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Was there a U.S. nuclear weapons accident at a Dutch air base?

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Re: Was there a U.S. nuclear weapons accident at a Dutch air base?

#81

Post by ceejayoz »

bell-cot wrote: post #78
zokier wrote: post #59

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> so that the toxicity of plutonium is roughly equivalent with that of nerve gas Is not exactly saying that it is not toxic. I tried looking for actually credible sources for toxicity, one Los Alamos publication claims: > For example, the LD50(30) for dogs after intravenous injection of plutonium is about 0.32 milligram per kilogram of tissue. Less than nerve gases, but still I'd classify as "quite toxic"

> ...after intravenous injection... Nerve agents are very readily absorbed through the skin. Metallic plutonium is not . The context here is (at worst) people poking around the outside of slightly-damaged nuclear warhead. Back in the day, I directly (metal-on-skin) handled lead totalling >1000X the human lethal dose... if administered via intravenous injection. No lethal effects were observed to occur.

Exactly. Don’t take a belt sander to it, or light it on fire, and you’re fine.

(Also, don't let it hang out with its friends.)

Re: Was there a U.S. nuclear weapons accident at a Dutch air base?

#82

Post by prawn »

MikeDelta wrote: post #6

Regarding secrecy: a few years ago secret information got out because soldiers used flash-card apps to learn it, and those cards were released/available publicly. https://www.bellingcat.com/news/2021/05/28/us-soldiers-expos...

Someone unearthed flash cards from the now head coach of the Boston Celtics, featuring quite frank scouting notes/assessments of various NBA players and teams.

Info: https://pdfhost.io/v/lMHgMiGTc_Joe_Mazzulla_scouting_notes_f...

Discussion: https://www.reddit.com/r/nba/comments/zn3149/joe_mazzulla_ha...

Re: Was there a U.S. nuclear weapons accident at a Dutch air base?

#83

Post by chipsa »

mistermann wrote: post #65
tremblane wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Trying to remember the specifics of the training we got when I was in the US Air Force on the rules concerning nukes. This is the gist of it: Above all: Don't lie. The default is "neither confirm nor deny". For example: somebody asks if there were nukes on the plane that just crashed? Can't say. Even if you know there weren't, you can neither confirm nor deny. You MAY deny if it would benefit safety. For example: som…

> Above all: Don't lie. > The default is "neither confirm nor deny". For example: somebody asks if there were nukes on the plane that just crashed? Can't say. Even if you know there weren't, you can neither confirm nor deny. "Can't say" is a lie (as it is physically possible to say). "I have been ordered to say 'Can't say', even though I actually do know the truth" would be not lying. Not that it matters because no o…

If someone was under a NDA, and you asked them about stuff covered by the NDA, and they answered "I can't say", most people would not call that a lie. "Can't say" implies that aren't allowed to say, not that they won't say, but are allowed to.

Re: Was there a U.S. nuclear weapons accident at a Dutch air base?

#84

Post by havblue »

whalesalad wrote: post #44
havblue wrote: post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The espionage act treats negligence with strict liability. So if you "could have" caused a leak, it's still treated like a leak.

Is your username an homage to the stealth fighter?

Yes

Re: Was there a U.S. nuclear weapons accident at a Dutch air base?

#85

Post by bpye »

gambiting wrote: post #52
WeylandYutani wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

(When Russia opened its archives in the 90s we learned were all the nukes in Europe were stored. It wasn't a secret to the KGB). Officially to this day this is all a Dutch state secret (can neither confirm nor deny bla bla bla). But there was an interview with ex prime minister Lubbers and he talked about the nukes. The poor man's mental faculties were already slipping. If anyone is wondering according to NATO plans…

That last part is literally in the article. If US President, UK Prime Minister and NATO Nuclear planning group all approve the strike, then the weapon is loaded on a Dutch F-16 and dropped by a Dutch pilot.

They had a linked article talking about a prior exercise [0] which includes the source for that procedure [1]:

> “If NATO was to conduct a nuclear mission in a conflict,” NATO says, “the B-61 [sic] weapons would be carried by certified Allied aircraft…However, a nuclear mission can only be undertaken after explicit political approval is given by NATO’s Nuclear Planning Group (NPG) and authorisation is received from the US President and UK Prime Minister.” It is unclear why the U.K. Prime Minister would have to authorize employment of U.S. nuclear weapons, and unless NATO territory had been attacked with nuclear weapons first, it seems unlikely that the 29 countries in the NPG would be able to agree to approve of employment of non-strategic nuclear weapons from bases in Europe.

