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Beirut Port Explosion

forensic-architecture.org

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Re: Beirut Port Explosion

#111

Post by JxLS-cpgbe0 »

bredren wrote: post #26

In the past this kind of material would be collected and analyzed by state intelligence services. Combined by allies and used to gain leverage for individual or combined strategic priorities. Something like, “Here is how negligent you were. Install this person in power or we leak this and your people revolt and you won’t be able to walk away.” More recently, it seems, some news organizations have begun assembling rep…

> the advertising-funded third state

Did you mean Third Estate? Or a state-like entity governed by ad revenue?

Re: Beirut Port Explosion

#112

Post by fuoqi »

roywiggins wrote: post #42
bredren wrote: post #26

In the past this kind of material would be collected and analyzed by state intelligence services. Combined by allies and used to gain leverage for individual or combined strategic priorities. Something like, “Here is how negligent you were. Install this person in power or we leak this and your people revolt and you won’t be able to walk away.” More recently, it seems, some news organizations have begun assembling rep…

You'd probably be interested in the Bellingcat podcast about their investigation into MH17. https://www.bellingcat.com/resources/podcasts/2019/07/17/mh1...

Worth to keep in mind that Bellingcat is believed by many to be closely linked to MI6, so take their publications with a grain of salt.

Re: Beirut Port Explosion

#113

Post by louwrentius »

thdrdt wrote: post #35
louwrentius wrote: post #19

This was amazing to watch. Highly recommended. I do start to wonder if any of such materials are stored like this in one of our ports, such as Rotterdam, The Netherlands. I can't imagine such a mess to exist there. But The Netherlands remembers the Firework explosion in Enschede, from 2000. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Enschede_fireworks_disaster It's not nearly at the scale of Beirut, but it killed 23 people.

https://www.ad.nl/buitenland/moeten-wij-ons-in-nederland-zor... (Dutch) The storage and production is highly regulated. Every suspicious event must be communicated with the "Nationaal Coördinator Terrorismebestrijding" (coordinator counterterrorism).

Bedankt!

Re: Beirut Port Explosion

#114

Post by geofft »

merpnderp wrote: post #63
pjc50 wrote: post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

OSINT is certainly a thing, but there's a parallel development in shamelessness and polarization so that accurate reporting of the real history of events makes much less difference. Are there that many people whose support of the police will be shaken by the NYT report, or is the support of the police a matter of political affiliation that leads them to dismiss it as "biased"?

You've reduced this to only two possible positions: support the police or don't support them. How polarizing is that? What about supporting the need for police while also supporting a need for reforming the police? I doubt there are even many cops that would disagree with a need for reform to some degree. But creating two extreme positions, and then lumping everyone into those positions, is called politics and is con…

You're only seeing these for specific issues that have become polarized because normal organic growth/reform/development/etc. has been halted. If it were not for the insular and unaccountable behavior of police, we would not be in a position where "abolish them entirely" would have more-than-fringe support.

Ask someone what they think of something as "political" as the H-1B program, let alone, oh, federal cheese labeling standards, and you'll see a lot of people who say "There are good and bad parts, I think we should keep the good parts and reform the bad ones, and my opinion on which specific parts are good or bad can be influenced by quality journalism."

Re: Beirut Port Explosion

#115

Post by avh02 »

notrealpersonq wrote: post #69
netsharc wrote: post #58

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They also didn't investigate reports of John McClane (of the Die Hard movie fame) tossing a cigarette into the warehouse, backwards while walking away, a few minutes before the explosion... I'm unsatisfied that they didn't entertain my conspiracy theory! /s If you actually informed yourself properly about this explosion (instead of reading -- I'm going to assume -- conspiracy websites), why the whole thing was sittin…

I'm Lebanese myself and I did inform myself don't worry about me. I also talked to real people affected by the blast and claim they saw Jets as well. I would have loved it if the vid had tackled this and debunked it completely. I'm not claiming otherwise. There was definitely military/gov negligence and I even call kit suicidal levels of incompetence. However, they never talk about the original owners of the ammonium…

> claim they saw Jets as well

over central Beirut and not a single clear video of your phantom jet? come on.

Re: Beirut Port Explosion

#116

Post by notrealpersonq »

Eduard wrote: post #96
notrealpersonq wrote: post #75

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Are you for real? I swear you have to be trolling. There are several videos showing flying objects and several people reporting that jets were flying. Again, Israeli jets flying over Lebanon is a normal occurrence and could be absolutely nothing. I will say it again, there exists SEVERAL different videos that show this. This is why I expected them to at least mention this. Also the ammonium nitrate was not confiscate…

> There are several videos showing flying objects and several people reporting that jets were flying. [...] I will say it again, there exists SEVERAL different videos that show this. Where are these videos?

https://asiatimes.com/2020/08/planes-heard-seen-in-skies-of-...

Here's one article that talks about it. Again, there are plenty of doctored videos that are obviously fake but this article does not use them.

And people here seem to assume that me asking about it means that I believe that that it was an air strike. All I am saying is that I wished Forensic Architecture had tackled these subjects as well and debunked them since these are the actual controversial subjects regarding the blast.

Re: Beirut Port Explosion

#118

Post by gambler »

bredren wrote: post #26

In the past this kind of material would be collected and analyzed by state intelligence services. Combined by allies and used to gain leverage for individual or combined strategic priorities. Something like, “Here is how negligent you were. Install this person in power or we leak this and your people revolt and you won’t be able to walk away.” More recently, it seems, some news organizations have begun assembling rep…

> More recently, it seems, some news organizations have begun assembling reports using modeling and expert analysis.

This is hardly new and when it comes to news media it's hardly a good thing. It is incredibly easy to find biased experts and it's even easier to craft a false narrative using "modeling". Moving away from reporting directly observable events and interviewing people who observed them is a sign that modern media is exiting the business they are supposed to be engaged in. They're now (more than ever) firmly in the realm of opinion-shaping.

Re: Beirut Port Explosion

#120

Post by dredmorbius »

yyyk wrote: post #71

This investigation ignores a key question: How many kg of ammonium nitrate was actually in the warehouse. Surely that's extremely important to the models. They only mention an mtv news report mentioning the stated figure of 2750t. That figure comes from the ship's documents. Yet there are estimates that suggest the actual explosion is only equivalent to 1000-1500t[0], or 700-1000t[1]. If the actual amount of nitrate…

Getting all of an explosive charge to detonate (rather than simply oxidize or be distributed by an existing blast) is already a challenge in designed explosives. This was a bomb, yes, but a happenstance one spread nonuniformly over a large region of warehouse. It's not unlikely that a considerable portion of the ammonium nitrate was blown away by the first-to-detonate material.

Speculation, very much not my area. Informed by earlier reading however.

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