[38529977thrw]

"The outrage over the incident was intensified just a year later when the US media was tipped off to the existence of CHASE. The Cut Holes And Sink ‘Em program was the Army’s plan for discreetly disposing of dangerous surplus materials. It involved the scuttling of ships loaded with the deadly cargo up to 250 miles offshore. Unfortunately for the US Army’s PR department, some of the materials involved were mustard gas, Sarin, and VX. Apparently a good many people had serious misgivings about dumping dangerous chemicals into the ocean. These concerns were further reinforced by the fact that the Army itself wasn’t sure whether or not the metal and concrete slabs that housed the chemicals would survive the massive pressure during their 16,000 foot descent to the ocean floor."

I read that and the first thing that popped into my head was "the banality of evil".

[Zircom]

Right? Like imagine how many meetings they spent coming up with clever acronyms for their project to poison the ocean and then deciding on which to use.

[mistermann]

My intuitive response is always "the illusory nature of democracy", both for past and present news articles.

[RCitronsBroker]

same. Hard to shake that feeling once you know how the sausage is made, isn’t it?

[mistermann]

I'd love it if you'd have a go at the question I ask in this thread:

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=38547433

[patcon]

Wtf. Are these still down there???

[burkaman]

There's a lot down there, people have been dumping chemicals weapons in the ocean for at least a hundred years. Once it sinks you can't see it anymore so that means it's gone forever and you don't have to think about it.

https://nonproliferation.org/chemical-weapon-munitions-dumpe...

[defrost]

There are a lot of old munitions dumps in the ocean and they don't always "stay down there":

The WW2 bombs dumped off western Scotland washing up on beaches

    According to a letter sent by the MoD in June to researchers at the University of Liverpool, the MoD dispatched vast amounts of old weapons to Beaufort’s Dyke.

    The ministry dumped some 14,000 tons of 5-inch artillery rockets filled with poisonous phosgene gas in the trench between July and October 1945. Over the following three years, it consigned 135,000 tons of conventional munitions there, and every year “into the late 1950s” another 20,000 tons ended up in the dyke.

https://www.newscientist.com/article/mg14820042-200-the-ww2-...

[razakel]

There are old munitions dumps where nobody has any idea what was actually dumped.

[wil421]

There’s no solution like dilution. /s