Jackson Hinkle-Vaush V. debate between 2 people I've barely or never heard of because I don't get out much, but I'm at these CW cases when I'm not out, so I see them when they pop in ... Back on July 9, and it's still percolating.
The video from Hinkle's end: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XIh5qLnMW-0 It's 3 hours plus, including some intro, and a lot I didn't watch after Vaush rage-quit only halfway in, over the "freaking out" people on video allegedly being alleged to be "crisis actors" - when they're actually figments of his imagination and vague memory. See below.
It was fairly terrible, so I actually just skimmed the middle and end of this 1.5-hour barrage of Vaush burping "tell me.. tell me..." then as Jackson's trying to tell him, it's "which report ... which report ..." and there's only one damned report in discussion usually, and only so many time he really needs to scold Hinkle for supposedly saying it wrong. He cuts into almost every sentence to repeat these nonsense objections and hopefully break the opponent's train of thought. And then again when Jackson tries to start answering halfway through a long post-question lecture, it's "are you going to listen?"
Or sometimes not doesn't really answer, or is still trying to answer a question from a few back ... some conflating of what Vaush says to "video of a helicopter dropping the bomb," which he never did say. Etc. Less shouting would've be better on both sides, but what a douche, that Vaush. They both manage to be quiet sometimes, but Hinkle does it more sincerely. Neither won very well, but at least one of them seems genuinely driven by concern for truth and justice, and reasonably in tune with the few facts and the many open questions related to that. The other has some serious overall data analysis problems that naturally retard his analysis here.
All this muck for minutes on end and just too little for solid ground between - it stays swampy as far as I could watch - about halfway so far. but made enough waves it seems worth weighing in finally for anyone who feels the questions weren't answered.
1:26:30 Vaush says you can't question findings - even ridiculous ones like this - without providing what he accepts as a reasonable explanation. In other words, he says you can't do it, period. If it wasn't an attack, there has to be another reason behind the evidence. Both agreed at 1:26:36. But for a layman to have to say just what happened before you can consider there's a problem - and he doesn't seem to have even considered that yet - is just cowardly. Even I still can't be certain just what happened.
core points for Vaush, maybe reading off a list prepared by Patrick Hilsman, who had offered to help him brush up (the vision-impaired leading the blind):
* corpses were found with foam in their mouths
* people saw a helicopter over the city
* how did the canisters get there at loc 2 and 4
* why is there damage that's consistent w/the aerial deployment of these canisters, noting "no shrapnel" nearby
These are covered below in a different order with other points worked in. The foam one is maybe best/most important, but it's covered last.
Hole in the Roof:
One Hinkle mess-up of some worry: a clip I saw on Twitter, from Vaush's end, showed Jackson citing the open/broken windows, building size, and hole at the ceiling as limits on chlorine accumulation. Broken windows could allow gas to escape, or set as high as they are, might as well let in a breeze that could affect the flow either way. Hard to say. The hole in the roof ... well, the gas wouldn't drift UP to go out that. Suggested: he doesn't (clearly, consistently) get that chlorine is well heavier than air and almost always just sinks. Vaush apparently did get this basic point and took pleasure in that (but to me the glee suggests new knowledge, like maybe a bit some coach just told him of). I don't take pleasure in seeing that. But in fact, that hole is how the gas got in (or would have got in, considering the dispute), from the roof-balcony the cylinder had been set on.
That's an important detail of the building design, as also shown in any photo or video of the entrance, in the NYT-FA modeling, etc. Gas spread sketched onto that at right. Then the people take basically the exact reverse course, escaping the site then fleeing right back inside, only to be carried out stiff the next day.
There was much noise about a video of... whatever - it got disputed. 1:33:30 If he knew the evidence well, Hinkle might have ridiculed it less and decoded what video Vaush refers to, poorly described at location 2 w/the "bomb" seen lodged in the hole. No drop shown, but poorly implied. Not a secret video - OP on Twitter still available. Cylinder here: already resting on/near the oddly placed metal slats and the intact rebar, apparently white on the underside from frost, due to active gas release - (this is still debated, but that's my take. In fact, it looks to be mostly empty by this time).
