Newt's scared of EMP's.

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Really? EMP's? I think we've been watching too much Ocean's 11.

Here's the core of his statement:

An electromagnetic pulse (EMP) is a byproduct of detonating an atomic bomb above the Earth’s atmosphere. When a nuclear weapon is detonated in space, the gamma rays emitted trigger a massive electrical disturbance in the upper atmosphere. Moving at the speed of light, this overload will short out all electrical equipment, power grids and delicate electronics on the Earth’s surface. In fact, it would take only one to three weapons exploding above the continental United States to wipe out our entire grid and transportation network. It might take years to recover from, if ever.

That's true, and not true. The way to recover would be to go trip your circuit breaker back to "on", as your fuses would have tripped. If you had a surge protector on your computer, it will power back up as well. If you have a cell phone, you'll need a new one. Utility companies will need to re-fuse their facilities, but the power in a massive EMP is not sufficient to actually destroy anything. Since this idea has been unclassified knowledge since the cold war, most utilities have taken steps to prevent damage during a power surge...like from a solar storm.

Newt goes into fearmongering mode here:

Within weeks after such an attack, tens of millions of Americans would perish. The impact has been likened to a nationwide Hurricane Katrina. Some studies estimate that 90 percent of all Americans might very well die in the year after such an attack as our transportation, food distribution, communications, public safety, law enforcement, and medical infrastructures collapse.

Really, Mr. Gingrich, does this kind of language really help the situation? Gingrich goes on to suggest that missile defense is our only solution to the threat of hostile nations EMP'ing us back into the Bronze Age.

The idea of shooting missiles at missiles is not only impractical and expensive, but pseudoscience at best. Can we really expect a U.S. missile to catch up to a Korean missile launched half a world away, traveling at ballistic speed into space? Doubtful, dubious, and wasteful of taxpayer dollars.

As far as I can see, the best solution to stopping hostile tyrants from firing weapons of mass destruction at the U.S. and its allies is simply to invade the country pre-emptively and depose the leader. Say what you want about the invasion of Iraq, but I don't see them planning nuclear attacks on Israel right now.

Or perhaps we should detonate one of our nukes above North Korea? Take out their electrical systems? I bet Newt'd love that plan!


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