Stop The Coronavirus, Please!

It’s been a few exhausting weeks since the outbreak of the Coronavirus (Covid-19) has gone public. 


First case in China in November.


Now as a Pandemic in 126 countries!


Over 132,000 confirmed cases, so far .


And around 5,000 deaths 🕱.


The numbers are projected to climb/////.


With Dr. Faucci of NIH’s National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID) warning that it will “get worse before it gets better.”


Everything is closing down from our work facilities to Cruises, Broadway, and Disney.


Of course, we need the government (at all levels), health professionals, and pharmaceutical companies to get their acts together with an effective response strategy. 


Also, this is a wake up call for better preparedness for all sorts of natural and man made disasters that are awaiting. 


Today it’s a virus (natural or biowarfare) and tomorrow it’ll be a devastating cyber attack that we are woefully unprepared for. 


No more playing politics, half measures, and waiting for the next shoe to drop (Spanish Flu, Pearl Harbor, 9/11).


The rest of us need to do our “prepping” parts and to say a prayer or two and keep going. 


(Source Graphic: Andy Blumenthal)

The Real Threat Is Surprise Attacks

Please see my new article in Israel Defense called, “The Real Threat is Surprise Attacks.

The element of surprise can overcome most defenses. This can happen whether through an insider threat or through new and stealthy technologies. Already in August 2018, two explosive-laden drones were used to attack the president of Venezuela, Nicolas Maduro. Similarly, last year, in the movie, Angel Has Fallen, we saw the president of the United States attacked by a swarm of drones. While this is a great threat in and of itself, I believe that the greater threat lies in the miniaturization of the drones, in some cases, drones with the size, shape, and function of insects.


Unfortunately, Yigal Amir used the element of surprise to assassinate the prime minister of Israel. Now there are other high-tech threats like miniaturized, weaponized drones. There is no excuse for us not to be on the lookout for and to be prepared to defend against these, so that our leadership and our democracies are duly protected. Surprise is a big advantage in warfare, but we must be one step ahead, so that we are prepared to defend against these as well as to turn the tables and effectively employ the continued element of surprise against our relentless adversaries.

(Credit Photo: Andy Blumenthal)

NATO Is Asleep At The Wheel

So this is the dumbest military strategy I have ever heard. 


NATO is planning a “rapid deployment force” of at least 30,000 troops, 30 naval ships, and 360 planes to fight off a Russian invasion.


Sounds good?


The only problem is that this rapid reaction is planned to occur “within 30 days” of being put on an alert. 


Gee, a lot can happen in 30 days. 


It took only a little over two weeks for Russia to invade and annex Crimea in 2014 in a blitzkrieg that completely took the West by surprise. 


NATO continues to be shockingly unprepared for a Russian land grab.


Further, the 4,600 troops stationed on “forward deployment” and the 5,000 additional “spearhead force” to come to their aid “within 10 days” is again completely inadequate and ridiculous. 


Israel won the 1967 War in just 6 days against invading armies from Egypt, Jordan, and Syria, and Israel again halted the advancing Egyptian army in the 1973 Yom Kippur War in just 3 days. 


With modern weaponry, Wars are fought and won in days–not months and years anymore. 


The long deployments we’ve had in Iraq and Afghanistan are not traditional wars, but wars of attrition again terrorism and dictatorships. 


If and when there is a war with the “Great Bear,” it will be fought and won–OR lost in days–as well. Russia will act with stealth and speed and a ferocity that we remain blind to. 


And I fear that when we are ready to fight back, it will be way too little too late–like in Crimea–and all that will be left–after the European lands are gone–is more meaningless sanctions that Russia will retaliate against, tit-for-tat, anyway. 😉


(Source Photo: Andy Blumenthal)

{Saving Us From DC Ground Zero}

dc

One well-placed nuclear suitcase bomb or nuclear ballistic missile strike on DC and say goodbye to virtually the entire hub of the Federal government. 


As of 2014, there are over 4.2 million federal employees (2.7M in the civilian agencies and 1.5M in the military). 


Over 500K are located in the DC, MD, VA tristate area. 


But it’s not just the numbers, it’s that the headquarters of all the major government agencies are located here. 


While, of course, there are backup sites, and emergency doomsday sites like Mount Weather (48 miles from DC), there is no telling how much advance notice, if any we would have, and who would escape and survive a deadly blow to our capital region. 


And it could be a radiological, chemical, biological, or nuclear (RCBN) attack that does us in…whether from Russia, China, Iran, North Korea or other diabolical enemy out there. 


The point is that by concentrating all our federal headquarters and senior leadership and key resources here we are in fact, giving the enemy an easy shot to decapitate the entire country?