That's how I knew what he meant, but otherwise, he describes it all wrong. People "freaking out" makes you think hospital staged drama scene. But this video also shows activists "freaking out" and shouting at seeing the victims, who are all long dead. We only see that they are laying in creepy piles with bizarre facial stains and upsetting foam, as if they'd all been turned super-weird at the end, OR as if something else weird is going on. Seems to be filmed 10PM, 2.5 hours after the alleged attack.
Vaush recalls it seeming like the victims - the same ones later seen dead - were filmed "freaking out" at the site they never left, as if the cylinder had just hit, and he can't believe they were crisis actors because the same exact people are later seen dead. The video exists, but there was NO SUCH ACTING in it, real or fake. All 35 are dead before first views. He really has a fuzzy take on these things.
people saw a helicopter
And we know because they said so. One even said he saw it drop a gas cylinder, which he saw falling, with "green" gas already pouring out as it fell. People say all kinds of things. More to the point, a helicopter was app. tracked somehow from Dumayr airbase. But I think that's all just organized claims by "spotters" - if there was a radar track, no one has shown its flight track passing over this building - probably because it gave the craft an alibi. Now we can't say for sure. Does the damage even suggest it?
how did the canisters get there?
The one he kept harping on - "Did they like look around for buildings that looked like they had been recently shelled and ran up there with like an empty gas canister and like dropped it there and like nobody saw this?"
Hinkle never did answer this very well. You say "my speculation" and toss out your maybes. But best answer here would've been: Yeah, basically. They like looked around for buildings that looked like they had been recently shelled and ran up there with like a full gas canister, with harness in one case (and not at loc 2), and like dropped it there and like nobody saw this, or they saw and didn't say, or were shot or arrested.
Seriously - militants running Douma with an iron fist can't possibly CARRY a HEAVY ITEM that any 2 strong men COULD carry with some effort - and ok sure, they could but to also avoid the scrutiny of the few, largely sympathetic locals who remained... like they have some vibrant opposition media out filming all their actions and freely posting it ... also makes enough sense. Those are serious mental blockades in his mind, but obviously not in reality. They're mid-scale issue that would need resolved, and quite likely were, with no appeal to magic required. More related thoughts worked in below.
Henderson used bad measurements
56:30 Ian Henderson may have been there, but based his sketch for loc. 4 on other's work, and measured the cylinders wrong from a drawing. Vaush says, Jackson knows how wrong that is and duly laughs. The man says, and it hasn't been disputed, that he LED THE VISIT TO and MEASUREMENTS OF that site for the FFM, and also visited the place the cylinders were stored, measuring them directly. (UNSC testimony). He didn't get to location 2 is all. The later experts ... didn't go to any sites, worked off who knows what, and got a different and wrong size, apparently fudging all kinds of details to produce some ridiculous images.
Henderson didn't say no attack?
This came up. Henderson's report didn't rule out airdrop. It said manual placement was more likely. It seems professionally understated, but it's what he says. And it is. If Vaush thinks that can still be an "attack" ... clearly not by government forces, and clearly not the same "attack" everyone else means. Where the hell would he be going with that? Manual placement means fakery, which means "how then DID these people die?" and that, I think is the question Henderson was pissed off to see papered over. But otherwise...
damage consistent w/airdrop?
Jackson Hinkle starting out right: Don't explain what's not true. "It wasn't consistent ..." and then he's mega-interrupted and derailed. Indeed: loc 2 cylinder has some deformation, but not the right kind and degree to fit the alleged impact. And the scene has clear primary fragmentation marks - despite the FFM report assuring us there was absence of them.
Exploration: https://libyancivilwar.blogspot.com/2019/05/douma-location-2-explosives-damage.html
Everyone agrees that's what these are, and the "shrapnel" will be buried in those holes. Some say it's from other damage somewhere else (Patrick Hilsman, recently for one) - but look at that narrow band - it's tight, having radiated very little from very nearby - on the other walls the marks are a bit more spread out but still dense. And they appear on all 4 of these inner walls (but just barely on the east wall, mostly overshot due to impact angle that puts frags low on the west and north walls. This is from a mortar shell (or similar) impacting that damaged balcony corner where the cylinder supposedly hit, perhaps to kill a sniper at the low north wall who was slowing someone's advance, at some point.
