Less Than Zero: How The Fed Killed Saving

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Authored by Adam Taggart via PeakProsperity.com,

The other day I was in my local branch of a Too Big To Fail bank where I have a few accounts. One of them is a savings account in which I keep some of my "dry powder" cash stored.

It had been a while since I had checked what kind of return the savings account offered. I knew it was pretty low, but there have been a few Fed rate hikes since the last time I had checked. So I asked the teller to look up the current rate the account was yielding.

Any guesses?

It's 0.06%.

Not 0.6%. And definitely not the 6% I remember receiving when I was a teenager. 0.06%.

As in, put $100,000 into your savings account and get back a whopping $60 per year. 

Are you kidding me? $60 to have a hundred grand parked in an account subject to withdrawal restrictions and penalties, along with the usual smattering of administrative fees both overt and hidden? At a bank that stumbled mightily during the Great Financial Crisis? One with the potential to legally confiscate your savings through a "bail in" should another crisis hit?

Oh, and if you factor in the government's trailing 12-month inflation rate of 2.2%, your "savings" account has a negative (-2.14%) real rate of return. Your compounded savings actually loses purchasing power over time. And as we all know the official inflation rate is farcically understated, your loss of purchasing power is even more dire than it at first appears.

"Thank" The Fed 

Savings accounts were created to provide an incentive for people to plan for the future. Put money away today, let it grow through the miracle of compounding interest, and have more tomorrow.

Prudent savings is essential to a healthy economy. It offers resilience during downturns, and provides seed capital for productive enterprise.

But we are no longer a nation of savers. Not only does our culture indoctrinate us to spend and consume -- and makes it possible to do so by spending future prosperity today through the use of debt (the very opposite of saving) -- but the Federal Reserve has very intentionally driven down interest rates to historic lows. 

To show just how far, let's take a look at historic interest rates savers have enjoyed over the past few decades.

Here's a chart of the return offered on 6-month banks CDs, from the Fed's own data. Returns plummeted from 10% in the mid-1980s to less than 1% after the Great Recession began:

Notice how the data series was discontinued in 2013. Perhaps the Fed was concerned the picture it painted showed too clearly the war being waged against savers?

But a new similar data series was begun afterwards, which shows that the carnage continued. Between 2009 and today, 6-month CD returns have declined by a further 90%:

So there's no incentive remaining to save your money in a "safe" place. As mentioned, you lose purchasing power due to today's negative real rates. Plus, you have bank risk (bail ins, etc) on top of that.

As we write about extensively on PeakProsperity.com, this is not an accident of fate. The Federal Reserve has very deliberately engineered this situation. It has chosen to sacrifice the many -- the savers and those dependent on a fixed income -- to benefit an elite few. Rock-bottom interest rates are greatly helpful to the banks, as well as the financial assets that the bankers and their wealthy clients own.

And just to add to the outrage factor here, when your local TBTF bank stores its own money at the Fed, the Fed pays it a full 1% in interest -- nearly 20 times what your bank is paying you. Your bank simply pockets the rest as pure risk-free profit. (Don't believe it? Watch Chris explain in this video)

The data clearly shows that this suppression of interest rates, combined with the central banking cartel's Herculean efforts to flood the world with liquidity (to the tune of $1 trillion so far in 2017), accrues benefits in a grossly lopsided and unfair manner to those at the top of the wealth pyramid:

Meanwhile, while the income prospects for everyone in bottom 90% have stagnated, the cost of living has skyrocketed. The masses are getting badly abused in both directions.

Financial Repression

As mentioned earlier, this is NOT accidental. As we have written about time and time again, the fundamental economic predicament facing the world is having Too Much Debt.

This is a situation societies have found themselves in before. In fact, it has happened so often throughout history that there's actually a playbook (for the government) when you get to this stage. It's called Financial Repression.

Here's a summary from our excellent podcast interview on the topic with Dan Amerman:

To understand financial repression, we have to understand that we've been there before. Many nations have gone through periods in the past where they've had very high levels of government debt. And there are four traditional ways of dealing with that.

 

One of them is austerity. Everyone understands that. You raise the tax rates. You lower the government spending. This is a painful choice. It can last for decades. And what do you think the voters think about that?

 

There is another option and this we can call this the Argentina option. And that's defaulting on government debts. It’s radical. Everybody understands it. How do the voters feel about it?

 

There is a third option is rapidly destroying the value of currency. Creating high rates of inflation that very quickly wipe out the true value of a national debt. But that also wipes out the true value of everyone else’s savings and salaries and so forth. It is such an obvious process you can’t really hide it. So how do the voters feel about that?

Those first three – they all work. They've all been done before. But they're all very painful and make the voters very angry.

 

Now there is a fourth way of doing this. There's nothing controversial about its existence; it's not the slightest bit controversial for professional economists or people who have studied economics extensively. It's financial repression. And it works. It's what the advanced western nations did after World War II. It was a process that took 25 to 30 years, depending on the country. The West went from an average debt as a percentage of national economy from over 90% to under 30%. So we know it works in practice.

 

To understand what this fourth alternative is where governments like to go is that there are no political repercussions. It's actually just as painful for the population as a whole. You've got to get the money one way or another. But financial repression is, for most people, just complex enough that the average voter never gets it. And because they don’t get it, they're paying the penalty, but they don’t realize it. And they don't see anyone to blame. That's really good if you want to stay in office.

 

The key is a concept called negative real interest rates. If the rate of inflation is higher than the interest payments you are taking in, savers are losing purchasing power every year. Remember, this is a zero sum game between the borrower and the saver -- with the saver funding the borrower. Every dollar in purchasing power that the savers, which are you and I, are losing every year -- that goes to the benefit of the borrower, which in this case is the Federal government. 

0.06% savings rates in a world of 2.2% (and actually much higher) inflation? That's a clear sign we're living in the era of negative real interest rates right now. The purchasing power of our savings is being siphoned off to sustain the government's debt orgy, making the elites filthy rich in the process. The financial repression playbook is well underway.

But while financial repression extends the lifetime of an over-indebted economic system, it does not avoid the consequences of Too Much Debt. It merely serves to shift the worst of the inevitable losses from the government onto the public.

As von Mises' guarantees:

There is no means of avoiding the final collapse of a boom brought about by credit expansion. The alternative is only whether the crisis should come sooner as a result of a voluntary abandonment of further credit expansion, or later as a final or total catastrophe of the currency system involved.

~ Ludwig von Mises

Negative interest rates are a milestone down the slippery slope of the latter: currency destruction. The central banks are intentionally devaluing their currencies, but betting that they can do so at a controlled pace.

But as von Mises warns and as history has shown again and again, currency regimes burdened by too much debt eventually reach a critical failure point where a uncontrollable cascading collapse becomes inevitable.

Know Your Enemy

At this stage, it's now critical for investors to ask: What are the central banks most likely to do next, and what will the repercussions be?

If you haven't read our latest report Understanding The Fed's Endgame Is Key To Protecting Your Wealth, you really should do so now. In addition to negative real interest rates, it reveals the many other clandestine steps the Fed is performing in the shadows to separate the American people from their hard-earned wealth, and place it in the pockets of the bankers and their cronies. In most instances, it's a case of doing exactly the opposite of what it is publicly promising. You can read that report here (free executive summary, enrollment required for full access)

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The Climate Hoax Tipping Point

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by James Corbett, The International Forecaster:

Yes, the world is reaching a tipping point, but it has nothing to do with the trace amounts of life-giving carbon dioxide in the atmosphere. Instead, the climate hoax itself is reaching a tipping point, the point at which the public stops listening to the apocalyptic predictions of the “End Is Nigh” crowd.

If the blathering blowhards of the dinosaur media and the Chicken Littles of the Twitterverse are to be believed, the world has officially come to an end. And in a way, maybe it has. Not “the” world, of course, but their world.

That’s because, as you will no doubt have heard by now, Trump just announced that the US will be pulling out of the Paris Climate Accord.

“I am fighting every day for the great people of this country,” Trump boasted in his Rose Garden press conference announcing his decision on the agreement, adopted in Paris in December 2015. “Therefore, in order to fulfill my solemn duty to protect America and its citizens, the United States will withdraw from the Paris Climate Accord…”

…If only he had stopped there. However, after a brief applause break greeting the announcement of the withdrawal, the Dissembler-in-Chief completed the sentence thusly: “but begin negotiations to reenter either the Paris Accord or a really entirely new transaction on terms that are fair to the United States, its businesses, its workers, its people, its taxpayers.” And then, just to make sure he added enough political hogwash to confuse everyone, he pressed on: “So we’re getting out. But we will start to negotiate, and we will see if we can make a deal that’s fair. And if we can, that’s great. And if we can’t, that’s fine.”

Ok, then. So the US is withdrawing from the Paris Agreement not because it is the leading edge of the $100 trillion carbon swindle wedge. Not because it is based on the fake science of fundamentally flawed models with fundamentally incorrect inputs. Not because it brings us one step closer to the Edmund Rothschild-articulated vision of a “global conservation bank” to steward over the world economy or the century-old technocratic dream of an energy-based economy where people will be assigned “carbon credits” and forced to ration their activities in response to the dictates of a de facto world government. No, not for these reasons, but because the “deal” wasn’t “fair” for “American workers?” And the Trump Administration is going to immediately begin negotiations to reenter the agreement?

Sigh.

Is this another case of the right decision for the wrong reasons? And if so, should we take this as the closest we’re likely to get to actual victory in the war against the control freaks who are attempting to implement their globalist vision through the climate hoax?

Well, as it turns out there is a bright spot in all of this, after all: The repudiation of the Paris Agreement represents a “tipping point” in the climate debate.

A “tipping point,” of course, is a point of no return, and the concept should be very familiar to aficionados of climate doom-porn. There have been so many so-called “climate tipping points” proclaimed by the fear mongers over the years that I’ve lost track. Thankfully, some intrepid researchers have compiled detailed lists of these dire warnings (all of which, would you believe it, failed to come true).

In 1989, United Nations Environmental Program Director Noel Brown warned us that “entire nations could be wiped off the face of the earth by rising sea levels if global warming is not reversed by the year 2000.”

In 2007 Rajendra Pachauri (the disgraced ex-chair of the UN’s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change) warned that “If there’s no action before 2012, that’s too late.” Oddly, they went ahead with the Paris Agreement anyway, despite being three years past the earth’s expiry date.

In 2009 Prince Charles of the inbred eugenics-loving Saxe-Coburg-Gotha clan lectured his loyal subjects that there was just 96 months left to save the planet.

Read More @ TheInternationalForecaster.com

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The Bankers Behind the Financial Crisis Actually Got Promoted

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By now it's well known that no senior bank executives went to jail for the fraudulent activities that spurred the financial crisis. But a new study shows many of the senior bankers most closely tied to pre-crisis fraud didn't suffer one bit in the aftermath. They mostly kept their jobs, enjoying the same kinds of opportunities and promotions as their colleagues.

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PUTIN EXPOSES US PRESIDENTS ARE NOT RULING WASHINGTON

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“I have already spoken to three US Presidents. They come and go but [US] politics stay the same. Do you know why? Because of the powerful bureaucracy. When a person is elected, they may have some ideas. Then people with briefcases arrive, well-dressed, wearing dark suits, just like mine, except for the red tie, since they wear black or dark blue ones.

“These people start explaining how things are done. And instantly, everything changes. This is what happens with every administration.

“Changing things is not easy, and I say this without any irony. It is not that someone does not want to, but because it is a hard thing to do.

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Mark Zuckerberg is running the Bucky Fuller agenda

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“Every time somebody comes up with a universal plan to improve the world, you have to ask yourself this burning question: who will impose the plan? And then you have ask: what are the imposers’ true motives? And you have to remember what a Trojan Horse is.” (The Underground, Jon Rappoport)Over a period of 50 years, Buckminster Fuller explained his plan for making a better world. He talked about the coming wave of automation that would throw gigantic numbers of people out of work. He talked...

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RFK Jr Receives A Standing Ovation At The Autism One Conference. “Let The Science Speak”

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Robert F Kennedy Jr was the keynote speaker at the recent AutismOne conference. AutismOne is a nonprofit, parent-driven organization that educates people and supports advocacy efforts for children and families touched by an autism diagnosis.

In his lecture, he explained his efforts in vaccine safety advocacy through being Chairman of the World Mercury Project.

