If you are coming and do not live at The Landings please let me know so I can place your name on the list at The Main Gate.
Robbie Friedmann's resume :
- International terrorism, Incitement and terrorism, Challenges to Israeli societyDr. Robert R. Friedmann is director of the Georgia International Law Enforcement Exchange and Professor Emeritus of Criminal Justice at Georgia State University’s Andrew Young School of Policy Studies. He was the Distinguished Chair of Public Safety Partnerships (2007-2010) and served as Chair (1989-2002) of the Criminal Justice Department at Georgia State University. Dr. Friedmann received his B.S. (Sociology and Anthropology, and Philosophy) from the University of Haifa, Israel (1974); his M.A. and Ph.D. (Sociology) from the University of Minnesota (1978); and his M.S.S.W. (Social Work) from the University of Wisconsin-Madison (1981).
His interest and published work focus on community policing, terrorism, and crime analysis. His books include: Community Policing: Comparative Perspectives and Prospects, (1992), Criminal Justice in Israel: An Annotated Bibliography of English Language Publications, 1948-1993 (1995), Crime and Criminal Justice in Israel: Assessing the Knowledge Base toward the Twenty-First Century (1998), A Diary of Four Years of Terrorism and Anti-Semitism: 2000-2004 (2005; two volumes), and 28 Letters (2012). He also authored numerous articles and research reports on crime and criminal justice focusing on policing and public safety. He was the recipient of several federal grants to improve crime data.Dr. Friedmann chaired the Georgia Commission to Assess State Crime Laboratory Needs into the 21st Century; he is a Member of the Georgia Association of Chiefs of Police (GACP), and a Member of the International Association of Chiefs of Police (IACP) and its Community Policing Committee. He assisted in security planning and preparation for the 1996 Olympic Games in Atlanta, for the 2004 Olympic Games in Athens, Greece, for the 2012 Olympic Games in London, and for the G-8 in Sea Island, Georgia. He served as a member of the Fulton County Court House Security Commission and he serves on the advisory board of the International Institute for Counter-Terrorism, Herzliya, Israel, the Research Institute for European and American Studies, Athens, Greece, and is a member of the executive committee of The International Counter-Terrorism Academic Community.Dr. Friedmann works closely with a number of police departments, in the U.S. and internationally, on community policing and homeland security. - ===
- This California Democrat gets it but not enough of his Demwit comrades.. (See 1 below.)
Kerry recently admitted he had not seen all the secret side agreements and now that he and Obama know they exist one would think, if they would be intellectually honest, and demand they be published. Ah! But we know better than to expect such! (See 1a, 1b and 1c below.)
More destructive policies from Obama as his ability to wreck America begins to come to a close. (See 1d below.)
http://prageruniversity.com/
===
When I served on the Board of St John's College, I received a beautifully bound copy of Alex de Tocqueville's "Democracy in America." His insights continue to have relevance..
Today I received a copy of my friend, John Agresto's, latest book: "Rediscovering America." Though I have not read it as yet, I submit John is the American equivalence of de Tocqueville.
John was kind enough to inscribe the book to me as follows: "For Dick B- The happiest and most irrepressible warrior conservatism has." (See 2 below.)
I do not have to read it to know it is a must read for anyone interested in John's analysis of the current crisis we face!
===
At 1PM Tuesday, I will be listening to a telecast by Prime Minister Netanyahu and will post his comments in this memo.
===
While in New York my friend Kim Strassel wrote an op ed on Hillary that nailed her and revealed how she dupes the dopes! Now V.P Biden is considering challenging Hillarious. Biden is well liked and has a history of being considered a nice person. His main problem is Biden has never been right on any major issue.
Click on this podcast:
Podcast: Kim Strassel, Joe Rago and Paul Gigot discuss Hillary Clinton’s troubles and the Planned Parenthood debate
===
This from A--- S-------, regarding my previous memo: "I enjoy your missives, Mr. Berkowitz, but this one is especially strong given that you've included my mother's WSJ op-ed in the top spot! Good on you.
Sincerely,
A--- S------- (Daniel's friend from Pittsburgh)"
A--- was referring to my posting of Ruth R Wisse' op ed. A--- is a friend of my son and apparently has become a fellow memo reader.
===
===
This is not the first time Woolsey has warned about EMP (See 3 below.)
===
Dick
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
1) Rep. Brad Sherman (D-CA) has come out strongly against the Iran deal, warning that the Iran deal means “terrorism with impunity.”
has come out strongly against the Iran deal, warning that the Iran deal means “terrorism with impunity.”
In an interview with Breitbart News, Sherman–whose 30th district includes parts of the San Fernando Valley and Simi Valley–said that the Iran agreement was “the good, the bad and the ugly” of deals–and that the bad and ugly portions of it far outweighed the good.
“My goal is to make sure all Americans know this is not morally or legally binding on the U.S. and the world, because I see how ugly this deal is in the next decade,” Sherman said in an interview with Breitbart News.
“Everything Iran is doing has a legitimate cover,” Sherman warned. “In international affairs, everybody lies some of the time, and Iran lies much more often.”
Sherman addressed his heated exchange with Secretary of State John Kerry during last week’s hearing before the House Foreign Affairs Committee where Kerry refused to answer whether he would follow the law and commit to congressionally-imposed sanctions should Congress garner enough votes to override President Obama’s veto.
“As a lawmaker, I like for people to follow the law… [Kerry] won’t even respond with a hypothetical. It’s not like some weird hypothetical. I want to know what the administration will do, and his refusal to answer was very clear….Congress can reactivate a statute, and [they] may ignore it.”
When asked to address Kerry’s statements that this deal makes Israel safer, Sherman said, “Safer than what? It’s short-term effect is better than its long-term,” but in the long run, the deal could wind up having a devastating effect on both the United States and Israel. “It’s good and bad the first year, but it’s ugly the next decade.”
Sherman said he does not doubt that Iran will cheat during this entire process, pointing out that “the important cheating starts after the first nine months.”
He said that Obama’s move to snub Congress by going to the United Nations Security Council first “is part of the proof that all powers of President Obama are with the deal [and] not with his congressional critics. The president is for the deal and a vote in Congress does not change his mind and if he has to make additional concessions to Iran to save the deal, he will….[Obama] believes this deal is not just good for America, it’s great for America–and he honestly believes this.”
Sherman told Breitbart News that he favors economic sanctions against the Iranian regime “until they change their non-nuclear behavior,” including their rampant human rights abuses and their explicit support for the Houthis in Yemen, Hamas in Gaza and Hezbollah in Lebanon. “And those are just the [terrorist] groups beginning with ‘h’. Plus, their support of the brutal murderer [Bashar al-] Assad [of Syria], who is killing 5,000 people a month.”
He also noted that Iran is actively seeking to build inter-continental ballistic missiles (ICBMs), which are known to be used for delivering nuclear weapons. “It’s clear that they want [nuclear weapons] and a delivery system for them. It’s all coming together but it may come sooner than 15 years,” Sherman said. He believes Iran’s missile research could be done in secret facilities which are barred from external access, including by the IAEA.
