40 Years Ago, the US Lost a Nuclear Bomb 470
Hugh Pickens writes "A BBC investigation has found that in 1968 the US abandoned a nuclear weapon beneath the ice in northern Greenland after a nuclear-armed B52 crashed on the ice a few miles from Thule Air Base. The Stratofortress disintegrated on impact with the sea ice and parts of it began to melt through to the fjord below. The high explosives surrounding the four nuclear weapons on board detonated without setting off the nuclear devices, which had not been armed by the crew. The Pentagon maintained that all four weapons had been 'destroyed' and while technically true, investigators piecing together fragments from the crash could only account for three of the weapons. Investigators found that 'something melted through ice such as burning primary or secondary.' A subsequent search by a US submarine was beset by technical problems and, as winter encroached and the ice began to freeze over, the search was abandoned. 'There was disappointment in what you might call a failure to return all of the components,' said a former nuclear weapons designer at the Los Alamos nuclear laboratory. 'It would be very difficult for anyone else to recover classified pieces if we couldn't find them.'"
Re:gentlemen: (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Imperialism Gone Mad (Score:2, Insightful)
"Completely indefensible and irresponsible?" Those nuclear bombs stationed outside US borders (and the US nuclear stockpile in general) were probably the only thing keeping the Soviets from rolling their tanks all the way to Paris. And if you think US imperialism is bad, try living under the Soviet version.
The US (USAF?) does need a major overhaul of its nuclear handling policies; this crap would've never flown under SAC. You can pin that one on Clinton, and it's certainly stupid to blame this particular incident on Mr. Bush--he's done more than his share of stupid things, but not this. Most of those responsible are probably dead by now anyways.
Re:24 episode (Score:2, Insightful)
Yes, life imitates art. 24 is about 35 years too young for it to be vice versa.
Actually it is vice-versa in this case, or I just came down with a bad case of dyslexia.
Double meh (Score:3, Insightful)
Why worry about a lost bomb which a first world nation can't get to without a major national project. First world nations don't need lost bombs to achieve nuclear capability.
You worry about nuclear material when it can be had for a case of cigarettes and a bottle of vodka by any idiot with a truck to cart it away. Though the seabed makes for a much better movie plot.
Re:Imperialism Gone Mad (Score:5, Insightful)
No, they invaded Afghanistan because they knew if they didn't a bunch of religious nutbars would take over. That was the only thing keeping the fundamentalist terrorists in check.
Of course the Regan administration saw this as 'godless commies repressing religious freedom' and started training and passing arms to the Afghan rebels to fight the communists. Russia eventually saw this as an unwinnable war and pulled out.
That provided the path for the religious nutbars to take over Afghanistan which brings us to the modern day mess we have there.
Good job Republicans!
Re:Imperialism Gone Mad (Score:5, Insightful)
But you are just confirming my statement. After the death of Stalin there was no new conquests, no new territories
I'm sure you'd find that comforting if you lived in Poland or Hungary during the Cold War.
Afghanistan was an attempt at showing off, also an attempt to stop the inflow of drugs into the 3 USSR republics bordering it
Wait a minute, you are rationalizing the USSR's intervention in Afghanistan because of the drug trade? So by your logic the US was well within our rights to intervene in Panama in 1989 (Operation Just Cause), right?
USA was and is the main international aggressor for the past 60 years
The US engaged in a number of questionable activities during the Cold War, mostly due to the perceived threat of Communism. It's a bit of a leap to say that the US was the "main international aggressor" though and I find it pretty troubling that you can rationalize aggression by the USSR but condemn it when done by the United States.
Your arguments aren't consistent with each other and it seems to me that you are more interested in condemning the United States than in having an honest dialog about the military history of the 20th century.
Still alive == not poisoned (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Imperialism Gone Mad (Score:3, Insightful)
Yeah, yeah.
Korea 1950
Hungary 1956
Vietname 1965
Israel 1967
Czechoslovakia 1968
Afghanistan 1979
Re:Imperialism Gone Mad (Score:5, Insightful)
Yes Carter started it, but it was mainly a CIA operation. It took Reagan to dramatically increase funding and US involvement:
From http://www.thirdworldtraveler.com/Afghanistan/Afghanistan_CIA_Taliban.html [thirdworldtraveler.com]
In March 1985, the Reagan administration issued National Security Decision Directive 166,29 a secret plan to escalate covert action in Afghanistan dramatically: Abandoning a policy of simple harassment of Soviet occupiers, the Reagan team decided secretly to let loose on the Afghan battlefield an array of U.S. high technology and military expertise in an effort to hit and demoralize Soviet commanders and soldiers....
