Former U.S. Ambassador Henry Cooper has warned that North Korea may launch a ‘satellite’ concealing an electro-magnetic pulse (EMP) device, capable of completely crippling the U.S., wiping out the countries electrical grid for years.
Cooper, who was President Ronald Reagan’s chief representative in the Star War program, says that the U.S. doesn’t have the capabilities to defend itself against a potential attack from Pyongyang, whether its in the form of a nuclear device or an EMP weapon.
Superstation95.com reports:
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He said it would be impossible to distinguish a test from an actual attack, and the best way to counter such a threat to the U.S. homeland is to knock out the missile at the time it begins its trajectory over a southern polar route. But he acknowledged such an action would be politically unpalatable.
However, if the North Korean satellite turned out to be a nuclear device and is detonated 300 miles above the U.S, it could destroy all life-sustaining critical infrastructures that rely on the national electric grid, potentially leading to the death of most Americans within the following year.
All grid-dependent systems could suffer, including food and water supply chains, fuel-supply systems, communications, banking and finance.
“It’s long past time to counter this threat,” Cooper said. The image below shows the vast area that would be affected by a space-based nuclear blast at 30, 120 and 300 miles above the earth over the USA:
Ignoring the threat
The North Koreans have been continuously upgrading the Sohae launch complex to handle larger, longer-range rockets with heavier payloads, Cooper pointed out.
He disputes the contention of most experts that Pyongyang is still years away from a credible intercontinental ballistic missile capability that could threaten the U.S. mainland.
He said “these experts usually ignore the threat from a nuclear weapon carried on a satellite – a capability demonstrated more than three years ago,” when North Korea first succeeded in launching an ICBM in December 2012.
At that launch, Pyongyang successfully orbited a satellite assessed to be large enough to contain a nuclear weapon.
He said the Japanese Ministry of Defense already has ordered its military to be prepared to destroy any missile fired by North Korea that poses a threat to Japan.
He said U.S. leaders could do the same to protect Americans from an “already demonstrated de facto North Korean Fractional Orbital Bombardment System (FOBS) first developed by the Soviets during the early days of the Cold War.”
“The resulting attack from the south could create an EMP that would shut down the electric grid indefinitely – potentially leading to the death of most Americans with a year,” Cooper said.
North Korean preparations to conduct an ICBM test come three weeks after Pyongyang announced it had conducted an underground hydrogen bomb test. A functioning hydrogen bomb would be perfectly suited to detonate in space, 100 miles above the US, generating a massive EMP that would utterly wreck the entire US electrical grid, without harming anything on the ground from the blast wave itself. The only effect Americans would see is the lights going off — for years!
WHAT IS AN “EMP?”
An electromagnetic pulse (EMP), is a short burst of electromagnetic energy. Such a pulse’s origination may be a natural occurrence or man-made and can occur as a radiated, electric or magnetic field or a conducted electric current, depending on the source. The term “electromagnetic pulse” is commonly abbreviated EMP (which is pronounced by saying the letters separately, “E-M-P”).
EMP interference is generally disruptive or damaging to electronic equipment, and at higher energy levels a powerful EMP event such as a lightning strike can damage physical objects such as buildings and aircraft structures. The management of EMP effects is an important branch of electromagnetic compatibility (EMC) engineering.
Weapons have been developed to create the damaging effects of high-energy EMP. These are typically divided into nuclear and non-nuclear devices. Such weapons, both real and fictional, have become known to the public by means of popular culture.
Minor EMP events, cause low levels of electrical noise or interference which can affect the operation of susceptible devices. For example, a common problem in the mid-twentieth century was interference emitted by the ignition systems of gasoline engines, which caused radio sets to crackle and TV sets to show stripes on the screen. Laws had to be introduced to make vehicle manufacturers fit interference reducing suppression systems.
At a high voltage level an EMP can induce a spark, for example from an electrostatic discharge when fuelling a gasoline-engined vehicle. Such sparks have been known to cause fuel-air explosions and precautions must be taken to prevent them.
