EMP in TIME Magazine
Last week we pointed you to an article written by James Carafano and Jena McNeill of the Heritage Foundation. They recommended that Congress establish March 23 as Electromagnetic Pulse Recognition Day, given the catastrophic effects of a nuclear weapon explosion in our atmosphere.
This explosion would interact with the planet’s magnetic fields, creating a pulse, which in turn would cause widespread damage, devastate the economy, and result in millions of deaths.
TIME magazine published a story on EMP and quoted Carafano’s and McNeill’s article. An excerpt:
“Maybe it’s America’s frontier heritage; moving west and constantly facing new bands of Indians, this nation has always seemed to have an exaggerated awareness of potential threats. The Cold War gave us warnings of missile and bomber gaps, later found to be largely mirages, that were supposedly leaving U.S. citizens vulnerable to Soviet attack. Fear of the supposed Soviet missile advantage spurred President Ronald Reagan’s Star Wars initiative and the $100 billion Washington has spent preparing to counter incoming enemy missiles even as the Soviet Union disappeared. Then, 9/11 put us in the crosshairs of Islamic terrorists, calling into being a mushrooming homeland-security industrial complex. All very well, warn the sentinels at the Heritage Foundation, but what about the EMP threat?”
Note the magazine’s barely-contained sarcasm. An EMP attack is not a mirage. The threat is real. Rogue states like Iran and North Korea are improving ballistic missile capabilities and developing nuclear weapons, and both countries know about EMP’s effects.
America has a duty to protect its citizens, and as long as EMP attacks are possible, Congress should alert the public of the danger and shore up our defenses against it, even if it sounds like science fiction.
Tags: Electromagnetic Pulse, EMP, Iran, James Carfano, Jena McNeill, North Korea, Russia