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The H-Bombs in Turkey

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Re: The H-Bombs in Turkey

#121

Post by DominikR »

lisivka wrote: post #113
DominikR wrote: post #89

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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...

"Other German firms sent 1,027 tons of precursors of mustard gas, sarin, tabun, and tear gasses in all. This work allowed Iraq to produce 150 tons of mustard agent and 60 tons of Tabun in 1983 and 1984 respectively, continuing throughout the decade. All told, 52% of Iraq's international chemical weapon equipment was of German origin. One of the contributions was a £14m chlorine plant known as "Falluja 2", built by Uhde Ltd, a UK subsidiary of a German company; the plant was given financial guarantees by the UK's Export Credits Guarantee Department despite official UK recognition of a "strong possibility" the plant would be used to make mustard gas."

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iraqi_chemical_weapons_program...

This looks implicating to me to a degree that there is no doubt in my mind that these governments supported the chemical weapons program of Iraq. I also read that there were actually German soldiers on the ground during the Iran-Iraq war that helped the Iraqis use the chemical weapons correctly, although there is no proof for that other than a few people who testified. I at least believe this is possible.

But yes, they wanted Iraq to destroy Iran, when they saw that they couldn't do it they wanted the weapons gone.

Re: The H-Bombs in Turkey

#122

Post by dghughes »

theg5prank wrote: post #109
dghughes wrote: post #104

>the “dial-a-yield” of the B-61 bombs at Incirlik can be adjusted from 0.3 kilotons to as many as a hundred and seventy kilotons. Wow that's quite a range. I wonder if it's the hydrogen volume adjusted to determine the yield.

The fuel for the large majority of the fusion energy in a thermonuclear weapon is lithium deuteride, a solid. But here's some theories now how this works, one of which is changing the amount of tritium gas in the primary; but note that the primary (no pun intended) purpose of the tritium in the primary is to boost fission output through neutron release https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Variable_yield

I'm picturing an 8 position DIP switch on the side of the bomb and a bomb tech with a small flat blade screwdriver selecting ON ON ON ON OFF ON ON ON

lol

Re: The H-Bombs in Turkey

#123

Post by PopsiclePete »

rrggrr wrote: post #94
cm3 wrote: post #28

While Turkey has conflicts with some groups who want to grab part of the land or overthrow the government, they are FWIW a useful ally in the region because they have mostly-friendly dealings with UAE, Saudis, Iran, parts of Africa and also Israel. The degree of diplomacy varies, but there aren't many NATO members in that region who are as compatible when it comes to diplomatic ties with the region's powers. Russia,…

Turkey has not been a particularly useful US ally in the region in several decades and it won't be again, perhaps ever. The continued decline of US, Saudi and Russian influence in the Middle East is an irreversible trend, and Turkey is configuring itself to become a leader in the future of the region, both in cooperation and competition with Iran. I think its time for the US to depart Turkey, H-bombs and all, and sto…

Declining Russian, Saudi, and US influence in the Middle East? So who's influence is growing at the expense of all of those? Iran's?

Re: The H-Bombs in Turkey

#124

Post by dekhn »

fweespeech wrote: post #119
dekhn wrote: post #112

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

I must have misunderstood what you meant by "These are all US-based sources so I'm not sure what gave you that impression unless you only heard about it in the 60s/70s when it was embargoed/classified? "

Re: The H-Bombs in Turkey

#125

Post by dragonwriter »

PopsiclePete wrote: post #123
rrggrr wrote: post #94

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Turkey has not been a particularly useful US ally in the region in several decades and it won't be again, perhaps ever. The continued decline of US, Saudi and Russian influence in the Middle East is an irreversible trend, and Turkey is configuring itself to become a leader in the future of the region, both in cooperation and competition with Iran. I think its time for the US to depart Turkey, H-bombs and all, and sto…

Declining Russian, Saudi, and US influence in the Middle East? So who's influence is growing at the expense of all of those? Iran's?

The people living in each individual country?

Re: The H-Bombs in Turkey

#126

Post by fweespeech »

dekhn wrote: post #124
fweespeech wrote: post #119

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

I must have misunderstood what you meant by "These are all US-based sources so I'm not sure what gave you that impression unless you only heard about it in the 60s/70s when it was embargoed/classified? "

I made a mistake when writing a post quickly. I really should have just done a range (i.e. 1963-88).

Re: The H-Bombs in Turkey

#127

Post by dekhn »

fweespeech wrote: post #126
dekhn wrote: post #124

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I must have misunderstood what you meant by "These are all US-based sources so I'm not sure what gave you that impression unless you only heard about it in the 60s/70s when it was embargoed/classified? "

I made a mistake when writing a post quickly. I really should have just done a range (i.e. 1963-88).

No, what I mean was, I did most of my "history learning" about the Cuban Missle Crisis from my parents (my dad lived in florida at the time), and then in high school (just before the documents were declassified). I didn't really look back at the incident until fairly recently (IIRC while reading one of Rhodes's books about atomic weapons) and it was then that I learned about the Turkey missles. I don't think most people who heard about CMC are even aware (post declassification) that we had missles there. Knowing about those missles changed my opinion about the CMC a bit.

Re: The H-Bombs in Turkey

#128

Post by AnimalMuppet »

dom1n0 wrote: post #96
valarauca1 wrote: post #53

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>let alone the debate on whether or not the coup was staged I don't understand why you are being downvoted for this. A decent number of military analysist and Turkish civilians have come to this conclusion. -No government buildings were seized, only bridges and airports. -Normally within the first 30 minutes of a coup a Turkish Military General was on TV directly addressing civilians as to why this had taken place, a…

"Saying the Turkish military is incompetent is really damning to the whole of NATO." A determined invader could probably take Europe in 48 hours. The Cold War days of preparedness are gone; just witness the commitment of EU NATO members to ME conflicts; the lack of preparedness in Nice. The train has already begun derailing, one carriage at a time.

No way. Not even Russia, using all its military.

Now, if you had said one week...

Re: The H-Bombs in Turkey

#129

Post by serge2k »

> Although Incirlik probably has more nuclear weapons than any other nato base, it does not have any American or Turkish aircraft equipped to deliver them

What the hell is the point of that?

Re: The H-Bombs in Turkey

#130

Post by serge2k »

jacquesm wrote: post #14
showerst wrote: post #4

While still concerning, they really buried a key detail: "About two thousand U.S. military personnel remain stationed there."

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.

They can provide the necessary standard of security from random intruders, and hopefully act to disable the bombs rather than lose them if it comes to that.
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