Some couch-potato “strategists” have posited that the explosion at the 4300 year old Beirut port was too powerful to be anything but a mini-nuclear bomb or some new secret weapon. This is yet another ab absurdo speculation that proves they are ignorant of explosives, and, consequently, of everything else, except shooting air.
The smallest mini nuclear device is the M-388 round “Davy Crockett”, a true mini-nuke, as the Yanks say, with an explosive payload between 10 and 20 tons of TNT. The 2,750 tons of ammonium nitrate explosion in Beirut 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. The “Fat Man” atomic bomb, says Yankee Doodle, dropped on Nagasaki 75 years ago, this month, had an explosive power of 21 Kilotons, which is the explosive equivalent of 21,000 tons of TNT.
Ammonium nitrate is, in fact, a low explosive, with a detonation speed 2,700 meters per second, as compared to TNT’s speed of 6,900 m/s. TNT is a high explosive. 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. As you can see from the blast calculator below, 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.
Indeed, the damage is precisely what could be expected from a detonation of 2,750 tons of AN. While AN is considered a stable explosive, it does NOT require added fuel oil in order 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 rucksack with 10 kilogrammes 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. They were stashed into one great lump, which would allow for sympathetic detonation. Once one exploded, they all would go off simultaneously and instantly.
THE MUSHROOM CLOUD
There have also been clownish claims that mushroom clouds indicate that the explosion was nuclear. As a matter of fact, mushroom clouds are commonly caused by conventional explosives in large amounts, (such as, say, 2,750 tons, and even much less) and even by volcanoes. The reddish-brown color of the smoke is also consistent with large detonations of AN; the white vapor clouds seen forming with the shock wave are consistent with large explosions as they are in no way indicative, much less proof, of a nuclear blast.
THE RADIATION SPIKE
Further, the most conclusive proof that the explosion was non-nuclear is the total lack of radiation increase, for this would have been registered in Palestine, Cyprus, Greece, Asia Minor, Syria, Iran, Iraq, Egypt and even in southern Russia. None of the monitors in any of these places has seen fit to mention any radiation. Which, if there was evidence that an actual atomic bomb had been used against a civilian target for the first time in 75 years, it would be assumed that one of the nine nuclear States would have had something to comment. The French, Brits, Russians and the Yanks were silent because there was no radiation and no nuclear detonation.
EASY TARGET
The ammonium nitrate was an easy target and a ticking time bomb. I have little doubt that the occupiers of Palestine, in definite connivance with the Russians and the USA were the criminals behind this tragedy, most surely with the participation of Lebanese traitors.
THE WORLD OF ECONOMIC STRATEGY
If a single competent, reliable, cheap and trusted agent could detonate the AN with a small backpack full of untraceable conventional explosive, why would the enemies of Lebanon even consider using F-16’s 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. The enemies of the Lebanon, Israel with their very close Russian and USA allies, have hundreds of trained agents in the country with access to any weapon they might need.
Use your head: an F-16 attack airplane costs tens of millions per piece, necessitates $8,000 per hour and a multi-million dollar highly educated and trained pilot to operate. Why risk so much, with or without a secret weapon or mini-nuke, when an agent with a rucksack can bribe a port guard and do the job cheaply and neatly!
THE JOKE’S ON THE HHIZB…
In the past, Sayyed Nasrallah of the Lebanese Hhisbullahi movement threatened the port of Hhaïfa, in occupied Palestine, with similar AN explosion. Unfortunately, a posse ad esse, it happened in Beirut! The real criminals in the Near East are the Russians and the USA without the help of whom the occupiers of Palestine would not be able to survive one single day. Sayyed Nasrallah ought to know better and reclaim a different strategy.
War is no game for the light-hearted and the puritan. Tis about killing in any way possible.