In any case, the Cult of Electromagnetic Pulse Crazy has been getting caught in the DD blog spam filter this week, first for its Internet radio show.
And now for a techno-thriller posted on-line, written by someone who cleaves to the “Ludwig Van Mises Institute,” an eye-rolling place dedicated to promoting goldbuggism and persuading assorted nuts plutocrats to hide their money in tax-dodge banking nations like Switzerland and Lichtenstein.
Here’s the spam synopsis:
“A short story showing how powerful elite Washington & London interests and central bankers could manipulate American foreign policy using a black flag event in order to guarantee the American dollar remains the world’s reserve currency. Follow what could be the next Middle East conflict in the Persian Gulf region involving the US, UK & Iran over the dollar and oil reserves and the resulting [electromagnetic pulse attack] attack and world financial crisis starting in the Middle East.”
Yeah, I know, I can’t follow the logic, either.
Be that as it may, there are threads connecting the Cult of EMP Crazy and the fiat money kooks. They mostly have to do with extreme right philosophies about imminent catastrophe linked to conspiracy from the Middle East and the collapse of American civilization. And, of course, the dollar.
DD spent a couple minutes reading the story, or what there is of it.
A poor man’s piece of Tom Clancy fan fiction, it’s a tale of a provoked war with Iran. Iran retaliates by launching an electromagnetic pulse attack on the oil fields, rather than the usual target — the United States.
The price of gold soars, the dollar “dies” and that’s the end of the installment.
There’s a stalwart old general, set up to be the hero, who doesn’t do anything in the first chapter but worry about US currency and sovereign debt.
A sample. so you get the drift (no link — Google it if you must):
Later following the 2008 financial crash [the general] delved even into finance and politics with Wood’s Meltdown book and then Ron Paul’s End the Fed. Although he didn’t vote for Ron Paul in 2008 because he thought it improper to mix politics with military service, he had begun to get a thorough education in what had happened to the Constitution and his country he had sworn an allegiance to defend.
He privately attended several Mises Institute events and when at home logged on to read The Mises Blog, LewRockwell.com and The Daily Bell almost every day. He read Hayek and Ludwig von Mises including even Human Action.
That’s draw-you-in stuff.
I also leaned William Forstchen’s One Second After is Mahmoud Ahmedinejad’s favorite English-language book. Presumably because it’s about the end of American civilization after an electromagnetic pulse attack.
If you dig around enough in this type of material, eventually you find the Ludwig Van Mises fiat money kooks are, like the Cult of EMP Crazy, very fond of videos with high production values.
Worth a mordant smirk, here’s a piece from the Edmonton Sun on America’s most prominent whack jobs this week — the 6 PMers.
We don’t have so many nuts people like that here in Canada, says the story’s primary source, a man who runs a survivalist supply store.
Then the fun really begins. No, his is a different flavor of extremist. The 6PMers think they’re going to heaven. The others — the ones with their eyes really on the ball — will be setting up shop in their Farnham Freeholds, saved by their gold, guns and stock of pemmican.
You’ll note the military dry goods man also has more intellectual elasticity going for him. After 6PM today, he knows his beliefs won’t have had to suffer the savage public beating of global amusement.
“Typically, Canadians seem to be a little more rational than that,??? said Gordon McGowan owner of Mil Arms, Edmonton’s leading military and hunting gear supplier.
“We’ve seen these wackjobs since the 16th century predicting the end of the world. Personally, I’ve never met anybody astute enough to have a conversation with the being that guides us all.???
McGowan says you don’t see Edmontonians running around, stocking up for the impending apocalypse, because they’re far too logical to buy into the hype.
[On the other hand, it’s never too late to buy gold and ammo — DD]
In the event of an act of terrorism, ecological fallout, economic meltdown or zombie invasion, McGowan — tongue firmly planted in his cheek — suggests you follow one simple rule, made famous by such apocalyptic films as The Stand, The Day After and 28 Days late: he who holds the gold, makes the rules.
“In a major, global disaster, it comes down to gold, guns and generators,??? he said. “You have to make sure you have bartering tools, gold, jewelry etc. And if you don’t have resources, you’ll have to have the guts to what you need by force.???
