Not To Military-Bash…

Ken AshfordWar on Terrorism/TortureLeave a Comment

… but I don’t have a lot of confidence in our military sometimes.

First, there was the incident in late August when a B-52 flew over America accidentally carrying nuclear warheads in what has been described as "one of the worst known breaches of nuclear weapons handling procedures in decades."

"Yeah", you may say.  "But it’s not like those warheads could actually drop by mistake".

Oh, yeah?

Navy Mistakenly Drops Dummy Bomb In Virginia Beach

So, to sum it up, we’ve got planes flying over the U.S. carry nuclear warheads, and planes accidently dropping bombs on America.  Imagine those two SNAFUs joining forces.

RELATED:  And just a month after "the worst known breach of nculear weapons handling procedure", we learn this:

The Pentagon was reeling last night from the American military’s second major nuclear weapons blunder in a month.

Congress is demanding a full scale investigation and serious questions are being asked about the competence of the officers in charge of the world’s mightiest arsenal.

The latest outrage came as Commander Michael Portland, the officer in charge of the USS Hampton, the most advanced nuclear attack submarine in the world, was fired after it was discovered that he had neglected to make basic daily safety checks.

The Pentagon said that it had lost confidence in Commander Portland’s leadership after checks showed that he had failed to analyse the chemical and radiological properties of the submarine’s nuclear reactor for a month.

It is considered vital that the reactor’s condition be fully examined every day so that any malfunction can be caught early.

If something went wrong with the reactor it could lead to a devastating nuclear accident.

The USS Hampton, currently docked in San Diego, is armed with nuclear torpedoes, nuclear cruise missiles and a massive mine-laying arsenal.