Right-Wing Pundit Hypes Fictional North Korean EMP Threat

Frank Gaffney (Photo: Raw Story)

It was only a matter of time before the right wing would turn the current crisis on the Korean peninsula into a parody. It’s not entirely surprising that chief conspiracy theorist Frank Gaffney kicked things off on Thursday with an interesting theory about he thinks the real threat from North Korea is.

Gaffney told Laura Ingraham radio show fill-in host Raymond Arroyo that we should really be worried about the North Koreans putting one of their nukes on a ship to the West Coast, attaching it on a short-range missile and — don’t aim it at any particular large American city where it would inflict the most damage — but fire it up above the atmosphere creating the dreaded “Electro Magnetic Pulse” that will (supposedly) put the entire United States out of business for good:

GAFFNEY: They certainly have an abundance of shorter range missiles which could be brought close to our shores aboard ships. A capability that their Iranian partners, we know, have demonstrated. And by lobbing a relatively small, relatively unsophisticated nuclear weapon of the kind that they seem to have tested now three times on one of these short range missiles high over the United States and detonating it outside of our atmosphere, the North Koreans know they could inflict incalculable harm on this country, even perhaps with just one of these weapons.

And how would that work? Such a weapon detonated in space would trigger something called “Electro Magnetic Pulse,” a very powerful form of electromagnetic energy that would essentially damage or destroy every piece of electronic gear and particularly sensitive equipment like transformers that are the backbone of our electrical power grid. And if those go down, we cease to exist as a 21st Century society because without electrical power, look at Katrina as an example or what happened with Sandy more recently, except the power doesn’t come back on after a couple of days or a couple of weeks. It stays off and that means, really, returning us to kind of a pre-industrial society.

Listen to the clip here:

So the North Koreas will ship a nuke and a missile all the way to the United States — undetected — attach the nuke to the missile (a process they have yet to master) and launch it way up in the atmosphere while U.S. defense officials (particularly the Missile Defense Agency) are none the wiser. If that sounds like something out of a doomsday fiction novel (or a video game), you’re right.

As CAP’s Matt Duss once noted referring to Gaffney’s claim that Iran would pull off such a stunt, “it’s probably worth pointing out here that the likelihood of Iran, or anyone, actually pulling off such an attack is roughly the same as Iran building an enormous, space-bound vacuum cleaner and sucking up all of America’s oxygen.”

Gaffney — who is is director of the far-right Center for Security Policy and whose writing regularly appears in somewhat mainstream publications — is also one of the country’s most prominent Islamophobes and was the brainchild behind Rep. Michele Bachmann’s (R-MN) conspiracy theory she famously peddled last year that certain elements of the U.S. government were under the control of the Muslim Brotherhood (Bachmann got to keep her seat on the House Intelligence Committee after the widely-panned and criticized affair).

But what is the real threat from North Korea? ThinkProgress has a run-down here.

View the original article here

U.S. Pacific Commander: Climate Change Greatest Threat In Region

Admiral Samuel J. Locklear III, commander of the U.S. Pacific Command, gave a striking answer when asked about the greatest threat the region faces: climate change.

Locklear spoke to the Boston Globe on the topic after spending two days in the Boston-area talking to scholars and foreign policy experts on the situation in the Pacific. As Locklear told the Globe, the changing climate “is probably the most likely thing that is going to happen . . . that will cripple the security environment, probably more likely than the other scenarios we all often talk about.’’

Among the issues that the Admiral cited as most concerning was the possibility that rising sea-levels result in the disappearance of whole countries, producing influxes of “climate refugees” in neighboring states. The certainty that climate change is a phenomenon to be dealt with has affected the way that the Navy interacts with the various countries in the Indo-Pacific region that will be affected by shifting weather patterns:

“We have interjected into our multilateral dialogue – even with China and India – the imperative to kind of get military capabilities aligned [for] when the effects of climate change start to impact these massive populations,” he said. “If it goes bad, you could have hundreds of thousands or millions of people displaced and then security will start to crumble pretty quickly.’’

The Navy has been at the forefront of attempting to shift U.S. policy on climate change through the influence wielded by the military. Secretary of the Navy Ray Mabus in 2009 announced the development of a “Great Green Fleet,” a Carrier Strike Group fueled by energy sources other than oil, as part of a strategy to reduce the Navy’s dependence on foreign oil. While currently more expensive, the Navy’s buying power would be able to bring down biofuel prices as supply catches up with demand. Mabus’ program was nearly shut down by Congress, but was revived by the Senate in November.