A large and energetic EMP can induce high currents and voltages in the victim, damaging electrical equipment or disrupting its function.
A very large EMP event such as a lightning strike is also capable of damaging objects such as trees, buildings and aircraft directly, either through heating effects or the disruptive effects of the very large magnetic field generated by the current. An indirect effect can be electrical fires caused by heating. Most engineered structures and systems require some form of protection against lightning to be designed in.
A huge EMP sends out electromagnetic waves that induce electric currents in wires; from power lines, to speaker wires, to the tiniest copper leads inside microchips. The induced currents are so powerful, they instantly overheat and melt whatever they’re attached to. Circuit boards all fry themselves. Anything plugged-in to an electric socket, explodes into flame from the surge of power. Anything using electricity, from wrist watches, to toasters, to refrigerators, to cars, to buildings, to factories to hospitals to power plants, all get severely damaged, instantly.
The damaging effects of EMP have led to the introduction of EMP weapons, from tactical missiles with a small radius of effect to nuclear bombs tailored for maximum EMP effect over a wide area. This is the type of EMP that could be generated by North Korea detonating a nuclear bomb 250 – 300 miles above the U.S., in space.
NUCLEAR EMP WEAPON
A nuclear EMP is the abrupt pulse of electromagnetic radiation resulting from a nuclear explosion. The resulting rapidly changing electric fields and magnetic fields couple with electrical/electronic systems to produce damaging current and voltage surges.
The intense gamma radiation emitted can also ionize the surrounding air, creating a secondary EMP as the atoms of air first lose their electrons and then regain them.
NEMP weapons are designed to maximize such EMP effects as the primary damage mechanism, capable of destroying susceptible electronic equipment over a wide area.
An NEMP warhead designed to be detonated far above the Earth’s surface is known as a high-altitude electromagnetic pulse (HEMP) device. The explosion releases a blast of gamma rays into the mid-stratosphere, which ionizes and the resultant energetic free electrons interact with the Earth’s magnetic field to produce a much stronger EMP than is normally produced in the denser air at lower altitudes.
The graphic below, created by the United States Army, shows the potential effects of a nuclear bomb detonated only 120 miles above North Dakota in the United States; the numbers on the right indicate Volts per Square Meter:
Three years to get electricity back!
In the event of an actual EMP, electrical power would not be back in ANY area for at least one year and it would actually take closer to THREE YEARS to get power back everywhere in the USA. The reason for this is quite simple:
The national power grid has massive transformers throughout the network, to step-down voltages from the 500,000 volt lines that carry energy from power plants, to the 120 and 240 volt power used in most homes and businesses. We are not talking about the transformers you may see on electric utility poles along your street, we’re talking massive transformers like the one shown below. The transformer is the gray box in the middle of the orange frames of the truck. It is so heavy, the trailer required twenty-four (24) Axles and ninety-six (96) wheels to bear the weight of it!
It takes TWO YEARS to build a transformer like the one above and here’s the worst part: There are NO manufacturing facilities anywhere in the United States that can do it. The work has to be done overseas, with the product placed on a large ship and sent here one at a time.
KIM JUNG UN SAID HE WILL DESTROY THE UNITED STATES IN ONE ATTACK
After their January 6, 2016 hydrogen bomb test, North Korea’s official state-run media reported
“A spokesperson said: “North Korean scientists] are in high spirit to detonate H-bombs of hundreds of kilotons and megatons, capable of wiping out the whole territory of the US all at once.”
Instead of taking any action at that time, the Obama Administration whined to China to influence their southern neighbor.
What we should have done was send a barrage of Cruise missiles into North Korea to utterly obliterate their entire space program. Now, we may reap a whirlwind of destruction because we’ve got a men’s room attendant-in-lieu-of-a-President in the White House; an incompetent fool and weakling named Barack Obama.
THE U.S. WOULD STRIKE BACK — OR COULD IT?
