Monday, July 14, 2008

Weapons of Mass Delusion

In one of the most ridiculous accusations against the Iranians imaginable, neocon extraordinaire John Bolton claims that Iranian missiles pose a direct threat to the United States. And as if that wasn't ludicrous enough, he follows up that comment with a confabulated story about an Iranian EMP (Electro Magnetic Pulse) weapon. I guess he ran out of time to talk about the part where the Iranian "bogeyman is gonna getcha". Ahhhh!

Scary stuff. Bolton's delusional claims seem to come right out of the pages of a Tom Clancy novel. Even Hollywood wouldn't buy a lame story like this. But Paul Gigot, editor of the Wall Street Journal editorial page, ate it up and even egged him on. Appropriately, this show aired on Fox News.

Here's Bolton and Gigot pitching this story to Hollywood...

BOLTON: It's entirely possible they [Iran] could put a missile on a tramp steamer, sail it up the East or the West Coast, and that would put them in range of the United States.

HOLLYWOOD EXEC: Sorry John, but nobody's going to believe a story like that.

GIGOT: What about this possibility of what people are saying might be an EMP weapon, or electromagnetic pulse weapon or warhead, that could be put on top of a [Iranian] missile, exploded atop an American city or on the East Coast, and take down a lot of the American electrical energy grid?

HOLLYWOOD EXEC: Uh Paul, you and John really should cut back on the weed, man. And anyway the movie going public is tired of this old Middle East war theme. We're looking for some fresh ideas. One story we're looking at is about a doctor from Texas that goes to Congress and really shakes things up. Next!

And it doesn't end there. It seems that Fox News is determined to be the favorite source of news for all sci-fi fans under the age of 13. Continuing on the Star Wars theme is talking head Bill Hemmer on the very influential "America's Newsroom" show.

His guest is terrorism expert R.P. Eddy. How seriously can you take a terrorism expert that uses the name R.P.?

R.P. warns that Iranian terrorists could explode a EMP weapon over a the East Coast and the result would be to take out all of the electrical power grid. The solution suggested by our "expert" is to put a Faraday cage around our power lines. A Faraday cage is just a fancy name for surrounding something with conductive metal. So our "expert" is suggesting surrounding all our power lines with aluminum foil? Doesn't sound especially practical to me, but then I'm not a terrorism "expert".

R.P. was on such a roll, he just couldn't stop. I can just picture this guy as a kid coming up with some real whoppers when his teacher asked him why he hadn't finished his arithmetic homework. "Well the terrorist came while I was sleeping and stole it." To which I'm sure his teacher replied, "Oh please R.P., haven't we heard that terrorist story enough times. I'm really getting tired of it."

So here's R.P.'s latest warning to the world, "the bad news is you can also build an EMP weapon much more easily ... you explode a special magnetron, a magnetrometer, and you create an EMP weapon that way."

My BS meter went on full alert when I heard this last bit. A magnetron is a source of microwaves like that used in a microwave oven. If you explode a magnetron, you don't get an EMP you just get a mess. And a magnetrometer is a ??? I think I need to consult my classic Superman comic books on this one, because folks in the real world there is no such thing.

5 comments:

Anonymous said...

Excellent article.

Bush and Co. are out of control and must be removed before Jan. '09
A General Strike to Impeach has been called for 9/11/08 Details at
www.votestrike.com

Anonymous said...

Did you even bother to google the word? Here, how about a site where you can rent a magnetrometer.


http://www.allied-associates.co.uk/files/rental.html

Anonymous said...

What a moronic post. I want the 90 seconds of my life back reading this drivel. I googled the guy. Turns out he is quite legit. Also turns out a magnetron can make an EMP. Nice work!

Anonymous said...

I think it is that the Arabs and Iranians are out of control. Who is responsible 9/11 the Muslims of course. If they cannot keep control of their own kind I hardly call that order. I mixed with Muslims Arabs and Iranians and they are the most untrust worthy people I know and repressive in their attitudes to the extent that there have been problems with so called honour murders where a female is murdered by her family du to her rejecting Islam. A friend of min had to leave Sweden to the USA in fear of persecution from her Muslim family. They bring their repression with them and there by threaten our free society in terms of free speech. Also their attitude is punishment and reward which is very dangerously black and white between good and evil. I think that the writer as most bleeding hart communists of the 60's are very naive and mislead by dictatorship propaganda. Also as others have mentioned the writer has no clue as to science or the possibilities. Even a house hold object like I microwave can be used as a dangerous weapon in the wrong hands with the right knowledge and it scares me with all the physics and biology students here in Sweden from Iran and Afghanistan. It irritates me when people like bush are put down ignorant Liberals who think they have the answer to everything. Bush is trying to protect us from the Tyranny of Islam and let’s hope John McCain keeps up the good work. The writer seems to be very miss informed about science and I wonder if he has taken time to read the coran as it is translated to English so as he can make an informed opinion or is it just another bleeding hart that follows anything put out by liberal propaganda. I may not agree with the republican internal politics but as a non US resident I feel I can sleep at night with the republicans at the helm. As a final note long live Georg Bush and let’s hope John McCain wins the elections.

Anonymous said...

Obviosly some people are too narrowminded to understand that 'muslims' didn't cause 9/11 and all that's bad in the world. It's funny how easily people believe that a man in a cave could blow up two towers in heartland America. Generalising Arabs and Americans is also a very narrowminded approach and shows that poeple are talking without doing any research whatsoever. A common stereotype that indicates an idiot. 'Iranians and Arabs are out of control'. Contrary to popular belief all they are doing is defending their nations from a bully which declares that Israel can create nuclear missiles at will but Iran cannot. Not all muslims are terrorists, the kkk were a bigger terrorist group than that of any 'muslim' (apparently osama was muslim) terrorist group so does that mean everyone can say that ALL Americans are terrorists?

Good article, despite my lack of knowledge on a magnetron it's quite obvios that under the circumstances Iran wouldn't randomyl start firing nukes all over the place.