Massive Explosion in Beirut Lebanon

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pcgeek11

Lifer
Jun 12, 2005
21,268
4,402
136
If you had ever worked in the petrochemical business you would have jumped to industrial accident.

Fire and smoke leading to big boom is generally an accident. Big boom only is likely a terrorist attack.

(Not definitive of course, just likely)


Well I have never worked in the petrochemical business as I'm sure most people haven't.

I initially didn't see the video of the initial fire in the other building only the explosion. Then again I would have never guessed that anyone would have that massive bomb stored in a facility in a port city. Maybe in some remote area, but never in a city. That's crazy.
 

eelw

Diamond Member
Dec 4, 1999
8,936
4,261
136
Please. Trump lies. His generals didn't tell him anything. He just planted the seed of a conspiracy theory. Maybe he can make it into a distraction from his incompetence.
I’m not sure. Kind of believe Trumpity Dumpity on this one. Mark Meadows was interviewed yesterday and confirmed there was an intelligence briefing on the matter. So the orange baby was indeed just repeating what he was told (ignoring the fact the responsible thing would have been to not say anything until confirmed) So probably more IC covering all the bases vs them just looking at the evidence to make a conclusion.
 

Muse

Lifer
Jul 11, 2001
37,402
8,038
136
Please. Trump lies. His generals didn't tell him anything. He just planted the seed of a conspiracy theory. Maybe he can make it into a distraction from his incompetence.
Who would want to have a conversation with that scatterbrain? Maybe he has mad cow disease from some fucked up hamburger he ate. He brags about what a genius he is because he's so insecure, and who wouldn't be if they were such a sociopath?
 
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Jhhnn

IN MEMORIAM
Nov 11, 1999
62,365
14,681
136
I’m not sure. Kind of believe Trumpity Dumpity on this one. Mark Meadows was interviewed yesterday and confirmed there was an intelligence briefing on the matter. So the orange baby was indeed just repeating what he was told (ignoring the fact the responsible thing would have been to not say anything until confirmed) So probably more IC covering all the bases vs them just looking at the evidence to make a conclusion.

"Could this have been terrorists?"

"Well, maybe."

"Terrorists! That's what the Generals told me!"
 
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pauldun170

Diamond Member
Sep 26, 2011
9,133
5,072
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If you had ever worked in the petrochemical business you would have jumped to industrial accident.

Fire and smoke leading to big boom is generally an accident. Big boom only is likely a terrorist attack.

(Not definitive of course, just likely)


As to why all this stuff was in warehouse at a dock and why they would have stuff like fireworks or cats or laser dildos or Wayne Brady bobble heads.....
It's a large warehouse at a port in small country with a GDP of "Mark Zuckerberg"

Edit: Doing a refresher on modern day Lebanon. Pretty damn interesting country.
 
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FaaR

Golden Member
Dec 28, 2007
1,056
412
136
You left out next to a fucking fireworks factory/storage facility!
That's the bit that is so damn cynical about this whole thing. You almost couldn't have deliberately engineered the circumstances to be worse than they actually were, with giant grain silos and fireworks right nextdoor to close to 3000 tons of a flammable and explosive compound sitting forgotten and ignored in a hot warehouse. Maybe if instead of fireworks the nextdoor factory had been making flame throwers and the room adjacent to the ammonium nitrate was used as a testing range for them, I dunno.

I would think that a lot of people would jump to that conclusion or at least that suspicion if they saw the explosion without any background information.
Yeah well, I think the takeaway here is to not jump to conclusions. Not that jumping to conclusions is somehow a defensible action, especially when you're the fucking presiderp of the united states, who has direct access to the biggest intel gathering apparatus on planet earth, and the area where the explosion occurred is already a volatile hotbed of mutual distrust, old grudges and outright hatred. It's fucking irresponsible, okay? Can we agree on that?

If you simply don't KNOW what happened, don't go with what your *ahem* gut tells you. (IE: prejudices, btw.) Instead, just don't say anything, alright? Say like, "we're still investigating the events that just occurred. No further comments for now."
 

