03.09.11
Cult of EMP Crazy: Notional Korean peninsula arms race
The western press always inflates stories of electromagnetic pulse rays and bombs.
It’s in accordance with the rule of law.
A four paragraph newspaper story in a Korean newspaper story earlier in the week triggered the latest round of promises on the unseen weapon that’s always coming but never quite arriving.
South Korea, said one SK military man, had an electromagnetic pulse bomb. And I have a Fender Eric Clapton Signature Stratocaster. (Well, at least one of these items actually exists.)
Keep in mind that extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence — except in the case of the Iraq war or statements to the effect that “we’re broke.”
In electromagnetic pulse bomb stories, just the opposite holds true.
Since the early Nineties, any and all claims can be aired in the western press about the existence of non-nuclear EMP bombs. And none of them have to be true.
The collateral result: Tons of computers games, some big budget movies, countless telemovies and loads of tv adventure shows, some airing this season, using electromagnetic pulse bombs as plot devices.
If you’re a script writer and are asked to make all electronic devices fail at once so something bad can be allowed to happen, you take the literary EMP bomb out of the writer’s toolbox.
But none exist in the real world unless you count the ridiculous homemade things on YouTube. Sure, the military has conducted tests of such ‘bombs.’ And they don’t work in any interesting manner.
However, when that happens reality only gets more tortured. Failure was long ago redefined as success.
The Chosun Ilbo newspaper story took a couple days to get noticed. However, now the electromagnetic pulse bomb stories are starting to roll in courtesy of the rest of the western press.
“North Korea Nears Completion of Electromagnetic Pulse Bomb,” reads a story from ABC news today, one with no significant evidence.
“North Korea appears to be protesting the joint U.S. and South Korean military maneuvers by jamming Global Positioning Devices in the south, which is a nuisance for cell phone and computers users — but is a hint of the looming menace for the military,” reads the lede, rather lamely.
Nuisance jamming, in the context of the story, means electromagnetic pulse bombs are on the way.
“The scope of the damage has been minimal, putting some mobile phones and certain military equipment that use GPS signals on the fritz.” it continues.
On the fritz. Hmmm, sounds serious.
Then, voila, we go from nuisance jamming to using an undefined as such atmospheric atomic explosion:
The North is believed to be nearing completion of an electromagnetic pulse bomb that, if exploded 25 miles above ground would cause irreversible damage to electrical and electronic devices such as mobile phones, computers, radio and radar, experts say.
Then the echo from the four paragraph South Korean news story is heard, one confirming the EMP weapon arms race. We have one, too, claims a South Korean military man. Keep in mind South Korean defense high-ups have made a decades-long habit of claiming lots of rubbish in SK newspapers:
Park Chang-kyu of the Agency for Defense Development … confirmed that South Korea has also developed an advanced electronic device that can be deployed in times of war.
S. Korea behind North in electronic warfare’, reads a related Korean news article.
“We can, and will, use EMP bomb, says South Korea,” reads an Australian news article.
“News of EMP attacks has increased of late, on the heels of a documentary called Iranium, which discusses the possibility and fallout of Iran detonating a nuclear device 400km above the USA,” it observes.
At DD blog and Globalsecurity, Iranium was reviewed.
It’s “the movie aimed at getting the bombers and cruise missiles flying toward Iran,” I wrote. A devastating Iranian atomic electromagnetic pulse bomb attack could end US civilization, the movie explained. Unless stopped, nine out of ten Americans dead within a year.