i L i n d . n e t

I can’t help being bothered by the story of those six nuclear weapons that went missing for some 36 hours at the end of last month.

A Washington Post analysis published Sunday refers to the incident as the result of “misteps in the bunker“.

On the other end of the spectrum, here’s a rational sounding description of an alleged conspiracy from investigative writer Wayne Madsen which has been getting wide distribution over the past several days.

Then there are lots of blog musings accompanied by informed but contradictory reader comments at sites like “In from the cold“, written by a former military intelligence agent.

You can find lots of similar accounts doing a Google blog search (search terms something like “nuclear weapons louisiana iran”)

All this makes me very uncomfortable.

I don’t consider myself a conspiracy theorist. I consider myself a conspiracy realist.

Why? Because I read the official account of the Iran-Contra investigation, for example. In that case, a foreign war was waged via a network of private companies set up by U.S. intelligence agencies and intelligence officers of shadowy status known only to some within the government and operating on a “need to know” basis using funds siphoned out of the system through a variety of mechanisms and without Congressional authorization. The fact that it could go on for years before unraveling was a clear lesson in the potential scope of modern conspiracies.

Governments have a way of saying one thing publicly while often doing the exact opposite behind the scenes, with policies pursued by a faction without knowledge of other factions. It’s the way of the political world. Look at how we got into the mess in Iraq through a similar, do I use the word, “conspiracy”?

When reporters like Sy Hersh, who have long proven track records, have been warning about a secretly planned and organized attack on Iran, it’s hard to discount Madsen’s report.

So what do we do?

That’s a very tough question on a quiet Sunday morning, where the first hints of sunrise have yet to make their appearance and the only disruptive sound is Ms. Harriet crying out a request for her own special dish of cat food served on the front deck.