"I cannot confirm or deny that there has been an accident" is the standard explanation heard from the US military and politicians. As shown in the recent documentary about the nuclear missile station accident in Damascus, Arkansas during 1980 we witness how our government and the local people handle nuclear weapons that are in our back yards.
The incompetence from the Strategic Air Command station in dealing with nuclear bomb accidents and the shifting of blame to men in the field was the acme of the reasons for what occurred in Damascus, AR. What most enlightening is the number thrown around of how many accidents have happened? Thousands...
The government has admitted to 32 broken arrows, or nuclear weapon accidents including the Damascus accident.
1980, another serious accident during the same week in 1980,
Schlosser said, when a bomber loaded with 12 hydrogen bombs caught on
fire at an air base in North Dakota
May 16, 2014, two years
ago at a Minuteman 3 missile site in Colorado, Schlosser said, that has
received little attention.
What we know about the Colorado accident “is very
similar to what happens in the film,” Schlosser said. “There were some
maintenance guys working on a Minuteman missile in the silo. They were
doing some diagnostic tests and something went wrong. They brought in
another team the next day and something really went wrong.” "The summary said the full report was classified on Nov. 9, 2015, by Gen.
Robin Rand, who took over as commander of Air Force Global Strike
Command in July 2015." from silo Juliet-07 (1 of 10 silos that straddles Co-Ne border). Under command by the 320th Missile Squadron and administered by the 90th Missile Wing at F.E. Warren Air Force Base in Wyoming, causing $1.8 million in damages
You might assume that a massively powerful nuclear warhead, which
Schlosser said was “three times more powerful than all the bombs used by
all the armies in the Second World War,” including the two atomic bombs
dropped on Japan, would have multiple and redundant safety features to
protect it from such a fluke event. You would be wrong.
Schlosser pointed out, “We don’t know if the warhead was armed, and we don’t
know how serious an accident it was. The Air Force by law is supposed to
release an accident investigation report, and they’ve refused to do
that in this case.”
Florida Today NEWS article (part of USA Today), Jan. 6, 2017, by James Dean Titusville man, Jeff Devlin, recalls Damascus nuclear missile accident
Greg Devlin and his Propellant Transfer
System teammates were told their participation was voluntary, but the
young Air Force airmen felt it was their duty to help.
“We’re
sitting there with this massive, monster missile leaking this extremely
hazardous fuel,” recalled Devlin of Titusville, then a 21-year-old
senior airman. “You realized the danger, but you’re thinking, let’s go
make something happen, let’s go fix this thing or let’s get out of
here.”
On top of the Titan II intercontinental
ballistic missile at Launch Complex 374-7 in Damascus, Arkansas, on
Sept. 18, 1980, was a nine-megaton thermonuclear warhead more powerful
than all the bombs dropped in World War II combined.
If
the missile collapsed and blew up, “what would happen to the warhead
was anybody’s guess,” the commander at the time of the 308th Strategic
Missile Wing at Little Rock Air Force Base says in “Command and
Control,” a documentary airing Tuesday on PBS that recounts the scary
accident.
Devlin
is featured in the American Experience film, based on the 2013 book of
the same title by Eric Schlosser, that warns of the risk of an
accidental detonation at home by nuclear weapons that the public no
longer worries much about.
He's one of at least
four Brevard County residents who played roles in the Damascus accident
that killed one airman and injured 21 more — Devlin among them — but
fortunately did not result in the worst-case scenario.
Titusville
residents Patrick "Buddy" Boylan and Rick Willinghurst also were on the
teams that handled hazardous propellants, and North Brevard resident
Matt Arnold helped recover the W-53 warhead, the most powerful weapon
the nation has ever developed.
“If you survived that night, you were lucky to be alive afterward,” said Devlin, now a 57-year-old grandfather.
A dropped tool set the crisis in motion.
Two
Propellant Transfer System technicians on an earlier shift, wearing
space suit-like protective gear, were attempting to connect a nitrogen
line to the Titan II to pressurize its upper-stage oxidizer tank, which
was showing low pressure that would have prevented it from launching.
It
was expected to be a simple, in-and-out job. But more than 11 hours
into their shift, senior airman Dave Powell, then 21, had forgotten to
bring a torque wrench into the underground silo.
He
instead tried to disconnect a cap with an available socket wrench,
which had been standard practice in prior years, but the wrench wasn’t
working properly.
