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took off with very deadly nuclear weapons on board and flew half-
way across the US without any commanding officer knowing about it.
Obama recently called for the abolition of nuclear weapons but his
statement was seen as just merely paying lip service to the voices
campaigning for a nuclear-free world. There is no way Obama could
ask his country to get rid of those weapons in its arsenal just as
he could not expect the US Navy to obey any possible request from
him to vacate Guantanamo. The US military would rather stage some
kind of revolt than surrendering totally its nuclear arms.
The B-52 had departed a day earlier from the Minot base in North
Dakota carrying twelve missiles. Minot was a US Air Force facility
that kept nuclear warheads for use in any conflict that involved
nuclear strikes. The missiles were apparently headed for proposed
decommisioning at Barksdale but poor supervision and operating
procedures allowed six missiles to be taken out with their nuclear
warheads still attached. All the missiles were loaded onto the
B-52 and the plane was left unguarded parked on the tarmac for
at least fifteen hours.
The next day, the pilot took off without properly checking what he
was carrying and landed at Barksdale. After landing, the plane was
again left unguarded on the tarmac until evening. Near midnight a
supervisor of a munitions team finally discovered the real nature
of the missiles and alerted the base. A report was then made to the
US National Military Command Center and the incident was described
as very serious. The Defense Secretary & the White House were also
informed and it was regarded as one of the worst breaches in US
nuclear security.
The Pentagon and the US generals as usual, tried to play down the
incident and wanted to regard it as 'nothing unusual' but news of
it were leaked outside and in early Sept the incident was reported
in the media. As a result, the US air force was forced to conduct
an investigation and this led to the dismissal of the Minot base
commander and several officers were disciplined and one high ranked
general was asked to retire early.
The incident forced the US Air Force to adopt a stricter policy for
the storage and safekeeping of all nuclear weapons at its air bases.
Nuclear warheads could no longer be kept together with conventional
weapons. All the nuclear weapons had to be tagged identifying them
as such. The personnel authorised to supervise the movement of the
warheads were properly designated and the procedures and checklists
were tightened. A program of surprise checks on bases such as Minot
and Barksdale was introduced.
All those improvements however did not stop another incident later
in 2008 when a consignment of at least four missile sub-assemblies
possibly containing fuses or parts used in US nuclear weapons were
'accidentally' sent to Taiwan. Again, there was an investigation,
and the incident was described as another breach of 'standards and
technical competence' and two officers were forced to resign. Eight
others received letters of reprimand.
The US is now, more than ever, the Genghis Khan of our time. It
is the most dangerous neighbour that one could ever have imagined
or asked for or gotten forced upon you. Surely, if there ever was
an Armageddon, you would know the US was right at the very centre.
This is just only one insight on the evil Uncle Sam. This US has
never hesitated at all to play god to suit its agendas and it would
not ever hesitate to play nuclear god. Its evil is boundless.