{"id":212185,"date":"2020-08-19T07:22:29","date_gmt":"2020-08-19T07:22:29","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/?p=212185"},"modified":"2020-08-22T05:54:13","modified_gmt":"2020-08-22T05:54:13","slug":"texas-beirut-anti-disinfo","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/?p=212185","title":{"rendered":"TEXAS: Beirut Anti-Disinfo"},"content":{"rendered":"

Russell Bentley \u2013 Fort-Russ Aug 18, 2020<\/strong><\/h1>\n
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In these days of gaslighting, misinformation, disinformation and downright bullshit, the fevered postulations of some self-styled \u201cpundits\u201d about a secret weapon or mini-nuke being used in the Beirut blast are as irritating as they are inaccurate and improbable. That the US and or Israel are responsible for the detonation is indeed, highly likely, but yet to be proven, and not the point in question. But the irresponsible and absolutely unsubstantiated claims of a Hezbollah weapons depot, mini-nukes and secret weapons are not only preposterous, but provably false, and the otherwise respectable authors and news outlets that have published them have done themselves and their readers a real disservice. Allow me to set the record straight.<\/span><\/p>\n

Before I get into the facts of the explosion in Beirut, I\u2019d like to mention that I served three years as a\u00a012-B Combat Engineer<\/a><\/strong><\/span>, a demolition specialist, in the US Army, and I have been trained on, worked with, and detonated pretty much every non-nuclear explosive, including quite a bit of ammonium nitrate. I\u2019m not saying I am an expert, but I can assure you I know more about explosives than any of these armchair experts who have never even thrown a hand grenade. So, let\u2019s get to it.<\/span><\/p>\n

THE HEZBOLLAH \u201cWEAPONS DEPOT\u201d<\/u><\/strong><\/h2>\n

The first thing I notice about all these sensationalist, bogus and unfounded articles is that they all seem to take for granted that Hezbollah (HZB) actually had a weapons depot at the port. That\u2019s bullshit right off the bat. HZB DID NOT STORE WEAPONS OR AMMO AT THE PORT. HZB\u00a0certainly knew, as probably every secret service in the world did, that there was a ticking time bomb sitting there since 2013, and if they stored ANY weapons ANYWHERE near the port, they\u2019d be giving the zionist entity (ZE) a perfect excuse to destroy half of Beirut and blame it on HZB. Furthermore, they (HZB) couldn\u2019t have stored any kind of weapons there, even if they wanted to. The port is controlled by Hariri\u2019s\u00a0 \u201cFuture Movement\u201d political party, the true source of corruption in Lebanon, and the true enemies of HZB, and has been since before the Rhosus docked there in 2013. The port is in the affluent north of Beirut, HZB\u2019s political base is in the proletarian south. Hassan Nasrallah himself has said, \u201cNo weapons, no ammo, no rockets, HZB stored _nothing_ at the port\u201d. It makes sense, and there is NO reason to doubt his word.\u00a0 For HZB to store weapons at the port, under the control and observation of their main political rivals in Lebanon, next to a enormous explosives stockpile that could be detonated by an ostensibly \u201cjustified\u201d strike by Israel on HZB weapons, is as counter-intuitive and absolutely illogical and self-defeating, not to mention needless, as Assad gassing civilians in Ghouta or Russians poisoning the Skripals in the UK.\u00a0 It just doesn\u2019t make sense. So, HZB says they didn\u2019t store weapons there, there was zero reason for them to do so and myriad reasons not to, and they literally could not have, even if they had wanted to.<\/span><\/p>\n