The nine-pound socket fell off
the wrench, through a seal between the work platform and missile and
dropped — seemingly in slow motion — about 70 feet. The socket hit
the stand that held the Titan II upright and ricocheted into the base of
the missile, puncturing a hole that immediately began to spurt a cloud
of highly toxic fuel.
“As it was falling I was
thinking, ‘Oh, no. Oh, no. Oh, no,” Jeffrey Plumb, then a 19-year-old
airman in training, says in the film.
Launch
Complex 374-7, one of 54 Titan II missile sites spread across three
states, was evacuated as senior officials in Little Rock and at
Strategic Air Command’s Omaha headquarters tried to figure out what to
do.
Devlin remembers waiting and waiting for instructions.
Unbeknownst
to him, missile manufacturer Martin Marietta had recommended staying
away from the complex. But early on Sept. 19, Devlin and teammate Rex
Hukle were asked to enter the complex to get readings confirming the
concentration of fuel inside the silo.
He started the job with bolt cutters and a crowbar needed to get through a perimeter wire fence and a portal door.
“There’s
only two guys in history to break into a nuclear missile complex,” he
jokes now. “But that’s what we had to do, because there was no one in
the silo, no commanders to electronically open the gate to let you in.”
Devlin
and Hukle made it to a 6,000-pound blast door several stories
underground, where they would normally gain entry by providing top
secret codes that they immediately burned. But they were unable to open
the door with a hydraulic pump that they had never used and did not
install properly.
Their air packs permitted only
about a half-hour of work, so they returned above ground to the
perimeter about 100 feet from the silo and were replaced by teammates
Dave Livingston and Jeff Kennedy, who successfully opened a series of
blast doors.
In a room so thick with fuel vapor
that it threatened to melt his suit, Kennedy confirmed detectors showing
the concentration of fuel in the silo were maxed out and eight red
warning lights were illuminated.
The missile exploded shortly after Kennedy and Livingston emerged from the silo, around 3 a.m.
The
blast wave hit Devlin, still wearing protective gear on his legs, like a
Mack truck. He was doubled over and launched backward, sliding 60 feet
down an access road.
“I could see glowing steel and
concrete that looked like lava blowing past me at a high rate of
speed,” he said. “The only thing that went through my brain was, it’s
over. I know I’m going to die here. I hope it’s not painful.
Devlin heard a scream close to his ear: “Run! Run!” He saw no one, and attributes the urgent warning to a guardian angel.
After
he had run five steps, a chunk of concrete larger than a school
bus landed where he had been lying. As he ran, a rod of inch-thick steel
rebar shattered his left ankle, dropping him to the ground.
The
W-53 warhead landed in a ditch across the road, perhaps 50 feet from
Devlin. Separated from any power source, the warhead posed no risk,
officials determined after finding it later in the day.
Buddy
Boylan helped transport Devlin to a hospital on the bed of a truck,
fearing he wouldn't make it. In addition to the ankle injury, Devlin
required painful skin grafts to treat burns to his face, neck and back.
The film shows photos of the injuries from his personal album.
Most
people anywhere near the scene, including media gathered miles down the
road, fled, fearing a nuclear blast. Windows shattered in homes miles
away.
Livingston and Kennedy, presumed dead, were
at first left behind before being rescued. Livingston reached a hospital
but died within 12 hours. Kennedy died in 2011.
The
Damascus accident was widely reported but quickly forgotten. The Air
Force blamed the Propellant Transfer System technicians for having
used the wrong tool, and some of those who heroically risked their lives
to try to help prevent a disaster. Kennedy, who at one point broke
protocol to collect fuel readings on his own instead of with a partner,
was reprimanded.
Relegated to a cafeteria position,
Devlin suddenly felt unwelcome in the Air Force, where he had planned
to make a career. He was part of a group awarded the Airman's Medal for
Heroism, but left the service soon after. He and three others later won
small sums in a lawsuit against Martin Marietta.
The
Air Force initially would not confirm that the Titan II was armed with a
warhead. Official and some press accounts insisted the design of
nuclear weapons made a detonation that could have wiped out Arkansas and
blown a cloud of radiation eastward was impossible.
“Command and Control” suggests otherwise, arguing that the potential for an accident is systemic.
A
combination of careful design, hard work and luck prevented a nightmare
outcome in Damascus, and in hundreds of other accidents that went
unreported, even to the top officials at the Sandia Laboratory in New
Mexico.
“Nuclear weapons will always have a chance
of an accidental detonation,” Bob Peurifoy, then head of weapon
development at Sandia Laboratory, says in the documentary. “It will
happen. It may be tomorrow, or it may be a million years from now, but
it will happen.”