Realize Jaysh al-Islam inspired a lot of rebellion, which they always crushed. Battles happened here over the years. Government forces hadn't really been in Douma sniper scopes since late 2012, until the end ... no Army push this far into town prior to the surrender, nor even likely within mortar range. Maybe this was a holdout of the Douma Martyr's Brigade of Commander Bakriyeh? 1/3 of the people found dead here had that family name. Some, most, or all of the others were related by blood or marriage. Hm.
explored: https://libyancivilwar.blogspot.com/2018/05/bakriyeh-family-deaths.html
OK corner hit, detonation, disc-shaped spray of fletchettes/fragments, Then an explosive crater below that, centered on its path - upper rebar passed around by the blast wave, but the lower layer, less deeply set, was able to flay out ~130deg t the window side, and concrete sprayed almost sideways into the upper walls - hence we have secondary fragmentation marks (another thing the FFM denied for us). "spalling" is from shockwaves in the rebar grid. NO MECHANICAL OBJECT GOING THUNK WILL EXLAIN ALL THIS.
There is quite widespread rubble that appears old - household items and a small fire have been set on top of it. The fire MAY have been to melt out the fusible plug in the valve and release the gas, though it's been snapped off by first views (can't see if it's missing the plug or smoke-coated, or gone from the start - plug issue explained here w/some other good points).
Anyone who doesn't get any of these points probably shouldn't run with those scissors. And I don't have time here to explain them all, but a mention ... some more links filled in later, optional follow-up ... etc. Hinkle mentioned James Harkin and an expert's issue of that valve snapping too cleanly. I don't know. I suspect it was done later on, but can't really say. Not a headline issue. Fuck James Harkin. He's a hack. The article has a few good points anyway (the OPCW inspector he talked to still makes sense in general).
Loc 4: noticing recently unclear damage, app. no frag marks (?), maybe related to a collapsed wall of the neighboring building - lots of rubble all over the roof w/no other good explanation (new area, unsettled). The hole is too small, if only by a bit, to allow the cylinder with the unprotected valve and displaced harness testified by the harness deformation - as shown by Henderson, who again LED THE VISIT TO and MEASUREMENTS OF that site for the FFM (UNSC testimony). Also Michael Kobs had modeled it just the same prior to that. Besides too short, the hole is kind of too wide as well. They picked a good pre-made hole, but these things only get so good.
Still I can see debating the size and angle as reasonable. It looks to have hit solid earth somewhere, but just the roof then the floor could fit in even reasonable minds. It was apparently placed on the bed, a bounce as alleged making little sense considering the vertical fall alleged to bounce so far laterally, and it's quite a high bounce and not on a very straight line - at least to the shower, then headboard - the curved footboard appears scraped-up as if it hit there too, or like as they tripped into the shower the guy holding that end dropped it, but in a controlled way so it slid into the bed frame instead of his toes. (note the same curve was already there in the footboard design - its the dust-catching scratches that stand out).
We also have a chipped door jamb, recently it seems something heave was dropped on it. The stairs have rusty scrapes, perhaps old, and some fresh-looking chips (images around widely, but from Russian TV). Also someone, at some time, may have taken those flayed-out bits of the harness and tied them more snugly with some rusty wire - at least one stretch with some sharp custom bends and curves is left lazily resting there. Huh. That could help make it more portable. Some thoughts, anyway.
Gloves from stairs
19SDS-L4
20180425178819
chloride: 17,000, ppm (IC)
zinc: 1,500 ppm (ICP-MS)
A point that's hard to get, even for Aaron Mate, or even for may of my more involved colleagues, let alone Jackson Hinkle: chlorine was apparently released. Why lug these up there and then fail to just open the valve? But we hear only normal, trace levels were found, and so the embarrassing levels were just omitted. But if that was the finding, it raises some questions what else we're seeing at right, and it was outright replaced with some rather high levels - about what I'd expect going by the visuals. And the camera still doesn't lie. So ... what? It's an issue, even if no one else agrees with me on that.
Exploration: Monitor on Massacre Marketing: OPCW Whistleblower: Chlorine Levels (libyancivilwar.blogspot.com)
Is it possible someone way back misread parts per million as parts per billion, and that just got set in stone for Whelan and whoever else? Or did they compare the background samples to normal background levels? (we hear there were no background samples, but ... what else is going on there? Or at location 2 with some high results too, and that frosting cylinder?)
