Thread by @drbairdonline

From 1983-2019 #MSM regularly referred to Oct 1983 US Marine barracks explosion in Beirut as "the largest NON-NUCLEAR explosion ever." A year ago MSM & so-called "alternative media" #SCAM hijacked that phrase for the Aug 2020 Beirut blast. But #WTF does it mean?
Thread
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A year ago so-called “fact checkers” WITHIN HOURS had definitively concluded the Aug 2020 Beirut blast was NOT nuclear rather caused by 2750 tons of ammonium nitrate. #MSM outlets promptly proclaimed “one of the largest NON-NUCLEAR blasts in history"
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twitter.com/i/events/12907…

After being repeated ad nauseam over the past year, on the one-year anniversary yesterday practically every #MSM & #SCAM outlet treated the idea that the Aug 2020 Beirut blast was "one of the largest NON-NUCLEAR blasts in history" as a TRUISM, albeit one that NEEDED repeating
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Before jumping into HOW & WHY the “one of the largest NON-NUCLEAR explosions in history” lie has been propagandized, let's explore how NONSENSICAL is the idea of claiming some NON-NUCLEAR explosion as “largest” (setting aside for the moment whether it was ACTUALLY non-nuclear)
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Although I would hate to trust Wikipedia on anything remotely controversial, they do have a pretty comprehensive article “Largest artificial non-nuclear explosions” that would seem relevant to finding "the largest NON-NUCLEAR explosions in history"
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en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Largest_a…

Unfortunately, when I tried to look up the Oct 1983 US Marine barracks bombing in Beirut in this Wikipedia article, to my surprise it is NOT EVEN MENTIONED despite almost 40 years of hype as "the largest NON-NUCLEAR explosion ever"!
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After some digging I found that Wikipedia has for some reason separated out another seemingly comprehensive "List of Mass Car Bombings" (presumably NON-NUCLEAR) from its list of "Largest Artificial Non-Nuclear Explosions"
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en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_m…

Curiously not included in either Wikipedia list is the total destruction of the WTC on 9/11 on which Benjamin Netanyahu infamously asserted two days later this was "a wake-up call from hell" b/c 9/11 was ONLY "a 350-ton CONVENTIONAL bomb" NOT the "NUCLEAR bomb" that's coming!
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Numerous pundits on 9/11 and after talked about Netanyahu's NON-NUCLEAR bomb b/c they had all read about how a fuel-filled jetliner could be turned into a fuel-air explosive #FAE to destroy the US Capitol in Tom Clancy's Debt of Honor!
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https://twitter.com/drbairdonline/status/1192046853518323712

Fox News' Jon Scott (the most prescient of network anchors on 9/11!) said after "collapse" of WTC1: "The Twin Towers, 110 stories, have both fallen after two hijacked jetliners were flown into them, FLYING BOMBS that brought those buildings down."
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Following Clancy, all FEMA & NIST had to do was provide "probable collapse sequences" to show why so-called "PROGRESSIVE COLLAPSE" of a 110-story skyscraper was practically inevitable once a jetliner with 10,000 gallons of jet fuel crashes into it
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https://twitter.com/drbairdonline/status/1192800989989888000

But many others believe would've taken LOT more energy than two fuel-filled jetliners to destroy Twin Towers & entire WTC complex. Prof François Roby writes would've taken THREE 50-100 kt TNT underground explosions just to explain "thermal footprints" & fires lasting 99 days!
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Leaving aside for the moment where we might place the destruction of the WTC on 9/11 in the rankings of "the largest NON-NUCLEAR explosions ever," we still face the problem of how we would rank any of the other explosions in the two Wikipedia lists.
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Wikipedia in "Largest artificial non-nuclear explosions" has 115 entries dating from 1585-2020 plus 20+ addtl entries for "some of the larger" "conventional explosives for nuclear testing" incl both "accidental & intentional" (but NO "car bombs") w/energy source quite varied
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Wikipedia in "List of mass car bombings" has 321 entries, some of which have multiple bombings, dating from 1920-2021. Unfortunately the only data included that might be used for ranking purposes is number of "deaths" but largest bombings have separate Wikipedia entries
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As to how to rank these 450+ explosions to determine which should be included in the "elite" list of "the largest NON-NUCLEAR explosions in history", Wikipedia admits that "an unambiguous ranking in order of severity is NOT POSSIBLE"!
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Historian Jay White in 1994 comparison of 130 major explosions highlighted five criteria:

1) number of casualties
2) force of blast
3) radius of devastation
4) quantity of explosive material
5) total value of property destroyed

but concluded rankings are difficult to assess
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For example, if we just go by the number of people killed by the explosion, the "greatest" NON-NUCLEAR explosion in history is hands down the Wanggongchang Explosion in Beijing in 1626 in which 20,000 people were killed.
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en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_a…

If we use Wikipedia's "List of disasters by cost" the 2020 Beirut blast far exceeds the "cost" of any other NON-NUCLEAR explosion (ignoring 9/11) at $10-15 billion (2021) with 2001 AZF fertilizer factory explosion in Toulouse distant 2nd at $4 billion
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en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_d…

For terrorist truck bombs, the greatest property damage was caused by the Bishopsgate explosion in the heart of the City of London on 24 April 1993 with insured property losses of $1.22 billion in 2016 dollars blamed on IRA truck bomb w/1 tonne ANFO
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propertycasualty360.com/2016/07/26/top…

However, if we rank explosions by property damage value it is completely RIDICULOUS to even speak about NON-NUCLEAR b/c the "greatest" NUCLEAR explosion in terms of value of property damage - #Hiroshima - wouldn't even make the list of the Top 20 most costly terrorist acts!
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The 1946 Municipal Handbook (1947) calculated total property damage at 763,430,000 yen ($186,000,000 in 2021) while Economic Stabilization Board 1949 report came up with only 695,000,000 yen ($20,450,000 in 2021)!
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pref.hiroshima.lg.jp/uploaded/attac…

For many, I think it is not total deaths or property damage value but the "radius of devastation" that makes Hiroshima the model for comparison by which to rank the "greatest" NON-NUCLEAR explosions, i.e, "the most Hiroshima-like explosions WITHOUT NUKES"
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Indeed, the decision to detonate Little Boy at height of 1850 feet was deliberately made by Oppenheimer et al in order to MAXIMIZE radius of destruction, to utterly destroy EVERYTHING within 1-mile radius of center of explosion (except certain reinforced concrete structures)
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What the Manhattan Project scientists imagined was something close to the 1917 Halifax explosion which was generally considered the greatest explosion in history at the time, the most Hiroshima-like NON-NUCLEAR explosion before those terms had any meaning
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Following Hiroshima, reporters attempted to put into perspective the atomic bomb with a reported explosive force equivalent to 20,000 tons of TNT by saying it was like seven Halifax explosion's rolled into one
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As recently as 1994 historian Jay White claimed 1917 Halifax explosion "remains unchallenged in overall magnitude as long as [the] five criteria [discussed above] are considered together" thus deserving title of the greatest NON-NUCLEAR explosion in history
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CORRECTION I had not read Jay White's article - published in a rather obscure collection no longer in print - when I tweeted that. But I just discovered this excerpt that shows his analysis ONLY applied to "the largest NON-NATURAL explosion PRIOR to the atom bomb" @Wikipedia
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The fact is that until the 1983 US Marine Beirut barracks explosion, there was NO discussion in the media of any kind of ranking or claims for "greatest" for any NON-NUCLEAR explosions
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In the aftermath of the April 1947 Texas City disaster caused by explosion of a ship's cargo containing ~2300 tons of ammonium nitrate, there were several reports of how the scene looked like Hiroshima after the atomic bomb from people who had seen both cities firsthand
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But in terms of the history of explosions, the 1947 Texas City disaster was relegated to a mere 2nd place in the category "the worst SHIP explosions in history", second to the 1917 Halifax disaster. Several articles listed other major explosions w/no attempt to rank them
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By the1980s Halifax & Texas City were all but forgotten except by locals. Indeed so forgotten were they that by late 1983 #MSM could start proclaiming an explosion that basically blew up this four-story building as "one of the largest non-nuclear explosions known to man"!
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It is certainly far easier to understand how the "one of the largest NON-NUCLEAR explosions known" language could more fittingly be applied to the Aug 2020 Beirut blast based on the precedent of 1917 Halifax & 1947 Texas City that all share comparable radius of destruction
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But I want to advance the reason for ad nauseam #MSM & #SCAM repetition of this "largest NON-NUCLEAR" language wrt the Aug 2020 Beirut blast has a lot more to do with HOW & WHY the same language originated & went unchallenged for nearly 40 years wrt the Oct 1983 Beirut blast
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I need to emphasize before launching into this analysis of NARRATIVE CONTROL that I do NOT want to play down the HORRORS of the destruction of the US Marine barracks in Beirut in Oct 1983. All anyone has to do to realize how horrific it was is look over these descriptions.
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But, as I have concluded in another thread, what destroyed the US Marine barracks in 1983 was NOT the largest NON-NUCLEAR explosion in history but rather the smallest NUCLEAR explosion in history, a 10-ton SADM shallowly buried in center of barracks
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https://twitter.com/drbairdonline/status/1303071696392314880

