How I Stopped to Learn Worrying

A front page Washington Post article describes an event too stunning to let pass without comment:

Just after 9 a.m. on Aug. 29, a group of U.S. airmen entered a sod-covered bunker on North Dakota's Minot Air Force Base with orders to collect a set of unarmed cruise missiles bound for a weapons graveyard. They quickly pulled out a dozen cylinders, all of which appeared identical from a cursory glance, and hauled them along Bomber Boulevard to a waiting B-52 bomber.

The airmen attached the gray missiles to the plane's wings, six on each side. After eyeballing the missiles on the right side, a flight officer signed a manifest that listed a dozen unarmed AGM-129 missiles. The officer did not notice that the six on the left contained nuclear warheads, each with the destructive power of up to 10 Hiroshima bombs.

That detail would escape notice for an astounding 36 hours, during which the missiles were flown across the country to a Louisiana air base that had no idea nuclear warheads were coming. It was the first known flight by a nuclear-armed bomber over U.S. airspace, without special high-level authorization, in nearly 40 years.

You can read the full piece here. Or here, for that matter.

The event is almost a month old, so perhaps most of the fallout is over. Then again maybe not--in the Post's front page words yesterday, "a simple error in a missile storage room led to missteps at every turn." They make it sound like our missile handlers are asleep at the wheel at best, and a total clown show at worst.

Our government remains mired Iraq while increasing pressure on Iran. We are in constant dicker-status with North Korea, and professionally concerned about Russia's nuclear security--all because we maintain we are so freaking responsible that it is our duty to take care of the world in the nuclear age. Meanwhile, on the home front, we accidentally flew six nuclear warheads across the United States, and failed to notice for thirty six hours. The whole scenario is so disturbing I don't even know how to express my outrage.

What does that say about our country's ability to handle, well, anything?