Yeah, I know. This first part is from the Huffington Post...sorry.
In case you've been wondering whatever became of Newt Gingrich following his meteoric rise in the primaries, and his plummet back to earth and well-deserved irrelevance...
WASHINGTON -- Some young conservatives heard an apocalyptic warning Tuesday morning from former House Speaker Newt Gingrich when the conservative Republican told a right-wing student conference that the massive power outages following the powerful June 29 derecho storm gave a taste of what an "electromagnetic pulse attack" would be like.
"Any of you who were in Washington during the recent week-long opportunity to experiment with an electromagnetic pulse attack, just talk to people, we were out of electricity for seven days at our house," said the moon colonization enthusiast during his speech at the Young America's Foundation's National Conservative Student Conference, where he was speaking about threats to American security. (Other threats include radical Islamists, China and cyber attacks, which Gingrich said he's writing a novel about.)
A novel?! Oh, great. Maybe we can use all the unsold copies to construct a hardened bunker where we can hide out with Newt and Callista as they slowly come completely unglued realizing that their numerous electric hair styling gadgets are useless in the face of a massive blackout. On second thought, I'll take my chances with the electromagnetic pulse. If it wipes out Newt's Twitter account, it would almost be worthwhile.
What exactly is Gingrich worried about?
An electromagnetic pulse attack -- or EMP -- is a favorite terrifying idea of some conservatives and survivalists.
Newt's channeling The Heritage Foundation which issued a
a 2010 paper on the threats posed by an "electromagnetic pulse attack":
An electromagnetic pulse (EMP) attack represents one of the greatest threats imaginable—to the United States and the world. An EMP occurs when a nuclear device is detonated high in the atmosphere—a phenomenon of which America’s enemies are well aware. The electromagnetic discharge can permanently disable the electrical systems that run nearly all civilian and military infrastructures. A massive EMP attack on the United States would produce almost unimaginable devastation. Communications would collapse, transportation would halt, and electrical power would simply be non-existent. 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.
Or we could simply wait until Bain Capital has closed all of our factories and outsourced all our jobs. If [insert name of deity here] forbid, Mitt's elected president, this unraveling of our national fabric will happen at breakneck speed.
This isn't to minimize the possibility or potential effects of an EMP. Not at all. It's certainly a possibility.
If you want to throw yourself into a full-blown panic attack, check out the The Heritage Foundation's web site
Abstract: An electromagnetic pulse (EMP) over the United States could end modern life in America overnight. Whether caused by an enemy attack (a nuclear device detonated above the atmosphere) or by a natural phenomenon (a geomagnetic storm), an EMP can cause entire regions of the country to lose electricity—permanently. Despite the EMP Commission’s recommendations in 2004 and 2008, hardly any progress has been made in protecting the country from an EMP attack and its catastrophic results. The U.S. must prepare to deal with an EMP—now.
Newt's careful to use the term "electromagnetic pulse
attack", conjuring up the image of Evil People From Dangerous Countries cobbling together the complex technology to take our our [freedom loving] electrical systems. The Heritage Foundation uses this same terminology, but they concede that natural phenomena such as geomagnetic storms could also create EMPs.
Consider for a moment why the "EMP attack" angle would resonate with conservatives. Scrolling through The Heritage Foundation's web site, their key message is that (1) this is a huge threat, underestimated by many and (2) the US is woefully unprepared to protect our country.
It's a failure of big government. The Heritage Foundation lays blame at the feet of the Department of Energy, the Department of Homeland Security, the Department of Defense, and even NATO. State and local governments are not part of any solution either. Despite all the tax dollars that Americans cough up every year, our government has failed to develop plans to protect us in the event of an EMP.
It doesn't take a physics or economics genius to realize that there's no amount of technology or money that would enable us to prepare for a worst-case scenario, or even a "pretty bad" scenario. Heck, our power grid can't even withstand summer heatwaves. Our crumbling physical infrastructure has already been shown to be vulnerable to cyber attack on power plants and water/wastewater treatment systems.
We live in a country where state and local governments are slashing funding for police officers, firefighters, teachers, nurses and other workers on whom we rely for the basic necessities of life. Where communities hold bake sales to buy equipment for volunteer firefighters, where families buy body armor for their sons and daughters fighting in far-off lands. Conservatives view these dire situations as "a good start" on their vision of empowering the 1% and enlarging the holes in the safety net to enable everyone else to fall through it. Are these same people truly worried about our country facing the perils of an EMP "attack"?