Furthermore, and perhaps even more controversially, I have laid the blame for this nuking of the US Marine barracks in Beirut in Oct 1983 NOT on Iran, Syria or some Hezbollah-like group but rather on Menachem Begin & Israel
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https://twitter.com/drbairdonline/status/1319657965805330433

For full explication of how I reached these conclusions, please check out my Sep 2020 thread. Here I want to focus on NARRATIVE CONTROL in 1983 Beirut aftermath to better understand HOW & WHY the same narrative is still playing out w/2020 Beirut blast
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https://twitter.com/drbairdonline/status/1301195770138210309

There are some major differences btwn 1983 & 2020 narratives. Whereas, 2020 Beirut was "crowned" greatest NON-NUCLEAR explosion on DAY ONE, the 1983 blast only built up to that title over a period of months & years beginning as a mere 1-ton explosion!
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https://twitter.com/drbairdonline/status/1301273904137170945

Perhaps b/c it became clear that NO 1-ton bomb could possibly have cause so much damage, with each subsequent "investigation" the size of the 1983 Beirut blast (& the terrorist truck!) kept getting bigger & bigger from Gen Paul X Kelley's 2 1/2-ton to FBI's 6-ton bomb
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When the FBI realized that even a dump truck filled to the max w/high explosives would still not account for the damage, they started floating the idea of how the "terrorists" rigged up a mysteriously monstrous "fuel-air explosive" surrounding the explosives w/gas cylinders
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The Dept of Defense Commission report made public on 29 Dec 1983 officially reported that the FBI had told them that the "gas-enhanced bomb" that destroyed the US Marine barracks in Beirut was even BIGGER, perhaps as big 9 tons TNT equivalent!
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The DOD report amazingly also told us "FBI forensic experts have stated that it was the largest non-nuclear blast that they have ever examined" & “The FBI Forensic Laboratory described the bomb as the largest conventional blast ever seen by the explosive experts community”!
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DOD rpt concluded barracks bombing was “a terrorist act sponsored by sovereign states [hinting Syria & Iran] or organized political entities for the purpose of defeating US objectives in Lebanon” & “state sponsored terrorism is an important part of the spectrum of warfare”
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BEFORE made public DOD rpt was delivered to Natl Sec Adviser McFarlane who got Def Sec Weinberger to put a hold on it until WH could figure out how to respond. Pres Reagan on Dec 27 in Q&A accepted DOD conclusion US & its military unable to stop "state-supported terrorism”
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Later on Dec 27 a "senior WH official"/“presidential aide”, requesting anonymity, flying w/Pres Reagan on Air Force One, leaked a summary of DOD rpt to the press. Among other things, he said the rpt called BLT blast “one of the largest non-nuclear explosions known to man"!
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As best I can determine this was FIRST TIME that media reported ANYONE claiming ANY EXPLOSION as anything like "one of the largest non-nuclear explosions". And I have concluded that the man who said it was Natl Security Advisor Robert "Bud" McFarlane.
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https://twitter.com/drbairdonline/status/1302974757067915264

McFarlane knew his "largest NON-NUCLEAR" comments would be spread all over US newspapers the DAY BEFORE DoD Report was released while whatever the DoD Report had to say would be buried & nobody would care that the DOD Report NEVER said any such thing
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https://twitter.com/drbairdonline/status/1302897025172733953

Media had also bought McFarlane's LIE that DoD Rpt concluded "The attack was state-supported terrorism. Its evidence might not stand up in a court of law but US has every reason to believe it was state-supported by Syria & Iran, based on 'virtually conclusive' intelligence."
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So what "game" was McFarlane playing with his "largest NON-NUCLEAR explosion" & "state-supported terrorism" LIES? As I've concluded, to understand McFarlane you have to figure he was among those in Reagan admin & US military who KNEW Israel had nuked the US Marine barracks.
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For the kind of evidence that would have led any "honest" DoD explosives expert or really any military man like McFarlane at all familiar with explosives & Middle East to suspect Israel had nuked the barracks, check out this thread, esp tweets #64-71
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https://twitter.com/drbairdonline/status/1303045319681175553