Their goals are to:

• Successfully advocate that the government and pharmaceutical companies to remove all thimerosal (even trace amounts) from all vaccines, medicines and personal products in the US and globally.
• Successfully require the government and corporations to acknowledge the corruption and damage perpetrated on a generation of children
• Successfully advocate to to revamp the broken system currently in place to take care of the needs of the vaccine injured
• Successfully remove vaccine safety from CDC control the pass policy to remove all vaccine patents from their control/ownership
• Require that all vaccines undergo rigorous testing using placebo controlled trials prior to FDA approval, including the synergistic effects of giving multiple vaccinations at once.
• Fund research to prevent and reverse the ill effects of mercury induced

Kennedy pointed out the corruption that exists within and between the CDC and the pharmaceutical industry. He mentions the “captive agency phenomenon,” where government agencies become “sock puppets” for the very industries they’re supposed to be regulating. He explained that we must stand fast in our mission to bring awareness and attention to the fact that there are people out there who are knowingly putting our health at risk, stating that they are constantly working to make the links between vaccines and serious health consequences disappear.

“Vaccines are big business. Pharma is a trillion-dollar industry with vaccines accounting for $25 billion in annual sales. CDC’s decision to add a vaccine to the schedule can guarantee its manufacturer millions of customers and billions in revenue with minimal advertising or marketing costs and complete immunity from lawsuits. High stakes and the seamless marriage between Big Pharma and government agencies have spawned an opaque and crooked regulatory system.”  (source)

Perhaps the best example of such fraud taking place is Dr. William Thompson, a senior CDC scientist who has authored multiple CDC studies that are commonly cited and used to debunk any link between the MMR vaccine and autism. He recently came out and blew the whistle on his own published research, saying a portion of it was actually fabricated and that the CDC is well aware of significant evidence linking vaccines and  autism.

You can read more about that here, as well as watch Kennedy and Robert De Niro host a press conference offering a $100,000 reward to any journalist, doctor, or scientist who can provide a study showing that it is safe to inject mercury into babies.

He presented approximately 100 studies that show how dangerous it is, but found zero studies saying it’s safe. It’s hard to imagine how any study could assert that injecting one of the most toxic substances on Earth into babies is a good idea.

A fairly recent meta-analysis published in the journal Bio Med Research International determined:

The studies upon which the CDC relies and over which it exerted some level of control report that there is no increased risk of autism from exposure to organic Hg in vaccines, and some of these studies even reported that exposure to Thimerosal appeared to decrease the risk of autism. These six studies are in sharp contrast to research conducted by independent researchers over the past 75+ years that have consistently found Thimerosal to be harmful. As mentioned in the Introduction section, many studies conducted by independent investigators have found Thimerosal to be associated with neurodevelopmental disorders. Considering that there are many studies conducted by independent researchers which show a relationship between Thimerosal and neurodevelopmental disorders, the results of the six studies examined in this review, particularly those showing the protective effects of Thimerosal, should bring into question the validity of the methodology used in the studies. (source)

Don’t forget to visit the World Mercury Project. Here is a link to their Facebook page.

Related CE Article: The Top 6 Reasons Why More Parents Are Choosing Not To Vaccinate Their Children. 

 

 

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Why Bill Nye Is Not A ‘Science Guy’: What He Gets Wrong About GMOs

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When I first found out that ‘Bill Nye the Science Guy’ was making a comeback, I was stoked! My inner child surfaced and I immediately started reminiscing over watching episodes of his old show in my science classes in junior high school. I could see the potential for positive change by having someone so many people knew and loved during their childhoods host a show on science. Imagine my disappointment when I discovered that the new series was less of a science lesson and more of a political propaganda piece. 

Instead of presenting his viewers with science, he takes a biased, unscientific stance on many subjects. Not only that, but he blatantly makes fun of spirituality, other cultures, and ideas that have been scientifically proven as well. His tone is condescending and many of his “scientific claims” are simply incorrect, which begs the questions: Who is funding this propaganda campaign, and where did the science in this once iconic show go? 

Because of these misleading statements, we were inspired to educate the public on the truth behind the subjects about which he is so misinformed. This article will be one of several that focuses on his new series, Bill Nye Saves the World. These articles aren’t meant to attack Nye’s character or his fans, but rather to inform the public on these subjects in a factual, scientific manner. 

This first article will focus on human health and genetically modified organisms (GMOs), which is the subject discussed on episode four of the series.

Bill Nye’s Stance on GMOs

The episode begins with him explaining his personal journey on deciding whether or not he thinks GMOs are safe to consume. After what he felt was a “skeptical” analysis, he concluded that “the positives outweigh the negatives” and “science shows that GM crops are not riskier than other farmed crops.” He even claims that there are no studies that prove they are unsafe to eat. All of these statements are incorrect, and the science shows it. 

Nye says, “I have been eating genetically modified foods for decades and I’m fine, look at me.” This is a poor argument when it comes to human health, as everyone’s bodies are different. Just because you consume lots of refined sugar and never get cancer doesn’t mean that refined sugar isn’t linked to cancer. The same can be said about GMOs: Just because Bill Nye isn’t visibly sick and he eats GMOs doesn’t mean that GMOs won’t negatively affect other people’s bodies. Plus, human health is not the only issue when it comes to GMOs anyways.

Nye then goes on to compare “naturally genetically modified” foods to Monsanto’s creations in our supermarkets. He uses a sweet potato as an example, which was, in a way, “genetically modified” thousands of years ago. This type of artificial selection (or genetic modification, if you want to call it that) is not the kind we are concerned with in this particular article, as it is completely different. That was a natural process; it wasn’t completed in a lab but occurred in nature itself, and does not pose the same threats to the ecosystem and our bodies as mainstream GM foods do, which is why Nye’s comparison makes no sense.

The sweet potato argument has been made by many corporations who benefit off the widespread use of GMOs, including Monsanto. People hear “natural” and “GMO” being used in the same sentence, and so it’s easier for corporations to convince people that GMOs are natural because consumers don’t understand the science behind them.

As Dr Lieve Gheysen, a researcher involved with the recent study on sweet potatoes being “natural GMOs,” explained, “The natural presence of Agrobacterium T-DNA in sweet potato and its stable inheritance during evolution is a beautiful example of the possibility of DNA exchange across species barriers.”

“It demonstrates that genetic modification also happens in nature.”

The study suggests that the bacterial DNA may have allowed sweet potatoes to naturally adapt for thousands of years, but this process is very different from current GMO technology. It didn’t require monoculture, excessive pesticide usage, a science lab, or seriously risking human health, meaning that it greatly differs from conventional GMOs in our food system.

What Nye Gets Wrong About Glyphosate and the Risks Associated With GMOs

Nye also discussed glyphosate in the episode, the active ingredient in Monsanto’s herbicide Roundup, but failed to address any of the health and environmental risks associated with it. In order to understand the relationship between Monsanto, glyphosate, and GMOs, we’ll need to explore the history of GMOs and the food industry first. The original purpose of GMOs was to generate super crops with superior traits (for example, drought resistance) to increase efficiency and solve certain issues such as the growing global food demand as population rises.

Nye actually brought this up, using population growth as an argument to support GMO usage. Public interest attorney Steve Druker perfectly sums up why this is a myth in a National Geographic article, explaining:

Several studies by the UN and World Bank also concluded that genetic engineering is not needed to meet the world’s food needs. One of the directors of these studies was asked, “What role do you see for GMOs in the future of food?” He said, “Actually none. They aren’t needed. They haven’t been boosting yields. Small scale, agro-ecological methods are what’s needed in the Third World.”

In 2008, the UN Conference of Trade and development supported organics instead of GMOs, saying that organic agriculture can be more conducive to food security in Africa than most conventional production systems, and is more likely to be sustainable in the long term. You can read that full report here.

Nevertheless, Monsanto used this argument as an opportunity to monopolize the farming industry, so now most GMOs only carry one “superior trait”: resistance to one specific and extremely toxic herbicide, Monsanto’s Roundup. Roundup is now used all over the world, which is why Monsanto holds so much control over the global food system. This “resistance” allows farmers to spray their GM crops with Roundup without harming the crop.

This process does not come without extreme consequences, however. Since Roundup rapidly became the most popular herbicide used, weeds began to develop immunity to the spray, creating “super weeds,” an outcome that can significantly damage both the environment and the crop. This monopoly promotes the cultivation of a single, uniform crop, otherwise known as monoculture, which can lead to a decline in biodiversity, as it can greatly impact population dynamics and ecosystem roles.

In addition, Roundup is directly linked with numerous health concerns. Over the years, many studies have been published proving that the active ingredient in Roundup, glyphosate, can cause cancer, miscarriages, Parkinson’s disease, Alzheimer’s, and more.

Dr. Stephanie Seneff, a research scientist at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), revealed a disturbing fact: Glyphosate is possibly “the most important factor in the development of multiple chronic diseases and conditions that have become prevalent in Westernized societies.” Another study suggested that glyphosate can cause celiac disease, non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma, kidney failure, miscarriages, infertility, birth defects, obesity, autism, depression, Alzheimer’s, Parkinson’s, and cancer.

A group of scientists put together a comprehensive review of existing data that shows how European regulators have known that Monsanto’s glyphosate causes a number of birth malformations since at least 2002. Regulators misled the public about glyphosate’s safety, and in Germany the Federal Office for Consumer Protection and Food Safety told the European Commission that there was no evidence to suggest that glyphosate causes birth defects. (source)

The report read:

Our examination of the evidence leads us to the conclusion that the current approval of glyphosate and Roundup is deeply flawed and unreliable. In this report, we examine the industry studies and regulatory documents that led to the approval of glyphosate. We show that industry and regulators knew as long ago as the 1980s and 1990s that glyphosate causes malformation – but that this information was not made public. We demonstrate how EU regulators reasoned their way from clear evidence of glyphosate’s teratogenicity in industry’s own studies to a conclusion that minimized these findings in the EU Commission’s final review report.

Even though many of the studies performed on Roundup focus on glyphosate, the herbicide as a whole is even worse. A study published in the journal Biomedical Research International showed that Roundup is 125 times more toxic than its active ingredient glyphosate studied in isolation. The eye-opening abstract reads as follows:

Pesticides are used throughout the world as mixtures called formulations. They contain adjuvants, which are often kept confidential and are called inerts by the manufacturing companies, plus a declared active principle, which is usually tested alone. We tested the toxicity of 9 pesticides, comparing active principles and their formulations, on three human cell lines. Glyphosate, isoproturon, fluroxypyr, pirimicarb, imidacloprid, acetamiprid, tebuconazole, epoxiconazole, and prochloraz constitute, respectively, the active principles of 3 major herbicides, 3 insecticides, and 3 fungicides.  Despite its relatively benign reputation, Roundup was among the most toxic herbicides and insecticides tested. Most importantly, 8 formulations out of 9 were up to one thousand times more toxic than their active principles. Our results challenge the relevance of the acceptable daily intake for pesticides because this norm is calculated from the toxicity of the active principle alone. Chronic tests on pesticides may not reflect relevant environmental exposures if only one ingredient of these mixtures is tested alone.

There are countless more studies that prove the dangers of GMOs, yet Nye chose not to include any of them in his episode. Who knows whether this was a decision made by him or by whomever is funding this propaganda piece, but it’s clear that he did not present all of the facts.

So, Why Hasn’t the U.S. Government Banned GMOs?

Numerous countries have banned the use of Monsanto’s Roundup as well as growing or selling GMOs, including Russia, Sri Lanka, and much of Europe. Russian Deputy Prime Minister Arkady Dvorkovich announced that Russia had “made the decision not to use any GMO in food productions,” but the U.S. has not followed suit.

As many of you probably know, the U.S. government is largely controlled by corporations and the elite, and the situation with GMOs and the laws surrounding them is no different. The EPA even has close ties to Monsanto executives, which was exposed in a recent court case (read more about it in our CE article here).

Jess Rowland, head of the EPA’s Cancer Assessment Review Committee (CARC), was specifically caught aiding Monsanto. A report by that committee was “accidentally” leaked to the public at a time that was favourable to Monsanto given its recent lawsuits, so there was significant debate over whether or not it was actually an accident.

According to court filings, the discovery “strongly suggests that Mr. Rowland’s primary goal was to serve the interests of Monsanto.” Rowland has yet to publicly address these allegations; however, he has since left the agency and retired.

Plaintiffs state that the litigation revealed documents proving that Rowland was “straining, and often breaking, ethics and rules to benefit Monsanto’s business.” Internal Monsanto communications exposed that the company pushed this report to be published immediately in order to “preempt other potential actions or inquiries about the dangers of glyphosate,” according to a court filing.

Further proof lies in the form of a letter from a former EPA scientist to Rowland stating that there were significant scientific grounds for the EPA to reclassify glyphosate from a “possible human carcinogen” to a “probable” cancer-causing agent, but clearly Rowland ignored this expert’s opinion (source).

This may not come as a surprise to many of you, as the EPA has held close ties to numerous companies that threaten the environment, not just Monsanto. For example, you can read about the head of the EPA’s close ties to various oil and gas companies here.

