Catistrophic Damage : EMP - Electromagnetic Pulse Nuclear Attack

Electromagnetic pulse from a atmospheric detonation of a nuclear weapon would be catastrophic to the citizens of the United States or any other civilized society.

Given most of the western civilizations are mostly digitally based in almost every aspect of our lives from personal computers to all of our transportation and life supporting mechanisms such as furnaces for heat, refrigerators for food and pumps for water supplies, all depend on electricity that are digitally supported.

If you remember what happened on 9/11 to our country from just two buildings getting hit, it doesn't take any stretch of the imagination to see what would happen if that effect was 100 times worse and went country wide due to an EMP attack.

As you must remember our country came to a screeching halt for a period of time on 9/11 as people tried to figure out what happened and then comprehend, or couldn't comprehend, that someone would do this to us. After all, this is America - we are safe from anything that might interfer with our life styles. Our politicians promised, if elected, they would see to it that all of concerns would be taken care of and not to worry about anything. The government is here to protect you. da -

Hello!!! Forget that - it's time to change our thinking, the day of absolute security is over. The reality is we can be hit, and probably will be hit again as soon as our enemies can develop the right bomb to do the job. They will not go away as we try to engage them in meaningful dialogue.

I know it hard to comprehend that we are no longer an island of security where life goes on without any worries of self preservation. The biggest reality that we have to come to grips with is, WE ARE AT WAR.

There are people that want to enslaves us, or barring that, kill us all. No amount of hand wring or promises from politicians will change this fact. The America of yesterday is gone. We now have to fight to defend our land for our selves and our offspring. To deny this will be fatal.

Okay, now, let's keep the faith in the American spirit of freedom that our forefathers fought and died for while we dig in to fight the good fight for our own survival as a nation. Anything less will ensure all those that came before us will have died in vain.

The EMP Threat
August 9, 2008 WSJ

Imagine you're a terrorist with a single nuclear weapon. You could wipe out the U.S. city of your choice, or you could decide to destroy the infrastructure of the entire U.S. economy and leave millions of Americans to die of starvation or want of medical care.The latter scenario is the one envisioned by a long-running commission to assess the threat from electromagnetic pulse, or EMP.

The subject of its latest, and little discussed, report to Congress is the effect an EMP attack could have on civilian infrastructure. If you're prone to nightmares, don't read it before bedtime. An EMP attack occurs when a nuclear bomb explodes high in the Earth's atmosphere. The electromagnetic pulse generated by the blast destroys all the electronics in its line of sight. For a bomb detonated over the Midwest, that includes most of the continental U.S. Few, if any, people die in the blast. It's what comes next that has the potential to be catastrophic. Since an EMP surge wipes out electronics, virtually every aspect of modern American life would come to a standstill.

The commission's list of horribles is 181 pages long. The chapter on food, for instance, catalogs the disruptions up and down the production chain as food spoils or has no way to get to market. Many families have food supplies of several days or more. But after that, and without refrigeration, what?

The U.S. also has 75,000 dams and reservoirs, 168,000 drinking water-treatment facilities, and 19,000 wastewater treatment centers -- all with pumps, valves and filters run by electricity. Getting everything up and running again is not merely a matter of flipping a switch, and the commission estimates that many systems could be out of service for months or a year or more -- far longer than emergency stockpiles or batteries could cover.

The large transformers used in electrical transmission are no longer built in the U.S. and delivery time is typically three years. "Lack of high voltage equipment manufacturing capacity represents a glaring weakness in our survival and recovery," the commission notes. Many industries rely on automated control systems maintained by small work forces. In emergencies -- say, during a blackout -- companies often have arrangements in place to borrow workers from outside the affected area to augment the locals and help with manual repairs. After an EMP attack, those workers would be busy in their home regions -- or foraging for food and water for their families.

The commission offers extensive recommendations for how industry and government can protect against the effects of an EMP attack and ensure a quicker recovery. They include "hardening" more equipment to withstand an electromagnetic pulse; making sure replacement equipment is on hand; training recovery personnel; increasing federal food stockpiles; and many others. If not, our vulnerability "can both invite and reward attack," the commission's chairman, William Graham, told Congress last month.

Iran's military writings "explicitly discuss a nuclear EMP attack that would gravely harm the United States," he said. James Shinn, an assistant secretary of defense, has said that China is developing EMP weapons. The commission calls an EMP attack "one of a small number of threats that can hold our society at risk of catastrophic consequences."

The threat is real. It's past time to address it.