The "Globemaster" brings us his nuclear bombs

by Manlio Dinucci

When it was the only hyper-power and the world revolved around it, the United States named their best transport planes the "Globemasters". Today they use them to plant nuclear bomb stockpiles around the world, in violation of the Non-Proliferation Treaty.

The United States - as announced last month - began shipping the new B61-12 nuclear bombs to Italy and other European countries in December. An official document from the US Air Force Department confirms this. It establishes "safety standards for operations of C-17 aircraft carrying B61-12 weapons in the U.S. European Command area of responsibility. This area, in the Pentagon’s geography, includes not only the European Union, but also the entire Russian Federation.

The document specifies which nuclear weapons are transported with the C-17 Globemasters, the largest US military transport aircraft. They bring from the United States to Europe the bombs they replace: the B61-3, B61-4 and B61-7. A single B61-12 has in fact four power options depending on the target to be hit. The C-17 Globemasters - the document further specifies - also carry other nuclear weapons: B61-11, W78 W80-1, B83-1, W87-0.

The safety standards listed in the document confirm the dangers inherent in the loading, transport and unloading operations of nuclear weapons. There can be "the probability of fire in an aircraft with nuclear weapons on board" and a failure of the aircraft while in flight forcing "an emergency landing" or "the release of a nuclear weapon".

The deployment on our national territory of the new US nuclear bombs - first strike weapons with precision guidance and anti-bunker capabilities, with which the F-35 fighter jets are mainly equipped - exposes Italy to the front line in the increasingly perilous confrontation between NATO and Russia. In doing so, Italy is violating the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty, ratified in 1975, which states: "Each non-nuclear state undertakes not to receive nuclear weapons from anyone, directly or indirectly".

The program ends with an interview with historian Franco Cardini on the silence of the Italian government and parliament and on the historical phase we are going through.