“If it came to the end of days, you need the skills to ride a horse and the guts to steal one,??? he advised.
Methinks the Sun reporter may have been having a little bit of sport.
And since we’re on the subject, once again, of fiat money and the end of the US, we have these readings, also from the other side of the street.
First, my old fave, the genuinely mindbending Lehigh Valley Scripture Spouting Old White Dude, who informs readers one can tell the end is nigh by the following:
In the last few seconds, the live footage of Booker T & the MG’s doing “Green Onions” fades away to Jeff Beck calling it a milestone in rock ‘n’ roll records.
From standing in front of Marshalls and pounding out crunching organ for the young and middle class to selling incontinence products to them.
Words fail. The brain turns to mush. Everything is spoilt.
“Green Onions has been used extensively in radio, television, film and advertising,” reads Wikipedia, it’s listing not yet updated to include the Depends commercial.
1. Bombs for Moe, austerity for the US middle class. Whatever it costs in cash for another war, budget cutting for domestic programs that benefit working Americans. That’s because bombing Moe comes out of the special overflowing cash sack for war. It’s the right set of priorities and how we win the future.
2. Uncle Sam prepares for war on Moe and and clears the banksters to start paying dividends again. That’s great for the stock market even though maybe not for you. And that’s what’s important. It’s morning in America.
3. Weapons manufacturers will get new order for cruise missiles and JDAMs used up on Moe. It might mean a few bonuses for arms-making CEO’s.
4. The mainstream media will be able to debate whether or not the military is overstretched or tired when going into action against Moe, erasing any stupid ideas about cutting its budget.
5. Bombing Moe provides a distraction from the idea that if we’re going to do it to him maybe we ought to be doing it to the rotten people running Bahrain and Yemen, too.
6. Moe is conveniently murderous, mean, crazy and really not very photogenic. But unlike other really murderous, mean, crazy and not very photogenic despots in other countries, he’s on television all the time right now.
7. Bombing Moe affords an opportunity for all the retired military men involved in the arms manufacturing industry to get back on television as talking head experts. They can talk about all the great gear we’re going to use on Moe. And all the feeble stuff he has on defense.
8. Bombing Moe makes it easier for the President to ignore Ed on MSNBC’s Ed Show asking why our leader isn’t in Wisconsin or Michigan with his base. “I have to bomb Moe, first,” thinks the President. “That takes time.”
9. Bombing Moe is a heckuva lot easier than doing something about the one in six working Americans who are unemployed or underemployed. Plus bombing in a foreign country is a lot more watchable on television than the broken lives of unemployed Americans.
10. All the serious people in DC and northern Virginia, plus the oil companies, are for bombing Moe.
Bonus reason:
11. It is important for every President to show he has balls by starting his own unique war. Bombing Moe does that for Mr. Obama.
More ads for Glenn Becks’ “Broke” through peddling by a crypto neo-Nazi far right political website.
An ad for a trailer about the “end of America” here which is aimed at getting people to buy advice from an investment consultant seen on Alex Jones’ conspiracy Internet radio show.
And — my favorite — right next to one of my Economic Treason pieces, an ad for offshoring manufacturing to your own custom maquiladora in the Mexican Baja because California wages are too high.
Google AdSense:
Making money off promotion of tearing the middle class down, chaos, perfidy and vulture economics, one micropayment at a time.
Like most I’ve been watching US television for news on the reactor disasters at Fukushima.
The one source, outstanding above all, has been ol’ Frank von Hippel, director of the Program for Science and Global Security at Princeton.
I remember von Hippel from a time, many years ago, when I subscribed to the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists.
Von Hippel has been on Rachel Maddow and for tonight’s show he gave the clearest-for-the-layman explanation of what one of the primary threats is at Daichi.
Any mistakes in this interpretation are mine.
It centers on the spent fuel rods pool at, I think, Daichi 4. They need constant circulative cooling and no longer have it so their radioactive decay heat, which is no longer dissipated, boils off or splits what water covering remains or that which is added in insufficient volume in an emergency.
As it happens (or when it happens), the temperature of the rods rises even more intensely, destroying their cladding, blistering and blowing it off. Explosions occur because of the generation of quantities of hydrogen gas, leftover from the oxidation of the hot zirconium metal fuel cladding.