After the Air Force, Devlin found
work on life support teams at Kennedy Space Center, helping crews who
performed hazardous fueling operations and were among the first to meet a
space shuttle after landing.
He left for more than
a decade following the Challenger disaster but returned to the space
space center, ultimately leaving in 2010 as a 100 percent disabled
veteran. He suffers from a bad back that he traces to his injuries from
the missile explosion.
Devlin said he learned a lot
from Schlosser’s reporting on the Damascus accident and others he
hadn't known about, and is glad the story was told.
He
expects that most readers and viewers, whatever their opinions on
nuclear arms, will be surprised to learn that “we have nuclear weapons
around us all over the place, and that there’s a minute, a slight
possibility of one exploding.
“So the best thing
is, if we have lots of people talking about it, hopefully we’ll figure
this situation out,” he said. “Because while the risk of an explosion is
slim, the slim still exists.”
The United States of America is a great state bounded by theUS Constitution, ratified in 1790, checked and overseen by the balance between three divisions of the federal government and its people, one nation of people. One man or woman can not make it or break it, but a nation of people could if they ignore the foundation that the state is built upon. Do not ignore who is slated to be the head of our protection and military as commander in chief. Take the time to read what he was said and what others have researched about him. I endorse no candidate and unhappy with the available choices. Holding the codes to our nuclear weapons is a very crucial responsibility. Read about our many soldiers and citizens that were exposed to an over zealous individual. We need to understand and predict the President's decisions on this toxic serpent of nuclear weapons.
“Several months ago, a foreign policy expert went to advise Donald Trump,” Scarborough said. “And three times he asked about the use of nuclear weapons — three times he asked. At one point, ‘If we have them, why can’t we use them?’”
Trump was asked to offer his opinion on which leg of the nuclear
triad, decried by many as outdated, he believed was most crucial to
update. The Republican frontrunner did not appear to understand the
topic.
In his original answer, Trump said it was important to have a strong
leader with sound judgment during perilous times. He then trailed off to
talking about opposing the Iraq War and how important limiting nuclear
proliferation is. The response did not touch on Hewitt’s question, so he
asked again.
“I think for me nuclear – the power, the devastation is very important to me,” Trump said in his second attempt
Trump has suggested America use nuclear weapons to bomb Islamic State.
He has proposed that Japan and maybe even Saudi Arabia build their own
arsenals. And he may have weakened the deterrent effect of nuclear bombs
in Europe by suggesting a Trump administration would not come to the
aid of NATO members who owe the alliance money.
“It’s been shock therapy for the American public,” said
Joseph Cirincione, president of the Ploughshares Fund, which promotes
nuclear disarmament. “Up until last month, most Americans did not even
know a president could launch a nuclear war on their own authority.”
Regardless,
Trump has plunged into an issue presidential candidates gently
sidestepped for years. U.S. policy for when and how nuclear arms should
be deployed has been one of the rare points of bipartisan foreign policy
agreement. Yet it doesn’t fit neatly into Trump’s unique ideology,
which is driven by challenging existing orthodoxy on everything.
In
a phone interview, Brown vividly lays out a scenario Perry warns about
in which terrorists could smuggle a crude nuclear device into the center
of Washington and use it to wipe out the president, key Cabinet
members, most of Congress and tens of thousands of people..setting off
mass panic and descending the nation into chaos.
“The only way people talk about [nuclear weapons] is as if Trump
might get his hand on the button,” Brown said. “Whether he does or not,
we have these catastrophic dangers lurking out there. And leaders that
should be worrying about it are sleepwalking.”
Trump also suggested Clinton and others are wrong to outline their
national security policies, because doing so could help the nation's
enemies. "Maybe we shouldn't be so honest when it comes to military
strategy," he said.
But at a crowded rally Friday night in Pensacola, Trump said he'd
order an attack on Iranian boats if they harassed the U.S. Navy.
"This morning, Trump has a new idea. He wants to talk about the threat of nuclear war. He wants to talk about how the United States should negotiate with the Soviets.
He wants to be the negotiator.
He says he has never acted on his nuclear concern. But he says that his good friend Roy Cohn, the flamboyant Republican lawyer, has told him this interview is a perfect time to start.
"Some people have an ability to negotiate," he says. "It's an art you're basically born with. You either have it or you don't."