“When Obama says we’ve blocked every path to a bomb, he failed to point out that one of the routes to a bomb is to buy [one], and that has not been blocked out. North Korea will sell bombs to Iran.” He suggested that on implementation day, Iran will receive close to $56 billion in sanctions relief, and that it could choose to use a portion of those funds to purchase nukes from the Hermit Kingdom.
“There’s nothing in the deal that says we will monitor the $56 billion to make sure that $10 billion doesn’t go towards buying nukes from North Korea. The hope is that there’s enough pressure on North Korea to prevent them from selling to Iran.”
Should the regime eventually be in danger of collapsing in the face of revolution, Sherman said he doubted it would go out without a bang. “This is not a group of people who wants to walk off the stage peacefully….Only desperate nations actually use their nuclear weapons. With nuclear Iran you get terrorism with impunity.”
1a)
Release the Secret Iran Deals
The Iran Nuclear Agreement Review Act requires that Congress get all the documents, including those involving Iran and any other parties.
For those of us who are elected officials, few votes will be more consequential than whether to approve or disapprove the nuclear agreement President Obama has reached with Iran. Yet the president expects Congress to cast this vote without the administration’s fully disclosing the contents of the deal to the American people. This is unacceptable and plainly violates the Iran Nuclear Agreement Review Act—a law the president signed only weeks ago.
During a recent trip to Vienna to meet with the International Atomic Energy Agency, the organization charged with verifying Iran’s compliance, we learned that certain elements of this deal are—and will remain—secret. According to the IAEA, those involved with the negotiations, including the Obama administration, agreed to allow Iran to forge the secret side deals with the IAEA on two issues.
The first governs the IAEA’s inspection of the Parchin military complex, the facility long suspected as the site of Iran’s long-range ballistic-missile and nuclear-weapons development. The second addresses what—if anything—Iran will be required to disclose about the past military dimensions of its nuclear program.
Yet the Iran Nuclear Agreement Review Act specifically says that Congress must receive all nuclear agreement documents, including any related to agreements “entered into or made between Iran and any other parties.” It expressly includes “side agreements.” This requirement is not strictly limited to agreements to which the U.S. is a signatory. This law passed in May, well before the nuclear negotiations ended. The Obama administration should have held firm in negotiations to obtain what was necessary for Congress to review the agreement. Iran, not the U.S., should have conceded on this point.
Weaponization lies at the heart of our dispute with Iran and is central to determining whether this deal is acceptable. Inspections of Parchin are necessary to ensure that Iran is adhering to its end of the agreement. Without knowing this baseline, inspectors cannot properly evaluate Iran’s compliance. It’s like beginning a diet without knowing your starting weight. That the administration would accept side agreements on these critical issues—and ask the U.S. Congress to do the same—is irresponsible.
The response from the administration to questions about the side deals has brought little reassurance. At first the administration refrained from acknowledging their existence. Unable to sustain that position, National Security Adviser Susan Rice said on July 22 during a White House press briefing that the administration “knows” the “content” of the arrangements and would brief Congress on it.
Yet the same day Secretary of State John Kerry, in a closed-door briefing with members of Congress, said he had not read the side deals. And on July 29 when pressed in a Senate hearing, Mr. Kerry admitted that a member of his negotiating team “may” have read the arrangements but he was not sure.
That person, Undersecretary of State and lead negotiator Wendy Sherman, on July 30 said in an interview on MSNBC, “I saw the pieces of paper but wasn’t allowed to keep them. All of the members of the P5+1 did in Vienna, and so did some of my experts who certainly understand this even better than I do.”
A game of nuclear telephone and hearsay is simply not good enough, not for a decision as grave as this one. The Iran Nuclear Agreement Review Act says Congress must have full access to all nuclear-agreement documents—not unverifiable accounts from Ms. Sherman or others of what may or may not be in the secret side deals.How else can Congress, in good conscience, vote on the overall deal?
On July 30 we sent a letter to the Obama administration asking for a “complete and thorough assessment of the separate arrangements” and the names of anyone who has reviewed them. Iran’s ayatollahs have access to the side agreements. The American people’s representatives in the U.S. Congress should too.
When he announced his nuclear deal with Iran on July 14, President Obama said, “This deal is not built on trust, it is built on verification.” Those words are hollow unless Congress receives the full text of all documents related to the nuclear agreement.
Mr. Cotton, a Republican from Arkansas, is a member of the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence. Mr. Pompeo, a Republican from Kansas, is a member of the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence.
1b)
Iran’s Closed Covenants
Congress should insist on public disclosure of secret nuclear side deals.
The Obama Administration insists there’s nothing secret about the Iran nuclear deal, even as it claims not to have read two crucial side deals Tehran has struck with the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA). “Confidential agreements, but no secrets” is the way top U.S. negotiator Wendy Sherman describes the deals, which are thought to concern the military dimensions of Iran’s nuclear programs.
Try parsing that distinction. And while you’re at it, consider that there might be additional separate agreements we haven’t heard about. We raise the possibility after speaking with Rep. Mike Pompeo, the Kansas Republican who sits on the House Intelligence Committee, and who more-or-less stumbled on the two side deals when the deputy director of the IAEA disclosed their existence to him and Sen. Tom Cotton (R., Ark.) in a meeting in Vienna.
“When you ask [the Administration] if there are other [side deals], you don’t get a yes or no answer,” Mr. Pompeo tells us. The Congressman adds that he and his colleagues have been frustrated by the Administration’s failure to answer their questions even in classified sessions. What does Mr. Pompeo know about the two side deals the Administration does acknowledge? “Nearly nothing,” he says, “and we’ve been briefed four times.”
The Administration claims this is no big deal because Iran and the IAEA are entitled to reach a non-disclosed understanding to resolve their differences. “This is pretty standard,” says Energy Secretary Ernest Moniz.
Now there’s an epic dodge. If the U.S. isn’t privy to Iran’s dealings with the IAEA, it’s because Secretary of State John Kerry and other negotiators conceded the point to Iran at the 11th hour. He might have done so figuring that punting to the IAEA gave him the chance to seal the deal without having to know exactly what’s in it. To adapt Nancy Pelosi’s phrase, if you pass the deal you still won’t know what’s in it. So much for President Obama’s assurances that the deal isn’t based on trust but on “unprecedented verification.”
All of this is vital because Iran hasn’t answered the IAEA’s questions regarding the so-called Possible Military Dimensions of its nuclear program. The IAEA has also been seeking access to Iran’s military site at Parchin, which inspectors haven’t visited for a decade and where Iran is suspected of carrying out experiments and tests on weaponizing a nuclear device.
But unless the world can have a clear understanding of what Iran is already capable of doing, there’s no way to know how long it would take the regime to build a bomb if it decides to do so. This also undermines Mr. Obama’s central claim that the deal puts Iran at least one year away from a bomb if it walks away from the agreement.
There’s also the question of the reliability of the IAEA. Though the agency has been admirably non-political under current Director General Yukiya Amano, that was not the case during the 12-year tenure of predecessor Mohamed ElBaradei, who regularly sounded off on political questions and often acted like Tehran’s lawyer.
