993 to 2001, he served as Director of Research at the U.S. Army’s Strategic Studies Institute. In 2001, he left Government service for a professorship at Grove City College, where he taught courses in military history, national security, and international and domestic terrorism and counter-terrorism.

Source:

http://floydreports.com/how-to-defend-america-in-the-21st-century-p...

II. How to Defend America in the 21^st Century! (Part 2)-Posted on Floyd Reports-By Guest Writer-OnAugust 12, 2011:

http://floydreports.com/how-to-defend-america-in-the-21st-century-p...

Note:  The following websites and report reveal that George Soros’ Open Society Institute (OSI) funds: (a)organizations that advocate America’s unilateral disarmament and/or a steep reduction in its military spending; (b)organizations that favor global government, which would bring American foreign policy under the control of the United Nations or other international bodies; and, (c) the Peace and Security Funders Group (PSFG), which is a liberal internationalist coalition of U.S. donors who believe the best way to prevent wars, constrain rogue nations, and prevent the spread of nuclear weapons is to let international laws and organizations set the terms of world peace. The umbrella group, whose listed supporters claim to have assets exceeding $25 billion, aims to entangle the U.S. government in a process of international negotiation to create a new global legal regime. It would likely limit U.S. sovereignty and replace a strong national defense with endless rounds of international rulemaking and consensus-building-You Decide:

(a) Organizations that advocate America’s unilateral disarmament and/or a steep reduction in its military spending:

• The American Friends Service Committee, which views America as the world's chief source of international strife, has long had a friendly relationship with the Communist Party USA. Lamenting that “the United States spends 59% of the discretionary federal budget on military-related expenses,” the Committee seeks to “realign national spending priorities and to increase the portion of the budget that is spent on housing, quality education for all, medical care, and fair wages.” In 2000, George Soros himself was a signatory to a letter titled “Appeal for Responsible Security” that appeared in The New York Times. The letter called upon the U.S. government “to commit itself unequivocally to negotiate the worldwide reduction and elimination of nuclear weapons,” and to participate in “the global de-alerting of nuclear weapons and deep reduction of nuclear stockpiles.”

(b) Organizations that favor global government, which would bring American foreign policy under the control of the United Nations or other international bodies:

• According to George Soros, “We need some global system of political decision-making. In short, we need a global society to support our global economy.” Consistent with this perspective, the Open Society Institute in 2008 gave $150,000 to the United Nations Foundation, which “works to broaden support for the UN through advocacy and public outreach.” Moreover, OSI is considered a “major” funder of the Coalition for an International Criminal Court, which aims to subordinate American criminal-justice procedures in certain cases to an international prosecutor who could initiate capricious or politically motivated prosecutions of U.S. officials and military officers.

Source:

Guide to The George Soros Network-Posted on DiscoverTheNetworks.org:

http://www.discoverthenetworks.org/viewSubCategory.asp?id=589

(c) Peace and Security Funders Group (PSFG)!-Posted on DiscoverTheNetworks.org:

http://www.discoverthenetworks.org/groupProfile.asp?grpid=6519

The New Internationalism: Peace and Security Funders Group (PSFG)!-Posted on Capital Research Center-By John J. Tierney-On August 2009:

http://www.capitalresearch.org/pubs/pdf/v1249061645.pdf

Note:  My following blog posts contain numerous articles and/or blog posts and videos that relate to this disturbing issue-You Decide:

Nuclear Summit Part of Obama Administration’s ‘Fantasy Foreign Policy’!

http://weroinnm.wordpress.com/2010/04/14/nuclear-summit-part-of-oba...

Will The New START Undermine Our Nuclear Security?

http://weroinnm.wordpress.com/2010/03/25/will-the-new-start-undermi...

The Military Pays the Price for Obama’s Agenda!

http://weroinnm.wordpress.com/2010/08/11/the-military-pays-the-pric...

Is it important to understand the Marxist assault on the foundations of our system?

http://weroinnm.wordpress.com/2011/01/27/is-it-important-to-underst...

Note:  If you have a problem viewing any of the listed blog posts please copy web site and paste it on your browser. Be aware that some of the articles and/or blog posts or videos listed within the contents of the above blog post(s) may have been removed by this administration because they may have considered them to be too controversial.  Sure seems like any subject matter that may shed some negative light on this administration is being censored-What happened to free speech?-You Decide.

“Food For Thought”

God Bless the U.S.A.!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q65KZIqay4E&feature=related

Semper Fi!

Jake

[Catherine Linton]

If China's first air-craft carrier is anything like the crap they send over here, it'll sink in two weeks.