He would know what to ask the Russians for, he says. But he would rather not tip his hand publicly. "In the event anything happens with respect to me, I wouldn't want to make my opinions public," he says. "I'd rather keep those thoughts to myself or save them for whoever else is chosen...
"It's something that somebody should do that knows how to negotiate and not the kind of representatives that I have seen in the past."
He could learn about missiles, quickly, he says.
"It would take an hour-and-a-half to learn everything there is to learn about missiles... I think I know most of it anyway. You're talking about just getting updated on a situation... You know who really wants me to do this? Roy... I'd do it in a second." "
"Donald Trump with the power to destroy life on earth. At the heart of
the near hysterical (and mostly justified) Fear of Trump that escalates
as he approaches the Republican nomination is the Fear of Trump With the
Trigger. That explosive temperament combined with that explosive
capability.
But it has largely been forgotten that Trump is not new to nuclear
matters. He has been thinking about how he’d handle nuclear weapons and
nuclear proliferation for more than a quarter-century, at least since
1987, when he claimed to me that he was “dealing at a very high level”
with people in the White House (that would have been the Reagan White
House) on doomsday questions...
“He told me something a few years ago,” Trump recalls. “He told me, ‘You
don’t realize how simple nuclear technology is becoming.’ That’s scary.
He said it used to be that only a few brains in the world understood it
and now you have a situation where thousands and thousands of brains
can easily understand it, and it’s becoming easier, and someday it’ll be
like making a bomb in the basement of your house. And that’s a very
frightening statement coming from a man who’s totally versed in it...”
Still, Impatience, combativeness, impulsiveness—not exactly what you’re
hoping for when it comes to the guy in charge of the nuclear trigger.
The combo makes one uneasy."
-Would you be willing to have the U.S. be the first to use nuclear weapons in a confrontation with adversaries?
TRUMP:
An absolute last step. I think it’s the biggest, I personally think
it’s the biggest problem the world has, nuclear capability. I think it’s
the single biggest problem. When people talk global warming, I say the
global warming that we have to be careful of is the nuclear global
warming. Single biggest problem that the world has. Power of weaponry
today is beyond anything ever thought of, or even, you know, it’s
unthinkable, the power. You look at Hiroshima and you can multiply that
times many, many times, is what you have today. And to me, it’s the
single biggest, it’s the single biggest problem.
-Could
you give us a vision of whether or not you think that the United States
should regularly be using cyberweapons, perhaps, as an alternative to
nuclear? And if so, how would you either threaten or employ those?
TRUMP:
I don’t see it as an alternative to nuclear in terms of, in terms of
ultimate power. Look, in the perfect world everybody would agree that
nuclear would, you know, be so destructive, and this was always the
theory, or was certainly the theory of many. That the power is so
enormous that nobody would ever use them. But, as you know, we’re
dealing with people in the world today that would use them, O.K.?
Possibly numerous people that use them, and use them without hesitation
if they had them. And there’s nothing, there’s nothing as, there’s
nothing as meaningful or as powerful as that, and you know the problem
is, and it used to be, and you would hear this, David, and I would hear
it, and everybody would hear it, and — I’m not sure I believed it, ever.
I talk sometimes about my uncle from M.I.T., and he would tell me many
years ago when he was up at M.I.T. as a, he was a professor, he was a
great guy in many respects, but a very brilliant guy, and he would tell
me many years ago about the power of weapons someday, that the
destructive force of these weapons would be so massive, that it’s going
to be a scary world. And, you know, we have been under the impression
that, well we’ve been, I think it’s misguided somewhat, I’ve always felt
this but that nobody would ever use them because of the power. And the
first one to use them, I think that would be a very bad thing. And I
will tell you, I would very much not want to be the first one to use
them, that I can say.
-What they’ll say to you is that Russia is resurgent right now. They are
rebuilding their nuclear arsenal. They’re [unintelligible] Baltics.
We’ve got submarine runs, air runs. Things that have at least echoes of
the old Cold War. The view is that their mission is coming back. Do you
agree with that?
TRUMP:
I’ll tell you the problems I have with NATO. No. 1, we pay far too
much. We are spending — you know, in fact, they’re even making it so the
percentages are greater. NATO is unfair, economically, to us, to the
United States. Because it really helps them more so than the United
States, and we pay a disproportionate share. Now, I’m a person that —
you notice I talk about economics quite a bit, in these military
situations, because it is about economics, because we don’t have money
anymore because we’ve been taking care of so many people in so many
different forms that we don’t have money — and countries, and countries.