While others (like Paul Kupiec in the WSJ) have questioned whether some of the federal agencies can be moved out to other needy cities and communities across the country for economic reasons (to bring jobs and investment) especially those agencies that are actively looking to build new HQS buildings already (e.g. FBI and Department of Labor), to me the far more potent question is one of national security. 


The main advantage of having the crux of the federal government in the DC area is surely one of coordination–the President wants his Cabinet near him and the Cabinet Secretaries want their senior staff near them, and so on and so on. 


So, you get this mass concentration of a who’s who of the federal government in and around Washington, DC. 


But what about the advances of technology? 


Surely, through networks and telecommunications and teleworking, we can support a geographically diverse workforce and do no significant harm to our operating as one.


We’re talking a very big cultural change here!


It’s one thing to have nuclear missiles roaming the seas on attack submarines waiting for orders from Washington, DC and it’s quite another to move the actual government intelligentsia and leadership out from the central hub. 


Let’s face it, in a real crisis situation, with the chaos and panic and transportation overflow and perhaps simultaneous cyberattacks, no one is really going to be going anywhere–especially in a surprise attack. 


If Pearl Harbor (of which we just celebrated the 75th anniversary) and 9/11 teach us anything is that when the sh*t hits the fan, it hits hard and sticks solid. 


Working in the Metro DC area, selfishly, I’d like to say keep the investment, jobs, and great opportunities here.


For the good of the nation and our survival against true existential threats, we’d be much smarter to spread the federal wealth as far and wide across this great nation that we can. 😉


(Source Photo: Andy Blumenthal)

A Blooper With Our Blimps

Military Blimp

Oops, so this is one for the books…


The multi-billion dollar Raytheon-built military JLENS surveillance blimps are pictured above.


They are supposed to sense and alert us to a possible devastating surprise cruise missile attack on the U.S. eastern seaboard.


However, one of them lost its tethering and went sailing into the skies and had to itself be tracked by NORAD and two scrambled F-16 fighter jets. 


What was designed to surveil instead needed surveillance. 


The JLENS crashed landed in Amish country, Pennsylvania and took out the power to 20,000 people.


We need a strong, capable, and ready military!


If we are trying to improve our posturing with the Russians, Chinese, and Iranians–this is not the way to put our best blimp forward. 😉


(Source photo: here with attribution to Bill Dickinson)

18 Million–Change The SSNs

SSN

So, maybe one of the most detrimental hysts of information from the Federal government in history. 


Now involving over 18 million current and former federal employees, including military and intelligence personnel. 


No getting around it, but we are major screwed here–this is a treasure trove of personal and privacy information ready to use for identity theft, blackmail, assassination/decapitation attacks at home and work addresses, kidnapping of family members, and literally attacking our national security apparatus from the very inside out–it’s people. 


Imagine, if at the time of its choosing, an adversary attacks our nation, but preempts this with sophisticated and coordinated attacks on our critical government personnel–generals, spy masters, political kingpins, and other key decision makers–thereby distracting them from their duties of safeguarding our nation. 


This is our new Achilles Heel and overall a security disaster bar none!


Well, we can’t go back and put the genie back in the bottle–although wouldn’t it be nice if such critical information (if not encrypted–already unforgivable) would have a self-destruct mechanism on it that we could at least zap it dead.


But for the people whose personal identities are at risk–whose social security numbers (SSNs) and dates of birth (DOBs) have been compromised what can we do? 


While we can’t very well change people DOBs, why not at least issue them new SSNs to help thwart the adversaries peddling in this information in the black markets. 


If we can put a man on the moon, surely we can issue some 18 million new SSNs and mandate government and financial institutions to make the necessary updates to the records. 


This is not rocket science, and certainly we owe this much to our people to help protect them.


Will our government be there for it’s own employees and patriots? 😉


(Source Photo: here with attribution to Donkey Hotey)

Electrical Cataclysm

Electrical Grid
Warning from the former director of CIA in the Wall Street Journal today…



We are grossly unprepared for an EMP attack on this country!



Dire reports from the EMP Commission from 2004 and 2008 have been “much neglected”!



The threat comes from nation states and terrorist organizations who can detonate a nuclear device above our skies by ICBM, SCUD missile (for example from a freighter near our shores), a space-launched vehicle that lifts satelittes into orbit, and even from low-yield nuclear weapons closer to home. 



Russia and China “have considered limited nuclear-attack options that…employ EMP as the primary or sole means of attack.”



North Korea in 2012 orbited a satellite compatible with such a small nuclear warhead “for the delviery of a surprise nuclear EMP attack against the U.S.”



Here’s the clincher on the damage this could do to us:



“Within 12 months of a nationwide blackout, up to 90% of the U.S. population could possibly perish from starvation, disease, and social breakdown.”



But for roughly $2 billion dollars we could protect the national electrical grid with surge arrestors, faraday cages and more. 