Locklear’s belief doesn’t indicate a full shift away from handling conventional state-based threats — such as from North Korea and China — but instead takes a broader look at the intersection between security and climate. The Center for American Progress recently co-published a series of articles on the links between climate change and the Arab Spring, highlighting the ties between rising food prices and civil unrest.

View the original article here

Head Of U.S. Pacific Forces: Climate Change Is Biggest Threat To Region’s Security

The Commander of the U.S. Pacific Command has identifued climate change as the most likely threat to the Pacific region, as ThinkProgress reported:

Admiral Samuel J. Locklear III, commander of the U.S. Pacific Command, gave a striking answer when asked about the greatest threat the region faces: climate change.

Locklear told the Boston Globe, the changing climate “is probably the most likely thing that is going to happen . . . that will cripple the security environment, probably more likely than the other scenarios we all often talk about.”

Among the issues that the Admiral cited as most concerning was the possibility that rising sea-levels result in the disappearance of whole countries, producing influxes of ‘climate refugees‘ in neighboring states.

It’s surprising to hear the head of PACOM talk so starkly about the threats we face from climate change, but not surprising to hear this from the military. In 2010, the Quadrennial Defense Review made it clear that climate change impacts U.S. military resources:

While climate change alone does not cause conflict, it may act as an accelerant of instability or conflict, placing a burden to respond on civilian institutions and militaries around the world. In addition, extreme weather events may lead to increased demands for defense support to civil authorities for humanitarian assistance or disaster response both within the United States and overseas.

Peter Sinclair made a good video on national security impacts in 2010:

Most of those interviewed in that video are retired or former military, which makes Admiral Lockclear’s comments that much more striking.

It’s good to see climate hasn’t slipped from all national security considerations. Last year the CIA closed down its Center on Climate Change and National Security which opened in 2009.

Admiral Locklear went on to describe in his interview how important it was to coordinate multilaterally with China and India to respond to climate impacts:

“The ice is melting and sea is getting higher,” Locklear said, noting that 80 percent of the world’s population lives within 200 miles of the coast. “I’m into the consequence management side of it. I’m not a scientist, but the island of Tarawa in Kiribati, they’re contemplating moving their entire population to another country because [it] is not going to exist anymore.”

The US military, he said, is beginning to reach out to other armed forces in the region about the issue.

“We have interjected into our multilateral dialogue – even with China and India – the imperative to kind of get military capabilities aligned [for] when the effects of climate change start to impact these massive populations,” he said. “If it goes bad, you could have hundreds of thousands or millions of people displaced and then security will start to crumble pretty quickly.”

If the American, Chinese, and Indian militaries are coordinating on responding to the threats of climate impacts, perhaps the militaries could provide some support to other bilateral and multilateral efforts that have stalled on climate in the past.

jQuery(document).ready(function(){jQuery('#comment_submit').click(function(){if(jQuery('#comment_check:checked').length

View the original article here

How Your Household Products May Be Contributing To A Global Health Threat

More than 800 man-made chemicals found in everyday products — in your household cleaners, makeup, electronics, canned food, and clothing — are becoming “a global threat that needs to be resolved,” according to a new report from the World Health Organization and United Nations Environment Program. Research links these hormone-disrupting chemicals to a host of medical problems, including certain cancers, birth defects, and other diseases.

These chemicals include phthalates and BPA, which are both used in plastics. The U.S., Canada, and parts of Europe have banned them in some products for children, but Endocrine Distrupting Chemicals (called EDCs) still lurk in the hundreds of thousands around the world. “The vast majority of chemicals” in common use have not even been tested for safety, report authors wrote.

The report takes a more urgent tone on EDCs than a 2002 WHO report that found evidence of man-made chemicals’ harm to be “weak.”

Since then, the link between everyday chemical exposure and health problems has become clearer. A separate study last year showed that exposure can be harmful to humans even in small doses. The Food and Drug Administration and Environmental Protection Agency continue to study BPA’s dangers in low doses.

“Frankly, for BPA, the science is done. Flame retardants, phthalates … the science is done,” WHO report co-author Thomas Zoeller told Environmental Health News. “We have more than enough information on these chemicals to make the reasonable decision to ban, or at least take steps to limit exposure.”

But one major hurdle to addressing and regulating toxic chemicals in the U.S. involves battling industry groups like the American Chemistry Council and the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, which have waged campaigns against Environmental Protection Agency oversight of toxic chemicals.

View the original article here