So NATO is something that at the time was excellent. Today, it has to
be changed. It has to be changed to include terror. It has to be changed
from the standpoint of cost because the United States bears far too
much of the cost of NATO. And one of the things that I hated seeing is
Ukraine. Now I’m all for Ukraine, I have friends that live in Ukraine,
but it didn’t seem to me, when the Ukrainian problem arose, you know,
not so long ago, and we were, and Russia was getting very
confrontational, it didn’t seem to me like anyone else cared other than
us. And we are the least affected by what happens with Ukraine because
we’re the farthest away. But even their neighbors didn’t seem to be
talking about it. And, you know, you look at Germany, you look at other
countries, and they didn’t seem to be very much involved. It was all
about us and Russia. And I wondered, why is it that countries that are
bordering the Ukraine and near the Ukraine – why is it that they’re not
more involved? Why is it that they are not more involved? Why is it
always the United States that gets right in the middle of things, with
something that – you know, it affects us, but not nearly as much as it
affects other countries. And then I say, and on top of everything else –
and I think you understand that, David – because, if you look back, and
if you study your reports and everybody else’s reports, how often do
you see other countries saying ‘We must stop, we must stop.” They don’t
do it! And, in fact, with the gas, you know, they wanted the oil, they
wanted other things from Russia, and they were just keeping their mouths
shut. And here the United States was going out and, you know, being
fairly tough on the Ukraine. And I said to myself, isn’t that
interesting? We’re fighting for the Ukraine, but nobody else is fighting
for the Ukraine other than the Ukraine itself, of course, and I said,
it doesn’t seem fair and it doesn’t seem logical.
SANGER: So
we talked a little this morning about Japan and South Korea, whether or
not they would move to an independent nuclear capability. Just last
week the United States removed from Japan, after a long negotiation,
many bombs worth, probably 40 or more bombs worth of plutonium or highly
enriched uranium that we provided them over the years. And that’s part
of a very bipartisan effort to keep them from going nuclear. So I was a
little surprised this morning when you said you would be open to them
having their own nuclear deterrent. Certainly if you pull back one of
the risks is that they would go nuclear.
TRUMP: You
know you’re more right except for the fact that you have North Korea
which is acting extremely aggressively, very close to Japan. And had you
not had that, I would have felt much, I would have felt differently.
You have North Korea, and we are very far away and we are protecting a
lot of different people and I don’t know that we are necessarily
equipped to protect them. And if we didn’t have the North Korea threat, I
think I’d feel a lot differently, David.
SANGER: But with the North Korea threat you think maybe Japan does need its own nuclear…
TRUMP: Well
I think maybe it’s not so bad to have Japan — if Japan had that nuclear
threat, I’m not sure that would be a bad thing for us...
SANGER: For that reason, they may well need their own and not be able to just depend on us…
TRUMP: I
really believe that’s true. Especially because of the threat of North
Korea. And they are very aggressive toward Japan. Well I mean look, he’s
aggressive toward everybody. Except for China and Iran.
See
we should use our economic power to have them disarm — now then it
becomes different, then it becomes purely economic, but then it becomes
different. China has great power over North Korea even though they don’t
necessarily say that. Now, Iran, we had a great opportunity during this
negotiation when we gave them the 150 billion and many other things.
Iran is the No. 1 trading partner of North Korea. Now we could have put
something in our agreement that they would have led the charge if we had
people with substance and with brainpower and with some negotiating
ability. But the No. 1 trading partner with North Korea is Iran. And we
did a deal with them, and we just did a deal with them, and we don’t
even mention North Korea in the deal. That was a great opportunity to
put another five pages in the deal, or less, and they do have a great
influence over North Korea. Same thing with China, China has great
influence over North Korea but they don’t say they do because they’re
tweaking us. I have this from Chinese. I have many Chinese friends, I
have people of vast wealth, some of the most important people in China
have purchased apartments from me for tens of millions of dollars and
frankly I know them very well. And I ask them about their relationship
to North Korea, these are top people. And they say we have tremendous
power over North Korea. I know they do. I think you know they do...
SANGER: But the other day, I’m sorry, this morning, you suggested to us you would only use nuclear weapons as a last resort.
TRUMP: Totally last resort.
SANGER: And what did Douglas MacArthur advocate?
TRUMP: I would hate, I would hate —
SANGER: General MacArthur wanted to go use them against the Chinese and the North Koreans, not as a last resort.
TRUMP: That’s right. He did. Yes, well you don’t know if he wanted to use them but he certainly said that at least.
