Thread by @drbairdonline

1983 bombing of US Marine barracks in Beirut called repeatedly “the largest non-nuclear explosion ever" (or since WWII). This propaganda served many purposes, incl possibly providing cover for what was actually an Israeli “clean” micro-nuke that Joe Vialls ID'ed in 2002
Thread
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Although hardly "the largest non-nuclear explosion since WWII" or otherwise, the 1983 Beirut blast that killed 241 US military personnel was certainly the most powerful "terrorist" explosive device as of that date, based on the force of the explosion alone.
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The pile of rubble stretched as far as 70 meters from where the 4-story Battalion Landing Team (BLT) bldg had been & rose to height of at least 15 ft. At the pile's center was a massive crater initially reported as 30-40 ft wide & 20-40 ft deep in what was the BLT lobby floor.
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As the only "physical evidence" of the "truck bomb" that the USMC said caused the massive explosion, they provided this official photo of the crater where "the white arrow points to a crankcase, all that remained of the truck after it was detonated."
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marines.mil/Portals/1/Publ…

Actually what the USMC caption refers to as a "crankcase" is clearly NOT a crankcase (which houses the crankshaft) but rather a crankshaft with (as I count them) six connecting rods (without the pistons) meaning this is from a 6-cylinder engine.
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The USMC photo of the Marines looking at the crankshaft in the crater is undated, but we can probably assume this is the same "crankshaft" that Terry A. Anderson, chief Middle East correspondent for Associated Press, reported on the day after the blast.
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It's funny but I can't find anybody commenting at the time or later that high explosives CANNOT completely "disappear" a truck leaving ONLY the CRANKSHAFT! Both 1995 OKC (L) & 1996 Khobar Towers (R) bombings left crankshafts but also 100s if not 1000s of other truck pieces!
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The evidence that it was a "truck bomb" that blasted the BLT comes down to five Marine eyewitnesses who reported that abt 6:21 am they had seen a vehicle drive through the Marine compound & into the BLT lobby, followed almost immediately by a huge explosion.
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As to what the five had actually seen - wch the media often picked up 2nd or 3rd hand - there was initially no consensus. All agreed it was a "truck" but some accts added "pickup truck" or “Mercedes truck” or “2 ½ ton truck” or, simply, “truck bomb”.
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As to color, there was no agreement. The truck was initially reported alternately as "red" or "blue" or "yellow". A week later Marine spokesman Maj. Robert Jordan said it was a “grayish, tan, light-yellow vehicle” like those delivering fresh fruits & vegetables to markets.
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One thing that practically all early reporting on 1983 Beirut blast agreed on, echoing words of Marine spokesman Maj. Robert Jordan, was that the explosion was caused by detonation of "2,000 pounds"/"a ton" of "explosives"/"high explosives"/"TNT"
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cbsnews.com/video/from-the…

The only reporter who offered an independent estimate of the bomb's yield was Thomas Friedman @nytimes who reported "about 2,500 pounds of TNT" ("a Pentagon spokesman") & "roughly 2,600 pounds of TNT" (Yousef Bitar, Lebanese Army explosives expert)
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One wonders how Maj. Jordan & Friedman's informants -while the smoke was literally still clearing - could come up with a meager 2,000+ pounds of TNT for what would, by the end of 1983, be transformed into “the largest non-nuclear explosion ever"?
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dvidshub.net/video/302939/b…

One possibility is that Maj. Jordan et al were all assuming the BLT “truck bomb” would be similar to the “truck bomb” that the US State Dept had officially concluded had detonated 2,000 lbs of explosives to blow the front off of the US Embassy in Beirut six months earlier
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18 Apr 1983 Beirut US Embassy blast killed 63 people (incl 17 Americans) w/reports of “a flash & fireball” shooting up into the sky, shock waves breaking windows a mile away, cars blown apart & on fire, melted traffic light, bodies blown out into sea