However, the bills to authorize this and protect us are stalled.



This is a known threat that our enemies are preparing for and what are we doing sitting on our hands, again?

 

Or as the comedian Lewis Black says, “If we’re going nowhere as a country, why can’t we get there faster?”

(Source Photo: here with attribution to Wil C. Fry)

Israel’s Near Pearl Harbor

Terror Tunnels
I wanted to share this analysis of the recent threat to Israel from Matti Follman. 


While perhaps not a true existential threat to the country, the death and destruction that Hamas could’ve inflicted via the terror tunnels and missiles at their own time and choosing could have been a Pearl Harbor or 9/11 event (or worse) for the State of Israel. 


Rather, than the United Nations Human Rights Council members and others decrying Israel’s self-defense while protecting civilians (in spite of Hamas blatantly using them as human shields), they should be applauding Israel’s true morality! 


But anti-semites and hate mongers, don’t savor Israel’s safety, security, or continuity as a Jewish and democratic state, they just seek an excuse, like Hitler, to attack whether by tunnels, missiles, boycotts, or resolutions to discriminate and obliterate those that they perceive as historically inconvenient and whom they simply want dead.

________________________________

Provided by Matti Follman

Analysis of the Situation: The State of Israel was facing an existential threat for the first time since the War of Independence. By their deaths, the three youths saved the State of Israel.

The dozens of tunnels that had been dug from Gaza to the southern cities of Israel were not tunnels for the purpose of terrorism – they were the infrastructure for the occupation of the Land of Israel. If we had not surprised ourselves with the severe response to the kidnap and murder of these boys (of blessed memory), Hamas, at a time that would suit them, would have sent thousands of soldiers through the tunnels to occupy cities and military posts; thousands of soldiers wearing the uniform of IDF soldiers, to kill, to conquer and to kidnap, and the IDF would have had no time to organize, and protect the nation. At the same time, Hamas would have fired off barrages of hundreds and thousands of missiles at the center of the country, paralyzing Israel’s organizational ability to defend itself against invasion. What were they waiting for? Maybe a rainy day? Or, most likely, the recovery of Hezbollah, in order to coordinate an integrated attack of missiles from the north. . . and possibly tunnels dug towards the northern cities too. . .

In Israel, in such a situation, there could be tens of thousands of deaths, the complete breakdown of national systems, and the need to build protection at the neighborhood and street levels. This, on the presumption  that the Arabs of Judea & Samaria, and some Israeli Arabs, would not join in the fray. Of course, IAF counter-attacks would be futile when the enemy was well entrenched underground and laughing all the way to Jerusalem! The best case scenario – international forces would come in to disarm the country, take our nuclear capabilities, and the dream of the Jewish State would crumble for another thousand years.

We were saved thanks to two things they did not believe would happen, because we also did not believe it: we did not believe that the abduction of the three boys would unite the nation in such a way that it would lead to massive air assault, the return of political prisoners to jail, and preparation for a ground offensive into the wasps’ nest they had built. And we had not believed that the Iron Dome would work. In other words – all of us, those to the right and those to the left, had disdained the Islamic-psychopathic rhetoric calling for the conquest of Jerusalem, had ignored the determination of the psychopaths in Iraq and Syria, and did not want to comprehend that they had built a smart, strong and – in fact – quite an excellent military system with almost no flaws, which was capable of crushing the State of Israel. We had all seen how ten fighting men had exited a tunnel in just a few minutes. What would have prevented two hundred soldiers from exiting a tunnel on any given day, and many thousands altogether from all of the tunnels – including hundreds of commandos landing on the beaches at the same time, and missiles landing in the heart of the country? The truth is that if, now, there were not tens of thousands of Israeli troops in the south, nothing could have prevented the next step in realizing the Islamic dream – the destruction of the Zionist nation, and marching into Jerusalem.

Eyal, Naftali and Gilad – by dying, they saved our country, our freedom and our lives.


Danny Gold – who developed the Iron Dome – may you live a long and healthy life.

And to all of the soldiers – we love you and embrace you. Muster courage and be brave! All the Jewish people, the whole world – and most of all, many of the Arab countries and the sane Muslims – are praying for the craziness to be overcome. Yes, even Mahmoud Abbas (Abu Mazen). Thanks to those poor boys, we caught them with their pants down, when the timing and the conditions don’t suit them. Our State has survived and now is the time to settle accounts with the murderers, to the very last man.

And a word to citizens on the home front – when you hear the sirens, go into the shelter or your safe room and smile! When you hear the “boom” – laugh!  These noises are the screams of frustration of the psychopaths in Gaza, whose ingenious plan to crush Israel was prematurely exposed. All of the damage that we are suffering now is nothing compared to what they had been planning.


(Source Photo: here with attribution to the IDF)