Your Once and Future Supreme Commander

[science_man_88]

Originally Posted by ewmayer

As to the latter, how would someone not within spitting distance of the bomb drops be able to distinguish between a chemical munition being dropped and a conventional bomb hitting a storage bunker containing whatever chemical it was? Also, if you are referring to ground-level reports from either the White Helmets or a local 'moderate rebel' faction, neither of those sources is even close to disinterested here. From the Scott Ritter link I posted a few posts ago:

my guess is rate or timing of dispersion except the case of an air burst the projectile has in theory landed before exploding and hence any gas in the air around it has dispersed whereas a projectile in air and not going through gas may have the same properties as that of passing through a chemical stockpile I guess. so the real question is how to differentiate an air blast version from it passing through it and dispersing it, that probably would come down to explosion timing etc.. of course, nobody makes them in theory under agreement so who knows.

[chalsall]

Originally Posted by ewmayer

As to the latter, how would someone not within spitting distance of the bomb drops be able to distinguish between a chemical munition being dropped and a conventional bomb hitting a storage bunker containing whatever chemical it was?

We're all arm-chair combatants here, but Sarin is hard to produce, and has a short shelf life.

Connect the dots.

[kladner]

Originally Posted by chalsall

We're all arm-chair combatants here, but Sarin is hard to produce, and has a short shelf life.

Connect the dots.

I am wavering, a bit, in my skepticism, but not a lot. I am doubtful of Turkish analysis of samples, patients, and corpses, which are claimed to prove that Sarin was involved. Erdoğan would love to see Assad fall. Then he could spend more of his time killing Kurds and repressing Turks.

[chappy]

Originally Posted by chalsall

We're all arm-chair combatants here, but Sarin is hard to produce, and has a short shelf life.

Connect the dots.

There are at least two ways to look at this. Sarin is easy to produce, there are a couple dozen paths from precursors to the final product and some weaponized versions do the final mixing while the shells are in flight. It's hard to handle the precursors. In other words, without a good lab you are more likely to kill yourself than someone else.

But, all around the internet you will see people saying that it's difficult to make. (it isn't) or that you would need huge amounts to cause the damage we are seeing (you don't the LD50 is .1mg/kg when inhaled. and large quantities are easy to produce by nation states. Iraq claimed to have 750 tons! of the stuff in the 80s.)

You are right however that it has a short shelf-life. And your point about it being hard to produce is true if you are talking about someone trying to produce it in a kitchen or in a war-zone. However, any semi-skilled chemist could produce it in sufficient quantities in a high school chemistry class, if they had access to the raw materials.

It would also be important to remember that even if you've made a sufficient quantity of the stuff--however much your heart and checkbook desire--you still have a product that is only good for spraying out of a bug sprayer, or, as a japanese cult might do, filling a trashbag with pressurized air and a little sarin and then poking holes in it with an umbrella. As long as you have a crowded subway to work with, you are in business.

Weaponized sarin (and other chemical weapons) requires the use of weapons that really aren't good for other kinds of killing. So they aren't in high demand. Why waste time and effort to try to kill a couple hundred people if you are lucky, when an AK-47 costs a couple dollars and Eastern Bloc ammunition is around 2 cents per round?

[chappy]

Originally Posted by kladner

I am wavering, a bit, in my skepticism, but not a lot. I am doubtful of Turkish analysis of samples, patients, and corpses, which are claimed to prove that Sarin was involved. Erdoğan would love to see Assad fall. Then he could spend more of his time killing Kurds and repressing Turks.

Erdoğan is the biggest obstacle for peace in the Middle East.

The YPG are the only good guys in the whole theater war. And we bumbling Americans and our idiot NATO allies go along with Turkey and label them as Terrorists. Meanwhile they've been destroying ISIS on the ground for years.

And it's both the Left and the Right who fall for this trap.

[Dr Sardonicus]

Originally Posted by ewmayer

As to the latter, how would someone not within spitting distance of the bomb drops be able to distinguish between a chemical munition being dropped and a conventional bomb hitting a storage bunker containing whatever chemical it was?

One possible way would be if the bomb landed on open ground, which would probably be what you'd want for deploying a chemical weapon. Of course, anyone who was "within spitting distance" of a conventional bomb detonation would not be likely to live to tell the tale, unless they were sheltered, so not in a position to see the blast.

I've seen surprisingly little about what was actually hit in the attack. I've seen reports of houses being hit, and of a subsequent attack hitting a hospital where the gassing victims were being treated. And, alas, very few of the victims, survivors or not, seem to have had names...