It is interesting that use of the weapons would require authorisation by the UK PM. In WW2 mutual consent was required due to the Quebec Agreement [2], but that requirement was included in later treaties.

[0] - https://fas.org/blogs/security/2022/10/steadfast-noon-exerci...

[1] - https://www.nato.int/nato_static_fl2014/assets/pdf/2022/2/pd...

[2] - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quebec_Agreement

Re: Was there a U.S. nuclear weapons accident at a Dutch air base?

#86

Post by splistud »

mistermann wrote: post #77
Fnoord wrote: post #69

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Can't say is a so-called white lie, its why the more diplomatic cannot confirm or deny is preferred. OP refers to lying as saying A while its nowhere near the truth. For example, all that RU propaganda is an entire different league. UA have a nice way of summarizing: its complicated. Also a white lie. Both are show stoppers, they don't encourage further dialog.

> Can't say is a so-called white lie.... White lies are still lies. >... its why the more diplomatic cannot confirm or deny is preferred. This is an appealing story, but neither of us has a way of knowing the comprehensive truth of why our various public officials lie, in fact. A substantial amount of propaganda has been written that seems to have rendered us unable to realize this, but it is objectively true, for wh…

[dead]

Re: Was there a U.S. nuclear weapons accident at a Dutch air base?

#87

Post by splistud »

andyjohnson0 wrote: post #28
Overtonwindow wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

To be fair, it is the news media… Reporters take nuggets of information, plus buckets of speculation, and spin it into something that you will click on.

> To be fair, it is the news media… The article in on the website of the Federation of American Scientists. Quote from their About page: "The Federation of American Scientists is a nonprofit policy research and advocacy organization founded in 1945 to meet national security challenges with evidence-based, scientifically-driven, and nonpartisan policy, analysis, and research." Hardly the "news media" or clickbait.

This is an advocacy group. Doesn't even rise to the level of clickbait.

Re: Was there a U.S. nuclear weapons accident at a Dutch air base?

#88

Post by amatecha »

karaterobot wrote: post #54

50 comments in, there should be a top level comment pointing out that the answer is "no", as stated as an update in the first paragraph of the article. So, this is that. > Did the U.S. Air Force suffer a nuclear weapons accident at an airbase in Europe a few years back? [Update: After USAFE and LANL initially declined to comment on the picture, a Pentagon spokesperson later clarified that the image is not of an actua…

Article titles that consist of "yes/no" question should be legally obligated to include the answer. Though, the vast majority of the time, you can just assume the answer is "no" and keep scrolling, regardless.

Still, such open-ended questions, by their very raising, suggest something occurred that may not have, essentially contributing to misinformation and uncertainty. Without a person expending the time to go to the site and read the post's content, the uncertainty remains, and one may go on thinking "maybe" something happened, that didn't. Considering the article in question is published by "Federation of American Scientists", a group I'd expect to have a high standard of quality and factual precision, I'm surprised they permit such a lazy and irresponsible article title.

Actually, I clicked into the article so I can find out who the author is, so I can ask them to revise the article title. Whether they do or not, I figure I might as well contact them, since I already spent so long writing this comment :P

BTW, I saw this HN article hours ago and basically just spent all day thinking there was a US nuclear accident at a Dutch air base, because I saw the headline and didn't click through to the article at the time.

Re: Was there a U.S. nuclear weapons accident at a Dutch air base?

#89

Post by wkat4242 »

detrites wrote: post #36
bragadiru_mafia wrote: post #8

Ok and then the water supply and all the farms got contaminated and that’s why they are closing all the farms If you’re in NL can you buy a Geiger meter and take a really long cycle ride and validate the hypothesis?

There's an app for that: https://map.safecast.org/?y=52.34&x=4.91&z=7&l=0&m=0

This is very interesting, thanks!

The map is pretty much as I expected, mostly near zero values (dark blue) everywhere but elevated values where I'd have expected to find them:

https://map.safecast.org/?y=51.393&x=30.064&z=12&l=0&m=0

Re: Was there a U.S. nuclear weapons accident at a Dutch air base?

#90

Post by corbulo »

cronix wrote: post #70
karaterobot wrote: post #54

50 comments in, there should be a top level comment pointing out that the answer is "no", as stated as an update in the first paragraph of the article. So, this is that. > Did the U.S. Air Force suffer a nuclear weapons accident at an airbase in Europe a few years back? [Update: After USAFE and LANL initially declined to comment on the picture, a Pentagon spokesperson later clarified that the image is not of an actua…

I heard somewhere that if a headline has a question in it, the answer is basically always no.

Because if it were true they would lead with that. The only way to get you to read it is essentially make up bullshit and put a question mark at the end.
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