Vanishing/Reappearing Nukes vs. Real Terrorist Arrests Through Police Competency, Not Deprivation of Rights

posted by Bill Arnett @ 11:38 AM Permalink

Some days listening to the news reminds me of the old "Keystone Cops" episodes of yore. See if you can guess who the Keystoners are from these two stories.

Germany has announced the arrest of three suspected Islamic terrorists whom, it is alleged, not only had an intense hatred for anything American, but had the significant quantities of chemicals to actually make bombs, and the present ability to carry out their attacks. This is something that is foreign to the American government, not because it happened in Germany, but because the Germans kept quiet about it until they had sufficient evidence to make an arrest, and didn't fully brief our intelligence agencies or pResident bush until after the bust.

Good police work, gathering of evidence, respect for the law, a trial will be upcoming where the evidence against the men will be presented to seek a proper verdict as ascertained by a jury. No one's rights had to be violated, no one was kidnapped and rendered for torture to a third country, they have been promptly arraigned and not sent to a "black prison" for years of endless torture that would make prosecution in a court of law impossible. They will get to see, hear, and test any evidence against them and will be accorded counsel to aid their defense. You know, all the things America used to do better than anyone before bush destroyed any semblance of independent justice in America.

And speaking of America under bush, the U.S.A.F. LOST for a period of time six nuclear-tipped cruise missiles, which had been mounted onto a B-52 bomber and flown around the country just for the hell of it for a few hours before they were noticed missing and eventually located.

Six 150 kiloton nuclear warheads on cruise missiles. And the crew had no idea that they were loaded on the plane. Reports on this matter correctly state that a nuclear detonation was unlikely, even in the event of a crash, but if the pilots and crew had no idea the warheads were there it still causes a MAJOR problem.

Anytime there is an accident involving a nuclear warhead, damaged or not, a "Broken Arrow" alert is sounded that brings more people performing more tasks than you can imagine to insure the safety of the warhead, to check if it is damaged and possibly releasing radiation, and to get special teams of workers trained to handle a leaking warhead to minimize the damage, and prevent harm to citizens. It really is impressive to participate in a Broken Arrow exercise.

HAD THIS B-52 CRASHED, THE WARHEADS BREACHED, AND RADIATION RELEASED, THERE WOULD HAVE BEEN NO "BROKEN ARROW" ALERT BECAUSE NO ONE KNEW THE NUKES WERE ON BOARD. The resultant damage from leaking radiation could have had catastrophic and tragic consequences that, being unknown, could have caused the release of much more radiation than a contained accident, untold numbers of radiation poisoned rescue workers who would have had no idea of the danger, and severe damage to the local environment.

This is an incredible breach of security and protocol for the handling of these missiles, and given the stated desire to nuke Iran, I'm not certain that this was an accident at all.

Six nuclear warhead cruise missiles, missing. Loaded onto a B-52, a long distance bomber, allegedly without the crew's knowledge. bush/cheney threatening and bristling to use nukes on Iran.

Could these weapons have come up "missing" from the inventory so that when they were used on Iran 1) there could be plausible denial that they were American nukes and 2) all that radiation being detected coming out of Iran could be blamed on the Iranians themselves and a direct hit on a nuclear site there?

Real cops and Keystone Cops, you decide which country has which.

Labels: Bush, cheney, GWOT, nuclear weapons