Artorias

Platinum Member
Feb 8, 2014
2,106
1,380
136
Pure speculation on my part, perhaps it was stored at the port to allow a certain terrorist organization ease of access to bomb making material.

If I was a corrupt government I rather blame incompetence, than been seen assisting a terrorist organization with storage.
 

brycejones

Lifer
Oct 18, 2005
25,988
23,784
136
I would think that a lot of people would jump to that conclusion or at least that suspicion if they saw the explosion without any background information.

Who would suspect they would be stupid enough to store that much AN in a port warehouse for over 6 years. And next door to a warehouse full of fireworks.
Horse shit, from the earliest videos it was pretty obvious there was a fire already in progress and then something else exploded. Also the scale of the explosion is not something within the scope of the typical terrorist organization. Basically a few seconds of thinking and “it’s an attack” goes out the window as a likely cause.
 

interchange

Diamond Member
Oct 10, 1999
8,015
2,845
136
I’m not sure. Kind of believe Trumpity Dumpity on this one. Mark Meadows was interviewed yesterday and confirmed there was an intelligence briefing on the matter. So the orange baby was indeed just repeating what he was told (ignoring the fact the responsible thing would have been to not say anything until confirmed) So probably more IC covering all the bases vs them just looking at the evidence to make a conclusion.

Trump regularly reports things people are saying that in fact no one has said. The best-case scenario is that Trump recklessly shared very preliminary intelligence without the advise/consent of his national security team. But only Mark Meadows has come to the defense of the President on this, with others clearly stating they had no evidence it was an attack. I first found out about this with videos popping up on my YouTube feed without any explanation whatsoever. The first thing I thought was terrorist or military activity. It's perfectly natural to make that connection. But that's as far as that goes. I next went to a reputable news source to see what was known/suspected about the incident. Whether it's COVID will go away in April when the weather starts warming up or that there are millions of illegal voters putting on disguises and voting turnstyle-fashion, Trump clearly has no will to even look at verifiable facts after he's formed a narrative. And when the narrative no longer suits him, he picks a new one and completely denies that the prior narrative ever existed.

For the love of God stop assuming there are explanations for his choices which are more reasonable than the most obvious immediately self-serving option he is presented with or that his past actions and statements have any bearing whatsoever on whether he'll pivot to a totally different immediately self-serving option when it is presented. For the record, this is as much a self-directive as it is addressed to anyone in particular.
 

skyking

Lifer
Nov 21, 2001
21,959
4,683
146
yes, the sneaky 2000 ton Truck Bomb. WTF?
EDIT:
AS the the circumstances, people suck. Think of all the avoidable disasters where arrogance and lack of foresight were the main factors.
 

eelw

Diamond Member
Dec 4, 1999
8,936
4,261
136
For the love of God stop assuming there are explanations for his choices which are more reasonable than the most obvious immediately self-serving option he is presented with or that his past actions and statements have any bearing whatsoever on whether he'll pivot to a totally different immediately self-serving option when it is presented. For the record, this is as much a self-directive as it is addressed to anyone in particular.
Yeah everything he says and does is to promote and enrich himself. But it’s also pretty clear his staff isn’t giving him the full picture. They on purposely omit certain things that would enrage him. Even the story that he’s getting fake polls isn’t surprising.
 

sdifox

No Lifer
Sep 30, 2005
94,661
14,928
126
Pure speculation on my part, perhaps it was stored at the port to allow a certain terrorist organization ease of access to bomb making material.

If I was a corrupt government I rather blame incompetence, than been seen assisting a terrorist organization with storage.


Lol who would use ferterlizer when you can get real explosives? Just go pick up mines and Israeli cluster bomblets if you are really in a pinch.
 

hal2kilo

Lifer
Feb 24, 2009
23,326
10,230
136
As to why all this stuff was in warehouse at a dock and why they would have stuff like fireworks or cats or laser dildos or Wayne Brady bobble heads.....
It's a large warehouse at a port in small country with a GDP of "Mark Zuckerberg"

Edit: Doing a refresher on modern day Lebanon. Pretty damn interesting country.
Hell, first thing I thought of was MOSSAD wiped out a Hezbollah arms cache. Looks like just plain bureaucratic incompetence. We will see.
 