There has also been speculation that scientific literature on GMOs has been censored in North America. For example, the only long term study that has ever been conducted on GMOs was published in November 2012 in the Journal of Food and Chemical Toxicology by Gilles-Eric Seralini and his team of researchers at France’s Caen University (source). The study found severe liver and kidney damage as well as hormonal disturbances in rats fed with GM maize in conjunction with low levels of Roundup that were below those permitted in most drinking water across Europe. Results also indicated high rates of large tumours and mortality in most treatment groups.

The study was retracted in North America, but then republished in multiple journals in Europe, one of them being Environmental Sciences Europe (source). The North American retraction was largely due to strong commercial pressure from North American biotech companies, like Monsanto. The republished studies in Europe were even more up-to-date and settled any concerns that were raised about the retracted study, yet North America chose not to republish it.

The retraction was likely a political decision, which unfortunately is a huge issue when it comes to modern science in North America. Scientists no longer have the same freedom they once enjoyed to study and publish whatever they want because of significant pressure from the government and corporations.

This fact was also made clear by WikiLeaks documents:

Resistance to the advent of genetically modified foods has been pronounced across Europe. The continent features some of the strictest regulations governing the use and cultivation of GMO products, and public skepticism about biotech goods is quite high—a fact not lost on American diplomats. In a lengthy report dating from late 2007, a cable issued by the State Department outlined its “Biotechnology Outreach Strategy,” which, among other things, recognized the European Union’s “negative views on biology” and committed as a national priority to limiting them (O7STATE160639). . . .

Initial attention paid to the State Department’s part in pushing industrial manufactures on its allies obscured the even bigger role it played in assuring a place for genetically modified agricultural products (GMOs) in a region that largely wanted nothing to do with them. The American campaign promoting biotech products was a worldwide effort. In all, some 1,000 documents from the Cablegate cache address this effort, a significant number of which originate in Europe. U.S. diplomats on the continent gave considerable attention to insuring the interests of American biotech firms in Europe—whether through “education” programs, government lobbying, or outright coercion—as well as stripping down European Union regulations designed to act as a bugger against them. Available cables published by WikiLeaks suggest that the United States invests considerable time, effort, and expense in its operations on behalf of the American biotech firms.

Read more about it from The WikiLeaks Files: The World According To U.S. Empire

Related article: Federal Lawsuit Forces The US Government To Divulge Secret Files On Genetically Engineered Foods

Final Thoughts 

It’s quite clear that Monsanto is responsible for many of the environmental effects and health risks associated with GMOs, which is why it was so shocking that Nye asked the Chief Technology Officer of Monsanto, Robb Fraley, to speak on the show. Instead of including an unbiased panel of scientists to discuss the subject, he chose a higher up from the main company that’s responsible for all of this controversy.

Nye actually asks him, “Why does everyone hate Monsanto?” As if he’d provide an honest answer. When it comes to GMOs, Monsanto is only concerned with profit, not the environmental or health risks that come along with them.

“At a time when fake news is prevalent in our society, communication about science and restoring trust in the field has never been more important,” Fraley explained. “I was excited and honoured to be part of the show to help distinguish fact from fiction when it comes to GMOs. The fact is that GMOs are safe, effective and benefit the environment.”

So, now Bill Nye has associated fake news with questioning the safety of GMOs. This is precisely the issue with science in North America: We can no longer question it without being associated with fake news or conspiracy. However, isn’t that the point of science, to question everything in order to find the truth? Any scientist with integrity could look at these studies and admit that GMOs require a lot more testing in order to be deemed safe, if ever. This begs the question: Who is funding this episode of Bill Nye Saves The World?

Though the answer to this question is unclear, I’d like to point out that infamous investor and businessman George Soros reported at the end of 2015 that he owns 317,534 Netflix shares, which has an estimated worth of $32.79 million. If you’ve never heard of Soros, he is a key member of the elite, or the shadow government, disguised as a philanthropic billionaire.

Soros is well-known for financing and donating heavily to “left” groups in order to create further division and political turmoil, as he played a hand in creating the Black Lives Matter and Women’s March movements. Soros started making strategic political donations to essentially fund revolutions in different European countries and made a fortune amidst the chaos, and now he’s doing the exact same thing in the U.S. He also made a killing off European forced migration and other colour revolutions.

This isn’t the first time that Netflix has produced something that appears to be more propaganda than fact; for example, when Netflix launched The White Helmets, a fake documentary on the Syrian war. You can read more about that here. Though it’s unclear if Soros holds any ties to Nye’s show, it certainly makes you wonder whether or not the series falls under the elite’s agenda. Given the subject matter of many of the episodes and the extremely biased, unscientific stances Nye holds, this wouldn’t be surprising.

If Nye had presented a scientific argument on why he supports GMOs, that would be far more acceptable. Instead, he chose to only explore one side of the story, not giving his viewers the full picture. I hope that, if anything, this article taught you to critically think about everything you are watching or listening to. We can no longer simply trust news stations, scientists, doctors, and other people with “high-ranking” statuses. We need to learn to think for ourselves and to do our own research, because often times we aren’t being presented with both sides of the story.

To be clear, this article is not meant to vilify Bill Nye. For all we know, Nye could have no idea that he isn’t presenting all of the facts; he may truly believe he’s taking a scientific stance. At the end of the day, he’s also an actor and his show is doing pretty well, so he could see that as being successful. There’s no way to know what his motive here was, so there’s no point in hating on him.

What’s important is that we continue to spread knowledge, and seek the truth. Be open minded and critically think about everything, regardless of who’s presenting the information. Bill Nye may not be a ‘science guy,’ but the good news is that you can be! Educate yourself and keep an open mind — that’s the only way we can raise consciousness together.

 

 

 

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Russia, According to Westerners Who Actually Went There

ORIGINAL LINK

There is no substitute for on-the-ground reporting – in order to meet the people and observe the country firsthand, rather than relying on the half-truths, lies and innuendos so often peddled by the mainstream media.

But there is as much propaganda peddled about Russia, as with Syria. The following findings – from a recent American delegation to Russia – once again, demonstrate that what is portrayed in the Western media about Russia bears little resemblance to the reality.

More on this report from Consortiumnews.com…

Spasskaya Tower on the eastern wall of the Moscow Kremlin (Photo by Dion Hinchcliffe. Source: Wikicommons)

Rick Sterling
Consortiumnews.com

For over two weeks this May, a delegation of 30 Americans visited seven regions and ten cities across Russia. Organized by Sharon Tennison of the Center for Citizen Initiatives. The participants began in Moscow with several days of meetings and visits, then broke into smaller groups going to cities including Volgograd, Kazan (Tatarstan), Krasnodar (near the Black Sea), Novosibirsk (Siberia), Yekaterinburg and the Crimean cities Simferopol, Yalta and Sevastopol.

After these regional visits, delegates regrouped in St Petersburg to share their experiences. Following is an informal review with conclusions based on my observations in Kazan and what I heard from others.

–Western sanctions have hurt sectors of Russia’s economy but encouraged agricultural production.

Exports and imports have been impacted by Western sanctions imposed in 2014. The tourist sector has been hard hit and education exchanges between Russia and the U.S. have been interrupted or ended. But the sanctions have spurred investments and expansion in agricultural production. We were told that farmers are saying “Don’t lift the sanctions!”

–Some Russian oligarchs are making major infrastructure investments.

For example, billionaire Sergei Galitsky has developed Russia’s largest retail outlet, the Magnit supermarket chain. Galitsky has invested heavily in state-of-the-art drip irrigation green houses producing massive quantities of high quality cucumbers, tomatoes and other vegetables, which are distributed via the supermarkets throughout Russia.

–There has been a resurgence of religion in Russia.

Russian Orthodox Churches have been revitalized and gold leaf glistens on the church domes. Muslim mosques have also been refurbished and rebuilt. A brilliant new mosque is a prominent part of the Kremlin in Kazan, Tatarstan. There are many Muslim in Russia. This research puts the number at ten million though we heard estimates much higher. We saw numerous examples of interfaith unity and cooperation, with Muslim Imams working side by side with young Russian Orthodox priests. We also heard stories of how churches had been used as prisons or food warehouses during the Stalin era.

–Russia increasingly looks east.

The Russian emblem of a double-headed eagle looks both east and west; it is a Eur-Asian country. While Europe is still important politically and economically, Russia is increasingly looking to the east. Russia’s “strategic partner” is China – economically, politically and militarily. There are increasing numbers of Chinese tourists and education exchanges with Russia. In the United Nations Security Council the two countries tend to vote together. Huge investments are planned for the transportation network dubbed the “Belt and Road Initiative” connecting Asia with Europe.

–Russia is a capitalist country with a strong state sector.

Government is influential or controls sectors of the economy such as public transportation, military/defense industry, resource extraction, education and health care. State-owned enterprises account for nearly 40 percent of overall employment. They have universal health care in parallel with private education and health care facilities. Banking is a problem area with high interest rates and the failure/bankruptcy of numerous banks in the past decade. We heard complaints that foreign multinational companies can enter and control sectors of the economy, drive out Russian competitors and take the profits home.

–There is some nostalgia for the former Soviet Union with its communist ideals.

We met numerous people who speak fondly of the days when nobody was super-rich or horribly poor and when they believed there was a higher goal for society. We heard this from people ranging from a successful entrepreneur to an aging Soviet-era rock musician. That does not mean that these people want to return to Soviet days, but that they recognize the changes in Russia have both pluses and negatives. There is widespread disapproval of the breakup of the Soviet Union and the economic chaos of the 1990s.

–There is a range of media supporting both government and opposition parties.

There are three major TV stations controlled by and supporting the government. Along with these, there are numerous private stations criticizing the government and supporting various opposition parties. In print media, the majority of newspapers and magazines are critical of the government.

–Public transportation is impressive.

The streets of Moscow are jam packed with new cars. Meanwhile, underground there is a fast, economical and efficient subway system. which is the most heavily used in Europe. The Moscow metro carries 40 percent more passengers than the New York subway system. On major routes the trains arrive every 60 seconds. Some of the stations are over 240 feet underground with the longest escalator in Europe. Inter-city trains such as the Sapsan (Falcon) take passengers between St. Petersburg and Moscow at 200 kilometers per hour. Despite the speed, the train is smooth and quiet. It’s an interesting way to view rural Russia as one passes ramshackle dachas, cute villages and abandoned Soviet-era factories. A major new transportation project is the bridge between Krasnodar and the Crimean peninsula. This short video portrays the design.

–Putin is popular.

Depending on who you ask, Putin’s popularity seems to range between 60 and 80 percent. There are two reasons: First, since he became leader the economy has stabilized, corrupt oligarchs were brought into check, and the standard of living dramatically improved. Second, Putin is credited with restoring international respect for Russia and national pride for Russian citizens. Some say, “During the 1990s we were a beggar nation.” Russians have a strong sense of national pride and Putin’s administration has restored that.

Some people think Putin deserves a break from the intense pressure and workload. That does not mean everyone likes him or is afraid to say that. Our official Moscow guide took delight in showing us the exact spot on the bridge outside the Kremlin where she believes Putin had one of his enemies assassinated. Other Russians we spoke with mock these accusations, which are widely believed in the West. As to the accusations that Putin is a “dictator,” about 75 students in Crimea openly laughed when they were asked about this Western belief.

Current Political Tension

–Russians are highly skeptical of accusations about Russian “meddling” in the U.S. election.

One foreign policy expert, Vladimir Kozin, said “It’s a fairy tale that Russia influenced the U.S. election.” They contrast the unverified accusations with clear evidence of U.S. interference in past Russian elections, especially in the 1990s when the economy was privatized and crime, unemployment and chaos overwhelmed the country. The role of the U.S. in “managing” the election of Boris Yeltsin in 1995 is widely known in Russia, as is the U.S. funding of hundreds of “non-governmental organizations” in Ukraine prior to the 2013-2014 violence and coup.

–There is a strong desire to improve relations with the U.S.

We met numerous Russians who had participated in citizen exchanges with the U.S. in the 1990s. Almost universally these Russians had fond memories of their visits and hosts in the U.S. In other places we met people who had never met an American or English-speaking person before. Typically they were cautious but very pleased to hear from American citizens who also wish to improve relations and reduce tensions.

–Western media reports about Crimea are hugely distorted.

CCI delegates who visited Crimea met with a broad range of citizens and elected leaders. The geography is “stunningly beautiful” with mountains dropping to beaches on the Black Sea. Not reported in the West, Crimea was part of Russia since 1783. When Crimea was administratively transferred to Ukraine in 1954, it was all part of the Soviet Union. Crimeans told the CCI delegates they were repelled by the violence and fascist elements involved in the Kiev coup. Bus convoys from Crimea were attacked with injuries and deaths following the Kiev coup.