SANGER: He certainly asked Harry Truman if he could.
TRUMP: Yeah,
well, O.K.. He certainly talked it and was he doing that to negotiate,
was he doing that to win? Perhaps. Perhaps. Was he doing that for what
reason? I mean, I think he played, he did play the nuclear card but he
didn’t use it, he played the nuclear card. He talked the nuclear card,
did he do that to win? Maybe, maybe, you know, maybe that’s what got him
victory. But in the meantime he didn’t use them. So, you know. So, we
need a different mind set. So you talked about torture before, well what
did it say — well I guess you had enough and I hope you’re going to
treat me fairly and if you’re not it’ll be forgotten in three or four
days and that’ll be the story. It is a crazy world out there, I’ve never
seen anything like it, the volume of press that I’m getting is just
crazy. It’s just absolutely crazy, but hopefully you’ll treat me fairly,
I do know my subject and I do know that our country cannot continue to
do what it’s doing. See, I know many people from China, I know many
people from other countries, I deal at a very high level with people
from various countries because I’ve become very international. I’m all
over the world with deals and people and they can’t believe what their
countries get away with. I can tell you people from China cannot believe
what their country’s, what their country’s getting away with. At let’s
say free trade, where, you know, it’s free there but it’s not free here.
In other words, we try sell — it’s very hard for us to do business in
China, it’s very easy for China to do business with us. Plus with us
there’s a tremendous tax that we pay when we go into China, where’s when
China sells to us there’s no tax. I mean, it’s a whole double standard,
it’s so crazy, and they cannot believe they get away with it, David.
They cannot believe they get away with it. They are shocked, and I’m
talking about people at the highest level, people at — the richest
people, people with great influence over, you know, together with the
leaders and they cannot believe it. Mexico can’t believe what they get
away with. When I talked about Mexico and I talked about they will build
a wall, when you look at the trade deficit we have with Mexico it’s
very easy, it’s a tiny fraction of what the cost of the wall is. The
wall is a tiny fraction of what the cost of the deficit is. When people
hear that they say “Oh now I get it.” They don’t get it. But Mexico will
pay for the wall. But they can’t believe what they get away with.
There’s such a double standard. With many countries. It’s almost, we do
well with almost nobody anymore and a lot of that is because of politics
as we know it, political hacks get appointed to negotiate with the
smartest people in China, when we negotiate deals with China, China is
putting the smartest people in all of China on that negotiation, we’re
not doing that. So anyway, I hope you guys are happy.
Michigan Rep. Tim Walberg asked Trump what his understanding is of Article I (which enumerates the powers of Congress). “I
think his response was, ‘I want to protect Article I, Article II,
Article XII,’ going down the list. There is no Article XII,” Rep. Mark
Sanford (R-S.C.)
Free speech? He will “open up the libel laws” to allow public
officials to sue the media, and use the Federal Communications
Commission to fine critics.
Private property? To Trump, eminent domain
is a “wonderful thing” and is not actually “taking property” because the
owner can move “two blocks away.” (don't forget about the discourse at homeowners around his Aberdeen, Scotland golf course)
Faithfully executing the law? His
harebrained scheme to make Mexico pay for the border wall ignores the
clear text of a statute and unilaterally prohibits foreign commerce.
Serving as commander in chief? Trump has already pledged that he would
violate international treaties and domestic law. The military “won’t
refuse” his illegal orders. “Believe me,” he promised.
Protecting our
national security? Trump has lauded FDR’s internment of Japanese
Americans, one of the darkest hours in the history of our Republic.
About the Supreme Court? Assuming he keeps his promise to appoint
conservative jurists — and that this promise is not merely a negotiating
tactic — Trump’s approach would likely mirror that of George W. Bush:
appoint justices who will defer to bold assertions of federal power.
Judicial minimalist, thy name is John Robert
Senator Rand Paul (R., Ky.) pointed out, “if you are going to
kill the families of terrorists, realize that there’s something called
the Geneva Convention we’re going to have to pull out of. It would defy
every norm that is America.” He’s right. Common Article 3 of the Geneva
Conventions — which the United States Senate ratified, and is part of
our “supreme law of the land”, mandates that people who are taking no
active part in the hostilities “shall in all circumstances be treated
humanely.” That means you can’t kill innocent family members.
Donald Trump thinks that tactical nuclear weapons may be worth using in the war against the Islamic State.
With Mark Halperin and John Heilemann of Bloomberg, the Republican presidential frontrunner refused to rule out using tactical nuclear weapons in the war against ISIS.