15/abcnews.go.com/Archives/video…

Initial reports on US embassy blast from both Lebanese police & State Dept claimed a vehicle packed w/explosives had driven up to front of embassy where it exploded but lot of contradictory reports on kind of vehicle, most saying it was a car but this AP rpt says GMC pickup
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By early May 1983, An-Nahar newspaper reported Lebanese police, after rounding up nearly 100 people for questioning, had abandoned "truck bomb" theory for new theory that the blast was from 440 pounds of explosives hidden in the embassy's canned food consignment
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State Dept officials must have decided they didn't like where that was going b/c that's the last you hear about the Lebanese police investigation! Late June 1983 they told House panel the explosion was "set off by the kamikaze attack of a pickup, loaded with one ton of TNT"
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Late July 1983 British ITN aired a report that claimed State Dept "truck bomb" theory was incorrect, US embassy bombing was "inside job" carried out by 16 Islamic extremists employed in the bldg who placed 300-400 lbs of explosives near the staff cafeteria in the embassy
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US State Dept promptly ignored ITN report & the 2,000-lb suicide truck bomb that destroyed the US Embassy in Beirut on 18 Apr 1983 became set in stone, a benchmark by which the later US Marine barracks bombing six months later on 23 Oct 1983 would be measured
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If everybody originally thought the BLT explosion comparable to the embassy blast, it didn't take long for others to conclude the BLT blast had to have been much, much bigger, beginning with Gen. Paul X. Kelley, Commandant of the Marine Corps (pictured here on the left)
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After quick trip to Beirut on Oct 25, Gen. Kelley reported to Senate Armed Services Comm that actually "a five-ton Mercedes truck" (size of "a large dump truck") that drove into BLT lobby & Defense Intelligence Agency estimated it carried 5,000 lbs explosives, NOT 2,000 lbs
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But Gen Kelley/DIA's 5,000 lbs explosives would not stand long b/c even as he spoke "two FBI lab technicians" were over in Beirut & they would come up w/even greater explosive yield of 12,000 lbs TNT equiv, although as of Nov 10 they still hadn't determined actual explosive
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The FBI techs measured the "bomb" blew "a rectangular hole in the ground measuring 39 ft by 29 ft & drove a 7-in-thick reinforced concrete deck eight ft into the ground." Unfortunately the only photo of entire crater they provided looks more like bad "xerox art" than crater!
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The FBI techs further "BELIEVE the bomb was carried in a dump truck". Amazingly & w/o precedent the FBI NEVER reported any more precise vehicle ID for the BLT "truck bomb"! What about all the blast site debris they brought back to DC for analysis? What about that CRANKSHAFT?!
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8-9 Dec 1983 John W. Hicks from FBI Crime Lab, an "expert" in HAIR ANALYSIS(!) was only person from FBI to go before Investigations Subcmte of House Armed Services Cmte. Did they ask him abt FBI failure to find even a single "truck" piece? They certainly don't mention it!
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House subcommittee didn't interview the so-called "FBI explosive experts" who went to Beirut but heard from Hicks they conservatively estimated the “power” of the device in the truck at 12,000-lb TNT equiv, "six times" that of US embassy "car bomb"
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babel.hathitrust.org/cgi/pt?id=uc1.…

Hicks added "the device is believed to have been comprised of explosives placed around cylinders of gas." As to what that does - besides blowing up the cylinders - the "hair expert" explained "the gas-enhanced explosion had the effect of increasing the destructive power"
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As for how FBI came up w/such a "massive" truck bomb, the "hair expert" doesn't say but offers cryptically that a "simple explosion" from "an ordinary car bomb" could NOT have brought the BLT (w/its weight borne by reinforced-concrete pillars) crashing down.
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No subcmte member seemed to ask Hicks, "Well how abt 12000 lbs of TNT in the back of a 6-ton truck?" That much TNT would almost fit into this 5-ft mini-container. After all Gen. Kelley/DIA thought a "simple explosion" of only 5000 lbs explosives would have destroyed the BLT.
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Altho there's NO WAY placing gas cylinders inside/outside explosives will do more than create shrapnel (which FBI also didn't find in Beirut!), nevertheless here's origins of the "gas-enhanced" non-nuclear "superbomb" idea that will by end of 1983 make BLT blast LARGEST ever!
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But we should probably take whatever FBI crime lab said abt BLT bombing w/grain of salt. This is the same FBI crime lab that a REAL “explosives expert” - Dr. Frederic Whitehurst - accused of falsifying evidence from many cases inc 1993 WTC & 1995 OKC!

