02.18.10
Cult of EMP Crazy: FP comes last with the least
The hack script:
It’s a scene fit for a Hollywood movie: A terrorist group launches a nuclear weapon from a ship off the coast of the United States. But instead of directly hitting a city or military installation, it detonates miles above the ground, seemingly causing no damage. Almost instantaneously, the lights darken over a large portion of the United States, cars stop in the middle of the road, and computers go dead. Panic ensues and the nation is soon economically and militarily crippled, sent back to the pre-modern era.
This from Sharon Weinberger at Foreign Policy here on electromagnetic pulse doom in “The Boogeyman Bomb.”
As a lede, really third rate.
Let’s take the DD wayback machine through 2009 to find out how other reporters have used the same type of structure.
“It sounded like the story of a blockbuster Hollywood movie or the topic of a History Channel disaster documentary … ‘The bad actors who want to attempt this are out there,’ said Dr. Fritz Ermarth, former chairman of the National Intelligence Council. ‘There is very little evidence they are losing interest (in an EMP attack).’ “ — Niagara Gazette, Tonowanda News, Sept. 10
“It sounds like something straight out of a movie — a science fiction movie, really. A terrorist attack on the U.S. involving a nuclear bomb detonated in the sky above us with the resulting electromagnetic pulse (EMP) shutting down all electronic devices.” — Niagara Gazette, Sept. 9
“It sounds like a science-fiction disaster: A nuclear weapon is detonated miles above the Earth’s atmosphere and knocks out power from New York City to Chicago for weeks, maybe months. Experts and lawmakers are increasingly warning that terrorists or enemy states could wage that exact type of attack, idling electricity grids and disrupting everything from communications networks to military defenses.” — USA Today, Sept. 16
How novel. Get the idea?
From a review of The Day the Earth Stood Still:
This film should get an award for the most lazily incorporated product placement, ever. For some reason, whenever a computer needed to be used to explain things to people, they used one of Microsoft’s Surface machines. Surface is a pretty cool idea – it’s a tabletop computer on which one can combine interactions of the computer and physical objects resting on the screen – but why include it in a movie that ends with a massive electromagnetic pulse that disables every bit of technology on Earth, presumably including the Surface computer?
From start to finish, “The Day the Earth Stood Still” is easily one of the worst movies of 2008.
So you’ve already guessed we’re giving this FP article a — bad review.
It repeats everything you’ve already read if you’ve been a follower of Armchair Generalist or this blog over the past couple years.
Only since it’s Foreign Policy, an, upright and so reasonable publication for genteel sisses, you don’t get all the good stuff like the association with GOP right wing cranks including birthers and Values Voters, the Bomb Iran lobby and the numerous videos and movie short made to push the religion on the subject.
Without including these ingredients, the cake is not fully baked. Without the full panoply of wild animals, the zoo is only for enjoyment by children.
“But unlike some of the other national security threats on the horizon, the ‘e-bomb’ has emerged as a partisan issue, with a core group of conservative supporters,” writes Weinberger, understating things just a smidge.
“In the end, advocates for EMP preparation could end up being their own worst enemy,” she adds. “The unlikely scenarios they peddle lend themselves to caricature. And though there are certainly some intellectual heavyweights among those who have warned about the effects of EMP — like Johnny Foster, the former head of Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory — critics have derided EMP defense supporters for relying on the likes of science fiction writer William R. Forstchen to help bolster their case.”
Ya think?
Anyway, we can’t make them caricatures when they are already such.
Weinberger wrote a book called Imaginary Weapons a few years ago. I liked it.
Cult of EMP Crazy — from the archives.
J. said,
February 18, 2010 at 4:33 pm
Yes, FP standards are dropping. Don’t go to the Shadow Government, truly horrendous posts there. I was a little disappointed in Sharon’s article also – she was too easy on them.