Meanwhile, my febrile imagination has dreamed up another possible scenario for a chemical attack by the regime:

Grunt: "Commander! My cousin Achmed at the munitions store just found an old chemical bomb misplaced among the high explosive ordinance. What should we do with it?"

Commander: "Drop it on the enemy."

[chappy]

I'm just going to leave this here.

https://www.yahoo.com/news/mit-exper...100819428.html

[Dr Sardonicus]

Originally Posted by chappy

I'm just going to leave this here.

https://www.yahoo.com/news/mit-exper...100819428.html

Dr. Postol's assessment may be found here. I have had less success trying to find the report he's assessing, though I did find the press briefing.

The crater depicted in the assessment does look like a metal cylinder was crushed by an explosion from without. If that was the origin of the nerve agent, it would clearly indicate a deliberate release on open ground, rather than a bomb hitting agents stored in a structure -- the scenario that has been flogged repeatedly in this thread. As an improvised release, blasting open a pipeful of poison would be a lot less risky to the perps than the simple-minded "Brave Volunteer" idea I had floated earlier.

It's a shame there's no indication of where the victims actually fell, because that would either validate or negate the hypothesis of the crater being the release site.

However, in an addendum to the report, Dr. Postol indicates that the crater was likely not where a significant quantity of Sarin was released.

Figure 1 shows a man standing in the alleged sarin-release crater. He is wearing a honeycomb facemask that is designed to filter small particles from the air. Other apparel on him is an open necked cloth shirt and what appear to be medical exam gloves.

Two other men are standing in front of him (on the left in the photograph) also wearing honeycomb facemask’s and medical exam gloves.

If there were any sarin present at this location when this photograph was taken everybody in the photograph would have received a lethal or debilitating dose of sarin.

The fact that these people were dressed so inadequately either suggests a complete ignorance of the basic measures needed to protect an individual from sarin poisoning, or that they knew that the site was not seriously contaminated.

This is the crater that is the centerpiece evidence provided in the WHR for a sarin attack delivered by a Syrian aircraft.

... of which it obviously is obviously not evidence.

[kladner]

The crater depicted in the assessment does look like a metal cylinder was crushed by an explosion from without. If that was the origin of the nerve agent, it would clearly indicate a deliberate release on open ground, rather than a bomb hitting agents stored in a structure -- the scenario that has been flogged repeatedly in this thread.

Guilty as charged. I saw speculations about "staging." I considered that a strong possibility, but how it happened was less obvious early on. I suppose that explaining the "bombing run," which is alleged as the source, is an added attraction for the "supply depot" scheme.

I am all too amenable to False Flag theories. I try to hold more conspiratorial ideas to tighter standards to control this tendency. That said, there is more evidence now which suggests a contrived event. It did always seem strange that White Helmets, whom I believe have promoted the "gas bomb from a plane" account, were handling supposed Sarin victims without HasMat precautions, or even gloves.

[chalsall]

Originally Posted by chappy

Weaponized sarin (and other chemical weapons) requires the use of weapons that really aren't good for other kinds of killing. So they aren't in high demand. Why waste time and effort to try to kill a couple hundred people if you are lucky, when an AK-47 costs a couple dollars and Eastern Bloc ammunition is around 2 cents per round?

The smart mass killer would grow some Castor Oil plants (the fastest growing plant known to man) and harvest the seeds. Extract the oil, and then introduce the by-product into the human food supply.

[LaurV]

Originally Posted by chalsall

The smart mass killer would grow some Castor Oil plants (the fastest growing plant known to man) and harvest the seeds. Extract the oil, and then introduce the by-product into the human food supply.

Do you mean "cold press" the oil out (like for olives) or just normal procedure (roasting, which destroys the toxin). There may be a big difference, hehe. We are just trying to see in which direction to train our humor detector, i.e. are you suggesting a clever way to kill people, or accusing some major food suppliers of killing people? (as the respective stuff is already an important additive to a lot of foods).

[We had to google that, as we only knew it under the name "ricin oil" (which is [ritchin] as in Latin, and not [raisin] as the English is laming it) and we used to mix a lot of it with ethyl ether and other dishonest liquids and use it as a fuel for aeromodels, about 30-40 years ago (it has very good lubricating properties for the respective micro-engines we used at the time). We never eat it raw or intentionally, consciously... We may try once in the future. ]