Mr. Pompeo adds that the agency has no mechanism for enforcing the agreements it signs with Iran: “Is there an independent penalty for violations of the side deals?” Iran’s deputy Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi has already said it won’t allow U.S. or Canadian inspectors to be part of any verification team, and that the IAEA will not be allowed to see “sensitive and military documents,” according to an Associated Press report. Other than that, we guess, the access is unprecedented.
Beyond these details is a larger question about the conduct of American foreign policy. U.S. diplomats are often involved in secret diplomacy, but we can think of no instance in U.S. history where the results of so consequential an agreement were closed to public inspection. No U.S. secrets are at stake, yet the Administration insists on briefing Congress on the Iran-IAEA deal only in closed session.
It’s nearly a century since Woodrow Wilson insisted, as the first of his Fourteen Points, on “open covenants of peace, openly arrived at, after which there shall be no private international understandings of any kind but diplomacy shall proceed always frankly and in public view.” That standard has served Americans well as they debated the merits of complex and controversial treaties, whether over the Panama Canal, relations with Taiwan, or arms control with the Soviet Union.
That’s the standard President Obama appears to have abandoned. He has already evaded the constitutional obligation to submit consequential foreign commitments as treaties requiring ratification by two-thirds of the Senate. He will deem his Iran deal to be U.S. policy if merely one-third of either house of Congress doesn’t object. There’s no excuse to compound that evasion with side deals that Americans aren’t allowed to see.
1c)
President Obama says his nuclear deal with Iran depends on verification, not trust. But what if Iran has a very different interpretation of what verification entails than does Mr. Obama?
1c)
No Military Site Inspections?
A key adviser to Iran’s leader says U.N. access is ‘absolutely forbidden.’
President Obama says his nuclear deal with Iran depends on verification, not trust. But what if Iran has a very different interpretation of what verification entails than does Mr. Obama?
Take Ali Akar Velayati, a top adviser to Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei, who appeared on Al-Jazeera on July 31 and was asked about U.N. inspections of Iran’s military sites. Here’s how he replied, according to the Memri translation service:
“Regardless of how the P5+1 countries interpret the nuclear agreement, their entry into our military sites is absolutely forbidden. The entry of any foreigner, including IAEA inspectors or any other inspector, to the sensitive military sites of the Islamic Republic is forbidden, no matter what.”
Interviewer: “That’s final?”
Mr. Velayati: “Yes, final.”
Yet Mr. Obama has been assuring Americans that inspectors will have access to any suspicious site after a maximum of 24 days. Is Mr. Velayati mistaken, and if he is, will someone else in Iran put that on the record? Congress should find out.
1d)
|
| While Israel and much of official Washington remain focused on the deal President Barack Obama just cut with the ayatollahs that gives them $150 billion and a guaranteed nuclear arsenal within a decade, Obama has already moved on – to Syria. Obama’s first hope was to reach a deal with his Iranian friends that would leave the Assad regime in place. But the Iranians blew him off. They know they don’t need a deal with Obama to secure their interests. Obama will continue to help them to maintain their power base in Syria though Hezbollah and the remains of the Assad regime without a deal. Iran’s cold shoulder didn’t stop Obama. He moved on to his Sunni friend Turkish President Recep Erdogan. Like the Iranians, since the war broke out, Erdogan has played a central role in transforming what started out as a local uprising into a regional conflict between Sunni and Shiite jihadists. With Obama’s full support, by late 2012 Erdogan had built an opposition dominated by his totalitarian allies in the Muslim Brotherhood. By mid-2013, Erdogan’s Muslim Brotherhood- led coalition was eclipsed by al-Qaida spinoffs. They also enjoyed Turkish support. And when last summer ISIS supplanted al-Qaida as the dominant Sunni jihadist force in Syria, it did so with Erdogan’s full backing. For the past 18 months, Turkey has been ISIS’s logistical, political and economic base. According to Brett McGurk, the State Department’s point man on ISIS, about 25,000 foreign fighters have joined ISIS in Syria and Iraq. All of them transited through Turkey. Most of the antiquities that ISIS plunders in Iraq and Syria make their way to the world market through Turkey. So, too, most of the oil that ISIS produces in Syria and Iraq is smuggled out through Turkey. According to the US Treasury, ISIS has made $1 million-$4m. a day from oil revenue. In May, US commandos in Syria assassinated Abu Sayyaf, ISIS’s chief money manager, and arrested his wife and seized numerous computers and flash drives from his home. According to a report in The Guardian published last week, the drives provided hard evidence of official Turkish economic collusion with ISIS. Due to Turkish support, ISIS has become a self-financing terrorist group. With its revenue stream it is able to maintain a welfare state regime, attracting recruits from abroad and securing the loyalty of local Sunni militias and former Ba’athist forces. Some Western officials believed that after finding hard evidence of Turkish regime support for ISIS, NATO would finally change its relationship with Turkey. To a degree they were correct. Last week, Obama cut a deal with Erdogan that changes the West’s relationship with Erdogan. Instead of maintaining its current practice of balancing its support for Turkey with its support for the Kurds, under the agreement, the West ditches its support for the Kurds and transfers its support to Turkey exclusively. The Kurdish peshmerga militias operating today in Iraq and Syria are the only military outfits making sustained progress in the war against ISIS. Since last October, the Kurds in Syria have liberated ISIS-controlled and -threatened areas along the Turkish border. The YPG, the peshmerga militia in Syria, won its first major victory in January, when after a protracted, bloody battle, with US air support, it freed the Kurdish border town of Kobani from ISIS’s assault. In June, the YPG scored a strategic victory against ISIS by taking control of Tal Abyad. Tal Abyad controls the road connecting ISIS’s capital of Raqqa with Turkey. By capturing Tal Abyad, the Kurds cut Raqqa’s supply lines. Last month, Time magazine reported that the Turks reacted with hysteria to Tal Abyad’s capture. Not only did the operation endanger Raqqa, it gave the Kurds territorial contiguity in Syria. The YPG’s victories enhanced the Kurds’ standing among Western nations. Indeed, some British and American officials were quoted openly discussing the possibility of removing the PKK, the YPG’s Iraqi counterpart, from their official lists of terrorist organizations. The YPG’s victories similarly enhanced the Kurds’ standing inside Turkey itself. In the June elections to the Turkish parliament, the Kurdish HDP party won 12 percent of the vote nationally, and so blocked Erdogan’s AKP party from winning a parliamentary majority. Without that majority Erdogan’s plan of reforming the constitution to transform Turkey into a presidential republic and secure his dictatorship for the long run has been jeopardized. As far as Erdogan was concerned, by the middle of July the Kurdish threat to his power had reached unacceptable levels. Then two weeks ago the deck was miraculously reshuffled. On July 20, young Kurdish activists convened in Suduc, a Kurdish town on the Turkish side of the border, 6 kilometers from Kobani. A suicide bomber walked up to them, and detonated, massacring 32 people. Turkish officials claim that the bomber was a Turkish Kurd, and a member of ISIS. But the Kurds didn’t buy that line. Last week, HDP lawmakers accused the regime of complicity with the bomber. And two days after the attack, militants from the PKK killed two Turkish policemen