ELECTRONIC WARFARE

the news insider: Suspicious Blackouts
Who is Targeting Global Power Grids?

In July 2002, President Bush signed National Security Presidential Directive 16 (PD-16), a secret plan for the United States to wage cyber-warfare against other countries. Under the directive, the Pentagon -which is under the control of neo-conservative zealots who make Dr. Strangelove seem relatively sane- is authorized to use electronic weaponry to bring down the electrical grids of enemy nations.

Bush's signature of the secret directive was not disclosed until February 7, 2003, when it was reported in the Washington Post. Although the PD-16 is secret, a few of its main elements have leaked out to the media. They include hacking computer systems to overload switches and substations to cause total or partial grid collapse. But the attacks can be much more brutal in nature. The Pentagon got a leg up on collapsing grids during the 1999 NATO war against Yugoslavia. NATO planes scattered graphite ribbons over electrical power lines around Belgrade, causing major shorts that resulted in cascading power failures throughout the grid. It took up to seven hours for technicians in the Yugoslav capital to restore power.

Since Bush's offensive cyber-war directive was signed, the world has witnessed some of the most unexplained massive blackouts in the history of the modern age of electricity. The Pentagon has indeed -through manipulative schemers like Donald Rumsfeld, Paul Wolfowitz, and retired Admiral John Poindexter-championed such ideas as a stock market betting parlor for future terrorist attacks and an Internet-based personal information surveillance program (both fortunately killed off by Congress). It is thus not too far-fetched to consider the possibility that the recent spate of blackouts around the world are the result of another harebrained operation cooked up by the neo-cons to demonstrate America's superiority in cyber-warfare.