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FaaR

Golden Member
Dec 28, 2007
1,056
412
136
Lol who would use ferterlizer when you can get real explosives?
Well, because it's pretty easy to get hold of comparatively, for starters... Then just mix it with diesel oil (which is even more readily available) for an almost-instant high explosive that is very stable and safe compared to almost any other form of homegrown explosives.

Maybe not quite as powerful as some of the other stuff, but compared to having to collect and take apart live mines and bomblets I think I know which method I'd go with if I was a madcap bomber. lol You can easily just make your bomb a bit bigger if it really needs that extra kick. A van-load easily kills a large building as demonstrated in Oklahoma City in the 1990s so it's not as if fertilizer bombs lack power...
 

sdifox

No Lifer
Sep 30, 2005
94,661
14,928
126
Well, because it's pretty easy to get hold of comparatively, for starters... Then just mix it with diesel oil (which is even more readily available) for an almost-instant high explosive that is very stable and safe compared to almost any other form of homegrown explosives.

Maybe not quite as powerful as some of the other stuff, but compared to having to collect and take apart live mines and bomblets I think I know which method I'd go with if I was a madcap bomber. lol You can easily just make your bomb a bit bigger if it really needs that extra kick. A van-load easily kills a large building as demonstrated in Oklahoma City in the 1990s so it's not as if fertilizer bombs lack power...


It's Lebanon, they got plenty left over from the civil war.
 

Stokely

Golden Member
Jun 5, 2017
1,518
1,902
136
It's one thing for a shlub at home to start jumping to conclusions, I too first thought "terrorist attack."

It would have been an irresponsible thing for me, a random person, to go shouting in Wal-mart that it was a terrorist attack.

Up a few notches from there is the fucking President of the United States just spitballing, in public, that he thinks it was a terrorist attack. The standard response is "we are investigating, when we have more information we will inform the public." Trump, as usual, is substandard. We collectively voted for a person utterly unable to handle crisis, and as the covid "response" has shown, we lost the bet.
 

FaaR

Golden Member
Dec 28, 2007
1,056
412
136
It's Lebanon, they got plenty left over from the civil war.
Do they, though? The civil war ended thirty friggin years ago. It's not like with plutonium, which you can buy in every corner drugstore since 1985; this stuff is dangerous!
 
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HomerJS

Lifer
Feb 6, 2002
35,957
27,638
136
I would think that a lot of people would jump to that conclusion or at least that suspicion if they saw the explosion without any background information.

Who would suspect they would be stupid enough to store that much AN in a port warehouse for over 6 years. And next door to a warehouse full of fireworks.
Most responsible Presidents would have jumped to the conclusion...

"we don't know yet"

Until they do. The first clue is wasn't an attack is Trump said it was.
 

zinfamous

No Lifer
Jul 12, 2006
110,511
29,091
146
Please learn to to read. I didn't defend what Trump said or his reasons for saying it.

When I saw the explosion on the news with the sound off, my first thought was a terrorist attack. I didn't know where or what just the video of the explosion and that is what I thought. I'm sure that I'm not alone.


You conveniently ignored the actual important part where Trump publicly announced his dumbfuck brain oozing, as his role of president of the United States.

This isn't simply "what most people would assume first off." It's the President of the Fucking United States making public speculation about an accident, without any fucking assessment, that could actually lead to war.

Stop downplaying this. Recognize the significance of the difference here, and what was actually said. You aren't responding to what the poster actually said.

And yes, you are defending Trump explicitly by downplaying the significance of his role, and the things he says in his role. It's obvious. This is how adults talk in the real world.
 

Ichinisan

Lifer
Oct 9, 2002
28,298
1,234
136
Please. Trump lies. His generals didn't tell him anything. He just planted the seed of a conspiracy theory. Maybe he can make it into a distraction from his incompetence.
I don't assume some scheme. He's just a blathering idiot. That's dangerous enough as it is.