in a neighboring village, claiming that they collaborated with ISIS. At that point, Erdogan sprang into action. After refusing for months to work with NATO forces in their anti-ISIS operations, Erdogan announced he was entering the fray. He would begin targeting “terrorists” and allow the US air force to use two Turkish air bases for its anti-ISIS operations. In exchange, the US agreed to set up a “safe zone” in Syria along the Turkish border. Turkish officials were quick to explain that in targeting “terrorists,” the Turks would not distinguish between Kurdish terrorists and ISIS terrorists just because the former are fighting ISIS. Both, they insisted, are legitimate targets. Erdogan closed his deal in a telephone call with Obama. And he immediately went into action. Turkish forces began bombing terrorist targets and rounding up terrorist suspects. Although a few of the Turkish bombing runs have been directly against ISIS, the vast majority have targeted Kurdish forces in Iraq and Syria. Moreover, for every suspected ISIS terrorist arrested by Turkish security forces, at least eight Kurds have been taken into custody. Then, too, Erdogan has called on AKP lawmakers to begin criminalizing their counterparts from the HDP. Kurdish lawmakers, he urged them, must be stripped of their parliamentary immunity to enable their arrests. As Erdogan apparently sees things, by going to war against the Kurds, he will be able to reestablish the AKP’s parliamentary majority. Within a few weeks, if the AKP fails to form a governing coalition – and it will – then new elections will be held. The nationalists, who abandoned the AKP in June, will return to the party to reward Erdogan for fighting the Kurds. As for that “safe area” in northern Syria, as the Kurds see it, Erdogan will use it to destroy Kurdish autonomy. He will flood the zone with Syrian Arab refugees who fled to Turkey, to dilute the Kurdish majority. And he will secure coalition support for the Sunni Arab militias – including those still affiliated with al-Qaida – which will be permitted by NATO to operate openly in the safe area. Already the Kurds are reporting that the US has stopped providing air support for their forces fighting ISIS in the border town of Jarablus. Those forces were bombed this week by Turkish F-16s. For their part, despite Erdogan’s pledge to fight ISIS, his forces seem remarkably uninterested in rolling back ISIS achievements. The Turks have no plan for removing ISIS from its strongholds in Raqqa or Haskiyah. The Obama administration is presenting the deal with Turkey as yet another great achievement. In an interview with Charlie Rose on Tuesday, McGurk explained that the deal was a long time in the making. It began with a phone conversation between Obama and Erdogan last October and it ended with their phone call last week. In October, Obama convinced Erdogan not to oppose US air support for the Kurds in Kobani and to enable the US to resupply YPG fighters in Kobani through Turkey. In the second, Obama agreed not to oppose Erdogan’s offensive against the Kurds. Two years ago, in August 2013, the world held its breath awaiting US action in Syria. That month, after prolonged equivocation amidst mountains of evidence, the Obama administration was forced to acknowledge that Iran’s Syrian puppet Bashar Assad had crossed Obama’s self-declared redline and used chemical weapons against regime opponents, including civilians. US forces assembled for battle. Everything looked ready to go, until just hours before US jets were scheduled to begin bombing regime targets, Obama canceled the operation. In so doing, he lost all deterrent power against Iran. He also lost all strategic credibility among America’s regional allies. To save face, Obama agreed to a Russian proposal to have international monitors remove Syria’s chemical weapons from the country. Last summer, the administration proudly announced that the mission had been completed. UN chemical weapons monitors had removed Syria’s chemical weapons arsenal from the country, they proclaimed. It didn’t matter to either Obama or Secretary of State John Kerry that by that point Assad had resumed chemical assaults with chlorine-based bombs. Chlorine bombs weren’t chemical weapons, the Americans idiotically proclaimed. Then last week, the lie fell apart. The Wall Street Journal reported that according to US intelligence agencies, Assad not surrendered his chemical arsenal. Rather, he hid much of his chemical weaponry from the UN inspectors. He had even managed to retain the capacity to make chemical weapons – like chlorine-based bombs – after agreeing to part with his chemical arsenal. Assad was able to cheat, because just as the administration’s nuclear deal with the Iranians gives Iran control over which nuclear sites will be open to UN inspectors, and which will be off limits, so the chemical deal gave Assad control over what the inspectors would and would not be allowed to see. So, they saw only what he showed them. Obama has gone full circle in concluding his deal with Erdogan. Since entering office, Obama has sought to cut deals with both the Sunni jihadists of the Muslim Brotherhood ilk and the Shi’ite jihadists of the Iranian ilk. His chemical deal with Assad and his nuclear deal with the ayatollahs accomplished the latter goal, and did so at the expense of America’s Sunni Arab allies and Israel. His deal last week with Erdogan accomplishes the former goal, to the benefit of ISIS, and on the backs of America’s Kurdish allies. So that takes care of the Middle East. With 17 months left to go till Obama leave office, the time has apparently come for the British to begin to worry. |
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
2)
Alexis de Tocqueville Predicted the Tyranny of the Majority in Our Modern World
We often boast about having attained some unimaginable redefinition of ourselves and our nation. How odd, then, that someone born 210 years ago today could understand us with more clarity and depth than we understand ourselves.
Back in 1831, Alexis de Tocqueville accurately foresaw both much of what ails us and our remarkable uniqueness and strengths. Tocqueville’s deservedly famous book, “Democracy in America,” was the product of his nine-month excursion throughout Jacksonian America. The purpose of this trip was to study our country’s political institution and the habits of mind of its citizens.
America’s Place in the World
Tocqueville correctly thought the then-developing America was the way of the future. As such, he foresaw that Europe would never be restored to its former greatness—though he hoped it could serve as the cultural repository of the West.
He also predicted Russian despotism, thinking that Russia was not yet morally exhausted like Europe and would bring about a new, massive tyranny. In fact, he conjectured that America and Russia would each “hold the destinies of half the world in its hands one day.”
He therefore hoped America would serve as an example to the world—a successful combination of equality and liberty. And an example of this was needed, since equality can go along with freedom, but it can even more easily go along with despotism. In fact, much of the world did go in the direction of democratic despotism—wherein the great mass of citizens is indeed equal, save for a ruling elite, which governs them. In a strange sense, Tocqueville would think that North Korea is egalitarian.
Despite his hopes for America, Tocqueville thought grave obstacles would diminish our freedom—though he didn’t think them insurmountable.
The Power of the Majority
Most alarming to him was the power of the majority, which he thought would distort every sphere of human life.
Despots of the past tyrannized through blood and iron. But the new breed of democratic despotism “does not proceed in this way; it leaves the body and goes straight for the soul.”
That is, the majority reaches into citizens’ minds and hearts. It breaks citizens’ will to resist, to question its authority, and to think for themselves. The majority’s moral power makes individuals internally ashamed to contradict it, which in effect silences them, and this silencing culminates in a cessation of thinking. We see this happen almost daily: to stand against the majority is to ruin yourself.