The new coup government said Russian was no longer an official language. Crimeans quickly organized and held a referendum to secede from Ukraine and “re-unify” with Russia. With 80 percent of registered voters participating, 96 percent voted to join Russia. One Crimean stated to the CCI delegates, “We would have gone to war to separate from Ukraine.” Others noted the hypocrisy of the West which allows secession votes in Scotland and Catalonia, and which encouraged the secession of Croatia, but then rejects the overwhelming vote and choice of the Crimean people.

Sanctions against tourism are hurting the economy of Crimea yet the public is confident in its decision. The Americans who visited Crimea were overwhelmed with the warm welcome and friendliness they received. Because of the sanctions, few Americans visit Crimea and they also received substantial media coverage. In reaction, political officials in Ukraine accused the delegates of being “enemies of the Ukrainian state” and put their names on a blacklist.

–Russians know and fear war.

Twenty-seven million Russians died in World War II and that experience is seared into the Russian memory. The Nazi siege of Leningrad (now called St. Petersburg) reduced the population from 3 million to 500,000. Walking through the cemetery of mass graves brings home the depth of suffering and resilience of Russians who somehow survived a 872-day siege on the city. Memory of the war is kept alive through commemorations with huge public participation. Citizens carry poster-size photographs of their relatives who fought or died in World War II, known as the “Immortal Regiment.” In Kazan, the march involved 120,000 persons – 10 percent of the entire city population – beginning at 10 a.m. and concluding at 9 p.m.. Across Russia, millions of citizens actively participate. The marches and parades marking “Victory Day” are more solemn than celebratory.

–Russians see themselves being threatened.

While Western media portrays Russia as “aggressive,” most Russians perceive the reverse. They see the U.S. and NATO increasing military budgets, steadily expanding, moving up to the Russian border, withdrawing from or violating past treaties and conducting provocative military exercises. This map shows the situation.

–Russians want to de-escalate international tensions.

Former President Mikhail Gorbachev said to our group, “Does America want Russia to just submit? This is a country that can never submit.” These words carry extra significance because it was Gorbachev who initiated the foreign policy of Perestroika which led to his own sidelining and the collapse of the Soviet Union. Gorbachev has written about Perestroika as follows: “Its main outcome was the end of the Cold War. A long and potentially deadly period in world history, when the whole humankind lived under the constant threat of a nuclear disaster, came to an end.” Yet we are clearly in a new Cold War and the threat has re-emerged.

Despite three years of economic sanctions, low oil prices and an intense information war in the West, Russian society appears to be doing reasonably well. Russians across the spectrum express a strong desire to build friendship and partnership with the U.S. At the same time, it seems Russians will not be intimidated. They don’t want war and won’t initiate it, but if attacked they will defend themselves as they have in the past.

Rick Sterling is an investigative journalist based in the San Francisco Bay Area. He can be contacted at rsterling1@gmail.com

READ MORE RUSSIA NEWS AT: 21st Century Wire RUSSIA Files

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Zika: A Masterpiece of Public Mind Control

Zika: A Masterpiece of Public Mind Control:



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Studies Prove Vaccinated Children Are At Greater Risk For Serious Illness & Neurological Disorders

ORIGINAL LINK

Few studies have compared the health of unvaccinated children to vaccinated children. There are only a handful, in fact, which is unfortunate given how many scientists are publishing papers each year which make it clear that several issues surrounding vaccines, including forced vaccination, require further discussion.

In fact, when Congressman Bill Posey presented this concern to the CDC in 2012, they tried to evade his question several times before ultimately admitting they have not carried out such a study. (source)

A pilot study released on April 27th published in the Journal of Translational Sciences involving more than approximately 700 homeschooled 6- to 12-year-olds from four American states compared 261 unvaccinated children to 405 partially or fully vaccinated children, taking into consideration their overall health based on records of vaccinations and physician-diagnosed illnesses. The study found some alarming information.

As reported by Children’s Medical Safety Research Institute (CMSRI), the study found that vaccinated children were more than three times more likely to be diagnosed on the Autism Spectrum. Furthermore, it found that vaccinated children were thirtyfold more likely to be diagnosed with allergic rhinitis (hay fever) than non-vaccinated children. Vaccinated children had more than quadruple the risk of being diagnosed with a learning disability than unvaccinated children and were more than 300% more likely to receive an ADHD diagnosis. They were also 340% more likely to be diagnosed with pneumonia and were at great risker of contracting chronic illness in general.

The team of scientists was led by the renowned epidemiologist Dr. Anthony Mawson, author of more than fifty published studies. They concluded that in a “final adjusted model designed to test for this possibility, controlling for the interaction of preterm birth and vaccination, the[se] factors remained significantly associated with neurodevelopmental disorders.” 

Another study published in 2014 by Dr. Mayer Eisenstein arrived at similar conclusions, determining that vaccinated children were more likely to suffer from asthma, eczema, ear infections, hyperactivity, and many other chronic conditions.

And in 1992, a study comparing vaccinated children to unvaccinated children revealed that vaccinated children were more likely to suffer from asthma, eczema, ear infections, hyperactivity, and many other chronic conditions.

The researchers also discovered a tenfold increase in tonsillitis incidence in vaccinated children, and that unvaccinated children were less likely to have undergone tonsillectomy operations. The video linked above this paragraph is from Dr. Mayer Eisenstein, who in 2010 published a book titled “Make An Informed Vaccine Decision For The Health of Your Child: A Parent’s Guide To Childhood Shots.”

Based on the little information available, the recent first of its kind study, and the information collected in the early 90s, it appears that unvaccinated children are sicker than vaccinated children.

It’s no secret that more and more parents are choosing not to vaccinate their children, and for good reason.

See: The Top 6 Reasons Why Parents Should Never Be Forced To Vaccinate Their Child

So ask yourself, why does corporate media continue to ridicule those who choose not to vaccinate, or even those who simply question vaccinations? That’s not what true science is about; it’s about looking at all of the information from a neutral perspective. Mainstream media has derided and ridiculed so-called “anti-vaxxers,” and most people simply believe their narrative. They never hear about the hundreds, if not thousands, of doctors, researchers, and publications that emerge every single year questioning the efficacy of vaccines.

This is evident by looking at simple statistics, as a new study published in the journal EbioMedicine demonstrates: “Over the past two decades several vaccine controversies have emerged in various countries, including France, inducing worries about severe adverse effects and eroding confidence in health authorities, experts, and science. These two dimensions are at the core of the vaccine hesitancy (VH) observed in the general population.”

The study concludes with the observation that “after repeated vaccine controversies in France, some VH exists among French GPs, whose recommendation behaviors depend on their trust in authorities, their perception of the utility and risks of vaccines, and their comfort in explaining them.”

This was in France, but it’s a global phenomenon. In the United States, for example, a new study published in the journal Pediatrics has found that many paediatricians don’t strongly recommend the HPV vaccine.

Causation Doesn’t Mean Correlation, You Say?

Studies are often published that draw faulty connections between phenomena. This is why the Bradford Hill Criteria exists. It is a group of guidelines that help determine if there is a true causal relationship two things.

So, if you’re thinking that causation doesn’t mean correlation, please refer to those guidelines. The authors of the studies are obviously from the world of academia and have published multiple peer-reviewed studies. Combined with all of the hundreds of studies that also raise cause for concern, their opinion at least warrants an open and healthy debate. Science has clearly not settled this issue.

Beyond Association

Using the recommendations of the Bradford Hill criteria, it becomes clear from many studies that there is a direct link between vaccines and developmental disorders.

Take aluminum, for example, which has been being added to vaccines for approximately 90 years. One disturbing fact that many people still don’t know is that the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) and vaccine manufacturers themselves have not conducted or included appropriate toxicity studies/testing proving the safety of aluminum, or any other ingredients, for that matter. These ingredients have been put into vaccines based on the assumption that they are safe.

If we look at the other side of the coin, it’s now firmly established in scientific literature that aluminum can lead to a host of neurodevelopmental disabilities, and serious autoimmune outcomes in humans.

We know, from the work of Richard Flarend, that aluminum is commonly absorbed into the body, into areas it shouldn’t be, and has been found in various urine samples from multiple studies examining this topic. This holds true for aluminum from multiple sources, not just vaccines.

We also know that if significant aluminum load exceeds the body’s capacity to get rid of it, it is deposited into various tissues within the bones, brain, liver, heart, spleen, and muscles.

“We increasingly have this compound that was not part of any biochemical process on Earth, that can now only go and do havoc, which is exactly what it does. It causes all kinds of unusual biochemical reactions.”

– Dr. Chris Shaw, a neuroscientist and professor at the University of British Columbia

Here is a great video by Dr. Christopher Exley, a professor of bioinorganic chemistry at Keele University and an honorary professor at UHI Millennium Institute. He is known as one of the world’s leading experts on aluminum toxicity.

When it comes to vaccines, the problem is that aluminum doesn’t come into the same method of excretion when given in the form of a vaccine. That’s the whole point of adjuvants — they are meant to stick around and allow that antigen to be presented over and over again. It can’t be excreted because it must provide that prolonged exposure of the antigen to your immune system. This is why they put it into vaccines in the first place.

A fairly recent study published in Frontiers of Neurology explains how this biopersistence — demonstrated by its “capacity to migrate in lymphoid organs and then disseminate throughout the body within monocyte-lineage cells and progressively accumulate in the brain” — is so troublesome.

It also points out that, “in spite of their long usage, the literature has pointed out that the adjuvanticity mechanisms of aluminum salts remain basically unknown despite most active investigation in the field in recent years.”

Animal studies have also shown the same thing.

A study published in BioMed Central (also cited in the study above) in 2012 found more cause for concern: “Intramuscular injection of alum-containing vaccine was associated with the appearance of aluminum deposits in distant organs, such as spleen and brain where they were still detected one year after injection.”

Multiple studies have concluded that, as a result of these deposits, aluminum from vaccines can lead to multiple neurodegenerative disorders, including Alzheimer’s and Autism.

To learn more about aluminum in vaccines, you can refer to this article we previously published:

The Effect of Aluminum In Vaccines On Humans

“Despite their long use as active agents of medicines and fungicides, the safety levels of these substances have never been determined, either for animals or for adult humans—much less for fetuses, newborns, infants, and children.”

– Jose G. Dores, professor at the University of Brasillia’s Department of Nutritional Sciences. (source)

Aluminum Is Just One Example That Goes Beyond Association

Aluminum is just one example of harmful vaccine ingredients. Mercury is another. There are hundreds of studies, 80 of which were presented at a press conference with Robert De-Niro and Robert F. Kennedy Jr, which show a high cause for concern. Conversely, there are zero showing that it is safe to inject into babies.  You can find out more about that in this article:

A $100,000 message from Robert F. Kennedy Jr & Robert De Niro To American Journalists and Scientists

Furthermore…

The above studies are just a few examples. If we go beyond the science, we have a number of examples of scientific fraud and the manipulation of science. Perhaps the most eye-opening one in recent news is the author of multiple CDC studies that are most commonly cited to debunk the link between the MMR vaccine and autism. Dr William Thompson stated that the CDC falsified data and that there is a link between vaccines and autism. It was “the lowest point” in his career when he “went along with that paper.” He went on to say that he and the other authors “didn’t report significant findings” and that he is “completely ashamed” of what he did. He was “complicit and went along with this,” and regrets that he has “been a part of the problem.” (source)(source)(source).

You can read more about that story here.

For an overview of fraud and popular science, you can refer to this article:

Peer-Reviewed Science Losing Credibility As Large Amounts of Research Shown To Be False.

I also go into more detail regarding scientific fraud pertaining to vaccines in this article.

It’s Not About “Anti-Vaccine” or “Pro-Vaccine”

It’s disturbing to see mainstream media continue to push the idea that this is an open and shut case — that vaccines are necessary for the greater good, that they save lives, and that there is no reason to question their administration or ingredients list.

As yourself, why are so many doctors and scientists publishing papers and questioning the efficacy of vaccines and yet getting no coverage from corporate media?

Why are those who question and want to talk about vaccines labelled “anti-vaccine?” The funny thing about that is, people like Dr. William Thompson and Robert F. Kennedy junior are actually “pro-vaccine.”

Even if you support vaccinations, you cannot deny that the amount of evidence warranting concern is huge, and the last thing we need to do is call this an open and shut case without the possibility of further dialogue and discussion. That is the exact opposite of what science endeavours to accomplish, and as long as studies continue to emerge showing the dangers associated with vaccinations, so too will the questions and controversy. One thing is for sure, these labels don’t help and serve only to divide us.

When the corporate world tries to shut down simple discussion and questioning, it’s time to start digging.

