Talk:Alleged Chemical Attack, August 21, 2013/Locations/Kafr Batna

Location
The field hospital is operating in the cellar of the Kafr Batna municipal building or town hall right in the center of Kafr Batna. See analysis here. It is likely the Kafr Batna Coordinating Committee functions in the same building.


 * Google Maps:
 * http://goo.gl/maps/K9CLU

Nighttime hospital scene
First video starts from the outside, moves inside. Note the green water bottles used for pouring water on victims. These could help identify later inside footage. The first four videos are unlabeled: (1, 2, 3, 4) A strap is hanging from the camera, helping to identify the cameraman. Starting from video 5 the uploads get a Coordinating Committee style logo, but are from the same set of footage: (5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10) One more unlabeled video (11) seems to be from the same place, this one shows fighting age men in and around an operating room. One has a needle stuck to his neck, I suppose for injection of atropine. (See Nerve agent antidotes) -- Petri Krohn (talk) 11:31, 22 August 2013 (UTC)

Dead girls in morgue
This unlabeled video, (number 4 in the above nighttime series) show the beginning of the pileup in the morgue. Note the distinctive blanket that is shown at the end of the video. It is also shown in the debunk video discussed below with more young girls piled up on top of it. The scene is a windowless underground room.
 * Same blanket, or same design, seen in Damascus suburbs. Possible clue, not strong. --Caustic Logic (talk) 11:05, 25 August 2013 (UTC)

The same girls, and the corner of the blanket are later shown at daytime, in a large well-lit room with some one hundred other bodies lined up. The video is also uploaded by Kafr Batna Coordinating Committee, this time with their Kafar Batna City logo:
 * أكثر من مئة شهيد من الذين اسعفو لكفربطنا فقط جراء القصف الكيماوي21\8 (More than a hundred martyrs who Asafo for Kafr Batna only by chemical bombardment August 21)
 * Note the typo in the word (اسعفو = Asafo), should most likely be (اسعفوا = Asafoa?)


 * "More than a hundred martyrs by chemical bombardment August 21, only from those who were rescued to Kafr Batna" Jokkmokks goran (talk) 19:33, 28 August 2013 (UTC)
 * Thanks for that. --Caustic Logic (talk) 23:13, 6 September 2013 (UTC)


 * If not a verb but a place, probably Deir al-Asafir, which is nearby. Interesting video. Note how at around 0:20-25 you see at least two men bleeding from the head executed from this chemical bombing. I do suspect prominent use of chemicals, but I think there's a little more mixing of methods here than they're letting on. The beefier ones who pull through, wake up and start choking you as you drag them to the truck -shoot that one, mix him in anyway.And the children... man. Looking at them, it seems they tend to be open-mouthed, heads back, trying to breathe. No slime/foam or discoloration. Could have been suffocated in an airtight chamber somewhere then brought here. --Caustic Logic (talk) 11:05, 25 August 2013 (UTC)

This comment video on Facebook notes that many bodies in the morgue scene have syringes placed on them. The hospital staff seem to be injecting them with something, most like atropine. It may be that all the bodies are not dead yet.
 * Qatar-provided experimental serum to cure Muslims of Shi'ism? Sorry, couldn't help it popping to mind. I would not be totally shocked, but I guess that would only work on the living - which they almost must be, right? --Caustic Logic (talk) 11:05, 25 August 2013 (UTC)
 * Or, perhaps they're drawing blood, to be tested? --Caustic Logic (talk) 23:13, 6 September 2013 (UTC)

In the first video in the Kafar Batna set the victims are brought in into the same room that is later used as the morgue in the daylight scene. (Note the bombed-out windows.) -- Petri Krohn (talk) 12:45, 22 August 2013 (UTC)

Witnesses
The latest video from Kafar Batna is an interview of a very young boy: Child injured with poison gas and killed his father and lost his mother tells what happened on August 21. -- Petri Krohn (talk) 13:08, 22 August 2013 (UTC)

Denis O'Brien "Sun Morgue" Investigation

 * Murder In The SunMorgue, Denis O'Brien, April 14, 2014

CL mentioned it but we have no link yet. Our fellow wiki member Denis O'Brien just came up with an extensive report dealing with the video evidence of the victims in Kafr Batna. Skimmed Part A so far and it's very interesting. Petri gets a plug for geolocating the "SunMorgue", which Denis says is the ground-floor of a building in whose underground floor a couple of other victim videos have been filmed. He stays with his earlier conviction that no Sarin was used to kill these people and says his case is bullet-proof from a professional PoV. He sticks it to Kerry and the other liars in his trademark style so I think it is best placed here. The other parts of the report contain the detailed analysis. For us I think we could mostly check his work on locations as none of us has the expertise to deal with the biological/chemical stuff. Will take a second look next week. --CE (talk) 12:58, 19 April 2014 (UTC)


