http://www.thetowntalk.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20070904/NEWS01/70904040 I'm having a hard time articulating why this is so troubling to me.
My brother is nuclear/tactical weapons expert in the Air Force. I can't wait to hear what he has to say about it. LOL Thoughts of Broken Arrow run through my mind.
LOL, he's retiring. He wants to be a school teacher. I think he just deals with the computers on the jets and programs them to do weapon stuff.
LOL again. That would have been my Dad. He never went to Nam, but he did have a brief case handcuffed to him. And when he was dieing of cancer, the Air Force paid for it. Apparently somewhere in he was exposed to radiation.
I think the troubling aspect is that it was an accident. The idea that nukes fly over the nation is not alarming; I've been used to such notions since I was a kid. However, the idea that the nukes are flying around when they're not supposed to be is just a bit unsettling.
What's the problem, we flew Nukes over the U.S. and Canada, and Europe, for 50 years during the cold war, bombers and crews dogs were always on alert or station 24/7/365, there were no notice exercises, were they launched the bombers, and only at the last check point were they recalled and told it was a exercise and to stand down, there was never any loss of control of the weapons, and they went from one Strategic Air Command Base to another, were they were to be dismantled, saved on shipping and security problems. If Russia keeps screwing around with bomber runs, up to the decision point, we may see it happen again, American Strategic Bomber back over America, and Canada, and Europe, on alert, 24/7/365.
A rare moment of agreement. People make mistakes. Well-reasoned and well-practiced procedures are supposed to protect us from ourselves. Certain peoples' careers are now shorter than even they had imagined.
Yeah, but the military knew they were doing it. They didn't know where these nukes were. They landed with them and "SURPRISE!!!"
Cock ups happen. At least no one got hurt, unlike the incident a friend mentioned a couple of days ago.
Isn't it interesting that Americans get a little testy over a plane carrying nukes flying over America when there are thousands of atomic warheads on missiles, bombs and other related WMD located everywhere in America. Any day one of those could detonate easier than that plane flying over. Why don't people fel the same way about all of those weapons that America has stockpiled over the years?
(Bold emphasis above is mine.) That's got to be THE most gross overstatement I've ever seen anyone make here!!!!!!!!!!!
http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,956235,00.html More recently United States 5,735 / 9,960 active/total warheads Norris, Robert S. and Hans M. Kristensen. "U.S. nuclear forces, 2006," Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists 61:1 (January/February 2005): 68-71, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_states_with_nuclear_weapons So where are all the warheads located?
They are strategically placed in a limited number of bases - all of which belong to either the Air Force or Navy. The Minot base mentioned in the original article is one of the main ones. Several thousand are also placed in submarines that stay away from the mainland on 6-month-long patrols. Also, most of the bases where they are stored are FAR from any major population centers so the majority of U.S. citizens live a hundred miles or more away from a single one. Which is in direct contrast to the picture the poster painted. And that's why I said it was gross overstatement.
I know that in California there are warheads located only less than 50 miles from a major city. I know because I worked there.This was an Air Force installation.
Sure, there are exceptions. Read my response to SAM again and take special note that I said "most" - not all. So your original scary-sounding statement is still highly incorrect at best and certainly misleading. Both to U.S. citizens and especially people in other countries - many of whom don't even realize just how BIG and spread out the U.S. really is.