Even if one doesn't get that point - most don't - I still advise caution on "no attack" claims meaning no gas release. If this is "background levels," fine, but it might be irrelevant, as it seems to me like the levels you get releasing a lot of chlorine - the level that could even be fatal ... depending on some important details.
Why are people there with foam in their mouths?
Mr. Vaush V suggests because chlorine. And it can cause this, but ... he doesn't get just how. Simple stuff: all it does is turn to hydrochloric acid on contact with water. Everything else follows. No paralysis, no nerve agent, convulsions, sudden death, numbness, or unconsciousness usually occur. In the concentrations expected, at worst it would badly burn their eyes and lungs. The damage slowly causes mucous production and perhaps bleeding in the airways - edema fluids that BEGINS building seriously ~30 minutes or more and usually worsens only gradually over some hours. This would blend fluids and air (in & out streams randomly mixed) into bubbles that would pile up deeper over each breath, forming into a foam. As gas exchange is disrupted and oxygen levels drop low, the victim will feel fatigue, a nasty headache, etc. from cerebral hypoxia. But this takes a while.
The pulmonary edema gets fatal usually several hours after exposure, but then most exposure is brief. As the OPCW's first try experts had said (redacted June meeting, leaked minutes), the kind of extreme foam seen usually takes more than 4 hours to develop (more than the 3-4 hours they were given as attack-to-images timespan - but it was really more like 2.5 to 3 hours). And they may have referred to the usual onetime exposure before escape. In a post-WWI study, all deaths that were observed at field hospitals happened around "the end of the second hour after exposure" or later, and "usually death did not occur until after the lapse of several hours." Although some acute cases killed on the battlefield were unknown, 90 minutes to death was guessed. (MacPherson et al 1923 p. 181?)
Now if people chose to stay and keep breathing it ... or were somehow trapped with it ... concentrations greater than 430 PPM are often fatal within 30 minutes of constant exposure (PHR). That's high but maybe possible in Douma (maybe not ... don't quote me on that). A death that quick is unlikely with the degree of foam seen, and probably with the very little blood that's seen. But perhaps.
The question the deniers can't answer well is WHY these people sat there suffocating in pain and terror, or "freaking out," watching their kids do the same, for 30-60-90 minutes until dead. I could be more philosophical about that if I'd made myself watch the whole 90-minute Hinkle-Vaush debate, but it just ups my point: I skipped much, got what I needed, and escaped the toxic place.
As soon as the Douma victims felt the burning, they'd want to escape. They weren't trapped and wouldn't be paralyzed. If it was too dark or they were gas-blinded (sometimes your eyes close and you just can't open them), they could feel their way out. If shelling, they would take their chances, wait for a gap etc. Usually, everyone leaves the scene for fresh air, and nobody dies. Precedent (my own work, feel free to use):
In WWI they all tried to escape the gas, braving enemy fire, but the gas spanned maybe for miles. Most died in field hospitals but some in the gas. Some shot themselves. One cut his own throat to speed it up (MacPherson et al. p.394). These folks in Douma ... they ran outside, back in, up deeper into the gas and then, instead of reversing course to go back outside, activist "Abu Homam" said “we believe they tried to rinse themselves in vain. Eventually they must have realised it was over so they drew closer together and died." (The Times) Eventually. Their hair looks as if faces and hair were washed ~15 minutes before the 10pm video we should know by now.
To escape the basement where all reports agree they had been sheltering, they'd have to pass this spot between basement and ground floor inside - exit, then back in - and no stocking foot prints seem to appear. Several others wearing boots do. Hard to be sure when and why, or why the stretcher. Adding or removing bodies? Woman being carried in headfirst, or out feet first? Work interrupted why?
White Helmets: they had their staged hospital scenes. This is well known. Relation to the gas chamber mass murder I suspect: unclear. But their rescue work leaves some to be desired. Microphone drop, White Helmets style.
Note: just been reviewing the timeline - McIntyre has that, whatever he has w/the climate stuff. This movement scene is after a video posted 00:20 on April 8 (but maybe filmed earlier), and before the photo's posting at 1:41 am.
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