Besides the tremendous blast, other evidence suggested barracks had been nuked like numerous reports of a "mushroom cloud" over Beirut & statements like "Some things simply vaporized", some bodies never recovered & others "burned beyond recognition"
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https://twitter.com/drbairdonline/status/1303100847291686913

I also suspect that McFarlane et al either knew or highly suspected that Israel had developed 3rd-generation Minimum Residual Radiation nukes (aka "blast bombs") just as the US had done in the 1970s that would have been "perfect" for blowing up barracks w/little to no fallout
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McFarlane & DoD thus might have known or highly suspected that Israel had the capability to pull off the US Marine barracks bombing in Beirut using an underground "clean" SADM. They also knew Israeli army had been last to occupy the BLT before the Marines arrived in Sep 1982!
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McFarlane & DoD also knew it was complete BULLSHIT to claim even their max estimate of a 9-ton TNT equivalent bomb was “one of the largest non-nuclear explosions known to man" or even that it was "the largest conventional blast ever seen by the explosive experts community”!
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For starters what about the 1917 Halifax explosion that we have noted was widely reported as equivalent to 3,000 tons of TNT in the aftermath of Hiroshima, 333x times as powerful as the max 9-ton TNT equiv bomb DoD reported for 1983 Beirut!? One of the largest? Really?
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Comparison of ~110 pre-1984 explosions on Wikipedia's "Largest artificial non-nuclear explosions" is challenging b/c most don't list TNT equivalence but the descriptions of vast majority of the 85 explosions from WW1 on suggest they FAR exceeded 9 tons
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en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Largest_a…

There were 16 100+ ton conventional explosions for nuclear testing before 1984 going back to May 1945 & too many "smaller" explosions of at least 20 tons for Wikipedia to even give any details. Indeed 3 days after Oct 1983 Beirut blast there was 609-ton test at White Sands!
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So WHY would McFarlane & Reagan admin, DoD & FBI go along w/what would be an easily refutable LIE about the Oct 1983 Beirut blast being "one of the largest non-nuclear explosions"? Why didn't they just tell the American people & world the truth abt Israeli nuclear terrorism?
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Let's just say the Reagan admin didn't want to go to war w/Israel over 241 dead US servicemen in Oct 1983 anymore than the Johnson admin wanted to go war over 34 dead US sailors after the Israeli attack on #USSLiberty in June 1967
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Instead I conclude that instead it was Israel who used nuclear terrorism & nuclear extortion (i.e., threat of future of nuclear attacks) to force the Reagan admin into line in Israel's war on terror with a focus on state-sponsored terrorism that had been launched in 1979
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By making the bomb ever bigger & more elaborate, McFarlane, DOD & FBI were pushing the narrative away from original "simple" suicide truck bomber story to "state-sponsored terrorism" b/c surely only a "terrorist state" could have developed such a monstrous weapon
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By emphasizing these ever bigger & elaborate bombs were still NON-NUCLEAR, McFarlane et al were laying down an "official" story that would check prying minds that might start questioning whether Beirut was indeed nuked & avert attention from Israel's actual nuclear terrorism
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Aussie investigator Joe Vialls earlier exposed Israeli nuclear extortion racket in reporting on 2002 Bali blast (traced to Dimona “stealth” SADM) as “the ‘punishment’ meted out to Australians & others opposed to the Judeo-Christian Crusade agst Islam”
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web.archive.org/web/2003021022…

I believe Israel's nuclear extortion explains the dramatic pro-Israeli change in US policy after 23 Oct 1983 that Bud McFarlane was at the center of. Tensions began June 1981 when Israel used American F-16s to destroy Iraqi nuclear reactor leading Reagan to suspend F-16 sales
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There was increasing bad blood btwn Reagan admin & Israel over Israeli opposition to sale of AWACS aircraft to Saudi Arabia, Israeli invasion of Lebanon June 1982 & especially after the Sabra & Shatila massacre which utterly horrified Reagan. ("Oh, my God!")
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As ME envoy, McFarlane's attitude was no secret. Daily News reported McFarlane “has privately described Israeli actions over the past 13 months as a “litany of perfidy” – phony pretexts, broken promises, lengthy stalls – even unwarranted provocations of US forces in Beirut.”
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But Oct 25, two days after barracks bombing, McFarlane was reported as suggesting restoring 1981 U.S.-Israeli strategic cooperation agreement (suspended Dec 1981 following Israel’s annexation of Golan Heights) as part of an overall reassessment of US policy in the Middle East
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Oct 29, six days after bombing, Pres Reagan signed highly classified Natl Sec Decision Directive 111 on the Middle East, at request of Sec of State Shultz & Natl Sec Adv McFarlane, calling for "generally closer strategic cooperation w/Israel on Lebanon & elsewhere in the ME"
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Bernard Gwertzman @nytimes reported Natl Sec Decision Directive 111 on the Middle East passed after two weeks of debate within NSC but the US Marine barracks attack "provided the FINAL PUSH"
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fas.org/irp/offdocs/ns…
nytimes.com/1983/11/27/mag…