32/ archive.nytimes.com/www.nytimes.co…

As for FBI "hair expert" John W. Hicks, he's the one who demoted Dr Whitehurst to "trainee paint analyst" & then came under the gun himself when DNA tests proved many innocent people had been sent to prison based on his "junk hair science"
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washingtonpost.com/local/crime/re…

As for the “truck” part of the “truck bomb”, since FBI clueless, House subcmte delegation traveled to Beirut to interview the five eyewitnesses. Amazingly from the rather disparate views right after blast, two weeks later all witnesses had achieved a remarkable consensus!
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The witnesses agreed it was a Mercedes truck with a yellow stakebed. Two also said it look like a "six-by"(US military 6x6 medium-duty truck) (right). One mentioned "a gray, pugnose cab". That description seems to fit pretty closely the Mercedes 5-ton L 911 B (left).
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However, this consensus represents a quite different truck than news accts originally reported. No one earlier mentioned a stakebed let alone described it as yellow. The truck had never been described as "big" 5-ton, rather witnesses said 2 1/2-ton more like a Mercedes L 406.
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I believe the five Marine eyewitnesses were being pressured to support Gen. Kelley's 5-ton truck assertion. It is curious the House Subcmte sharply criticized Gen Kelley's Senate testimony saying he NEVER spoke to the eyewitnesses, but they do not criticize his 5-ton truck.
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Indeed an earlier House delegation that had visited Beirut Oct 28-30 (AFTER Gen Kelley's visit to Beirut but BEFORE he had reported the 5-ton truck to the Senate) had already concluded in its report "a Mercedes truck, approximately 5 tons in size"
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At same time as House Subcmte, the five-member "Long Commission" (after its chair Adm Robert Long but officially The DOD Commission on Beirut International Airport (BIA) Terrorist Act of 23 October 1983) appointed by Def Sec Casper Weinberger also investigating BLT bombing
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DOD rpt finished Dec 20 (just a day after House Subcmte rpt but not made public until Dec 29) accepts yellow Mercedes Benz stakebed truck but reports FBI assessment of possibly much bigger “gas-enhanced” bomb now est OVER 12,000 lbs & “perhaps six to NINE times" Embassy bomb
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But DOD rpt added some new details, e.g., there was an FBI report on Apr 1983 US Embassy bombing that had concluded BEFORE Oct 1983 BLT blast that "explosive-activated bottle bombs" were used (but Marines never informed!) & added new details on "the gas-enhancement process"
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DOD rpt also has STRANGE statements like "FBI forensic experts have stated that it was the largest non-nuclear blast that they have ever examined." Strange b/c I doubt seriously FBI had ever "examined" a NUCLEAR blast & I suspect precious few “non-nuclear” blasts!
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Later DOD rpt even asserts “The FBI Forensic Laboratory described the bomb as the largest conventional blast ever seen by the explosive experts community”! Utterly NONSENSICAL b/c “explosive experts” had “seen” MANY “conventional” blasts MUCH larger than 6 tons TNT equiv!
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DOD rpt also leaves ludicrous impression that 12,000-lb TNT equiv bomb would have had similar devastating impact even if it had detonated 330 ft from BLT! One wonders if the Long Comm was pushing a bigger bomb simply to exonerate the Marines from any blame for what happened!
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DOD rpt gives more precise details on the "oblong crater measuring 39' by 29' 6" and 8' 8" in depth" w/pure BS abt "tamping effect" of BLT – which was WIDE OPEN from top to bottom – due to “the confinement of the explosive force" & "resultant convergence of force vectors”!
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Interestingly the DOD rpt states that the last people to occupy the BLT before the Marines moved in Sept 1982 was actually the ISRAELI ARMY who used the building as a field hospital during their June 1982 invasion of Lebanon!
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