Moreover, Tocqueville feared that the majority’s tastes and opinions would occupy every sphere of sentiment and thought. One among many illuminating examples is his commentary on democratic art. He foresaw that the majority would have no taste for portraying great human beings doing great deeds. Art used to be the pictorial representation of man’s connection to the natural or divine order to which he belongs. But in modern democracies, art would go in the direction of the majority’s tastes: it would be abstract, focused on color and shape.
Why? Because to experience this kind of art, one needs to only have senses, whereas to experience the art of the past, one needs an education in the classics—the Bible and ancient literature especially. It’s easy to pontificate about Jackson Pollock, while it’s difficult to understand Michelangelo. But most revealing is that abstract art is an expression of democracy’s hatred for human greatness, the very theme of art.
Tocqueville’s Predictions About the Modern State
The influence on the mind of democracy and the majority weakens and isolates individuals. This creates fertile ground for a new kind of oppression that “will resemble nothing that has preceded it in the world.”
Tocqueville foresaw an “immense tutelary power”—the modern state—which would degrade men rather than destroy their bodies. Over time, he feared, the state would take away citizens’ free will, their capacity to think and act, reducing them to “a herd of timid and industrious animals of which the government is the shepherd.” Are contemporary China and Russia substantially different?
But Tocqueville did prescribe some solutions. He hoped that those having read his prescient book would come to understand that the defects of modern democracy require great attention and careful management. Specifically, he hoped, we would strive “to preserve for the individual the little independence, force, and originality” that remains to him.
In other words, when looking at any given policy, our lawmakers might look not at the benefits for their home district, or vainly calculate attention from the next media hit, but rather look at what any given policy proposal’s long-term effect will be on securing freedom and rights. Making individuals stronger, more independent, more able to resist the tyranny of the majority and of a constantly growing administrative state is the goal.
Tocqueville’s critiques are given in the spirit of friendship. He wanted us to “remember constantly that a nation cannot long remain strong when each man in it is individually weak, and that neither social forms nor political schemes have yet been found that can make a people energetic by composing it of pusillanimous and soft citizens.”
On the 210th anniversary of Tocqueville’s birth, asking contemporary Americans to pick up “Democracy in America” is perhaps too great a request. Nonetheless, we may at the least recall his clarity of vision and take seriously that America requires statesmanship and intelligent guidance to fight off the natural propensities that diminish our freedom.
Correction: This article originally stated that Tocqueville was born 225 years ago.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
3)-
3)-
Op-Ed: Heading Towards an EMP Catastrophe
Ambassador R. James Woolsey and Dr. Peter V. Pry
For over a decade now, since the Congressional EMP Commission delivered its first report to Congress eleven years ago in July of 2004, various Senate and House committees have heard from numerous scientific and strategic experts the consensus view that natural and manmade electromagnetic pulse (EMP) is an existential threat to the survival of the American people, that EMP is a clear and present danger, and that something must be done to protect the electric grid and other life sustaining critical infrastructures–immediately.
Yet this counsel and the cost-effective solutions proposed to the looming EMP threat have been ignored. Continued inaction by Washington will make inevitable a natural or manmade EMP catastrophe that, as the Congressional EMP Commission warned, could kill up to 90 percent of the national population through starvation, disease, and societal collapse.
Indeed, some actions taken by the Congress, the White House, and the federal bureaucracy are impeding solutions, making the nation more vulnerable, and helping the arrival of an EMP catastrophe. More about that later.
Why has Washington failed to act against the EMP threat? A big part of the problem is that policymakers and the public still fail to understand that EMP, and the catastrophic consequences of an EMP event, are not science fiction.
The EMP threat is as real as the Sun and as inevitable as a solar flare.
The EMP threat is as real as nuclear threats from Russia, China, North Korea, and Iran. Nuclear EMP attack is part of the military doctrines, plans and exercises of all of these nations for a revolutionary new way of warfare that focuses on attacking electric grids and civilian critical infrastructures–what they call Total Information Warfare or No Contact Wars, and what some western analysts call Cybergeddon or Blackout Wars.
The nuclear EMP threat is as real as North Korea's KSM-3 satellite, that regularly orbits over the U.S. on the optimum trajectory and altitude to evade our National Missile Defenses and, if the KSM-3 were a nuclear warhead, to place an EMP field over all 48 contiguous United States.
The EMP threat is as real as non-nuclear radiofrequency weapons that have already been used by terrorists and criminals in Europe and Asia, and no doubt will sooner or later be used here against America.
A Clear And Present Danger
EMP, while still inadequately understood by policymakers and the general public, has been the subject of numerous major scientific and strategic studies. All of these warn by consensus that a natural or nuclear EMP, in the words of the Congressional EMP Commission, “Is one of a small number of threats that has the potential to hold our society seriously at risk” and “Is capable of causing catastrophe for the nation.” Such is the warning not only of the Congressional EMP Commission, but of studies by the Congressional Strategic Posture Commission, the National Academy of Sciences, the Department of Energy, the National Intelligence Council, a U.S. Federal Energy Regulatory Commission report coordinated with the Department of Defense and Oak Ridge National Laboratory, and numerous other reports.
Yet a recent Wall Street Journal article (May 1, 2015) on NORAD moving back into Cheyenne Mountain and spending $700 million to further harden the mountain against a nuclear EMP attack from North Korea, received hundreds of comments from shocked readers, half of whom still think that EMP is science fiction.
Nuclear EMP.
We know that EMP is not science fiction but an existential threat that would have catastrophic consequences for our society because of high-altitude nuclear tests by the U.S. and Russia during the early Cold War, decades of underground nuclear testing, and over 50 years of tests using EMP simulators. For example, in 1961 and 1962, the USSR conducted several EMP tests in Kazakhstan above its own territory, deliberately destroying the electric grid and other critical infrastructures over an area larger than Western Europe. The Congressional EMP Commission based its threat assessment partially on using EMP simulators to test modern electronics–which the Commission found are over one million times more vulnerable than the electronics of the 1960s.
One prominent myth is that a sophisticated, high-yield, thermonuclear weapon is needed to make a nuclear EMP attack. In fact, the Congressional EMP Commission found that virtually any nuclear weapon–even a primitive, low-yield atomic bomb such as terrorists might build–would suffice. The U.S. electric grid and other civilian critical infrastructures–for example, communications, transportation, banking and finance, food and water–have never been hardened to survive EMP. The nation has 18 critical infrastructures–all 17 others depend upon the electric grid.
Another big myth is that a sophisticated long-range missile is needed to deliver an EMP attack. The iconic EMP attack detonates a single warhead about 300 kilometers high over the center of the U.S., generating an EMP field over all 48 contiguous United States.
However, any warhead detonated 30 kilometers high anywhere over the eastern half of the U.S. would collapse the Eastern Grid. The Eastern Grid generates 75 percent of U.S. electricity and supports most of the national population. Such an attack could be made by a short-range Scud missile launched off a freighter, by a jet fighter or small private jet doing a zoom climb, or even by a meteorological balloon.
