What is Digg?45 Comments
- GawtMilk, on 10/12/2007, -7/+25Uh, what? Dick Cheney didn't lose them. A B-52 caught fire and the nukes were stolen. I hate the Iraq war, and I think Cheney is an ass. But your arguments are so much stronger if you don't report crap stories like this one. He didn't perpetuate it. 9/11 was the work of terrorists. The Bush Administration thought it was necessary to start a war over the large terrorist event in the world. At the time, I agreed with him...but about a month in I stopped.
- Aeaus, on 10/12/2007, -3/+17Outrageous Claims require at least SOME evidence ;)
- Fengpost, on 10/12/2007, -2/+13Where is Tom Clancy on this story?
- Cutkomp, on 10/12/2007, -3/+11Were they really lost, or just handed over to Xenu?
- inactive, on 10/12/2007, -2/+7I know this one: It is The Sum of All Fears by Tom Clancy.
- pinab, on 10/12/2007, -10/+15Great. Just what we need. The people in charge of the "war on terror" have done more themselves to perpetuate it than pretty much anyone.
- fightingirish, on 10/12/2007, -0/+5Call me crazy but just cause a website has the word 'fact" in its name doesn't mean jack to me.
Can you at least type up a memo in MS Word and make it look like an old military document? - Ark7, on 10/12/2007, -1/+5I smell a lot of "if" and "allegedly" in this story. Buried as innacurate.
You want to hate on the Bush administration, go for it. Just do it with facts. - burgerboy06, on 10/12/2007, -0/+3Pretty sure that title is the most bias ***** I have ever heard. If that isn't an example of liberal media, I don't know what is.
- pixelpump, on 10/12/2007, -1/+4Madsen has a pretty solid history with these type of stories. I'll see if I can dig up a picture of Kim Jong riding the nuke like a bronco. :P
- Echelon2, on 10/12/2007, -2/+5"In May 1991, they were allegedly recovered by mercenaries." Sounds like the start to an awesome game =D
- idonthack, on 10/12/2007, -0/+2Elvis took them.
- checksumz, on 10/12/2007, -2/+4I dislike Dick Cheney as much as the next guy, but I don't really see how this is his fault.
- FuZi0nDET, on 10/12/2007, -1/+3I call shinanagins on this one; I can't stand Dick Chenney as much as the next guy but this sounds like a load of crap to me.
- kcuhpp, on 10/12/2007, -2/+4Former B-52 Crewman Disputes Dumped Nuke Story -- August 3, 2005 -- Counterpunch
Concerning my weekend diary item about the possibility of nuclear warheads from a B-52 that crashed on February 3, 1991, ending up in Iran, John Vickers, a former B-52 flier and CounterPunch reader, offers some pretty persuasive criticisms on at least one part of the story.
http://www.counterpunch.org/cockburn08032005.html - toxicredm, on 10/12/2007, -0/+2Damn that movie Broken Arrow! A "broken arrow" is not a missing nuke, that would be an "empty quiver."
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Empty_Quiver - LarianLeQuella, on 10/12/2007, -0/+2I'll sell you all my special double layer tinfoil hats that will protect you from these South African nukes!
- crizkeeth, on 10/12/2007, -0/+2So how exactly did Cheney lose them again? God damn liberals. I swear.
- kingkilr, on 10/12/2007, -0/+2They floated somewhere and are near Kennedy's body now.
- digbird, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1I think this story is ludicrous:
The South Africans disarmed in 1991. But they diverted the nuclear weapons material to their peacetime nuclear programs. I fail to see why they would need or want us to take the weapons away from them.
If we were going to remove nuclear weapons or material and do it covertly, I hardly think we'd use a B-52 to do it. B-52s are rather noticeable. In contrast, a C-141 or C-130 would not have caught anyone's attention.
No reason is articulated as to why the "evil" Cheney and "evil" Bush I didn't move heaven and earth to recover these supposedly lost nuclear weapons. We get told, "they just sat on their hands." Why?
This would have been a "story of the decade." It would have leaked. Yet no one but a bunch of fringe conspiracy theorists have promoted this story. Moreover, neither did Bill Clinton's campaign. If it had had any truth to it, I think it would have definitely leaked in the 1992 campaign.
What the truth is that on February 4, 1991, a B-52 returning from a bombing mission in Iraq (Desert Storm did crash in that area. Three members of the crew came out alive (I guess they must have been part of the conspiracy too not to say anything).
What is probably true is that either some nutcase or prankster conflated that verifiable event with something that did not happen. - gsiliceo, on 10/12/2007, -2/+3i thought the code "broken arrow" was for "overrun division" or "we got pwned hard send sum l33t d00ds to hlp"
- Pimptastic, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1Ive been stationed onboard submarines, trust me they do spontaneously start on fire. so does that mean we cant transport them on those?
- MrFilby, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1Er, did the nuclear weapons just lie in shallow waters for three months? :S
- GawtMilk, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1I don't get it, I thought they were buried with Jimmy Hoffa.
- g3r4, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1ICBM's are cool, but delivering a nuclear payload via a B2-Spirit is cooler. (Not that it was the one delivering them) Or any plane/jet for that matter. Hell, a crop duster could toss one and it'd be cooler than an ICBM, just because you have the balls to be near it when it goes off.
- alamody, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1ahh this is what the "bury" button is used for.
