Power & Market

Without Government, Who Will Send Out False Alarms for Nuclear War?

Without Government, Who Will Send Out False Alarms for Nuclear War?
Power & Market Ryan McMaken

Being a government agency means never having to say your sorry. With last Saturday's botched warning over an alleged ballistic missile hurtling toward Hawaii, we're unlikely to see much beyong a call for more government funding. 

Justin Raimondo writes: 

While the population of Hawaii dove under manhole covers, and #TheResistance screeched that The Orange Monster had finally done it and forced Kim Jong Un to nuke the island paradise, it took Rep. Tulsi Gabbard, the levelheaded, and quite personable representative from that state, to issue a statement countermanding the “take cover” message sent out by the military earlier.

Rep. Gabbard did this within minutes, thus avoiding a major panic with potentially dangerous consequences, while the Authorities took nearly an hour to issue a retraction.

How did this happen? The Official Story is that “someone pushed the wrong button.” As to the identity of this Someone, or the consequences that have befallen him or her, we hear nary a word.

This bizarre incident underscores the utter absurdity and darkness of the permanent state of emergency which we live under. For it turns out that there was no system in place capable of countermanding the emergency alert once it went out. A tacit understanding of the reality behind our military strategy: it’s a suicide pact.

It also underscores the Potemkin Village aura of what is routinely referred to as our National Security Establishment: in this case, it amounted to some guy in Hawaii wearing flip flops and all too eager to go off duty and get back in the water after going through the unending drill he’d complete hundreds, probably thousands of times before.

So who was the culprit, and what happened to him? The Hawaii authorities refuse to identify him – because “he would be a pariah.” Which is a military disciplinary system that has to be unique in all the world. The administrator in chief of the system, a Mr. Miyagi, explained it this way:

“Looking at the nature and cause of the error that led to those events, the deeper problem is not that someone made a mistake; it is that we made it too easy for a simple mistake to have very serious consequences. The system should have been more robust, and I will not let an individual pay for a systemic problem.”

What about the individual architects of the system? You can be your bottom dollar none of them will bear any consequences for almost starting World War III. Gee, I recall an incident that occurred on September 11, 2001, in which the “defenses” we’d spent billions on simply did not function and thousands died as a result – and not a single person was fired.

Grotesque displays of incompetence happen in every sort of organization every now and then, but only in government is there never any cut to a budget, and never is any (important) person fired. Usually, the offending government department claims they need more money, and then they get it. Government agencies are also the most prominent home of the fake version of "taking responsibility." This occurs when someone goes on TV and announces "I take full responsibility." This is followed, however, by no sanction. No one takes a pay cut or is fired, and the agency in question sees no significant cuts. "Taking full responsibility" in government means taking bad press for a few days. It never means losing out on even one dime of taxpayer money being sent to the "responsible" party's enormous federal pension. 

Note also that the false alarm in Hawaii that caused panic has not been followed by any information about what should actually do in case of nuclear attack. The reason for this, of course, is that once the missile strikes, there really is nothing to do. "Civil Defense" against nuclear war — such as all those "duck and cover" drills gullible children and parents used to tolerate — has always been mostly for show.

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