Related CE Article:

The Top 6 Reasons Why Parents Should Never Be Forced To Vaccinate Their Children

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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The New York Times Video Analysis of the Events in Khan Sheikhoun on April 4, 2017: NONE of the Cited Forensic Evidence Supports the Claims

ORIGINAL LINK

By Theodore A. Postol, professor emeritus of science, technology, and national security policy at MIT.  Postol’s main expertise is in ballistic missiles. He has a substantial background in air dispersal, including how toxic plumes move in the air. Postol has taught courses on weapons of mass destruction – including chemical and biological threats – at MIT.  Before joining MIT, Postol worked as an analyst at the Office of Technology Assessment, as a science and policy adviser to the chief of naval operations, and as a researcher at Argonne National Laboratory.  He also helped build a program at Stanford University to train mid-career scientists to study weapons technology in relation to defense and arms control policy. Postol is a highly-decorated scientist, receiving the Leo Szilard Prize from the American Physical Society, the Hilliard Roderick Prize from the American Association for the Advancement of Science, and the Richard L. Garwin Award from the Federation of American Scientists.

Original .pdf can be viewed here:  The New York Times Video Analysis of the Events in Khan Sheikhoun on April 4, 2017_NONE of the Cited Forensic Evidence Supports the Claims_(May29,2017)_Standard_

Introduction

On April 26/27 2017 the New York Times released a video titled How Syria and Russia Spun a Chemical Strike. This video provides extensive forensic evidence that the New York Times used to develop its conclusions about an alleged nerve agent attack in Khan Sheikhoun on April 4, 2017. In this report, I show that NONE of the forensic evidence in the New York Times video and a follow-on Times news article supports the conclusions reported by the New York Times.

The New York Times video of April 26 was immediately followed by a New York Times article titled The Times Uses Forensic Mapping to Verify a Syrian Chemical Attack. This second article describes the same erroneous conclusions of the forensic analysis reported in the earlier video, but unlike the video, it does not show the extensive forensic evidence that could be used to determine the veracity of its conclusions.

On May 5, Human Rights Watch released a report titled Death by Chemicals that also used extensive forensic evidence similar to that discussed by the New York Times. The Human Rights Watch report showed forensic evidence that was supposed to indicate the existence of an alleged the sarin release site. In my last report, I showed that this forensic video-evidence also directly contradicted the conclusions in that report.¹

The forensic evidence and analytical claims in all of these reports can be traced back to a single source, an organization called Bellingcat. This organization represents itself as “specializing in analyzing information posted online.” As will be shown in what follows, not a single claim made by Bellingcat is supported by the forensic evidence it used to reach its conclusions.

The particular evidence of concern in this report are claims made by Bellingcat about three sites that were attacked by air on April 4, 2017 in Khan Sheikhoun with general-purpose bombs. The alleged locations of the locations of the sarin release site and the three sites that Bellingcat concludes were attacked with general purpose bombs are shown in Figure 1 below from the New York Times video.

Location of the sarin release site and three sites in Khan Sheikhoun that Bellingcat alleges were attacked with general-purpose bombs on April 4 2017. The alleged sarin release site that Bellingcat incorrectly asserts that there is forensic evidence of an airdropped sarin-releasing munition ( see reference 1 below for a complete discussion of that false claim)

1 The Human Rights Watch Report of May 1,2017 Cites Evidence that Disaffirms Its Own Conclusions About the Alleged Nerve Agent Attack at Khan Sheikhoun in Syria on April 4,2017, May 8, 2017

The method used by Bellingcat to find the areas of bomb damage depend on line-of-sight data established from a panoramic view of Khan Sheikhoun on the day of the attack – April 4, 2017 (see Figure 2). This composite panoramic view was derived from a video-scan of the horizon taken north of Khan Sheikhoun looking south. As can be seen from the composite panoramic shown below in Figure 2, there are three bomb-debris clouds rising from the three areas that Bellingcat asserts were bombed on April 4.

The detailed analysis that will be presented later in this paper will show that this panoramic scene could not have been recorded on April 4, 2017 as claimed by Bellingcat.
Location of bomb-debris clouds at three sites in Khan Sheikhoun that Bellingcat alleges were attacked with general-purpose bombs on April 4 2017. The detailed analysis of Bellingcat’s own forensic evidence shows that this panoramic scene could not have been recorded on April 4, 2017.
Later in this report I will show using basic information about the fundamental characteristics of bombs that debris clouds 2 and 3 are the result of the detonations of single 500 to 1000 pound general-purpose bombs.  Debris cloud 1, which has a considerably larger base diameter than clouds 1 and 2, indicates that it was created by an attack using 2 or 3 bombs in the 500 to 1000 pound weight-class or it was possibly created by secondary explosions in an ammunition dump that was hit with single or multiple bombs. That is, the damage area associated with bomb-cloud 1 is predictably considerably larger than the bomb- damage areas associated with debris clouds 2 and 3.

The Bellingcat analysts used this panoramic view from the wrong day to establish lines of sight to each of the bombed areas. They then used before and after satellite images to search along the lines of sight for areas of bomb damage. In spite of all the evidence that Bellingcat had that indicated the panoramic was from the wrong day, they still found three locations where they allege bomb damage occurred.

This report shows that NONE of the bomb-damage areas identified by Bellingcat and shown in the New York Times video show any indication of bomb damage from 500 to 1000 pound bombs. That is, the data from the panoramic view is clearly and unambiguously inconsistent with the claims of bomb damage from the satellite photographs. In fact NONE of the forensic data claimed by Bellingcat in the New York Times as evidence of general-purpose bomb damage on April 4 supports the conclusions that are said to have been derived from the forensic data. In all, when these false claims about information provided in the forensic data are brought together with the claims about a sarin release site, the conclusion is inescapable that all of the evidence referred to by Bellingcat in the New York Times shows no evidence to support their narrative.

This means that the narratives put forward by the New York Times, and the closely related Human Rights Watch report of May 1, are all based on forensic evidence and conclusions that are unambiguously false.

The specific problems with the forensic analysis produced by Bellingcat are as follows:

1. The panoramic view that is alleged to have been recorded on April 4, 2017 shows that the wind is blowing in the opposite direction from the reported weather in Khan Sheikhoun on that day. This is not a minor

If the wind was blowing in the opposite direction as shown in the panoramic view alleged to have been recorded on April 4, the sarin from the alleged sarin-release site would have drifted into open fields and would not have reached any populated areas for more than half a kilometer. Hence, there would be no casualties from a sarin release at this site as alleged by the New York Times, Human Rights Watch, and Bellingcat.

Given the small size of alleged sarin releasing container (containing no more than 5 to 10 liters), and the large distance between the nearest populated area and the sarin-release site, even with near ideal weather conditions for a deadly sarin dispersal, there would have been essentially NO casualties from the sarin-release in any densely populated areas downwind.

1. The three areas where Bellingcat claims bomb damage occurred show NO evidence of bomb damage consistent with the observed bomb-debris clouds that indicate the delivery of 500 to 1000 pound bombs.
2. One of the bomb damage sites (bomb damage area 2) is not along the line-of-sight determined by the panoramic view as claimed by Bellingcat. As such, the location of this bomb damage site contradicts the data from the panoramic view that was allegedly used to find
3. Video of an alleged bombing of a target in March 2015 in Khan Sheikhoun shows a large area of heavy bomb damage that is completely inconsistent with the minuscule or nonexistent bomb damage in the three bombed sites allegedly found by Bellingcat from the alleged events on April 4, 2017.

The bomb-damage video from March 2015 shows a bomb-debris cloud that is much like the large bomb-debris cloud 1 allegedly produced on April 4, 2017.  While the area bombed in March 2015 shows extensive and unambiguous severe bomb damage, the area where Bellingcat alleges bomb damage at site 1 on April 4 shows only minuscule or no bomb damage. This raises very serious questions about the veracity of Bellingcat’s claims about the forensic evidence of bomb-site damage.

In summary, video sequences of the alleged bombing in March 2015 show that three bombs in the 500 to 1000 pound class were dropped on the target.

Before and after satellite images also shown in the New York Times video of the alleged site that was bombed in March 2015 show an area of roughly 400 feet diameter that was completely demolished by the alleged bombing attack.

Damage site 1 identified by Bellingcat as being associated with a similar very large bomb-debris cloud created on April 4, 2017 shows only minuscule or no damage relative to the vast area that was demolished in March 2015.

1. The before and after satellite images used by Bellingcat were taken 44 days apart between February 21, 2017 and April 6, 2017. This means that even if there were bomb damage seen in the April 6 images, it would not be possible to uniquely identify that damage with the April 4

However, since there is NO bomb damage in any of the three bombed sites that Bellingcat identified, this is not an issue with regard to Bellingcat’s analysis. However, it does indicate that if Bellingcat had found bomb damage in the before and after satellite imagery, it could not be ascribed unambiguously as having occurred on April 4

1. Although the New York Times video shows a bomb debris cloud in March 2015 and a completely demolished site associated with that bombing, it appears that nobody performing the analysis of the forensic data asked an obvious question; why was a bomb debris cloud associated with a large area of heavy ground-damage in one case but either no damage or minuscule damage from the bombing could be found in the other three cases where bomb-damage debris clouds were observed?
2. How Bellingcat reached any of its conclusions in the face of coherent and internally consistent forensic evidence to the contrary is inexplicable – the complete lack of any forensic evidence of bomb damage generated by the use of the panoramic view allegedly recorded on April 4, 2017; the inconsistencies in the the wind direction observed in the panoramic view with weather reports for April 4; and an analytic process that failed to observe bomb damage consistent with the observed bomb-debris clouds or wind directions that could credibly carry a deadly sarin release plume into range of any densely populated area.

1. These egregious errors and glaring internal inconsistencies in the forensic analysis suggest that the analysts may have had a predetermined narrative, but could not find any forensic data to support it. So they simply solved their problem by asserting that there was forensic evidence that does not
2. This evidence suggests that New York Times management did not check the accuracy of the facts supporting the narrative of events on April 4, 2017 that the Times has been publishing, and continues to

***

The remainder of this report will focus on the specific forensic evidence presented in the New York Times video. The discussion will show, with example by example of forensic evidence from the New York Times video, that the interpretation of every piece of forensic evidence in the video is spurious, leading to the absolute and unambiguous conclusion that none of the findings asserted in the video are supported by the facts.

The structure of the remainder of this report is as follows:

The report will first describe the basic design features of general-purpose bombs. It will then explain how the bombs inflict damage, the spatial scale and destructive effects caused by the detonation of such bombs, and the characteristics of the easily observable bomb-debris clouds that are generated by the bomb detonations.

In next section will show how the panoramic was allegedly used to find the three bomb-damage sites. We will show that the alleged locations of the observed bomb damage sites in the panoramic view were at ranges of roughly 1 to 2.5 miles from the camera. We will also show that one of the alleged bombing-sites is not aligned with the line-of-sight in the panoramic view. This raises further questions about the veracity of the analysis produced by Bellingcat.

After this we will show the video evidence of before and after satellite imagery of the three bombed areas that were allegedly identified by Bellingcat with the line-of-sight data from the panoramic view.

It will be shown that there is absolutely no evidence of bomb damage consistent with the observed bomb- debris clouds shown in the panoramic view.

In the section that then follows, video frames of the alleged bombing in March 2015 extracted from the New York Times video will show that the debris cloud generated from the March 2015 attack indicate 3 bombs were used in that attack.

The satellite imagery provided in the New York Times video of the severely damaged area from that attack will be shown.  The point of showing these video frames from the New York Times video is to show that both the Bellingcat and New York Times analysts who put together the video had to know that there was extensive bomb-damage on the ground associated with the large debris cloud from the March 2015 attack. As such, they should have known and expected to find a large area of demolished buildings extending over at least a city block at site 1, where either multiple bombs were dropped or there were extensive secondary explosions on the ground.

***

References for Interested Readers:

The New York Times video can be found at:

TIMESVIDEO

How Syria and Russia Spun a Chemical Strike

By Malachy Browne, Natalie Reneau and Mark Scheffler, April 26, 2017

https://www.nytimes.com/video/world/middleeast/100000005063944/syria-chemical-attack-russia.html

The New York Times video can also be found on YouTube at:

https://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=How+Syria+and+Russia+Spun+a+Chemical+Strike

The advantage of using YouTube is that readers with sufficient interest can download the video directly onto a computer and easily study it frame by frame.

The New York Times article that describes how the analysis and the video was done and its conclusions can be found at:

The Times Uses Forensic Mapping to Verify a Syrian Chemical Attack

By Malachy Browne, May 1, 2017

https://www.nytimes.com/2017/05/01/insider/the-times-uses-forensic-mapping-to-verify-a-syrian-chemical-attack.html?_r=0

The Human Rights Watch report that has been shown in reference 1 to have no forensic evidence to support its claim that an airdropped sarin dispersing munition was used on April 4, 2017 in Khan Sheikhoun can be found at:

Death by Chemicals

Human Rights Watch, May 5, 2017

https://www.hrw.org/sites/default/files/report_pdf/syria0517_web_2.pdf

The panoramic that forms the foundation of the alleged Bellingcat methodology that was supposedly used to locate the bomb-damage sites that show no evidence of bomb damage is shown below:

Above Composite from Top of Page 24 of the Human Rights Watch Report Death by Chemicals, first published on May 5, 2017.

https://www.hrw.org/sites/default/files/report_pdf/syria0517_web_2.pdf

The video that was used to construct a panoramic view can be found at: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DWvDisOxJi0

Khan Sheikhoun During the Bombing Attack on April 4, 2017

Some Basic Facts about General-Purpose Bombs

This section provides basic information about general-purpose bombs that is relevant to understanding the forensic data used in the New York Times video with regard to the alleged bombing attack in Khan Sheikhoun on April 4, 2017

The diagrams below provide basic information about the design of “general-purpose bombs” and the physical effects associated with their use.

