For your Paranoia vs Incompetence Files

by Kieran Healy on March 25, 2008

U.S. says missile parts mistakenly sent to Taiwan:

bq. The U.S. Defense Department accidentally shipped ballistic missile components to Taiwan, the Pentagon said Tuesday. Four nose-cone fuses for intercontinental ballistic missiles were shipped instead of the helicopter batteries that Taiwan had requested, Air Force Secretary Michael Wynne said.

I suppose the line is that Part No. DSS234SG0-BNO02O235230C93-Z1 is really quite different from Part No. DSS234SG0-BNO020235230C93-Z1.

{ 1 trackback }

Urânio e papo empobrecido «
03.27.08 at 3:52 pm

{ 11 comments }

1

qb 03.25.08 at 7:56 pm

Dear China,

Ha ha, you wouldn’t believe what happened the other day…

2

Naadir Jeewa 03.25.08 at 9:51 pm

“This is the one thing we didn’t want to happen.”

3

P O'Neill 03.25.08 at 10:20 pm

I think it’s mostly the latter. Take the most arrogant branch of the US Military — the Air Force. Add an incompetent Commander-in-Chief, with loyalists stuffed at every level. Get “mistakes” like this one.

4

Ginger Yellow 03.26.08 at 12:26 am

“This is the one thing we didn’t want to happen.”

Wait, we shipped an eight year old boy with the warhead components?

5

sparrow 03.26.08 at 1:18 am

I wonder how long it took for clever engineers in Taiwan to reverse engineer those things.

6

abb1 03.26.08 at 9:04 am

What, nobody is gonna say it? OK, fine – at least they didn’t fire a nuclear missile at Taiwan by mistake.

As the old Soviet joke goes: and look what did, lieutenant Ivanov, look what you’ve done now! Taiwan – OK, hell with Taiwan, who cares; but being drunk on duty in a nuclear submarine? You can kiss that promotion goodbye, comrade.

7

Monte Davis 03.26.08 at 12:58 pm

Dear US,

No sweat, these things happen. BTW, those tankers of Chinese industrial solvents at Long Beach? We had a Vista glitch with the manifests, and there’s just a teensy possibility one of the tankers is full of VX and sarin instead. We’ll get back to you on this.

8

Paul Gowder 03.26.08 at 10:18 pm

HA! What if it was a Vista glitch? The headlines would be great:

“Windows Starts Nuclear War
‘Oops, sorry’ says Gates, from Microsoft bunker in undisclosed location.“

9

Jaybird 03.27.08 at 5:33 pm

It is things like this that I point out to people who argue to me that there is a massive conspiracy and the highest levels of the US government is involved.

“Dude. We can’t ship helicopter batteries without screwing it up. You want me to believe that Bush was behind 9/11?”

10

Righteous Bubba 03.27.08 at 5:35 pm

“Dude. We can’t ship helicopter batteries without screwing it up. You want me to believe that Bush was behind 9/11?”

The planes must have been intended to miss.

11

Monte Davis 03.28.08 at 12:28 pm

Not to worry, it turns out. The triggers were for a bomb design that hasn’t even been deployed for more than 40 years.

http://nfttu.blogspot.com/

So file it under “Paranoia and/or Incompetence to Be Worried About Only After More Current Paranoia and/or Incompetence”

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