According to von Hippel there is now no easy way to determine the state of the infrastructure and the rods because intense gamma radiation — which means some large quantity of radioactive metal has actually been uncovered — and the destruction of sensors and cameras at the site.
When the rods are uncovered by the water mediator/shield and the cladding perforated or destroyed, the heat also drives off the spent fuel’s volatile radioisotopes. And that process is the spraying of radioactive waste into the prevailing winds. Unless it’s contained by intact walls.
Each Daichi reactor contains between 60 and 80 tons of fuel rod assemblies.
Spent fuel rod pools concentrate exhausted fuel rod assemblies.
Von Hippel said he had heard estimates of anywhere between 2 and 8 reactor cores being present in the spent fuel rod pool in question.
And so the problem of catastrophe, in terms of raw numbers, is rendered quite clearly.
It’s incomprehensible to me (well, cynically, no it’s not) that a significant number of Americans would think this disaster is about them and commence a hoarding rush on potassium iodide and Geiger counters.
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.
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.
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 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.
“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.
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.
By way of J. at Armchair Generalist, I’m tipped to “The Power of Decision,” a 1958 in-house USAF movie on how it might wage all-out strategic nuclear war against the Soviet Union.
“The Power of Decision” may be the first (and perhaps the only) U.S. government film depicting the Cold War nightmare of a U.S.-Soviet nuclear conflict. The U.S. Air Force produced it during 1956-1957 at the request of the Strategic Air Command. Unseen for years and made public for the first time by the National Security Archive, the film depicts the U.S. Air Force’s implementation of war plan “Quick Strike” …
In 1958, there were still no underwater-launched ballistic missile submarines. And the only true intercontinental ballistic missile in the US arsenal was the Atlas rocket.
Late in “The Power of Decision,” a number of Atlas launches are shown. (I may have even spied an old Thor launch, too.) Early cruise missiles using liquid propellants like the Hound Dog and the Rascal are also shown taking part in the imagined war.
But the bulk of the counter-attack against a Soviet Union first strike is carried out by B-47, B-52, and B-58 bombers of the Strategic Air Command.
In counter-attack after counter-attack, SAC destroys the Soviet Union, achieving air supremacy. The enemy knows we have him, remarks one general during the last reel.
Of course, the US does get it’s hair mussed. Sixty million killed and wounded. New York, Chicago, Los Angeles, DC, Pittsburgh and other major cities are totally destroyed.
Unsurprisingly, since it is a dry internal US movie on strategic nuclear war, none of the characters show any emotion at all during the conflict. Their’s is a distant analog world of Bakelite telephones, tube circuitry, wall-sized sliding maps maintained by soldiers on wheeled platforms, white boards with various tallies and old television sets.
Communication, when it inevitably breaks down as more and more bombs explode, is said to be “spasmodic.”
No doubt, this was very optimistic.
At the National Security Archive here, the movie is about an hour long.
Trent Franks wasted no time in picking up the mantle of EMP crusader and anthrax denier Roscoe Bartlett (R – Maryland), initiating another bill to protect the nation from the fate of being hurled back to the time of The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance.
Readers just stepping in should know the Cult has regularly tried to get bills through Congress, always failing. Bartlett’s last attempt, in 2010, was sent to the dumper by Lisa Murkowski.
In a manner similar to Roscoe Bartlett, Trent Franks is a nuisance as a Congressman. And his new legislation won’t survive, either. But no one will be around to note its passing when someone more significant than the junior GOP pest from Arizona nixes it.
Having the odious Franks as a leader of a caucus to protect the country from electromagnetic pulse doom might be seen as a setback for the Cult. He’s not a man to inspire much interest and collegial enthusiasm.
U.S. Rep. Trent Franks, (R-Ariz.) introduced a bill in the U.S. House of Representatives Friday to protect the U.S. power system from electromagnetic attack. The bill has been assigned to the House Energy and Commerce and House Budget committees.
One commenter writes:
Only a moron like Franks would write a bill like this. Of all the things to be concerned about, a bill about sun spots. How about a bill to decentralize the grid to allow local power generation. How about a bill to create 1000 jobs in Mohave County — jobs that are not real estate agents. Franks is about as irrelevant as a Congressman could possibly be.