A basic general-purpose bomb is roughly 50% by weight explosives and 50% by weight metal casing (see Figure 3). This design choice is used to increase the lethality and destructiveness of the bomb. When the explosives in the bomb detonate, the heavy metal casing is shattered into numerous fragments by the hot expanding high-pressure explosive gas products, accelerating them to quite high speeds, of order 2 km/s. These high-speed fragments can do tremendous damage to a target even before the shockwave generated by the expanding explosive gases arrives at elements of the target (the fragments travel faster than the shockwave except at very short distances from the bomb casing).

The above diagram shows a Russian general-purpose bomb, which in terms of concept is the same as those used in the West. Half of the weight of general-purpose bombs is explosives and the other half is metal casing. When the explosives detonate they shatter the metal casing into thousands of fragments that weigh several grams each and travel at nearly 2 km/s (about 4500 mph).  These high speed fragments can create tremendous damage to the target before the shockwave arrives.  They also create a spray of lethal fragments that greatly increase the killing range against exposed personnel.

Figure 4 below shows the vast number of fragments that are typically produced by general-purpose bombs with casings of various wall thicknesses.

Fragments generated by the explosion of the munition that is roughly 50% weight by explosives and 50% weight by metal casing. These fragments travel at a speed near 2 km/s (about 4500 mph).

Figure 5 on the next page shows the early phases of the detonation process. The detonation of the explosives in the bomb produce violently expanding high-temperature gases which act like a fast moving piston on the metal casing and the surrounding ambient air. In the process of expanding, the casing shatters, pieces are accelerated to high speeds, and a shell of compressed ambient air forms a shockwave of compressed air that propagates outward on its own at slightly above the speed of sound (0.34 km/sec or about 760 mph) causing damage to structural elements that it encounters. The hot expanding gases from explosive mixing with entrained ambient air create a “bubble” of hot gases that is left behind at the detonation point as the shock propagates into the surrounding environment.

This bubble of hot gases then buoyantly rises from the detonation point, carrying entrained dust, pieces of target debris, and bomb remnants along with it as it rises.

When a general-purpose bomb explodes it creates a volume of hot air from the mixing of the extremely hot gases produced in the explosion with nearby surrounding air that is incorporated into the turbulent expanding explosive gases. Fragments from the casing can cause serious damage to surrounding structural elements before the blast wave arrives and can kill people at many hundreds of meters range.  For bombs in the weight-range of 500 to 1000 pounds, the resulting “bubble” of hot buoyantly rising air initially left behind at the point of detonation carries target debris and other materials with it to an eventual full altitude of between 1000 and 1500 feet. The cloud has an overall shape like a mushroom where the crown is the remnant of the initial bubble of hot air from the initial explosion.

As shown on the next page in Figure 6, the initial explosion creates a dust cloud that is made up of the original hot expanding gases along with a “pedestal” of dust that is kicked up by the shockwave as it expands beyond the area of initially hot expanding gases. As the dust cloud evolves in time, it develops into a mushroom shaped debris-cloud where the original hot bomb gases form the crown of the cloud and the suction created by the rising crown of hot gases creates a “stem” which contains dust from the pulverized target

Two examples of bomb-debris clouds from general-purpose bombs in the weight-range of 500 to 1000 pounds. The early debris cloud on the left is from two or three bombs hitting around the same location. The later-time debris cloud on the right is probably generated by a single general-purpose bomb in the 1000 pound weight-class.

There are various methods that have been developed to estimate the size of the crown of the debris cloud and its height.  These estimation techniques are fundamentally approximate, as the cloud can be shaped by the temperature profile of the air, wind shear, and ambient winds. However, when a large bomb hits a target the result is a debris cloud that is unambiguously connected to the size of the munition that has been used. This fundamental fact of physics reveals that the New York Times video about the attack on Khan Sheikhoun makes claims that are completely incompatible with the forensic evidence they show.

Looking at the disparity between the absence of bomb damage that the New York Times analysts show in their video and what the target area would have to look like begs the question, “how could the analysts have possibly made the egregious mistake of thinking that the photos provided by Bellingcat indicated actual bomb-damage commensurate with the observed bomb-clouds in the panoramic view?”

This illustration shows an example of a numerical estimation procedure for making rough estimates of the weight of general- purpose bombs from bomb debris cloud dimensions observed in combat.  The equations are derived from fitting data to numerous observations of bomb explosions. Figures 3 through 6 are from materials left to me by my dear friend and colleague, Richard Lloyd, who died from cancer on October 31, 2014. One of his last requests to me was that the accumulated treasures of his research be made available for public policy analysis.

Figure 8 below shows rough estimates of the blast overpressure versus range for general-purpose bombs of different weights. These curves include the fact that roughly half of the weight of the general-purpose bombs is explosives and the remaining weight is casing.

Damage from General-Purpose Bombs

A widely-known and documentable fact is that a blast overpressure of 30 psi from such a bomb will result in the complete demolition of an urban structural target. As shown in the Figure 8 graph, a 1000 pound general-purpose bomb will cause this result at a range of about 50 feet.  As a result, the detonation of a 1000 pound general-purpose bomb will completely demolish urban structures that have not been built to military specifications over a circular area of roughly more than 100 feet in diameter.

An important additional consideration is that the level of damage done to a target from bomb blasts is highly dependent on the nature of the structure. In the case of the bombing attacks on buildings of the type that populate Khan Sheikhoun, variations in the strengths of building walls can make a very large difference in the size of an area that is essentially “flattened” by a bomb-hit. Although a blast overpressure of 30 psi will almost certainly knock the walls out and cause the complete collapse of a building, a blast overpressure of 20 psi could well produce the same result. This means that the diameter of an area completely demolished by a 1000 pound bomb could be between 100 and 150 feet. In the diagrams we subsequently show we will designate the areas that could be completely demolished in terms of concentric circles with diameters of 100 and 150 feet consecutively.

The above graph shows the blast overpressure versus range for general-purpose bombs of various weights. As can be seen by inspecting the graph, a blast overpressure of about 30 psi will occur at 50 feet from the detonation point of 1000 pound bomb.

The Panoramic View:  Looking South from North of Khan Sheikhoun

Figure 9 on the next page shows the panoramic constructed by Bellingcat which forms the foundation and basic source of analysis used by the New York Times and Human Rights Watch in their published forensics-based analyses of the Syrian air attack on Khan Sheikhoun on April 4, 2017.

The analyses assert that this panoramic shows that three separate targets were hit with general-purpose explosive bombs on April 4, 2017 in addition to a fourth sarin-dispersing airdropped munition with an explosive charge that was too small to create the large and visible bomb-damage debris clouds that could be observed at long-range shown in this panoramic.

The New York Times video claims that this panoramic allowed them to locate where the 500 to 1000 pound explosive bombs were dropped.  The described analysis process on the surface appears straightforward, but a more expert review of the forensic evidence shows that the analysis and its results are profoundly in error.

The analysts first determined the line-of-sight to each of the debris clouds relative to the known locations of thee minarets and the flat mound that is in the middle and foreground of the panoramic view. As a result of its very distinct appearance, the flat mound and its well defined edges, is a feature that can be be used to get a relatively precise estimate of the bore-site of the camera that produced the panoramic.

Such a mound is known among archaeologists as a, tell, which is formed from the accumulated remains of a series of walled towns built successively on top of each other.  In the case of Khan Sheikhoun, this mound dates back about 4000 years to the bronze and iron ages. This particular mound is about 200 to 250 m long and 18 to 25 m high.

A very important immediate issue is raised when the motion of the bomb-debris clouds in the panoramic view is examined. The general direction of the debris-clouds is to the east. As shown in Figures 10 and 11, this instantly raises the question about how the alleged sarin release site could have created so many casualties so quickly. In Figure 10, the wind conditions obtained from weather reports suggests that a sarin release at that site would have carried sarin directly into a nearby heavily populated area immediately to the east northeast of the alleged release site.  If enough sarin had been released, and if it also was released in a way that effectively caused it to quickly evaporate, then the wind as reported by weather stations in the area would have carried a relatively dense cloud of sarin vapor and droplets into the adjacent population area causing heavy casualties near the sarin-release site.

However, if as shown in Figure 11, the wind was gently blowing to the east, the sarin would have instead created a plume that would have had to travel in excess of 600 to 700 m before encountering a densely populated area.  Even relatively large amounts of sarin released on the ground near the alleged sarin release site would be unlikely to create a killing area at this range unless an airdropped munition of perhaps 1000 or 2000 pounds very efficiently dispensed the sarin at altitude above the ground. It is therefore clear that the assumption that the panoramic view was taken on April 4, 2017 directly contradicts the claim that a large group of people were poisoned by a sarin release from this particular site as alleged by the New York Times and Bellingcat analysts.

The above panoramic derived from a video taken north of Khan Sheikhoun looking South shows the three bomb debris-clouds. The debris cloud labeled 1 is almost certainly from either multiple 500 to 1000 pound bombs, or possibly from single or multiple bombs that hit an ammunition dump causing secondary explosions. Clouds 2 and 3 appear to be from single bombs hitting targets. As will be shown in a later section of this paper, if the target locations claimed by the New York Times and Bellingcat analysts were correct, clouds 1 and 2 would be about 1 mile from the camera and cloud 3 would be about 2.5 miles from the camera.

This satellite image shows the alleged location of the sarin release site and the predicted direction of the sarin plume as indicated by weather reports on April 4, 2017.

This satellite image shows the direction the sarin plume would be carried from the alleged sarin release site if the panoramic view used in the New York Times analysis was in fact taken on April 4, 2017. Gigantic amounts of sarin would be needed to kill and injure people at the roughly 600 m range where there is a center of population.

In summary, the inconsistencies in the forensic evidence from the panoramic view should have raised fundamental questions about the assumption that the panoramic view was recorded on April 4, 2017. It then should have raised questions about the use of this panoramic view has a foundation for the New York Times, Human Rights Watch, and Bellingcat analyses. If the sarin release site was at the location alleged by all three organizations, the only way significant casualties could be generated would be if the wind was blowing to the west northwest as predicted by the weather reports on April 4, 2017.

If the wind is instead blowing to the east, as shown in the panoramic, the sarin release cloud would move across empty open fields for a distance of 600 to 700 m before encountering a dense center of population. In order to achieve lethality at such a long range, the nerve-agent plume from a release at ground-level would need to have efficiently dispersed many tens of liters of sarin in extremely stable weather conditions that would keep the sarin plume low to the ground as it moved towards the population center. As shown in reference one critiquing the Human Rights Report of May 1, 2017, there is absolutely no evidence of any kind of a munition at the alleged sarin release site that could be nearly large enough to carry the amounts of sarin needed to cause casualties at these large ranges. It therefore seems that the panoramic view contradicts the conclusion that the sarin release site was the source of a nerve agent attack and that the panoramic was recorded on April 4, 2017.

The Consistency of the Panoramic Data with the Alleged Locations of Bomb-Damage

As already noted, the New York Times video claims that the panoramic view provided the analysts with line-of-sight data from the video camera to the three locations where 500 to 1000 pound explosive bombs were dropped.

We will now examine the before and after satellite images used by the New York Times analysts to conclude they had found the three bomb-damage sites associated with the three bomb-damage debris clouds seen in the panoramic video.

Figures 12 and 13 show a satellite photograph of Khan Sheikhoun as displayed in the New York Times video. Figure 12 shows satellite photograph exactly as it is presented in the New York Times video and Figure 13 shows the same image but with locations labeled so as to provide the reader with orientation.

This satellite image published in the New York Times video analysis shows the alleged locations of the sarin release site and the three bomb-damage sites identified with the panoramic view of Khan Sheikhoun.

This satellite image published in the New York Times video analysis shows the alleged locations of the sarin release site and the three bomb-damage sites identified with the panoramic view of Khan Sheikhoun.

The alleged location of the camera north of Khan Sheikhoun looking South has been provided by Bellingcat, so it is possible to use the bomb-damage locations found by Bellingcat and the location of the camera to verify Bellingcat’s findings.

