WMD, EMP, Dick Cheney and Three Genuine Heroes

I saw an interesting article on WorldNetDaily, which I won’t link to because WND is total crap. It’s interesting, not because it propagantastically claims that Iran is on the verge of detonating small nuclear weapons in our upper atmosphere, causing an electromagnetic pulse, or EMP, knocking out all electronics, communication, and power.

It’s interesting because of those six US nuclear cruise missiles that were "accidentally" loaded onto a B-52’s wings and shipped cross-country last week. (here’s the official Air Force statement, PDF).

The most plausible theories as to what happened all begin with the common (and probably correct) assertion that it’s impossible for someone to accidentally load nukes onto a B-52’s wing. Nuclear cruise missiles are stored very separately (as in separate, secure facilities) from conventional ones, so there’s no way to confuse one pile of arms with another. They’re colored differently as well. And there are just too many safeguards in place, not to mention it being strictly against Air Force policy for the last 40 years.

I mean, if it was that easy to have an accidental shipment, it would be just as easy for a few "lost" warheads to be loaded onto some guy’s truck, headed for the highest bidder. So the Air Force grunts who loaded these nukes had to have seemingly legitimate orders, and especially authorization codes, contrary to what the Air Force claims (they said nothing, btw, until 3 unnamed AF officers leaked the story to Army Times magazine).

Which brings us to the theories. Keep in mind, the immediate destination of those 6 nukes was an air-force base that also happens to be the staging site for our Middle-East ops. So theory one says someone high-up (e.g., Cheney) ordered these nukes to be "misplaced" in the Persian Gulf, where they might just be used on Iran in such a way as to give BushCo some plausible deniability, as in "all of our operational nukes are accounted for, so it wasn’t us."

These six were supposed to be decommissioned, after all (note: they’d go to a different base in that case). Still, it’s a simple matter of official paperwork to make them retroactively so. Sure, some will say, we can nuke Iran anytime Bush presses the button. We have submarines and whatnot. But there’s a paper trail in that, a proper chain of command, and a thousand military and elected officials who would scream bloody murder if we used nukes on Iran. Six lost nukes are much simpler to deny, keep quiet, or blame on some underling’s mistake if it ever came to that (see Iran/Contra).

Theory two, put forth by the Hal Turner types, is that the six nukes were meant to launch a "false flag" attack (like 911, they say) on US cities. However, if BushCo is really so evil as to nuke American cities and kill millions of citizens just to declare martial law and such, we’re sunk anyway. It’s not worth worrying about it, unless you can find a shred of evidence that this is true. There is no such evidence, nor is it really plausible to have such a massive conspiracy with no leaks.

However, theory three, which I believe I’m the only one to even suggest as remotely plausible (though still not any more likely), is a combination of the Hal Turner’s conspiracy and WorldNetDaily’s propaganda — that six "lost" nukes could, in fact, be detonated at a high enough altitude over the US that they knock out power and communications, at least temporarily, to much of the country without outright killing anyone (at least until we city folk run out of food and start eating each other — and we’re all Democrats anyway). If such an event was blamed on Iran, as WND (pro-Israel) would very much like, then that would also satisfy Hal Turner’s fears and at least be enough to get us into war with Iran. Such a disruption would also be enough to kick the Presidential Proclamations of unitary power into high gear, perhaps through next year’s elections. So you have to admit, if you believe 911 was an inside job, this little scenario works even better. All we need to hear is that some brother of Bush and/or the Saudis own companies that would repair the power and communication lines under government contract and we’ve covered all the bases. Did I mention the hubbub on Wall St. last week about a billion dollar stock option play that would only pay off in the case of a big economic shock before Sept 21 — just like in 2001, as it happens…

And if that’s not enough, theory four is even more bizarre. Some people have speculated that the timing of Steve Fossett’s missing plane is not coincidental, that it’s just a cover story to allow the Air Force to look for the sixth nuke that may have fallen off the B-52 in that very area. The theory goes that the whistle-blowers originally claimed only five missiles, but now say six. Yes, it’s a bit thin on substance, though the main reason B-52s don’t carry nukes like this is because of past accidents with crashed weapons. Still, the Air Force could more easily have done such a search of the area under the guise of an exercise. Plus, Steve Fossett’s "plane" is not something people would avoid if they stumbled across it. It would make the news, which is not what the Air Force would want if it were really a "broken arrow."

So I still think the first theory is the most likely — in fact is the only theory that is even remotely likely. Forces in our government would love to take out Iran’s nuclear program, much of which is hardened to conventional attack. So a few nuclear cruise missiles within a conventional attack would really help open things up (as in, the roof), and any stray radioactivity could be blamed on Iran’s uranium, not ours — at least as long as we can pretend we didn’t use any of our perfectly-accounted-for nukes.

So what happens now? I honestly don’t know. But I do know that Iran, just last week, finally got their oil exchanges switched off the dollar to the Euro and Yen, at least to a degree. That’s just what Saddam Hussein did before we invaded and occupied Iraq.

Oh, and we should note that the Air Force, in response to the unprecedented mishandling of those six nukes, has announced an equally unprecedented "stand-down" on Sept 14th to address the issue with an official report.

Actually, the best outcome would be that the Air Force will finally take a stand against Cheney’s rumored "parallel chain of command" and, assuming he ordered these nukes delivered as per theory one, finally force him out. If Cheney resigns due to health problems in the next two weeks, we’ll know for sure (and is it too much to ask for an actual treason prosecution if any of this is true?). Besides that potential upside, it may mean that the attack on Iran would be at least delayed, if not derailed. Therefore, chances are the three unidentified Air Force personnel who tipped off Army Times are the heroes of the decade.

The big question remaining for the Air Force, regardless of the theories, seems to be "did any other nukes get transported like these six?" If they did, then those need to be found, lest they go off here or there. Read more about it here, and cross your fingers.