The H-Bombs in Turkey • Hacker News Board

Re: The H-Bombs in Turkey

#111

Post by dom1n0 » Mon, Jul 18, 2016, 6:42 PM UTC

jacquesm wrote: post #103

valarauca1 wrote: post #97

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> the lack of preparedness in Nice There is no way you can pin this on NATO unless you whole-heartly support a military police state.

And even then nobody would be able to stop a truck aimed into a crowd in time for it not to do any damage at all.

True to some extent, however. the police barriers were taken down hours before the attack, the numbers of police were also shown to be low; and last, but not least, they were not armed to deal with a credible threat.

Reports from SOF at Bataclan, for example, revealed that AK47-equipped terrorists forced the French SWAT teams to withdraw due to lack of firepower, and yet that lesson was not taken seriously to deal with attacks like the one at Nice.

Re: The H-Bombs in Turkey

#112

Post by dekhn » Mon, Jul 18, 2016, 6:54 PM UTC

fweespeech wrote: post #80

dekhn wrote: post #70

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't recall ever hearing that.

http://www.jfklibrary.org/JFK/JFK-in-History/Cuban-Missile-C... > No one was sure how Soviet leader Nikita Khrushchev would respond to the naval blockade and U.S. demands. But the leaders of both superpowers recognized the devastating possibility of a nuclear war and publicly agreed to a deal in which the Soviets would dismantle the weapon sites in exchange for a pledge from the United States not to invade Cuba. In a…

I don't recall any of my social studies books or any reading I did as a high school student in the 80s mentioning anything other than "we found missle sites being built in cuba and it led to a crisis".

Re: The H-Bombs in Turkey

#113

Post by lisivka » Mon, Jul 18, 2016, 7:10 PM UTC

DominikR wrote: post #89

lisivka wrote: post #84

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It is very sad that chemical weapon used by Iraq against Kurds is still not found. Moreover, it was used again year ago in Iraq against Kurds. PS. Moreover, large quantities of mustard agent were found in Syria in 2013.

Don't get me wrong, I oppose the kind of government that the Iranians have right now, but the chemical weapons supplied by the West were mainly used against the Iranians. And with a terrible outcome for the Iranians.

AFAIK, West governments (USA, West Germany) supplied only dual-use pesticides to Iraq, but then, after Iran-Iraq war with use of chemical weapons by Iraq, these dual-use chemicals were banned [1]. Do you know any other facts about supplying of dual-use chemicals or chemical weapons to Iraq by West?

1: http://www.iranchamber.com/history/articles/chemical_warfare...

Re: The H-Bombs in Turkey

#114

Post by beachstartup » Mon, Jul 18, 2016, 7:20 PM UTC

vonmoltke wrote: post #63

beachstartup wrote: post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

i think whether or not a plane can actually get to the target is pretty fair use of 'equipped to deliver'. new york times is not writing for a military audience, 'deliver' in lay person speak means getting it there , as in parcel delivery. i.e. if your truck can only hold 1 gallon of fuel it's not equipped to deliver the package to a destination 1000 miles away. whether you can put the package on the truck does not i…

> i think whether or not a plane can actually get to the target is pretty fair use of 'equipped to deliver'. So "the target" is always and forever Russia, and mainland Russia at that? No, the generic statement "equipped to deliver" cannot be interpreted with respect to a particular use case among many. It means "capable of loading the weapon and striking a target". > new york times is not writing for a military audie…

i think this level of pedantry is pretty unnecessary.

Re: The H-Bombs in Turkey

#115

Post by davidf18 » Mon, Jul 18, 2016, 7:29 PM UTC

jasonwatkinspdx wrote: post #83

jacquesm wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Turkey has the largest standing army in the region. 600K or so. Those 2000 troops wouldn't last long enough to get the weapons out.

The point of the troops isn't to be an invincible garrison that no army can conquer, it's just to act as a deterrent and trip wire. I don't believe there's any realistic scenario where the Turkish military would attempt to seize the bombs, but if they did do something so insane the garrison would force them into fighting and killing hundreds of NATO personnel and capturing the rest. That sets in motion an inevitable…

>> To put it so bluntly as to be distasteful: they're there to die.

Israeli F-15 and F-16 aircraft can reach the airbase in 15 mins. That is enough of a deterrent, I'm certain.