Follow along below the geomagnetic storm for more...
So, what's really going on here, and why are Newt and other conservatives so interested in the perils posed by an EMP (while they're so clearly uninterested in the 100% likelihood of Americans facing joblessness, foreclosure, bankruptcy, hunger, lack of medical care, and a host of other real woes)?
Let's take a look at The Heritage Foundation's "Current priorities for the U.S."
Build Comprehensive Missile Defenses. Maintaining the capacity to interdict nuclear-tipped missiles is the most effective measure to guard against a HEMP attack. The U.S. missile defenses are not keeping pace with the proliferation of threats. It is time to reverse course. Establishing a robust ballistic missile defense is the most effective means of addressing the future threats to the U.S. and its allies resulting from the proliferation of missile technology and weapons of mass destruction. The U.S. must pursue missile defense programs that can intercept missiles in the boost and ascent portions of flight. Among these programs are the Airborne Laser, which is a modified air-to-air interceptor missile, future versions of the Navy’s Standard Missile-3 (SM-3) interceptor, and, above all, reviving the development and deployment of space-based interceptors.
You can almost hear Ronald Reagan from the great beyond. By all means: let's bankrupt the country trying to build missile defense systems.
Who benefits? Certainly the defense contractors, and probably some folks in the Pentagon, although I do give many of them credit for telling Congress: "no, don't build that. We don't need it or want it, and it's never going to work." Who else might benefit? Chickenhawk politicians who want to "restore" America to some misbeggoten idea of "greatness". The very sorts of people you'd want to keep as far away from the nuclear launch codes as possible.
Develop a national plan to respond to space weather emergencies. As a 2008 report by the National Academies, “Severe Space Weather Events—Understanding Societal and Economic Impacts,” makes clear, “Modern society depends heavily on a variety of technologies that are susceptible to the extremes of space weather—severe disturbances…driven by the magnetic activity of the sun.” The first step in addressing this issue must be educating the public and policy communities at the federal, state, and local levels about the risks and response options. Additionally, any effective plan will require enhanced, reliable long-range space weather forecasts.
You'd think that worries over "space weather emergencies" would spur further investment in NASA, NOAA, and related agencies that our politicians are instead looking to cut back and privatize. Geomagnetic storms are certainly a continuing threat, but since they can't be blamed on Islamic extremists or others from the line-up of "the usual suspects", let's just let the states fend for themselves. Nothing we can for you folks from the Federal level... sorry. Well, not exactly nothing. We can "educate" you so you can add this to your list of worries as you toss and turn at night.
Forge a bipartisan consensus in Congress to act on this issue. The response to the EMP Commission’s findings has been uneven within the United States government, with the Department of Defense taking the initiative and the Department of Homeland Security apparently sitting idle. Congressional inaction has contributed to this uneven response.
A "bipartison consensus in Congress"?! You're joking. As long as Conservatives are digging in and preventing progress on anything that would benefit Americans, you can kiss this idea goodbye. It'd be easier to design a state-of-the-art missile and laser shield to protect the planet than to get these jackasses to agree on anything.
Establish bilateral partnerships with other nations. If the unthinkable happens, the U.S. and other developed nations must be able to accept foreign aid in the event of catastrophes. The U.S. should consider hosting international disaster exercises to increase the ability of countries friendly with the United States to readily accept aid from one another when disaster strikes. For some critical infrastructure the U.S. should promote establishing an industry-led, multinational rapid-response capability. Such a capability should be able to respond worldwide. Further, this could provide an effective mechanism to share best practices and integrate responses. This capability should be funded and controlled by the private sector to respond to threats to shared international critical infrastructure, such as telecommunications and the Western Hemisphere electrical grid.
As usual, it's all about
us, and the developed world. The possibility - however remote - of an EMP catastrophe would allow us to be a net recipient of foreign aid to rebuild our precious "critical infrastructure". So we'll be shaking down the third-world countries, since they have such a vested interest in our return to greatness? Yeah, I don't think so. Even if the news of our electromagnetic demise had to be transmitted around the world by carrier pigeon, smoke signals, or tin-can telephones, the reaction among much of the world would be an enthusiastic:
"YESSSSSS!!!"