According to a February 2015 article by President Ronald Reagan's national security brain trust–Dr. William Graham who was Reagan's Science Advisor and ran NASA, Ambassador Henry Cooper who was Director of the Strategic Defense Initiative, and Fritz Ermarth who was Chairman of the National Intelligence Council–North Korea and Iran have both practiced the iconic nuclear EMP attack against the United States. Both nations have orbited satellites on south polar trajectories that evade U.S. early warning radars and National Missile Defenses. North Korea and Iran have both orbited satellites at altitudes that, if the satellites were nuclear warheads, would place an EMP field over all 48 contiguous United States.
Dr. Graham and his colleagues in their article warn that Iran should already even be regarded as having nuclear weapons and missiles capable of making an EMP attack against the U.S., or against any nation on Earth.
North Korea and Iran have also apparently practiced making a nuclear EMP attack using a short-range missile launched off a freighter. Such an attack could be conducted anonymously to escape U.S. retaliation–thus defeating nuclear deterrence.
Natural EMP.
We know that natural EMP from the Sun is real. Coronal mass ejections traveling over one million miles per hour strike the Earth's magnetosphere, generating geomagnetic storms every year. Usually these geo-storms are confined to nations at high northern latitudes and are not powerful enough to have catastrophic consequences. In 1989, the Hydro-Quebec Storm blacked-out half of Canada for a day causing economic losses amounting to billions of dollars.
However, we are most concerned about the rare solar super-storm, like the 1921 Railroad Storm, which happened before American civilization became dependent for survival upon electricity and the electric grid. The National Academy of Sciences estimates that if the Railroad Storm were to recur today, there would be a nationwide blackout with recovery requiring 4-10 years, if recovery is possible at all.
The most powerful geomagnetic storm on record is the 1859 Carrington Event. Estimates are that Carrington was about 10 times more powerful than the 1921 Railroad Storm and 100 times more powerful than the 1989 Hydro-Quebec Storm. The Carrington Event was a worldwide phenomenon, causing forest fires from flaring telegraph lines, burning telegraph stations, and destroying the just laid intercontinental telegraph cable at the bottom of the Atlantic Ocean.
If a solar super-storm like the Carrington Event recurred today, it would collapse electric grids and life-sustaining critical infrastructures worldwide, putting at risk the lives of billions.
NASA in July 2014 reported that two years earlier, on July 23, 2012 , the Earth narrowly escaped another Carrington Event. A Carrington-class coronal mass ejection crossed the path of the Earth, missing our planet by just three days. NASA assesses that the resulting geomagnetic storm would have had catastrophic consequences worldwide.
We are overdue for recurrence of another Carrington Event. The NASA report estimates that likelihood of such a geomagnetic super-storm is 12 percent per decade. This virtually guarantees that Earth will experience a catastrophic geomagnetic super-storm within our lifetimes or that of our children.
Radio-Frequency Weapons (RFWs).
Just as nuclear and natural EMP are not science fiction, we also know that the EMP threat from non-nuclear weapons, commonly called Radio-Frequency Weapons, is real. Terrorists, criminals, and even disgruntled individuals have already made localized EMP attacks using RFWs in Europe and Asia. Probably sooner rather than later, the RFW threat will come to America.
RFWs typically are much less powerful than nuclear weapons and much more localized in their effects, usually having a range of one kilometer or less. Reportedly, according to the Wall Street Journal, a study by the U.S. Federal Energy Regulatory Commission warns that a terrorist attack that destroys just 9 key transformer substations could cause a nationwide blackout lasting 18 months.
RFWs offer significant advantages over guns and bombs for attacking the electric grid. The EMP field will cause widespread damage of electronics, so precision targeting is much less necessary. And unlike damage from guns and bombs, an attack by RFWs is much less conspicuous, and may even be misconstrued as an unusual accident arising from faulty components and systemic failure.
Some documented examples of successful attacks using Radio Frequency Weapons, and accidents involving electromagnetic transients, are described in the Department of Defense Pocket Guide for Security Procedures and Protocols for Mitigating Radio Frequency Threats (Technical Support Working Group, Directed Energy Technical Office, Dahlgren Naval Surface Warfare Center):
–“In the Netherlands, an individual disrupted a local bank's computer network because he was turned down for a loan. He constructed a Radio Frequency Weapon the size of a briefcase, which he learned how to build from the Internet. Bank officials did not even realize that they had been attacked or what had happened until long after the event.”
–“In St. Petersburg, Russia, a criminal robbed a jewelry store by defeating the alarm system with a repetitive RF generator. Its manufacture was no more complicated than assembling a home microwave oven.”
–“In Kzlyar, Dagestan, Russia, Chechen rebel commander Salman Raduyev disabled police radio communications using RF transmitters during a raid.”
–“In Russia, Chechen rebels used a Radio Frequency Weapon to defeat a Russian security system and gain access to a controlled area.”
— “Radio Frequency Weapons were used in separate incidents against the U.S. Embassy in Moscow to falsely set off alarms and to induce a fire in a sensitive area.”
–“March 21-26, 2001, there was a mass failure of keyless remote entry devices on thousands of vehicles in the Bremerton, Washington, area…The failures ended abruptly as federal investigators had nearly isolated the source. The Federal Communications Commission (FCC) concluded that a U.S. Navy presence in the area probably caused the incident, although the Navy disagreed.”
–“In 1999, a Robinson R-44 news helicopter nearly crashed when it flew by a high frequency broadcast antenna.”
–“In June 1999 in Bellingham, Washington, RF energy from a radar induced a SCADA malfunction that caused a gas pipeline to rupture and explode.”
–“In 1967, the USS Forrestal was located at Yankee Station off Vietnam. An A4 Skyhawk launched a Zuni rocket across the deck. The subsequent fire took 13 hours to extinguish. 134 people died in the worst U.S. Navy accident since World War II. EMI [Electro-Magnetic Interference] was identified as the probable cause of the Zuni launch.”
–North Korea used an Radio Frequency Weapon, purchased from Russia, to attack airliners and impose an “electromagnetic blockade” on air traffic to Seoul, South Korea's capitol. The repeated attacks by RFW also disrupted communications and the operation of automobiles in several South Korean cities in December 2010; March 9, 2011; and April-May 2012 as reported in “Massive GPS Jamming Attack By North Korea” (GPSWORLD.COM, May 8, 2012).
All Hazards Strategy.
The Congressional EMP Commission recommended an “all hazards” strategy to protect the nation by addressing the worst threat–nuclear EMP attack. Nuclear EMP is worse than natural EMP and the EMP from RFWs because it combines several threats in one. Nuclear EMP has a long-wavelength component like a geomagnetic super-storm, a short-wavelength component like Radio-Frequency Weapons, a mid-wavelength component like lightning–and is potentially more powerful and can do deeper damage than all three.
Thus, protecting the electric grid and other critical infrastructures from nuclear EMP attack will also protect against a Carrington Event and RFWs. Moreover, protecting against nuclear EMP will also protect the grid and other critical infrastructures from the worst over-voltages that may be generated by severe weather, physical sabotage, or cyber attacks.