Figure 14 below shows the manipulations of the panoramic view so it can be used together with the satellite images of Khan Sheikhoun to determine the line-of-sight to the damage areas. Figure 15 on the next page shows Bellingcat’s determination of the location of the bomb damage locations and the vector directions to the damage sites on the satellite image.

The above set of images show how the alleged locations of bomb-damage sites can be used to verify their consistency with the panoramic view. This is done by scaling the size of the panoramic view so that debris-cloud 1, debris cloud 3, and the archaeological flat mound are all in alignment as shown in Figure 15 on the next page. The scaled panoramic view is also rotated so that its length is perpendicular to the line-of-sight of the camera that recorded the panoramic view. This is then overlaid on a satellite image that includes the area where the camera was operating. The result of this process is shown in Figure 15.

What is immediately evident from an inspection of Figure 15 is that although the edges of the flat archaeological mound and the centers of the debris-clouds 1 and 3 align with the line-of-sight of the camera, debris-cloud 2 is not aligned. Since the precision of the imagery is quite high, there is no doubt that the location of the bomb-damage site 2 identified by the New York Times analysts is inconsistent with the panoramic view that was assumed by Bellingcat and the New York Times to be recorded on April 4, 2017.

The next step in the process of determining the veracity of the alleged the alleged forensic evidence associated with events on April 4, 2017 as claimed by Bellingcat and the New York Times is to look at the before and after photographs of the damage sites.

As can be seen from inspecting the alignments of the locations and the camera line-of-sight, the flat mound and debris-cloud locations 1 and 3 are aligned. However, debris-cloud 2 is badly out of alignment with the other objects. This lack of registration between the alleged bombing locations and the camera line-of-sight is another very strong indication that the analysis of the panoramic view is not consistent with the asserted claims about bombing locations and levels of damage on April 4, 2017.

The Evidence of Bomb Damage Allegedly Found from the Panoramic Data

The first issue that should have raised questions for the Bellingcat and New York Times analysts is the time between the before and after satellite photographs.  The “before” satellite images were taken on February 21, 2017 and the “after” images were taken on April 6, 2017. This is a time interval of 44 days.

As a result, if Khan Sheikhoun was under air attack anytime within a 44 day time-period, damage from these earlier attacks could potentially be mistaken for damage inflicted on April 4, 2017. However, as a review of the data will show, this issue is not of concern – the reason being that there is no evidence of bomb damage of any kind at any of the three sites identified by the New York Times.

Figure 16 shows debris-cloud 3 as seen from the camera that recorded the panoramic view. As already noted, the analytical method used by the New York Times to find the bombed site is critically dependent on the use of line-of-sight data from the panoramic view. The analysts claim to have located the bomb- damage by searching satellite imagery along the vector direction determined by each bomb-debris cloud.

Bomb cloud 3 indicates the detonation of a 500 to 1000 pound general-purpose bomb. If the site located by Bellingcat and the New York Times was correctly located, the debris cloud in this image would be at a range of about 2.5 miles. At the time the image was taken the cloud-top was at an altitude of about 500 to 600 feet. Given the size of the explosion, the expected levels of damage from a bomb of this size would be extensive if it had landed in an area populated by buildings.

Figure 17 below below shows the before and after satellite photographs that Bellingcat and the New York Times analysts allege show evidence of bomb damage associated with bomb-debris cloud 3.

The “before” satellite image from February 21, 2017 is shown on the left and the “after” satellite image from April 6, 2017 is shown on the right

It is instructive to look at the before and after satellite photographs in several stages, so as to get a sense of the level of damage that Bellingcat and the New York Times is alleging was the result of an explosion by a 500 to 1000 pound bomb. This can be done by looking at Figure 17 which is labeled “Find the Damage!”

The author has tested roughly a dozen people without special knowledge of bomb effects to determine how evident damage is from this composite dual image photo. None of these people were able to find the bomb damage from the unmarked before and after images in this graphic.

The above before and after photographs are supposed to show the bomb damage done in the area associated with debris-cloud 3 identified in the panoramic shown in figure 16. The author has shown this New York Times photograph to perhaps a dozen nonspecialists and asked them to find the bomb-damage area. None of them succeeded.

The bomb damage locations claimed by the New York Times are indicated in Figure 18 as being within the yellow circles.  It is worth reflecting on the claim made by the New York Times that this is a location where a 500 to 1000 pound bomb exploded creating a debris cloud that was observed at a range of roughly 2.5 miles!

A very careful look into the before and after yellow circles overlaid onto the before and after images shows a small dark region in the “after” image on the roof of a building where the New York Times alleges that a 500 to 1000 pound general-purpose bomb exploded on April 4, 2017. Associating such a negligible level of possible damage with the identified delivery location of a 500 to 1000 pound bomb is ludicrous and completely at odds with essentially everything known about the effects of explosives and bombing.

The above before and after photographs are supposed to show the bomb damage done in the area associated with debris-cloud 3 identified in the panoramic shown in Figure 16. The author has shown this New York Times photograph to perhaps a dozen nonspecialists before the yellow circles identifying the alleged bomb-hits were added to the photo and asked them to find the bomb- damage area.  None of them succeeded.

Figure 19 below shows the size of the area where severe bomb-damage from a 500 to 1000 pound general-purpose bomb are expected and predictable at location 3, as identified by the New York Times.

The yellow circle filled with hatching shows the area where buildings would be demolished. The large red dot on the left shows the building that would have been demolished if the bomb had hit in the location where the New York Times analysts allege there was bomb damage. The large red dot to the right of that building shows a building across the street from the demolished building that would also have almost certainly been completely destroyed.

In the case of that building (see Figure 20), the blast overpressure on its front wall facing the street would essentially cause the complete failure of the outer walls facing the blast point. This would result in the collapse of loadbearing structures and the floors in the front half of the building facing the alleged bomb impact point. The rear of the building might have survived collapse, but the effects of the blast wave funneling through the structure could well cause the collapse of the back half of the building as well.

Hence, an informed guess about the level of damage on that building would be “probable partial or total collapse.” In any case, nobody who knew anything about the effects of explosives could have possibly misidentified a minuscule blemish on the roof of a large building as evidence of an attack with a 500 to 1000 pound bomb. The level of damage alleged by the New York Times at this location is simply ridiculous when compared with the evidence used to identify this location as the bomb detonation site seen from 2.5 miles in the panoramic view.

The above before and after photographs show what levels of damage would have occurred if the debris cloud 3 had been properly associated with the location of the identified target area. The inner circle has a diameter of roughly 100 feet, within which 30 psi or more blast would have caused the complete demolition of the building. The outer circle of diameter roughly 150 feet, shows the area within which a 15 psi or more blast could knock down masonry walls and buildings that are not constructed of steel reinforced concrete.  In essence, a knowledgeable analyst who believed this site had been hit by a bomb large enough to create the debris cloud seen in the panoramic would have known to expect very heavy damage and demolished buildings at this location.

In summary, NOTHING associated with this alleged forensic evidence of bomb damage at location 3 shown in the New York Times video supports the Times’ narrative of this event in Khan Shekhoun on April 4, 2017.

Alleged Bomb Damage at the Site Associated with Debris Cloud 2

The bombed area associated with bomb-debris cloud 2 shows exactly the same astounding disparity between levels of predictable and expected damage from a 500 to 1000 pound bomb relative to what is identified as bomb damage by the New York Times and Bellingcat analysts.

Figure 21 shows the location of bomb cloud 2 as seen in the panoramic view of Khan Sheikhoun from the North looking South.

Bomb cloud 2 indicates the detonation of a 500 to 1000 pound general-purpose bomb.  If the site located by the New York Times was correctly identified, the debris cloud in this image would be at a range of about 1.5 miles. At the time the image was taken the cloud-top was at an altitude of about 500 to 600 feet. Given the size of the explosion, the expected levels of damage from a bomb of this size would be extensive if it had landed in an area populated by buildings.

Figure 22 shows a video frame from the New York Times video that is constructed from a composite of a section of the Bellingcat panoramic view, and an elaborate three-dimensional representation of Khan Sheikhoun looking from north to south. The locations of the three bomb-debris clouds and the archaeological mound are all identified with markings to make it easier for the reader to compare these features in both figures 21 and 22.

The bottom half of the above composite image from the New York Times video published on April 26, 2017 shows the two debris clouds from explosions that allegedly occurred in an attack on Khan Sheikhoun on April 4, 2017. The composite image asserts that the two identified bombing sites were determined with line-of-sight analysis using the panoramic image from the video camera north of Kan Sheikhoun. The analysts claim to have used line-of-sight data in combination with digital satellite imagery to locate the areas where the bombs shown in the lower half of the composite fell. However, examination of the satellite images of the location 2 where the bomb allegedly exploded shows no evidence of bomb damage.

The disparity between the expected and observed levels of bomb-damage at the identified location of site 2 where allegedly a 500 to 1000 pound bomb fell are just as dramatic as in the case of site 3.

Figure 23 at the top of the next page again provides the reader an opportunity to see the uncluttered before and after satellite images of the bombed area.  Even after knowing and studying the claims by the New York Times analysts about the damage at this site, it is still difficult even with foreknowledge to quickly find the area of claimed damaged.  Individuals with no prior knowledge of the claims of damage in the before and after images shown in the New York Times video have an equally hard time finding the damage alleged by the New York Times in this case (site 2) as in the case of site 3.

Figure 24 in the middle of the next page identifies the alleged bomb-damage location with yellow circles in the before and after images of the alleged hit-location. The after image shows a small slightly oblong dark area on the roof of a building. According to the New York Times analysts, this is the identified area of bomb-damage from a 500 to 1000 pound bomb.

Figure 25 is an image from the New York Times video where it is alleged that photos of the bomb-damage have been taken on the ground at site 2. This particular photograph indicates an astonishing disparity between the bomb-damage that would occur if a 500 to 1000 pound bomb came through the roof at that location and the damage claimed by the New York Times analysts.

As shown in Figure 26, on the following page, a 500 to 1000 pound bomb would have completely demolished the building it hit and would also have demolished the building across the street, which can be seen in the photograph in Figure 25, allegedly taken at damage location 2.

The yellow hatched inner circle in Figure 26 shows the circular area of roughly 100 feet in diameter where the detonation of the bomb would produce a blast overpressure of 30 psi or more!

Such a high level of blast overpressure would completely demolish structures beyond and within the inner circular area shown in the figure. The outer circle shows the area in which a 15 psi overpressure or more would occur. A 15 psi overpressure would be enough to severely damage or knock down most stone masonry walls of the type that appear to be ubiquitous in the construction used in Khan Sheikhoun. Thus, almost all of the buildings along the entire length of the block in figure 26 would have been demolished or rendered unusable. Yet the New York Times claims an ambiguous possible small hole in the roof that is seen on a low resolution satellite image is evidence for bomb damage that should have shown demolished buildings across the area at issue.

Finally, it should be noted that the location of site 2 is NOT along the line-of-sight to debris-cloud 2 in the panoramic view. Thus, the New York Times claims damage from a large bomb in an area that is not along the observed line-of-sight in the panoramic view that shows no evidence of bomb damage associated with a bomb-debris cloud allegedly used to find the bombed location.

This complete disconnect between the bomb-damage at both sites 2 and 3, and the serious line-of-sight discrepancies associated with the identified location of bomb-damage site 2, are serious internal inconsistencies with the narrative produced by the New York Times and its analysts. In the next section on bombing site 1, even more serious inconsistencies and discrepancies between claimed findings in the New York Times video and ground-truth will be identified and discussed.

The before and after satellite images of site 2 where the New York Times analysts assert bomb damage from a 500 to 1000 pound general-purpose bomb is shown above. It is a useful exercise for the reader to try to find the differences that indicate bomb-damage in the image from February 21, 2017 and from April 6, 2017.

The two yellow circles in the before and after images show the minuscule feature in the after image associated with the observed debris-cloud 2 that is claimed as evidence of damage from a 500 to 1000 pound bomb.

The image on the left side of the above video frame from the New York Times video shows a photograph of the alleged bomb damage at the site where debris cloud 2 was generated in the attack on April 4, 2017. It is not possible to determine if this damage area is in any way associated with a satellite image. However, it is easy to determine that the damage in the photograph could not possibly have been so small if a 500 to 1000 pound general-purpose bomb had gone through the roof at this location. A photograph from the same spot would simply show nothing but rubble, including the rubble of the building wall across the street behind the parked vehicle. An actual photograph of this location after a hit with a 500 to 1000 pound bomb would show that the surrounding buildings had been completely demolished

The areas of expected bomb-damage at site 2 where a bomb-debris cloud was observed in the panoramic view, are shown in the markings projected over the after satellite image taken on April 6, 2017. The large red dot in the center of the hatched yellow circle shows the spot where New York Times analysts claim a 500 to 1000 pound bomb hit. The hatched yellow circle shows the outer limits of an area where the blast wave from the bomb would be roughly 30 psi or higher. This level of blast overpressure would demolish all the buildings within and beyond the inner circle. The outer yellow circle shows the area within which a 15 pounds per square inch or more would occur. This level of overpressure would be enough to cause the collapse of or extreme damage to stone masonry walls of the type that appear to be ubiquitous in building construction in Khan Sheikhoun. Thus, the level of damage associated with such a bomb-hit should essentially be the “flattening” of almost all the buildings along the full length of the block. It should be no surprise why this class of general-purpose bomb was called a “blockbuster” in World War II.