“I’m never going to rule anything out—I wouldn’t want to say. Even if
I wasn’t, I wouldn’t want to tell you that because at a minimum, I want
them to think maybe we would use them,” he said.
..leaving open the possibility of using tactical nuclear weapons against the Islamic State.
“I'm
never going to rule anything out—I wouldn't want to say. Even if I
wasn't, I wouldn't want to tell you that because at a minimum, I want
them to think maybe we would use them,” he said.
“We need
unpredictability,” Trump continued. “We don't know who these people are.
The fact is, we need unpredictability and when you ask a question like
that, it's a very sad thing to have to answer it because the enemy is
watching and I have a very good chance of winning and I frankly don't
want the enemy to know how I'm thinking. But with that being said, I
don't rule out anything.”
Yet Trump followed up his bellicose
rhetoric with positions unfamiliar from those of past Republican
standard-bearers, such as questioning America's involvement in the North
Atlantic Treaty Organization. “I think NATO may be obsolete. NATO was
set up a long time ago, many, many years ago. Things are different now,”
Trump said, adding, “We're paying too much. As to whether or not it's
obsolete, I won't make that determination.”
"I genuinely believe that if Trump wins and gets the nuclear
codes there is an excellent possibility it will lead to the end
of civilization," Tony Schwartz told Mayer.
Watch Trump on NBC talking about foreign affairs with NATO, IRAN, JAPAN
Watch the documentary of The Mad World of Donald Trump
Documentary by Selina ScottMeets Donald Trump, June 1995 ITV, censored by NBC (runs Trump's show, Apprentice). Who bought the video and all the extra footlage?
STROMBERG: Don’t good businessmen hedge against risks, not ignore them?
TRUMP:
Well I just think we have much bigger risks. I mean I think we have
militarily tremendous risks. I think we’re in tremendous peril. I think
our biggest form of climate change we should worry about is nuclear
weapons. The biggest risk to the world, to me – I know President Obama
thought it was climate change – to me the biggest risk is nuclear
weapons. That’s – that is climate change. That is a disaster, and we
don’t even know where the nuclear weapons are right now. We don’t know
who has them. We don’t know who’s trying to get them. The biggest risk
for this world and this country is nuclear weapons, the power of nuclear
weapons...
RYAN: You [MUFFLED] mentioned a few minutes earlier here that you
would knock ISIS. You’ve mentioned it many times. You’ve also mentioned
the risk of putting American troop in a danger area. If you could
substantially reduce the risk of harm to ground troops, would you use a
battlefield nuclear weapon to take out ISIS?
TRUMP: I don’t want
to use, I don’t want to start the process of nuclear. Remember the one
thing that everybody has said, I’m a counterpuncher. Rubio hit me. Bush
hit me. When I said low energy, he’s a low-energy individual, he hit me
first. I spent, by the way he spent 18 million dollars’ worth of
negative ads on me. That’s putting [MUFFLED]…
RYAN: This is about ISIS. You would not use a tactical nuclear weapon against ISIS?
TRUMP: I’ll tell you one thing, this is a very
good looking group of people here. Could I just go around so I know who
the hell I’m talking to?
LostTycoon by Harry Hurt III, referenced rape and ripping out the hair of Ivana Trump, his first wife, and reading Hilter's book, and Harry overhearing Fred Trump Sr to his longtime secretary/mistress 'hoping that it crashes' refering to Donald's plane
TrumpNaton by Timothy O'Brien who was sued by Trump when he wrote that he was not a billionaire. O'Brien won the case and Trump had to release financial records proving likewise.
NeverEnoughby Michael D'Antonio, about Trump's childhood
Trump, Dealsand theDownfall, in 1991 by Wayne Barrett, said the only signature on contracts that mattered was Fred Trump Sr
TheTrumps by Gwenda Blair, three generation, wrote about his grandfather's business in the Klondikes, where sporting ladies” could “entertain” miners
Trump and Meand CharacterStudies, Encounters with the Curiously Obsessed by Mark Singer(of the New Yorker, Trump Solo 5-19-1997)visits from the "fear monster" and "little freak-out." "From there it was only a short leap to saving the planet. What if, say, a
troublemaker like Muammar Qaddafi got his hands on a nuclear arsenal?