SECRET WEAPONS AND MINI-NUKES<\/u><\/strong><\/h2>\n

Some authors have posited that the explosion was \u201ctoo powerful\u201d to be anything but a \u201cmini-nuke\u201d or some new \u201csecret weapon\u201d.\u00a0 First of all, this is baseless speculation on their part, and furthermore,\u00a0proves<\/em>\u00a0that they know nothing about explosives. Well, I do, so let me explain. First of all, the smallest \u201cmini-nuke\u201d is the M-388 \u201cDavy Crockett\u201d, a true \u201cmini-nuke\u201d with an explosive payload between 10 and 20 tons of TNT. The explosion in Beirut of 2,750 tons of ammonium nitrate was equal to about 1,800 tons of TNT. Explosives vary in their detonation speed, which is directly related to their explosive power. TNT is the standard explosive by which other explosives are compared.\u00a0\u00a0The Fat Man atomic bomb<\/strong><\/span>\u00a0<\/a>, dropped on Nagasaki 75 years ago this month, had an explosive power of\u00a0 21 Kilotons, which is the explosive equivalent of 21,000 tons of TNT.\u00a0 Ammonium nitrate is, in fact, a\u00a0low<\/em>\u00a0explosive, with a\u00a0detonation speed\u00a0<\/a><\/strong><\/span>2,700 meters per second, as compared to TNT\u2019s speed of\u00a0 6,900 m\/s.\u00a0 TNT is a\u00a0high<\/em>\u00a0explosive. There were 2,750 tons of AN stored at the Beirut Port. 2.75 kilotons of AN have the explosive power of between 1.2 and 1.8 kilotons of TNT.\u00a0 As you can see from the\u00a0blast calculator<\/a><\/strong><\/span>\u00a0below, a 1.8 kiloton explosion would in fact be quite similar to the destruction and damage actually caused by the Beirut Port blast, with heavy damage out to 0.22 Km, moderate damage out to about 1 Km. and lighter damage in an area of about 6.5 square kilometers.<\/span><\/p>\n

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So, in fact the damage is actually precisely what could be expected from a detonation of 2,750 tons of AN. And while AN is considered a stable explosive, it does NOT require fuel oil to be added to make it explosive, and it can be set off in a chain reaction with a relatively small amount of Semtex, TNT, C-4 or dynamite. In fact a small backpack with 20 pounds of high explosive, placed correctly, would certainly be enough to detonate the entire warehouse of AN, which was haphazardly stored in 2,750 one ton bags. As you can see, they were stored close together, touching, in fact, which would allow for sympathetic detonation. Once one went, they all would go. Instantly.<\/span><\/p>\n

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THE MUSHROOM CLOUD<\/u><\/strong><\/h2>\n

There have also been ridiculous claims that mushroom clouds \u201cprove\u201d the explosion was nuclear.\u00a0 The fact is, that\u00a0mushroom clouds<\/strong><\/span><\/a>\u00a0are commonly caused by conventional explosives in large amounts, (such as, say, 2,750 tons, and even much less) and even by volcanoes. So anyone who tells you the mushroom cloud is significant as an indication of a nuclear component has exactly zero credibility. ZERO. The reddish-brown color of the smoke is also consistent with large detonations of AN, and the white vapor clouds seen forming with the shock wave are also completely common in large explosions and are in no way indicative,\u00a0much less proof<\/em>, of a nuclear blast. Again, if anyone tries to tell you this is proof of a nuclear detonation, it only proves they don\u2019t know what they are talking about, at all.<\/span><\/p>\n

THE RADIATION \u201cSPIKE\u201d<\/u><\/strong><\/h2>\n

Of course, the most conclusive proof that the explosion was non-nuclear is the total lack of radiation increase. There was a fake news piece passed around about a \u201cstrong spike in radiation levels\u201d picked up in Sicily shortly after the blast. Apparently, the image being touted was actually a malfunction, since the \u201cspike\u201d actually occurred several hours before the blast itself. You can also see the monthly and annual radiation levels of the exact monitor\u00a0here<\/strong><\/span><\/a>, and note the \u201cspike\u201d is well within normal parameters, and in no way remarkable. Here is the fake reading \u2013<\/span><\/p>\n