McFarlane et al finally accepted what Israelis long contended that no ME issue can be solved w/o
"a solid foundation of trust" btwn Israel & US based on giving Israelis "firmer sense of security" from constant threats & letting Arabs know US top priority was a strong Israel
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In addition, Pres Reagan "secretly decided to give the Israelis something they had long wanted: permission to use $60 million of U.S. military sales credits to develop portions of the Lavi fighter plane in the United States"
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2 Nov 1983 Lawrence Eagleburger, State Dept's Under Secy for Political Affairs, told new Israeli PM Yitzhak Shamir "We like Israel & want to establish the closest relationship. You & we have a long-standing special relationship. This is the time for defining it.''
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On the kind of cooperation US had in mind, State Dept officials list included joint military exercises, stockpiling US military equipment in Israel, better sharing intelligence data, joint planning possible military contingencies & use of Israeli ports to service US 6th Fleet
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In addition, Reagan in his Dec 27 Q&A enlisted the US in Israel's "war on terrorism", a pledge he repeated in his 1984 State of the Union. Thus, as a direct result of the Oct 23 attack, Israel got practically everything they had wanted from the US!
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Bud McFarlane's attempt to stir up animosity toward Syria & Iran accusing them of killing 241 US military men with "one of the largest non-nuclear explosions known to man" in the end was just #FalseFlag propaganda directing attention away from Israel’s “nuclear terrorism”
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Even if Israeli nuclear extortion forced Reagan admin into compliance w/Israel's "war on terror" in late 1983, that does not explain why the LUDICROUS "one of the largest NON-NUCLEAR explosions known" idea was regularly repeated & utterly unchallenged for nearly 40 years
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The LONGEVITY of the "largest non-nuclear explosions" LIE surely cannot be explained by the decision of one presidential admin, rather it raises the question of WHO CONTROLS the MEDIA & ACADEMIA, the chief institutions that are traditionally supposed to challenge govt lies?
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For example, was it CIA's "Operation Mockingbird" that explains why Washington Post in a Feb 1984 special report detailing how ME terrorists planned attack on US Marine Barracks stated it "ended with the blood and rubble of one the largest NON-NUCLEAR explosions in history"?
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Or was the "largest NON-NUCLEAR explosions" LIE more than just a few hundred well-placed CIA agents, but instead part of the complete "DISINFORMATION PROGRAM" that Reagan's CIA Director William Casey reportedly announced at Feb 1981 cabinet meeting?
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truthstreammedia.com/2015/01/13/cia…

However, far more than the CIA, it was Israel & its Zionist supporters as part of THEIR "war on terror" who had the greatest vested interest in maintaining #TheBigLie of the Oct 1983 Beirut blast as "one of the largest NON-NUCLEAR explosions known to man"
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#TheBigLie serves a much more important goal than simply to control history. Rather, as William Casey reportedly put it, the GOAL is to help create a world in which EVERYTHING you believe is FALSE, where the LIES told often enough become the TRUTH
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#TheBigLie creates taboos about what is "legitimate" to question, like the TABOO in so-called "alternative media" #SCAM agst questioning #Zionist control of the media OR any "terrorist attack" like Oct 1983 Beirut blast that seems to have Israel's fingerprints all over it.
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This #Zionist disinfo program was never more blatant & successful than on 9/11 as I have shown in this thread examining how the "9/11 script" manipulated us to accept the "official" story of a Bin Laden-directed, top-down “collapse” of the Twin Towers
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https://twitter.com/drbairdonline/status/1180929101294526465

In another thread I explored how Philip Zelikow et al laid out back in 1999 exactly how "catastrophic terrorism" was going to play out on 9/11 as coming right out of "the Hollywood and Tom Clancy repertory of nightmarish scenarios"
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https://twitter.com/drbairdonline/status/1185690758830903297

Scenarios like 9/11 show the more LUDICROUS the LIE the BETTER - like the idea that two jetliners could cause Twin Towers to "collapse" & destroy the rest of WTC. #SCAM would no more question ludicrous "official" lies about 9/11 than "official" lies abt 1983 Beirut blast.
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