Yet Another Set of Contradictions:

The New York Times Claims of Damage at Bomb-Site 1

Figure 27 is derived from the same New York Times video frame as in Figure 22. The important difference between these two figures is the overlay of markings that provide information to the reader.

In particular, there are three ellipses shown in yellow that indicate roughly the size of areas of destruction expected from bombing attacks. The smallest and right-most ellipse shows the estimated size of the area of destruction at debris-cloud site 2, which has been discussed in detail in the prior section.

The left-most ellipse shows an area that was completely demolished when it was bombed in March 2015. The New York Times video shows video that it alleges was taken of the March 2015 attack (see Figure 29). The video shows that three bombs were dropped on the target. The video also shows the initial development of the bomb-debris cloud from that attack (Figure 28) and aerial photographs of the damaged area (Figure 31), which extends over a roughly circular diameter of about 400 feet. The size of this area is consistent with the dropping of three 500 to 1000 pound bombs onto the target.

As can be verified by examining the panoramic view of bomb-debris cloud 1, it is very clear that this cloud has a significantly larger base-diameter than debris-clouds 2 and 3. The base-diameter of the debris-cloud 1 is more than twice that of debris-clouds 2 and 3. The area covered by the base of this debris cloud is between four and six times larger than the area covered at the base of the other two debris-clouds.

This is exactly the expected result from a bombing that uses three bombs rather than one.

These observations strongly suggest that debris-cloud 1 is explained by a multiple bomb attack. Another possibility is that a single bomb was dropped on a large ammunition dump and secondary explosions led to the creation of a debris-cloud and area of ground-damage that had a very large base-diameter. In either case, the debris-cloud indicates a very much larger area of destruction than what should have been found at sites 2 and 3 – assuming that any bomb-damage was observed at these other two locations consistent with the debris-clouds seen in the panoramic.

The markings on the above image identify important indicators that raise questions about the veracity of the New York Times analysis. The three yellow ellipses show the rough size areas that should have been subjected to high levels of damage in the form of demolished buildings. As has already been shown, no such damage is present in either the bombed sites associated with debris cloud 2 and debris cloud 3. The left-most ellipse shows the area damaged in March 2015.  The New York Times video contains video of the bombing that it claims was taken in March 2015. The New York Times video also shows before and after satellite images of the area demolished in March 2015. Direct comparison of the size of the debris clouds from the March 2015 attack and bomb-debris cloud 1 that the Times alleges was the result of a bombing attack on April 4, 2017 indicate that the size of the severely damaged area associated with debris-cloud 1 should be about the same as that associated with the site that was bombed in March 2015. In spite of the fact that the New York Times analysts provided evidence of extreme large-scale damage associated with the March 2015 attack, they allege infinitesimal bomb damage at site 1.  Thus, the analysts were informed of the large spatial scale of the demolished area from the attack of March 2015 but still claim infinitesimal damage at site 1 is convincing evidence of an attack involving multiple bombs or large secondary explosions. This is yet another inexplicable inconsistency in the analysis put forward in the New York Times video and by Bellingcat.

The remaining images and their subtitles provide all of the information about the serious discrepancies between the bomb damage recognized by the New York Times analysts at the bombing site associated with the March 2015 attack and the minuscule bomb-damage asserted by the analysts to indicate a similar bombing at site 1 on April 4, 2017. The images and subtitles tell the story so there is no point in repeating it further in this main text.

The above photograph shows the late debris cloud from a bombing in March 2015 in Khan Sheikhoun of a target area (referred to above as “silo”) discussed in the New York Times video published on April 27, 2017. The sequence of video frames from that video shown in Figure 29 below show that three bombs were dropped on the site. Note that the base of the debris cloud is very close to the same size as the base of the large debris cloud 1 in the panoramic image that is incorrectly identified as having been taken on April 4, 2017.

Plates A through F show the sequence of events that indicate three bombs were dropped on a target that was alleged to be the site of a warehouse and silos in Khan Sheikhoun in March 2015. Plate A shows the target immediately before the impact of the bombs. Plate B shows the three distinct early debris clouds from the bombs that were dropped, and plates C and D show the evolution of the debris cloud from the three nearly simultaneous bomb explosions. As will be shown in the Figure 30, the base dimensions of this debris cloud is very close to that of the base dimensions of the debris cloud 1 in the panoramic view.

The image of the late-debris cloud from the March 2015 (derived by scaling Figure 28 above) attack is inset on images of debris- clouds 1 and 2 allegedly from a bombing attack on April 4, 2017, according to the New York Times video. The inset images from Figure 28 were scaled so that the buildings in the foreground of each of the two original images would be roughly on the same spatial scale to facilitate a visual comparison of the two bomb-debris clouds. As can be seen, even accounting for uncertainties in the scaling, the very large base diameter of debris-cloud 1 indicates that multiple bombs were used in that attack.

The images of the target hit in March 2015 are shown in both the satellite image on the left and the image on the right taken by a small drone carrying a television camera. As can be seen, the area severely damaged is about 400 feet across.

The above satellite photograph shows the “silo” target prior to being bombed in March 2015.  Also shown in the satellite image are the alleged bomb-damage locations from the April 4, 2017 attack as determined by the line-of-sight data of the bomb-debris clouds from the panoramic view. The size of the areas that should have been heavily damaged at sites 1 and 2 are also shown. Since the debris-cloud associated with damage at 1 is comparable in size to the area demolished in March 2015, it is reasonable to expect that an area of similar size should have also been demolished. Since the image above was produced by the analysts associated with

the New York Times video, the question arises why did they associate minuscule to nonexistent damage at site 1 with a major bombing when they were fully aware of the large scale area of destruction associated with the bombing in March 2015.

The satellite photograph used as the base-image in Figure 32 above is also well-suited to show the off-alignment of bombing site 2 relative to the line-of-sight determined by the panoramic view.  This shows that an area of potentially several square blocks could have been totally demolished if the two bombing sites were actually along the line-of-sight established by the panoramic view. Since there is no significant damage exhibited in the satellite photographs of both alleged bombing sites, this underscores the absurdity of the claims made in the New York Times video when compared to the actual forensic evidence.

 

Summary and Conclusions

This seemingly narrow technical discussion of the disparity between forensic evidence that allegedly indicates a nerve agent and bombing attack in Khan Sheikhoun on April 4, 2017 is of profound importance to US national security and to our democracy.

The White House produced a false intelligence report on April 11, 2017 in order to justify an attack on the Syrian airbase at Sheyrat, Syria on April 7, 2017. That attack risked an unintended collision with Russia and a possible breakdown in cooperation between Russia and United States in the war to defeat the Islamic State. The collision also had some potential to escalate into a military conflict with Russia of greater extent and consequence.

The New York Times and other mainstream media immediately and without proper review of the evidence adopted the false narrative produced by the White House even though that narrative was totally unjustified based on the forensic evidence. The New York Times used an organization, Bellingcat, for its source of analysis even though Bellingcat has a long history of making false claims based on distorted assertions about forensic evidence that either does not exist, or is absolutely without any evidence of valid sources.

On September 17, 2013 the New York Times published on its front page a totally bogus false claim based on an alleged analysis produced by Bellingcat that concluded using untrue assumptions about the excessively long range of a sarin-carrying munition that the nerve agent attack on August 21, 2013 had originated from a site deep inside Syrian government controlled territory.  My colleague, Richard Lloyd, and I produced analysis and reported to Times management that that the munition could travel could only travel two kilometers or less nearly, not the 10 km range that formed the foundation of the conclusions published by the Times.  Yet in spite of the uncontested accuracy of this science-based fact, the New York Times stuck to its rhetoric and did not make any effort to re-examine the foundations of the narrative it knew had to be false in the face of these facts.

This history of New York Times publishing of inaccurate information and then sticking by it when solid science-based forensic evidence disproves the original narrative cannot be explained in terms of simple error. The facts overwhelmingly point to a New York Times management that is unconcerned about the accuracy of its reporting.

The problems exposed in this particular review of a New York Times analysis of critically important events related to the US national security is not unique to this particular story. This author could easily point to other serious errors in New York Times reporting on important technical issues associated with our national security. In these cases, like in this case, the New York Times management has not only allowed the reporting of false information without reviewing the facts for accuracy, but it has repeatedly continued to report the same wrong information in follow-on articles. It may be inappropriate to call this “fake news,” but this loaded term comes perilously close to actually describing what is happening.

The specific problems with the forensic analysis produced by Bellingcat and reported by the New York Times are as follows:

1. The three areas where Bellingcat claims bomb damage occurred show NO evidence of bomb damage consistent with the observed bomb-debris clouds that indicate the delivery of 500 to 1000 pound bombs.

If the wind was blowing in the opposite direction as shown in the panoramic view on April 4, the sarin from the alleged sarin-release site would have drifted into open fields and would not have reached any populated areas for more than half a kilometer. As such, there would be no casualties from a sarin release at this location as alleged by the New York Times, Human Rights Watch, and Bellingcat.

Given the small size of the container (containing no more than 5 to 10 liters) that was alleged by Bellingcat as carrying sarin, and the large distance between the nearest populated area and the sarin- release site, even with near ideal weather conditions for a deadly sarin dispersal, there would have been essentially NO casualties from the sarin-release in any densely populated areas downwind.

1. One of the bomb damage sites (bomb damage area 2) is not along the line-of-sight determined by the panoramic view as claimed by Bellingcat. As such, the location of this bomb damage site contradicts the data from the panoramic view that was allegedly used to find
2. Video of an alleged bombing of a target in March 2015 in Khan Sheikhoun shows a large area of heavy bomb damage that is completely inconsistent with the minuscule or nonexistent bomb damage in the three bombed sites on April 4, 2017 allegedly found by Bellingcat. The bomb-damage video from March 2015 shows a bomb-debris cloud that is much like the large bomb-debris cloud 1 allegedly produced on April 4, 2017. While the area bombed in March 2015 shows extensive and unambiguous severe bomb damage, the area where Bellingcat alleges bomb damage at site 1 on April 4 shows only minuscule or no bomb damage. This raises serious questions about the veracity of Bellingcat’s claims about the forensic evidence of bomb-site

In summary, video sequences of the alleged bombing in March 2015 show that three bombs in the 500 to 1000 pound class were dropped on the target.

Before and after satellite images also shown in the New York Times video of the alleged site that was bombed in March 2015 show an area of roughly 400 feet diameter that was completely demolished by the alleged bombing attack.

Damage site 1 identified by Bellingcat as being associated with a similar very large bomb-debris cloud created on April 4, 2017 shows only minuscule damage relative to the vast area that was demolished in March 2015.

1. The before and after satellite images used by Bellingcat were taken 44 days apart between February 21, 2017 and April 6, 2017. This means that even if there were bomb damage seen in the April 6 images, it would not be possible to uniquely identify that damage with the April 4
2. However, since there is NO bomb damage in any of the three bombed sites that Bellingcat identified, this is not an issue with regard to the Bellingcat However, it does indicate that if Bellingcat had found bomb damage in the before and after satellite imagery, it could not be ascribed unambiguously as having occurred on April 4
3. Although the New York Times video shows the debris cloud and the completely demolished site associated with that bombing, it appears that nobody performing the analysis of the forensic data asked the question why in one case a large debris cloud was associated with a large area of heavy ground- damage and in all the other cases there was either no damage or only minuscule evidence of some kind of small
4. The complete lack of any forensic evidence of bomb damage generated by the use of the panoramic view; the inconsistencies in the the wind direction observed in the panoramic view with the weather reports for that day; and an analytic process that observed bomb damage consistent with the observed bomb-debris cloud in the March 2015 bombing but no significant bomb-damage in the three bombings on April 4, 2017 leads to findings that are inexplicable with regard to the
5. These egregious errors internal inconsistencies in the forensic analysis suggest that the analysts may have had a predetermined narrative, but could not find the forensic evidence to support it. So they simply solved their problem by asserting that there was forensic evidence that does not
6. This evidence suggests that New York Times management did not check the accuracy of the facts supporting the narrative of events on April 4, 2017 that the Times has been publishing, and continues to

The New York Times Video Analysis of the Events in Khan Sheikhoun on April 4, 2017: NONE of the Cited Forensic Evidence Supports the Claims was originally published on Washington's Blog

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