When asked if this sort of attack would mean a nuclear response by the U.S. and the obliteration of North Korea, one expert said “no.” Steve McCallum, a former Senior Analyst for the Defense Intelligence Agency, said there are several terrifying questions that plague everyone in the Department of Defense who considers a possible EMP attack:
Q: Would our nuclear arsenal still function?
A: On paper, the answer is a firm “yes” but in reality, who knows?
Q: Could we communicate a launch order to any of our nuclear Triad?
A: On paper, the answer is a firm “yes? but in reality, who knows?
Q: Presuming we could still communicate and our nuclear Triad remained operational, would a person like Barack Obama give the Order?
A: Highly questionable and, sadly, very doubtful. It is the assessment of the Department of Defense that the current President does not have the Will or the Integrity to give such an Order. Worse, However, is that he may not be ABLE to give it!
Q: Why wouldn;t he be ABLE to give it?
A: Because once an EMP detonates and destroys our infrastructure, we instantly become a country which cannot wage war. We would have no way to manufacture or even ship supplies to levy war — anywhere — but where those supplies are already stationed.
So if China thinks the U.S. is going to nuke North Korea over an EMP attack, and China says “Don’t you dare because we don’t want nuclear fallout entering China” what is the U.S. to do? We have only a very small war-fighting capability and could not long engage China or Russia. We would have no ability to manufacture supplies or ship them for war fighting because of the EMP. The U.S. would be a sitting duck for invasion and conquest!
HOW TO PROTECT YOUR STUFF
A “Faraday Cage” is the only possible protection from an EMP. There are countless videos on Youtube on how to build your own, VERY CHEAP.
In fact, Galvanized Trash Cans available at Home Depot, Lowes, and probably every Hardware Store in the Country, can be used to shield smaller items like Radios, computers, MP3 payers, Battery Chargers and even small generators. Just place the items to be protected inside the galvanized trash can. place the lid on top, then use ALUMINUM TAPE to seal all the edges of the lid, and any riveted areas on the handle and the side of the can. This routes the EMP along the outside of the can, and never lets it get to your equipment inside the can.
North Korea has made clear they will launch their missile either February 8 or February 25 . . . either of those specific dates. If they choose to do so on February 8, they reach that date a day earlier than we do here in the US.
That leaves you 48 hours to prepare.
Do you have food to last you a couple weeks? Things like 50lb bags of rice, 50lb bags of beans, lots of boxes of various style Pasta? Do you have a big supply of canned soups and canned foods? Do you have salt, pepper, sugar, ketchup, mustard, Mayonnaise?
Do you have a gravity-fed water filter? If the electric system gets wrecked the water company will not be able to pump water; no pumps!
Do you have propane in your outdoor barbeque with a spare tank or two filled and ready to go? How will you cook if there’s no electric or no gas being pumped by the gas company because their systems are wrecked?
Do you have firewood or some way to warm your house without electric; like Kerosene heaters? Do you have FUEL for them?
How about simple things like flashlights and spare batteries?
What about medicines; do you or any of your family require certain meds every day to live? How many days do you have stocked up?
Once your food stockpiles run out, how many of you know how to hunt? Trap? Fish?
“More than half of Americans today don’t know shit from shinola when it comes to providing their own food” Said Bob Carlson, an avid hunter and fisherman. “Even if they can use a rifle to shoot a deer or a bear, they have no idea how to skin it, gut it or prepare the meat for cooking or storage. Few know how to set traps or snares and fewer still know how to kill an animal which is trapped or snared so as to be able to cook it and eat it. When it comes to personal survival, most Americans won’t pass the “survival of the fittest” test.” He continued.
Folks who do not have these things are going to die. It’s that simple.
You’ve been told, the rest is up to you. The clock is ticking and a madman in North Korea has made it clear he intends to harm us in any way possible. Only a fool would see this “writing on the wall” and ignore it.
Sean Adl-Tabatabai
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