EMP–The Ultimate Cyber Weapon
Ignorance of the military doctrines of potential adversaries and a failure of strategic imagination is setting America up for an EMP Pearl Harbor that could easily be avoided–if we would only heed that terrorist sabotage of electric grids and cyber attacks are early warning indicators. In fact, in the military doctrines, planning, and exercises of Russia, China, North Korea and Iran, nuclear EMP attack is the ultimate weapon in an all-out cyber operation aimed at defeating nations by blacking-out their electric grids and other critical infrastructures.
For example, Russian General Vladimir Slipchenko in his military textbook No Contact Wars describes the combined use of cyber viruses and hacking, physical attacks, non-nuclear EMP weapons, and ultimately nuclear EMP attack against electric grids and critical infrastructures as a new way of warfare that is the greatest Revolution in Military Affairs (RMA) in history. Like Nazi Germany's Blitzkrieg (“Lightning War”) Strategy that coordinated airpower, armor, and mobile infantry to achieve strategic and technological surprise that nearly defeated the Allies in World War II, the New Blitzkrieg is, literally and figuratively an electronic “Lightning War” so potentially decisive in its effects that an entire civilization could be overthrown in hours. According to Slipchenko, EMP and the new RMA renders obsolete modern armies, navies and air forces. For the first time in history, small nations or even non-state actors can humble the most advanced nations on Earth.
China's military doctrine sounds an identical theme. According to People's Liberation Army textbook World War, the Third World War–Total Information Warfare, written by Shen Weiguang (allegedly the inventor of Information Warfare), “Therefore, China should focus on measures to counter computer viruses, nuclear electromagnetic pulse…and quickly achieve breakthroughs in those technologies…”:
With their massive destructiveness, long-range nuclear weapons have combined with highly sophisticated information technology and information warfare under nuclear deterrence….Information war and traditional war have one thing in common, namely that the country which possesses the critical weapons such as atomic bombs will have “first strike” and “second strike retaliation” capabilities….As soon as its computer networks come under attack and are destroyed, the country will slip into a state of paralysis and the lives of its people will ground to a halt. Therefore, China should focus on measures to counter computer viruses,nuclear electromagnetic pulse…and quickly achieve breakthroughs in those technologies
in order to equip China without delay with equivalent deterrence that will enable it to stand up to the military powers in the information age and neutralize and check the deterrence of Western powers, including the United States.
Iran in a recently translated military textbook endorses the theories of Russian General Slipchenko and the potentially decisive effects of nuclear EMP attack some 20 times. An Iranian political-military journal, in an article entitled “Electronics To Determine Fate Of Future Wars,” states that the key to defeating the United States is EMP attack and that, “If the world's industrial countries fail to devise effective ways to defend themselves against dangerous electronic assaults, then they will disintegrate within a few years.”:
Advanced information technology equipment exists which has a very high degree of efficiency in warfare. Among these we can refer to communication and information gathering satellites, pilotless planes, and the digital system….Once you confuse the enemy communication network you can also disrupt the work of the enemy command and decision-making center. Even worse, today when you disable a country's military high command through disruption of communications you will, in effect, disrupt all the affairs of that country….If the world's industrial countries fail to devise effective ways to defend themselves against dangerous electronic assaults, then they will disintegrate within a few years….American soldiers would not be able to find food to eat nor would they be able to fire a single shot. (Tehran, Nashriyeh-e Siasi Nezami, December 1998 -January 1999)
North Korea appears to have practiced the military doctrines described above against the United States–including by simulating a nuclear EMP attack against the U.S. mainland. Following North Korea's third illegal nuclear test in February 2013, North Korean dictator Kim Jong-Un repeatedly threatened to make nuclear missile strikes against the U.S. and its allies. In what was the worst ever nuclear crisis with North Korea, that lasted months, the U.S. responded by beefing-up National Missile Defenses and flying B-2 bombers in exercises just outside the Demilitarized Zone to deter North Korea.
On April 9, 2013, North Korea's KSM-3 satellite orbited over the U.S. from a south polar trajectory, that evades U.S. early warning radars and National Missile Defenses, at the near optimum altitude and location to place an EMP field over all 48 contiguous United States. On April 16, 2013, the KSM-3 again orbited over the Washington, D.C.-New York City corridor where, if the satellite contained a nuclear warhead, it could project the peak EMP field over the U.S. political and economic capitals and collapse the Eastern Grid, which generates 75 percent of U.S. electricity. On the same day, parties unknown used AK-47s to attack the Metcalf transformer substation that services San Francisco, the Silicon Valley, and is an important part of the Western Grid. Blackout of the Western Grid, or of just San Francisco, would impede U.S. power projection capabilities against North Korea.
In July 2013, a North Korean freighter transited the Gulf of Mexico with two nuclear capable SA-2 missiles in its hold, mounted on their launchers hidden under bags of sugar, discovered only after the freighter tried to return to North Korea through the Panama Canal. Although the missiles were not nuclear armed, they are designed to carry a 10 kiloton warhead, and could execute the EMP Commission's nightmare scenario of an anonymous EMP attack launched off a freighter. All during this period, the U.S. electric grid and other critical infrastructures experienced various kinds of cyber attacks, as they do every day and continuously.
North Korea appears to have been so bold as to use the nuclear crisis it deliberately initiated to practice against the United States an all-out cyber warfare operation, including computer bugs and hacking, physical sabotage, and nuclear EMP attack.
Just as Nazi Germany practiced the Blitzkrieg in exercises and during the Spanish Civil War (1936-1939), before surprising the Allies in World War II, so terrorists and state actors appear to be practicing now. Some examples:
–On October 27, 2013, the Knights Templars, a criminal drug cartel, blacked-out Mexico's Michoacan state and its population of 420,000, so they could terrorize the people and paralyze the police. The Knights, cloaked by the blackout, entered towns and villages and publicly executed leaders opposed to the drug trade.
–On June 9, 2014, Al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula used mortars and rockets to destroy transmission towers, plunging into darkness all of Yemen, a country of 16 cities and 24 million people. It is the first time in history that terrorists put an entire nation into blackout, and an important U.S. ally, whose government was shortly afterwards overthrown by terrorists allied to Iran.
–In July 2014, according to press reports, a Russian cyber-bug called Dragonfly infected 1,000 electric power-plants in Western Europe and the United States for purposes unknown, possibly to plant logic bombs in power-plant computers to disrupt operations in the future.
On June 20, 2015, the New York Times reported that administration officials in a classified briefing to Congress on a cyber attack from China, that stole sensitive U.S. Government data on millions of federal employees, was information warfare “on a scale we've never seen before from a traditional adversary.” Yet this and the other ominous threats described above are already forgotten, or relegated to back page news, as policymakers and the public stumble on, seemingly shell-shocked and uncomprehending, to the latest cyber crisis.
We as a nation are not “connecting the dots” through a profound failure of strategic imagination. Like the Allies before the Blitzkrieg of World War II, we are blind to the unprecedented existential threat that is about to befall our civilization–figuratively and literally, from the sky, like lightning.