One problem WikiLeaks has run afoul of in dealing with dribbling cables out through the media is distortion.
Some of its partners have things other then pure enlightenment in mind when they write stories on newly released cables. Like fame and fortune.
And because WikiLeaks is difficult to search directly onsite, readers are left with either taking what’s printed in the media for granted. Or spending a lot of time sifting through originals, with little guidance available, at WikiLeaks.
DD assumes, perhaps wrongly, that this was never Julian Assange’s intent.
The point of WikiLeaks is, obviously, to shed light. Not to provide more of the same old horse shit.
The publication of a carefully distorted piece, based on WikiLeaks cables, to cast the same type of impression one has been handed by the US government during the war on terror.
A few samples from it and the fallout as other newspapers and blogs rushed to play catch-up:
After sourcing nuclear materials and recruiting rogue scientists to build “dirty??? bombs, Al Qaeda is on the brink of producing radioactive weapons, as disclosed by leaked diplomatic documents.
The Vancouver Sun reports that, “a leading atomic regulator has privately warned that the world stands on the brink of a ‘nuclear 9/11.’ Security briefings suggest that jihadi groups are also close to producing ‘workable and efficient’ biological and chemical weapons that could kill thousands if unleashed in attacks on the West.???
The Daily Telegraph of London obtained thousands of classified American cables originating from Wikileaks that detailed the global struggle to halt the spread of weapons-grade nuclear, chemical and biological material around the world.
According to the Vancouver Sun, “at a Nato meeting in January 2009, security chiefs briefed member states that al-Qaeda was plotting a program of ‘dirty radioactive IEDS,’ makeshift nuclear roadside bombs that could be used against British troops in Afghanistan.??? — Dallas blog
=======
In November 2007, the US embassy in London received a telephone call from a British deep-sea salvage merchant based in Sheffield, who claimed that his business associates in the Philippines had found six uranium “bricks??? at the site of an underwater wreck. The uranium had formerly belonged the US. The merchant provided nine photographs of the bricks, which he said his associates wanted to sell for a profit. It is not clear whether diplomats agreed to the purchase. — The Telegraph
======
Airport security staff are being urged to examine “children’s articles??? after US intelligence concluded that terrorists were plotting to fill them with explosive chemicals.
The threat was disclosed at a meeting in Spain between Janet Napolitano, the US Secretary of Homeland Security, and European ministers in January 2010.
Ministers said that planes remained the “priority target??? for al-Qaeda.
According to the cable, Thomas de Maizière, the German interior minister, described “recent threat information that noted the possibility of terrorists using children’s articles to introduce bombs into airplanes??? — The Telegraph, in “WikiLeaks: terrorists plan to use teddy bear bombs to blow up planes”
The obvious purpose of The Telegraph’s release of WikiLeaks material is sensationalism — the creation of the feeling that menace lurks everywhere and that al Qaeda is hatching new plots.
However, the newspaper’s website is a thicket of misleading information and come-ons to cables, promises and links that lead virtually nowhere except to the newspaper’s own material.
For example, after serially reading through WikiLeaks itself, consulting a searchable database tied to keywords for WikiLeaks here, and using the Telegraph’s own portal purported to search its cables, I could find nothing on teddy bear bomb plots.
This does not mean it doesn’t exist. Maybe I couldn’t find what was obvious. And al Qaeda seems to have such a high problem with unreliability, quality of human capital and achievement these days, any feverish dream could be possible, I guess.
However, the result does smell really bad when taken within the context of everything else DD could find.
If one has a sensational story to be pushed around the world there is a responsibility to make it as transparent as possible. Not just the opposite.
And it was my understanding that this was one of the things WikiLeaks was ostensibly about: The presentation of material in such a way that it could not be twisted and distorted by the usual players.
Which is what has transpired with the Telegraph’s use of WikiLeaks.
The Telegraph’s coverage aggressively creates the impression of terror capabilities when there is no actual proof they exist.