Well, Trump declared, he stood ready to work with the leaders of the
then Soviet Union to coördinate a formula for coping with
Armageddon-minded lunatics.", DT wrote to the editor of NY Times
TrumpRevealed 8-23-2016, by Washington Post journalists, Marc Fisher and Michael Kranish
How the End Begins, the Road to a Nuclear World War III by Ron Rosenbaum, inserted interview with Donald Trump
Son in law, Jared Kushner, of the NY Observer and real estate owner, whose father was convicted felon Charles Kushner (found in Business Insider). Also found in Gothamist 3-30-2016, Jared Kushner Not Good, owns 50 pieces of property
Absolute authoritarianism without meaningful accountability. No tolerance for questions or critical inquiry.
No meaningful financial disclosure regarding budget or expenses, such as an independently audited financial statement.
Unreasonable fear about the outside world, such as impending catastrophe, evil conspiracies and persecutions.
Says no legitimate reason to leave, former followers are always wrong in leaving, negative or even evil.
Former members relate the same stories of abuse and reflect a similar pattern of grievances.
There are records, books, news articles, or broadcast reports that document the abuses of the group/leader.
Followers feel they can never be "good enough".
Group/leader is always right. Claims to be the smartest, best at everything
Group/leader is the exclusive means
of knowing "truth" or receiving validation, no other process of
discovery is really acceptable or credible.
Recruiting styles and brainwashing: Love bombing by the leader and members, sleep deprivation, over work you, treat you like children, only the leader can save you, you must show immediate and unquestioning obedience to rules and regulations which maybe arbitrary, petty or pointless to ensure allegiance and obedience, they offer simple, clear messages in an increasingly complex world, opposition is evil and the worst
Seven Signs that You Are a Branch Trumpidianby Steve Berman 4-16-2016 Sign #1: You seek out friends who also love Trump and reject those who don’t
People
like friends who share their beliefs. That’s only natural. As you get
older, you make new friends, and lose some old friends. That’s natural
too. When there’s a pattern, where all your new friends believejust like you do in
the same doctrine, church, or group, and there’s no dissension at all,
that’s a sure sign of a cult. When those new friends start to pressure
you to drop your old friends, because they don’t believe, that’s a big,
red, flashing sign reading “warning: cult ahead!”
Sign #2: Nobody questions authority; your loyalty is required
Most
groups have some authority structure in the form of a leader or guiding
principles. Even anarchist groups have leaders—anonymous and hidden
though they may be. A group without a leader is a drinking club, but
still someone has to buy the booze and pour.
Sign #3: The source of authority is vested in a person.
Living
or dead, most cults have their genesis rooted in an individual, whose
special skills, revelation, or understanding have a unique, exclusive
quality and magnetism to which people are drawn.
Trump claimed in
an interview with the Washington Post that he can clear up American’s
$19 trillion debt in 8 years. The only source of this claim is Donald
Trump.
Sign #4: There is no independent evidence of that person’s authority
I
am declaring myself the world’s coconut bowling champion. Nobody is
better at coconut bowling than me. I know this to be true. That’s
because I just invented coconut bowling. I am making up the rules as
I’m writing this. If you have your own version of coconut bowling, it’s
not the authentic coconut bowling since I am the authoritative source of all knowledge for coconut bowling.
Of course, I’ve never tried coconut
bowling, and I’ve never written down the rules. Until I do, you have
no reason to trust my authority to determine who the champion is (it’s
me though). My point is that genuine authority cannot be claimed unless
it’s independently witnessed and testified to.
Trump says he’s a conservative, because he says so. But conservatives all over America (National Review devoted an entire issue to this) disagree with his statement. Thousands of Twitter and Facebook followers, many accounts which are in themselves suspect
or of unknown origin, support Trump. Suddenly, groups of people who
have never attended a single GOP meeting, never supported a single
candidate, never taken up a political cause, say they are true
conservatives, because they support Trump.
Sign #5: Doctrine must not be questioned
When you are
criticized for even questioning, that’s the sign of a cult. Knowledge
and learning thrive on questioning and challenging what is known and
what isn’t known. When what is known directly contradicts what’s being
taught, or just doesn’t line up with the group’s doctrine, it’s time to
ask questions and challenge doctrine.
Authentic groups welcome the challenge in any form.
This last sign is
fairly easy to understand. Going back to Zorg, if the only reference to
Zorg and Org and the Orgians came from me, you’d correctly count me
crazy. That’s because there’s no basis in reality for me to make this
claim. Only slightly more reality-based is a cult called Heaven’s Gate,
who you might remember suffered 39 suicides in 1997 when the promised
spaceship trailing the Hale-Bopp comet failed to beam them up.