...
By 1987, the annual supply of arms had reached 65,000 tons, and a "ceaseless stream" of CIA and Pentagon officials were visiting Pakistani Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI) headquarters in Rawalpindi and helping to plan mujahideen operations
...
As well as training and recruiting Afghan nationals to fight the Soviets, the CIA permitted its ISI allies to recruit Muslim extremists from around the world. Pakistani journalist Ahmed Rashid reports: Between 1982 and 1992, some 35,000 Muslim radicals from 43 Islamic countries in the Middle East, North and East Africa, Central Asia and the Far East would pass their baptism under fire with the Afghan mujahideen. Tens of thousands more foreign Muslim radicals came to study in the hundreds of new madrassas [religious schools] that Zia's military government began to fund in Pakistan and along the Afghan border. Eventually more than 100,000 Muslim radicals were to have direct contact with Pakistan and Afghanistan and be influenced by the jihad [against the USSR]
Like I said - Good job Republicans!
Re:Imperialism Gone Mad (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:Imperialism Gone Mad (Score:5, Insightful)
So when Russia invades a country to keep "religious nutbars" in check, it's okay?
So when the US creates problem like Afghanistan, Iran-Iraq, Bin Laden, etc. through crappy foreign policy, then has to go in and kill more people to clean up the first mess, that's ok?
Re:Greenland eh? (Score:4, Insightful)
she strikes me as not someone just from a small town, but someone who is small-minded.
As if those two were somehow mutually exclusive? She is small-minded BECAUSE she is from a small town. Welcome to America (or at least the part that doesn't live in a city).
Re:Greenland eh? (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Imperialism Gone Mad (Score:5, Insightful)
Eisenhower and Truman were two of our greatest presidents. A Republican and a Democrat.
Bush Jr and Carter have been two of our worst presidents. A Republican and a Democrat.
Thomas Jefferson was one of our greatets politicians and presidents. A Democratic-Republican (Holy shit! Both letters!?)
Can we please get over this party line bullshit now?
Re:Greenland eh? (Score:4, Insightful)
The problem with Palin is she chose to stay in that environment, as do most small-minded, small-towned people, because they see nothing wrong with it. You have more foresight than most in that environment. You said it best, "there are people like me that are from small towns that are not small-minded".
I hope you appreciate the irony of dismissing entire populations as "small-minded". Do you have anything other than stereotypes to back this up? I've lived in both large (New York City) and small (Guilford, NY -- look it up) towns and I've come across my share of small and large minded people in both.
Re:Sure, NOW you make fun... (Score:3, Insightful)
She's going to run for President in the future. Be afraid. Be very afraid.
Oh, stop the fear-mongering, someone who is that stupid would never be able to win 270 electoral vot..... oh, fuck.
Re:Imperialism Gone Mad (Score:5, Insightful)
Leaving it alone as a failed state that harbors terrorists who want to kill American citizens doesn't seem like a good alternative.
You're missing the point. It was the CIA led initiatives that CREATED the terrorists in the first place. The fundamentalists were there before, but it took the US to actually organize them, train them, fund them and give them weapons and resources that they would never have received on their own.
Before the US got involved, they were tribal, fighting with rifles on horseback. Do you really think they were a threat to the US like that?
Re:Greenland eh? (Score:4, Insightful)
In fact, in my experience, the ones from small towns are more likely to be open-minded. People who live in big cities tend to think that they are living at the apex of humanity, that they and their environment are the best, and that people in small towns don't know jack. Not all people in big cities are like this, of course, but my experience is that there's proportionately more of them than there are similarly close-minded people in small towns. Lots of people in small towns are aware of the wider world, enjoy the opportunity to visit other places including big cities, but simply don't live there for various legitimate reasons.
Palin, of course, is not one of these open-minded small town people. But she is the way she is because that's who she is, not because of where she lives. She'd be just as much of a clueless asshole if she had grown up in New York City.