Dear friends,

[dropcap]A[/dropcap]s soon as I heard about the tragic explosion in Beirut I told my family “you will see, there will be some idiots who will say it was a nuke”.  Sure enough, today I already see nonsense posted about the usual suspects about the Israelis nuking of Beirut.  Some even claim this was a thermonuclear explosion! This just proves to me that I was right when I added this rule to the moderation guidelines:

“I am banning any and all references to use of tactical nuclear weapons, including alleged use of tactical nukes by Israel in Syria or Lebanon, or by anybody (including the USA or Israel) in Yemen.  In fact from now on, I am the ONLY person allowed to report the use of tactical nuclear weapons.”

However, considering how huge this explosion was, I feel that I ought to post these few reminders:

1. It is quite impossible to conceal the use of a nuclear device, even a low-yield one, in particular in a densely populated area and in a warzone.
2. Most (all?) major explosions produce a “nuclear mushroom” simply because the air rushes back into the place from where it was expelled by the explosion.
3. You can clearly see two colors in the explosion, which points to a chemical, not nuclear, event.
4. There is a complete absence of any nuclear flash and fireball.
5. In the case of the Beirut explosion, you can clearly see in the footage that there is/are a (few) primary explosion(s) and a much bigger secondary explosion.  You don’t see that with nukes.  See for yourself:

But most importantly is this: if the Israelis were crazy enough to actually strike Lebanon’s capital with a nuke (or even with a huge conventional bomb/missile) you could be sure that Hezbollah and Iran would strike at cities like Tel Aviv and a number of other Israeli cities (and ports).  To visualize this, just think of the Iranian strike on the US base in Iraq, but aimed at key Israeli government buildings and facilities.

What happened in Beirut is an immense tragedy and my heart goes out to all the wonderful people of Lebanon, whom I love and admire. Trying to make money by generating clickbaiting nonsense about what actually took place is absolutely repulsive and shows a total lack of respect for the victims.

Shame on those who engage in such behavior!

The Saker

PS: By the way, I am not saying that sabotage is not possible or that Israel had nothing to do with this.  All I am saying is that nukes (even less so thermonuclear devices) were not used.