- elevatedflow, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1i guess some people figure they will go about providing facts about situations the way dick and bush have during their time in office, by making sh*t up. I mean all of the comments are calling for facts if we are going to put down Cheney. Thats funny considering that is the one thing neither the president or vice pres have uttered when it was in regards to the war in Iraq.
- pixelpump, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1"The South Africans disarmed in 1991. But they diverted the nuclear weapons material to their peacetime nuclear programs. I fail to see why they would need or want us to take the weapons away from them."
Read the article, they were plutonium, not uranium nukes. Not good for reactors.
"If we were going to remove nuclear weapons or material and do it covertly, I hardly think we'd use a B-52 to do it. B-52s are rather noticeable. In contrast, a C-141 or C-130 would not have caught anyone's attention."
There was nothing covert about the operation.
"No reason is articulated as to why the "evil" Cheney and "evil" Bush I didn't move heaven and earth to recover these supposedly lost nuclear weapons. We get told, "they just sat on their hands." Why?"
Hmmm, I don't know... why haven't they arrested Osama Bin Laden?
"What the truth is that on February 4, 1991, a B-52 returning from a bombing mission in Iraq (Desert Storm did crash in that area. Three members of the crew came out alive (I guess they must have been part of the conspiracy too not to say anything)."
Yeah, because military personnel are always so forthright and descriptive of military operations during wartime...
- idonthack, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1Because a B-52 is designed to transport nuclear bombs, which is what they were doing.
And they weren't trying to be sneaky. - rpn700, on 10/12/2007, -0/+0Why would a B-52 be used to transport anything? "See, we're gonna be extra sneaky transporting these things out of SA so no one will notice. So we decided to bring in an 8 engined monster bomber aircraft that requires a massive landing/takeoff strip. That won't draw any extra attention."
- bigred, on 10/12/2007, -1/+1Stealth bombers and nuclear warheads being stolen by terrorists? It's been done:
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0115759/ - BrewCrew8, on 10/12/2007, -0/+0Leaked story line of the next Splinter Cell!?!?
Sweeet. - razrielle, on 10/12/2007, -1/+1Duh, because that would be wayyyyyyyyy to simple
- Rhine23, on 10/12/2007, -1/+1When I read the description I was like, wait this would make an awesome movie :O.
- victorguttmann, on 10/12/2007, -0/+0Vic Deakins: Would you mind not shooting at the thermonuclear weapons?
- RavenRux, on 01/14/2008, -0/+0Hey guys, I'd like to clear some things up.
I was on Diego Garcia that night and I worked on the B-52G. I remember that night as it was the longest night of my life.
First of all, it was the 3rd of February, not the 4th. I remember because my birthday is the 4th and the plane crashed the night before.
Second, the "official" report of the loss of nukes stated that SRAM (short range attack missles) were dumped in the sea. This is not possible because the B-52G cannot carry SRAMs. We did carry ALCM (air-launched cruise missles) but they were ALL CONVENTIONAL. There is no way that this could have happened.
Michael Badillo,
4300 Provisional Bomb Wing
Diego Garcia, British Indian Ocean Territory - digbird, on 10/12/2007, -0/+0I've got a newsflash for you. Plutonium can be used for peacetime reactors. That's what the Russians --at least at one time-- planned to do with the plutonium from their decommissioned weapons.
If there was nothing covert about the supposed operation, why didn't the story get huge play in the media? Don't you think the media would have taken a teensy bit of interest in the loss of several nuclear weapons?
I love the statement about Bin Laden. Talk about non-sequiturs. Even so, you know why Bin Laden's still free? Because he's hiding in a part of the world where we have little if no presence in. And don't forget the fact that Eric Rudolph (the Olympic Park bomber) was able to elude capture for years inside the US. The fact that Bin Laden hasn't been caught is not some proof of perfidy on the part of Bush and Cheney.
Finally, I love the crack about the military being liars. All of these conspiracy theories have a common thread. For them to work, the US government has to be "evil." I wonder if you have ever even met someone who worked in the military. - inactive, on 10/12/2007, -0/+0"which had caught fire en route from Diego Garcia with three weapons of mass destruction being transported from South Africa after that nation began dismantling its nuclear weapons program." <
- inactive, on 10/12/2007, -1/+0 South Africa Built nukes? On top of that they built nukes that were deliverable via a weaponized package that could magically fit on a B52 bomber??? WTF??? Also...why in gods name would a B52 be transporting nukes? why not use a TRANSPORT plane???
- plana, on 10/12/2007, -2/+1Why were there 3 nukes on a bomber over the indian ocean? Was the war going that sour that were considering to drop 3 nukes in one run? Don't we have enough nukes in form of ICBM to do the job? I think the carelessness is the cause for concern. NO reason to have those nukes anywhere but on mainland US. Only nukes deployed should be on well maintained (read: they don't just spontaneously burst into flames) covert vehicles (stealth planes and subs). And guess what, US shouldn't be toting nukes around for exactly this reason.
- furryplanet, on 10/12/2007, -4/+2He sold them, then sunk in boat. duh!
- inactive, on 10/12/2007, -2/+0"which had caught fire en route from Diego Garcia with three weapons of mass destruction being transported from South Africa after that nation began dismantling its nuclear weapons program."
- kcuhpp, on 10/12/2007, -3/+0Cute, this story didn't even get to stay popular for 15 minutes.
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