Washington Dysfunction
The Congressional EMP Commission recommended a plan to protect the national electric grid from nuclear EMP attack, that would also mitigate all lesser threats–including natural EMP, RFWs [Radio-Frequency Weapons], cyber bugs and hacking, physical sabotage, and severe weather–for about $2 billion, which is what the U.S. gives away every year in foreign aid to Pakistan. About $10-20 billion would protect all the critical infrastructures from nuclear EMP attack and other threats.
There are other plans that cost much less, and much more, because there are different technologies and strategies for protecting against EMP, and to different levels of risk. Any or all of these plans are commendable. There is no such thing as being over-prepared for an existential threat.
Unfortunately, none of these plans has been implemented. The U.S. electric grid and other civilian critical infrastructures remain utterly vulnerable to EMP because of lobbying by the electric utilities in Congress, the federal bureaucracy, and the White House.
The White House has not helped matters by issuing a draft executive order for protecting the national grid from natural EMP–but that trusts NERC (North American Electric Reliability Corporation) and the electric utilities to set the standards.
Nor has the White House or the U.S. FERC challenged NERC's assertion that it has no responsibility to protect the electric grid from nuclear EMP or Radio-Frequency Weapons.
Nor has the White House or the U.S. FERC done anything to prevent NERC and the utilities from misinforming policymakers and the public about the EMP threat and their lack of preparedness to survive and recover from an EMP catastrophe.
Consequently, policymakers in the States who are alarmed by the lack of progress in Washington on EMP preparedness, find themselves seriously disadvantaged in efforts to protect their State electric grids by the utilities and their well-funded lobbyists who falsely claim Washington and the utilities are making great progress partnering on the EMP problem. So far in 2015, State initiatives to protect their electric grids have been defeated by industry lobbyists in Maine, Colorado, and Texas.
Texas State Senator Bob Hall, a former USAF Colonel and himself an EMP expert, characterizes as “equivalent to treason” the behavior of the electric utilities and their lobbyists:
As a Texas State Senator who tried in the 2015 legislative session to get a bill passed to harden the Texas grid against an EMP attack or nature's GMD, I learned first hand the strong control the electric power company lobby has on elected officials. We did manage to get a weak bill passed in the Senate but the power companies had it killed in the House. A very deceitful document which was carefully designed to mislead legislators was provided by the power company lobbyist to legislators at a critical moment in the process. The document was not just misleading, it actually contained false statements.
The EMP/GMD threat is real and it is not “if” but WHEN it will happen. The responsibility for the catastrophic destruction and wide spread death of Americans which will occur will be on the hands of the executives of the power companies because they know what needs to be done and are refusing to do it. In my opinion power company executives, by refusing to work with the legislature to protect the electrical grid infrastructure are committing an egregious act that is equivalent to treason. I know and understand what I am saying. As a young US Air Force Captain, with a degree in electrical engineering from The Citadel, I was the project officer who lead the Air Force/contractor team which designed, developed and installed the modification to “harden” the Minuteman Strategic missile to protect it from an EMP attack.
The American people must demand that the power company executives that are hiding the truth stop deceiving the people and immediately begin protecting our electrical grid so that life as we know it today will not end when the terrorist EMP attack comes.
Ironically, while electric power lobbyists are fighting against EMP protection in Washington, Texas, Maine, Colorado and elsewhere, the Iranian news agency MEHR recently reported that Iran is violating international sanctions and going full bore to protect itself from a nuclear EMP attack:
Iranian researchers…have built an Electromagnetic Pulse (EMP) filter that protects country's vital organizations against cyber attack. Director of Kosar Information and Communication Technology Institute Saeid Rahimi told MNA correspondent that the EMP (Electromagnetic Pulse) filter is one of the country's boycotted products and until now procuring it required considerable costs and various strategies. “But recently Kosar ICT…has managed to domestically manufacture the EMP filter for the very first time in this country,” said Rahimi.
Noting that the domestic EMP filter has been approved by security authorities, Rahimi added “the EMP filter protects sensitive devices and organizations against electromagnetic pulse and electromagnetic terrorism.” He also said the domestic EMP filter has been implemented in a number of vital centers in Iran. (MEHR News Agency, “Iran Builds EMP Filter For 1st Time” June 13, 2015)
What Is To Be Done?
Congress should address the Critical Infrastructure Protection Act (CIPA), which requires the Department of Homeland Security to adopt a new National Planning Scenario focused on EMP; to develop plans to protect the critical infrastructures; and for emergency managers and first responders to plan and train to protect and recover the nation from an EMP catastrophe. CIPA will enable DHS to draw upon the deep expertise within the Department of Defense and the Intelligence Community to help protect the critical infrastructures from EMP. Do not let the electric power lobby defeat CIPA or weaken its provisions, as they are presently trying to do.
Reestablish the Congressional EMP Commission. The greatest progress was being made when the EMP Commission existed to advance EMP preparedness. Progress stopped when the EMP Commission terminated in 2008. Currently, the struggle to advance national EMP preparedness is being carried on by a handful of patriotic individuals and Non-Government Organizations who have no official standing and extremely limited resources. Bring back the EMP Commission with its deep expertise to advise Congress, government at all levels, and the private sector on how best to protect the nation, and to serve as a watchdog and leader for national EMP preparedness.
Address the SHIELD Act or the GRID Act to establish adequate regulatory authority within the U.S. Government to achieve timely protection of the electric grid–and watch U.S. FERC like a hawk to make sure that regulatory authority is exercised.
Include in the National Defense Authorization Act the simple two-sentence provision below, that could rapidly reverse the trend of America's increasing vulnerability to EMP, by directing the Secretary of Defense to help State governments and the electric utilities protect themselves from an EMP catastrophe:
Energy Security For Military Bases And Critical Defense Industries
Whereas 99 percent of the electricity used by CONUS military bases is supplied by the national electric grid; whereas the Department of Defense has testified to Congress that DoD cannot project power overseas or perform its homeland security mission without electric power from the national grid; whereas the Congressional EMP Commission warned that up to 9 of 10 Americans could die from starvation and societal collapse from a nationwide blackout lasting one year; therefore the Secretary of Defense is directed to urge governors, state legislators, public utility commissions of the 50 states, the North American Electric Reliability Corporation (NERC) and the utilities that supply electricity to CONUS military bases and critical defense industries, to protect the electric grid from a high-altitude nuclear electromagnetic pulse (EMP) attack, from natural EMP generated by a solar super-storm and from other EMP threats including radiofrequency weapons, and to help the states, NERC, public utilities commissions, and electric utilities by providing DoD expertise on EMP and other such support and resources as may be necessary to protect the national electric grid from natural and manmade EMP threats. The Secretary of Defense is authorized to spend up to $2 billion in FY2017 to help protect the national electric grid from EMP.
Sent by the writers. Originally submitted July 22 for a congressional hearing on EMP before the Senate Committee on Homeland Security as official Statement for the Record. Appeared also on Family Security Matters.
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
No comments:
Post a Comment