It's possible the US has some sort of pre-arranged agreement with Israel, and if not, Israel would certainly respond to a US request as they did to help protect Jordan from Syrian tanks in 1970.

Re: The H-Bombs in Turkey

#116

Post by sambe » Mon, Jul 18, 2016, 7:29 PM UTC

Is there no US response to their base being isolated and restricted like that? Or just no direct military response? They've effectively been taken hostage from the sound of this article.

Re: The H-Bombs in Turkey

#117

Post by jhayward » Mon, Jul 18, 2016, 7:33 PM UTC

valarauca1 wrote: post #3

ccozan wrote: post #2

Quote "...it does not have any American or Turkish aircraft equipped to deliver them. " What kind of aircraft would be that?

>it does not have any American or Turkish aircraft equipped to deliver them. This is a lie. B-61's mount on to any NATO MIL-STD-8591 hard point. Any F-15, F-18 can mount and fire B61's without any modification.

I have no direct knowledge, but I thought there was special command consent hardware required to arm the bomb. I'd be surprised if nuclear consent capability was standard on every plane.

Edit: After some googling I'm surprised to find that they do indeed all seem to have consent controls standard. Not sure what I think about that.

I read an Air Force safety standards memo[1] which seemed to confirm that the PAL codes are entered on the ground.

[1] http://static.e-publishing.af.mil/production/1/af_se/publica...

Re: The H-Bombs in Turkey

#118

Post by Eupolemos » Mon, Jul 18, 2016, 7:35 PM UTC

bjornsing wrote: post #93

dsfyu404ed wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think you're vastly underestimating 1st world intelligence capabilities. By the time anyone is brainstorming how exactly they want to take the base the big players in NATO already have guys sitting in jets idling on the taxiway, an aircraft carrier is taking a hard turn into the wind and an aide is popping popcorn and cracking a beer so Mr. Putin can enjoy the spectacle. When nukes are involved things get taken ver…

Really? Doesn't the following section from the OP directly contradict that view: "In 2010, peace activists climbed over a fence at the Kleine Brogel Airbase, in Belgium, cut through a second fence, entered a hardened shelter containing nuclear-weapon vaults, placed anti-nuclear stickers on the walls, wandered the base for an hour, and posted a video of the intrusion on YouTube. The video showed that the Belgian soldi…

I'm sure conditions are exactly the same in Turkey right now; who'd dream of taking guard-duty seriously there?

And yeah, I'm sure the western intelligence-agencies are as sure to plant moles in anti-nuclear movements as in the rapidly deteriorating Turkish military high command.

Sorry for the sarcasm, but c'mon.

Re: The H-Bombs in Turkey

#119

Post by fweespeech » Mon, Jul 18, 2016, 7:40 PM UTC

dekhn wrote: post #112

fweespeech wrote: post #80

Earlier quoted context omitted.

http://www.jfklibrary.org/JFK/JFK-in-History/Cuban-Missile-C... > No one was sure how Soviet leader Nikita Khrushchev would respond to the naval blockade and U.S. demands. But the leaders of both superpowers recognized the devastating possibility of a nuclear war and publicly agreed to a deal in which the Soviets would dismantle the weapon sites in exchange for a pledge from the United States not to invade Cuba. In a…

I don't recall any of my social studies books or any reading I did as a high school student in the 80s mentioning anything other than "we found missle sites being built in cuba and it led to a crisis".

Well, it wasn't declassified until 1988 so it wouldn't have been included in anything written before that year.

Re: The H-Bombs in Turkey

#120

Post by mikeash » Mon, Jul 18, 2016, 7:41 PM UTC

mturmon wrote: post #108

mikeash wrote: post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Really? I thought that Kennedy's secret agreement to trade the Jupiter missiles in Turkey for the Soviet missiles in Cuba was the standard ending to the story.

Hmm. I don't disagree, but -- it's "standard" only if you've been paying close attention. Because the original "standard" version ("encroaching communists") which I first read in Bobby Kennedy's everywhere-available book Thirteen Days was accepted for decades -- up through the 1980s IIRC. This article ( http://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2013/01/the-real... ) pegs the date where the old standard story was re…

Thanks for the historical perspective. I'm only 35, so I really only saw the "new story." Obviously the phrase "secret agreement" implies that it wasn't known right away, but I didn't realize it became known that recently.

Still, being out there for almost two decades, and being incorporated into the plot of a major movie about the crisis, it doesn't seem like it should still be described as "most people don't hear."