The spies who pushed for war

http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2003/jul/17/iraq.usa

Newt Gingrich: Propagandist for Israel

http://neoconzionistthreat.blogspot.com/2007/12/newt-gingrich-propagandist-for-israel.html

Here is the direct link to the youtube:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IKBHdErHSrA

Newt and Forstchen Alarmism

The dynamic duo wrote the following alarmist piece in Newsmax

http://newsmax.com/Newsfront/gringrich-emp-weapon/2009/03/29/id/329110

Newt Gingrich: A Single Nuke Could Destroy America

Sunday, 29 Mar 2009 04:23 PM

Article Font Size

By: Newt Gingrich and William Forstchen

A sword of Damocles hangs over our heads. It is a real threat that has been all but ignored.

On Feb. 3, Iran launched a “communications satellite” into orbit. At this very moment, North Korea is threatening to do the same. The ability to launch an alleged communications satellite belies a far more frightening truth. A rocket that can carry a satellite into orbit also can drop a nuclear warhead over any location on the planet in less than 45 minutes.

Far too many timid or uninformed sources maintain that a single launch of a missile poses no true threat to the United States, given our retaliatory power.

A reality check is in order and must be discussed in response to such an absurd claim: In fact, one small nuclear weapon, delivered by an ICBM can destroy the United States by maximizing the effect of the resultant electromagnetic pulse upon detonation.

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.

This is not science fiction. If you doubt this, spend a short amount of time skimming the Report of the Commission to Assess the Threat to the United States from Electromagnetic Pulse Attack from April 2008. You will come away sobered.

Even as the new administration plans to spend trillions on economic bailouts, it has announced plans to reduce funding and downgrade efforts for missile defense. Furthermore, the United States’ reluctance to invest in a modern and credible traditional nuclear deterrent is a serious concern. What good will a bailout be if there is no longer a nation to bail out?

Fifty years ago, it was not Sputnik itself that sent a dire chill of warning around the world; it was the capability of the rocket that launched Sputnik. The rocket that lofted Sputnik into orbit also could have served as an ICBM.

Yet for all its rhetoric, the Soviet Union was essentially a rational power that recognized the threat of mutual destruction and thus never stepped to the edge.

The world is different today. Intercontinental range missiles tipped with nuclear weapons in the hands of leaders driven by fanaticism, leaders that support global terrorism, leaders that have made repeated threats that they will seek our annihilation . . . can now at last achieve that dream in a matter of minutes.

Those who claim that there is little to fear from Iran or North Korea because “at best” they will have only one or two nuclear weapons ignore the catastrophic level of threat we now face from just “a couple” of nuclear weapons.

Again: One to three missiles tipped with nuclear weapons and armed to detonate at a high altitude — to achieve the strongest EMP over the greatest area of the United States — would create an EMP “overlay” that triggers a continent-wide collapse of our entire electrical, transportation, and communications infrastructure.

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.

We most likely would never recover from the blow.

Two things need to be done now and without delay:

1. Make clear in the strongest of terms that, if either Iran or North Korea launches a rocket on a trajectory headed toward the territory of the United States, we will shoot it down. The risk of not doing so is beyond acceptable. And if they construe this as an act of war, so be it, for they fired the first shot. The risk of sitting back for 30 minutes and praying it is not an EMP strike is beyond acceptable, beyond rational on our part.

2. Funding for EMP defense must be a top national priority. To downgrade or halt our missile defense program, which at last is becoming viable after 25 years of research, would be an action of criminal negligence.

Surely, with such a threat confronting us, a fair and open debate, with full public access and the setting aside of partisan politics, is in order. In the meantime, a policy must be stated today that we will indeed shoot down any missile aimed towards the United States that is fired by Iran or North Korea. America’s survival, your survival, and your family’s survival might very well depend on it.

Former House Speaker Newt Gingrich is a Senior Fellow at the American Enterprise Institute. William Forstchen is the author of “One Second After,” an account of a town struggling to survive after an EMP weapon is used against the United States.

[Editor’s Note: Get William Forstchen’s book depicting a nuclear EMP attack, “One Second After” — Go here now.]

DeBorchgrave cites a science fiction book to prove his point on EMP.

DeBorchgrave writes:

In his latest book “One Second After,” New York Times best-selling author William R. Forstchen looks at EMPs “and their awesome ability to send catastrophic shockwaves throughout the U.S. within seconds.” One Scud-type nuclear missile, fired from the cargo hold of a freighter off the East Coast, set to explode 75 miles up, could fry everything electrical in one-third of the United States, from every cellphone and computer to aircraft, trains, vehicles, elevators, and the entire government, including the Pentagon.

Forstchen is not a physicist or any type of scientist, but a fiction writer. And he is a close friend of neocon Newt Gingrich’s who is a strong partisan of EMP, like the hardline neocons. Newt Gingrich close partner on the EMP issue is William Forstchen, who’s a frequent collaborator with Newt on works of historical fiction. Fortschen teaches at Montreat College (near Asheville, NC) which is a small Protestant college and is not exactly the MIT of the Southern Appalachians.

Fortschen does not even specialize in writing on science topics such as Isaac Asimov. However, one would not cite Asimov to prove faster than the speed of light space travel. In short, science fiction works do not provide balanced analyses of scientific phenomena—they would not be interesting stories if they did.

From Wikipedia

William R. Forstchen (born 1950) is an American author who began publishing in 1983 with the novel Ice Prophet. He is a Professor of History and Faculty Fellow at Montreat College, in Montreat, North Carolina. He received his doctorate from Purdue University with specializations in Military History, the American Civil War and the History of Technology.

Forstchen’s writing efforts have, in recent years, shifted towards historical fiction and non fiction. In 2002 he started the “Gettysburg” trilogy with Speaker of the House Newt Gingrich; the trilogy consists of Gettysburg, Grant Comes East, and Never Call Retreat. More recently, they have have published two works on the events leading up to Pearl Harbor and immediately after that attack Pearl Harbor, and Days of Infamy. Forstchen and Gingrich previously collaborated on the alternate history novel 1945.

In March 2009, Forstchen’s latest work, One Second After, (Forge/St. Martin’s books) was released. Based upon several years of intensive research and interviews, it examines what might happen in a “typical” American town in the wake of an attack on the United States with “electro-magnetic pulse” (EMP) weapons. Similar in plotting to books such as On the Beach and Alas Babylon, One Second After, is set in a small college town in western North Carolina and is a cautionary tale of the collapse of social order in the wake of an EMP strike. Film rights to the book have been optioned by Warner Bros., and it currently is in development as a feature film. The book was cited on the floor of Congress and before the House Armed Services Committee by Congressman Roscoe Bartlett (R-MD), chair of the House Committee tasked to evaluate EMP weapons, as a realistic portrayal of the potential damage rendered by an EMP attack on the continental United States.

Best,

Steve S.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yFLt8ohwh-U

Arab media: 2 Israeli Navy ships passed through Suez Canal

http://www.ynetnews.com/articles/0,7340,L-3845182,00.html

Report: Israeli warships on way to Persian Gulf

http://www.presstv.ir/detail.aspx?id=118083&sectionid=351020205