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Looks pretty scary, until you look at the timestamp of the spike, 1:30 PM. The explosion in Beirut happened at 6:08 PM, and there is only one hour time zone difference between Italy and Beirut. Any competent or responsible journalist would have noted the timestamp and realized the data was irrelevant. Furthermore, Sicily is 1,200 miles from Beirut. So if a radiation \u201cspike\u201d had registered in Sicily, it would have also registered in Syria, Iran, Iraq, Egypt and even in southern Russia. If it did, none of the monitors in any of these places have seen fit to mention it.\u00a0 Which, if there was<\/em> evidence that an actual nuke had been used against a civilian target for the first time in 75 years, (which could have only been done by one of nine nations) you\u2019d think one of these monitoring nations would have had something to say about it. They didn\u2019t.\u00a0 No radiation, no nuclear detonation. Period.<\/span><\/p>\n

SHAVING THE MONK AND THE HITMAN\u2019S LOGIC\u00a0<\/u><\/strong><\/h2>\n

In the early 1300\u2019s, a philosopher and theologian named William of Occam developed the Law of parsimony, a principle of logic and problem solving later to be known as Occam\u2019s Razor.\u00a0 The law, in its essence, states that the simplest explanation for an event is usually the correct one, and that when presented with competing hypotheses about the same prediction, one should select the solution with the fewest assumptions.\u00a0 Likewise, a soldier or a hitman, faced with a life or death mission, will remember Murphy\u2019s Law and choose the method to accomplish the mission with the fewest possible things that can go wrong.<\/span><\/p>\n

The ammonium nitrate was a sitting duck, an easy target and a ticking time bomb. Personally, I have little doubt that the Zionist Entity, in connivance with neo-con elements in the US (and other fascist governments) were the culprits and the cause of the explosion, most likely along with Lebanese traitors. But the method by which they destroyed the Beirut Port and have attempted to bring Lebanon and above all The Resistance to its knees neither used nor required mini-nukes or new secret weapons. If a single competent, reliable and trusted operator could have detonated the AN with a small backpack full of untraceable conventional explosive, then why would the enemies of Lebanon even consider using F-16\u2019s and missiles, much less mini-nukes or secret weapons? The simplest way is the most reliable, the most deniable, the most effective and in fact, the most inexpensive. Israel and other enemy countries have at least hundreds of trained operators in Lebanon, with access to any weapon they might need. An F-16 costs about $15 million, and $8,000 per hour to operate. Why risk one of those, with or without a secret weapon or mini-nuke, when a dude with a backpack can bribe a port guard for a hundred bucks or so and leave an absolutely reliable and untraceable detonator that will do the job even better?<\/span><\/p>\n

The point of all this is don\u2019t fall for sensationalist bullshit. Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence. When someone gives you an incredible story, remember exactly what \u201cincredible\u201d means. Trust your gut, use your common sense. Don\u2019t fall to the temptation to be the first to share some secret revelation or amazing story or \u201cinside information\u201d that later turns out to be bullshit We\u2019ve all done it, and I have too, but it\u2019s pretty sheepish when you realize you got chumped. The bullshit artists are usually the first with the wild hypothesis that falls apart in a few days. Don\u2019t let them fool you. Truth and our own credibility are among our most valuable assets and our most important weapons. Don\u2019t buy no magic beans or trust the old hag in the gingerbread house. We\u2019ve got a lot of important work to do, and avoiding bullshit is job one. Understanding, discerning and sharing the truth. the objective truth, goes right along with it. As Bob Dylan wrote,\u00a0\u201cThere are many here among us who think that life is but a joke. But you and I, we\u2019ve been through that, and this is not our fate,\u00a0so let us not talk falsely now, the hour\u2019s getting late.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

Source <\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Claims of a Hezbollah weapons depot, mini-nukes and secret weapons are not only preposterous, they are demonstrably false. A former combat engineer explains<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":39262,"featured_media":211571,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_et_pb_use_builder":"","_et_pb_old_content":"","_et_gb_content_width":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[19,61,58],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-212185","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-Behind_The_News","category-Commentary","category-Current_Affairs"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/212185","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/39262"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=212185"}],"version-history":[{"count":6,"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/212185\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":212194,"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/212185\/revisions\/212194"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/211571"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=212185"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=212185"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=212185"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}