It scavenges what is often old news, or just wrong information, in an effort devoted to weaving trivia, random appearances of radioactive scrap — waste of an industrialized world, unexplained events and outright hoaxes on nuclear smuggling into a tapestry that indicates growing danger.
After using Cablesearch and WikiLeaks itself, DD could find very little really interesting postings on nuclear smuggling.
Most of it is rumors and crap, revealing only that the US government is bent on chasing around everything that might have to do with nuclear smuggling worldwide, even rumors and crap.
There is a report from Kabul on alleged materials, “2 bottles of uranium,” seized from a native. Later, it turns out to be gun-cleaning fluid, if I’m reading the thicket of cables correctly.
There is an unreliable hoaxer in Bujumbura in 2007, peddling red mercury and other materials, a scam that’s been around as long as people have been worried about nuclear proliferation.
ALLEGED NUCLEAR SMUGGLING INCIDENT IN BUJUMBURA,
DATE 2007-06-27 16:04:00
CLASSIFICATION SECRET
ORIGIN Embassy Bujumbura
TEXT S E C R E T BUJUMBURA 000479
The XXXXXXXXXXXX men indicated that there were 14 items found in the concrete bunker. All items have marking and labels indicating that they were produced in Belgium. The subjects were unable to spell the names of some of the items properly and did not know what the other items were, thus some of the spelling of the items are phonetic.
-Uranium, 30kg, powder form. The men did not know if the uranium was weapon-usable fissile material, highly enriched uranium, what the percentage of uranium-235 isotope or other isotopes were, or how its content was determined. -1 booklet describing the Uranium -Brommerck, 2,500g -Red Brommerk, 12kg -Red mercury, 6kg -Cocaine, liquid form
¶4. (C/NF) When asked what they intended to do with the items the subjects stated that they brought a vial of the Brommerck, to Bujumbura from the Congo. They planned on selling it to get enough money to transport the Uranium to Bujumbura upon securing a buyer. They also stated that they had not approached anyone else with this information. Their motive for approaching the American Embassy was that they did not want these items to fall into the wrong hands, specifically mentioning that they did not want Muslims to possess the items. When asked why they did not notify the Congolese authorities the subjects stated that they were afraid that the corrupt Congolese police would steal the items and sell it themselves. When asked why they approached the American Embassy in Bujumbura instead of the embassy or Consulate in the Congo they stated that the embassy in Bujumbura is much closer.
¶5. (C/NF) The ARSO asked the men to provide detailed photos of the items and their labels, especially the Uranium. The subjects agreed to provide photographs and additional information on all items at a later date. They indicated that they could produce a sample of the brommerck, upon request. The ARSO declined, but noticed that the subjects were pushing for a sale of the sample of brommerck,. The ARSO has the contact information of XXXXXXXXXXXX and is currently waiting to receive further photographic information from the subjects.
¶6. (C/NF) ARSO assessment: This case fits the profile of typical scams involving nuclear smuggling originating from the eastern DRC. ARSO considers this case to be a non-credible case of nuclear smuggling.
“Terrorist acquisition of WMD was the next topic of major concern. Although there was a limited assessed capability for al-Qaeda and other groups to acquire WMD, the intent was clearly present, and there were ongoing credible reports of attempts to recruit the needed expertise. A ‘dirty’ RADIOLOGICAL IED program was assessed to be under active consideration by al-Qaeda,” reads a cable here.
It’s one paragraph of very old rumint, trash, from a 2009 cable.
The Telegraph has used it to help resurrect an al Qaeda dirty bomb plot, one that probably doesn’t exist except on the terrorist organization’s wish lists.
These and others, taken together without a newspaper purposely futzing them up for purposes of titillation, don’t describe anything but a random world. One where the US is obsessed with any information about potentials for nuclear terrorism.
In one sense, this is reassuring.
In another, it reveals a criminal underground of unreliable people out to make a quick buck who also know it.
WikiLeaks had to partner with newspapers like the New York Times and the Guardian for maximum impact. As these relationships fell apart, one was made with The Telegraph.
Subsequently, all three newspapers, as well as Der Spiegel, have monetized WikiLeaks.
In the process, particularly with the Telegraph’s recent news stories, the result has been to make things less clear than they were previously, to create smoke where there is no fire.
