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US Presidential Nuclear Codes 'Lost For Months'

Posted by kdawson on from the dropping-the-football dept.

Martin Hellman writes "Former Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Gen. Hugh Shelton, has dropped a nuclear bombshell, metaphorically speaking. Shelton's recently released memoir Without Hesitation: The Odyssey of an American Warrior, asserts that an aide to President Clinton lost a card containing key phrases needed for ordering a nuclear strike, and that the codes were missing for months. This confirms a similar allegation, made in 2004 by Lt. Col. Robert Patterson, a military aide who frequently carried the 'nuclear football' during the Clinton presidency. Unfortunately, human error within the nuclear weapons complex is a frequent and dangerous occurrence."

6 of 322 comments (clear)

  1. So what the worst that could have happened? by damn_registrars · · Score: 0, Troll

    The codes were found by some idiot wannabe cowboy in Texas? Wait, the supreme court did exactly that in 2001, and we still survived.

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    Damn_registrars has no butt-hole. Damn_registrars has no use for a butt-hole.
    1. Re:So what the worst that could have happened? by Archangel+Michael · · Score: 0, Troll

      Sorry, while Bush is an idiot, he is starting to look brilliant compared to Obama. Quite an impressive feat if you ask me.

      --
      Agent K: A *person* is smart. People are dumb, stupid, panicky animals, and you know it.
  2. Good. by commodore64_love · · Score: 0, Troll

    I always thought it was foolish for the US to counterstrike, and extinct the human race.

    Obviously it was meant as a deterrent, but the wiser course if Russia attacked would be to say, "Oh damn," and do nothing. The eastern half of the world would fall to Communism, but Homo sapiens would still be alive. And no government lasts forever. Even if it took 500 years eventually the communist empire would bankrupt itself, collapse (as happened with Rome), and a new civilization would arise to fill the gap.

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    "I disapprove of what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it." - historian Evelyn Beatrice Hall
    1. Re:Good. by Raenex · · Score: 0, Troll

      Fuck that. By the way, that position is the one all the girls held in class when the college professor posed the question in my political science class.

  3. Re:awesome by geekoid · · Score: 0, Troll

    Yes, we should retaliate and put more 'radioactive' crap in the air.

    Next question.

    Chernobyl was MORE radioactive.

    Hiroshima wasn't nearly as bad as people thought it would be.

    That said, we should not tell another country what they can and can not build until it effects things outside their border.

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  4. Re:This is Clinton we're talking about by Archangel+Michael · · Score: 0, Troll

    You mean, he didn't bomb an aspirin factory to get a blowjob off the front page?

    --
    Agent K: A *person* is smart. People are dumb, stupid, panicky animals, and you know it.