 * Thanks, CE. I was meaning to start something (new title okay?). I--Caustic Logic (talk) 07:20, 20 April 2014 (UTC)


 * Funny, I thought he didn't have the morgue placed, and came here to see what Petri had said and how it matches, and let Denis know. Instead, I'll just do the first two. --Caustic Logic (talk) 07:20, 20 April 2014 (UTC)


 * In part D he puts together a couple of clues we noticed much better to illustrate that victim M-015 (as dubbed) was killed by a sliced or stabbed throat, likely right there in the morgue after waking up. What I thought was a bloody chunk of human tissue is instead the wadded blanket that soaked up most of his blood. Lots of it. A beefy man, he's aa good candidate for underdose of whatever poison they used, requiring a second execution. Excellent work. Another possible throat slice victim, not at all so sure, but maybe. --Caustic Logic (talk) 07:20, 20 April 2014 (UTC)

Comments on the medical arguments in Denis's report.

1. One of Denis's key arguments is that as sarin victims should be cyanosed because sarin kills by paralysing the respiratory muscles, yet at least some victims have bright red lips or red livor mortis. This is more consistent with cyanide poisoning. as cyanide kills by blocking oxygen use by cells. Specifically brick-red livor mortis is a textbook feature of fatal cyanide poisoning Images of the Halabja victims (see http://www.nonproliferation.eu/documents/kickoff2/zanders.pdf) show profound cyanosis of lips and under fingernails. However the Halabja victims hadn't received any resuscitation. If sarin-exposed victims had received oxygen and respiratory support in KB before death, they might not be cyanosed. But as Denis points out, the victims in the basement are receiving only desultory attempts at respiratory support. He comments, as I did in an earlier ACLOS thread, that there is no medical equipment present apart from gas cylinders lying on the floor (he counts seven 44 litre cylinders).

2. Denis shows clearly that phlebotomists are moving from one body to the next to take blood samples by a femoral stab, but then leaving the syringe, containing blood or plasma, on each victim's abdomen. He finds this hard to explain, and so do I. If this was a genuine effort to collect post-mortem samples from victims of a military gas attack, why weren't the samples transferred to blood storage bottles, labelled and given to the UN team? If the KB scene was a false flag massacre of captives, why collect blood samples that won't show sarin exposure. Maybe they wanted to document that blood samples had been taken from the victims, but not necessarily to use the samples from these victims.

3. Denis notes that the gas cylinders (blue or green) in the basement aren't connected to any medical equipment or to flow meters, and have no handles on the valves. He shows that one of the blue cylinders has been moved repeatedly, and draws the obvious conclusion about its likely use. We might make progress on this if we can find out what colour coding is used for medical gas cylinders in Syria.

Conclusion: the most compelling evidence that the whole KB complex is a managed massacre site rather than an emergency medical centre is the story that Denis has pieced together of the man bleeding from a cut throat. The lack of cyanosis could just about be explained by the use of respiratory support with oxygen, though there's no evidence that this was administered effectively to anyone. In fact there's not much evidence that any useful medical treatment was administered at KB. The death rate should have been low among those who survived a sarin attack long enough to reach hospital conscious and breathing without assistance, yet we don't get to see any survivors of the KB basement.

-- Pmr9 (talk)


 * Yes, sarin usually kills in under 15 minutes. Most victims should be dead long before they reach the hospital. Those that do, should have a high survival rate. Yet it seem that everyone that comes to the hospitals ends up dead. In Zamalka or somewhere we see several living children being treated, yet they are all later shown dead or in the morgue. A slow but unavoidable death is a symptom of chlorine gas poisoning. -- Petri Krohn (talk) 02:33, 21 April 2014 (UTC)

Promotion
I'm consulting with Denis on this. We agree it needs a summary version and/or a promo article. One way or another, I think there'll be something further relatively soon. --Caustic Logic (talk) 07:20, 20 April 2014 (UTC)

I'm opening this up for general input here. Denis' report as it stands is like the novel, and I think we need two more levels - s quick reference "for dummies" sort of version, maybe a bit like the MIT Ghouta report, with easy headings, short paragraphs, bullet lists, graphics, short-attention span. An AP reporter could dig out the key facts and quote it in just a few minutes. There are different options (like a Q and A format), and considerations, I'm not sure I'm giving a fair shake to, so I want to put a couple more minds on it. Then above that, a widely-read promo article (I suggested Gliobal Research - other thoughts?) that points to the readable summary and the full project page. Having seen the report, suggestions on what it should all do/look like, what should go in, get emphasized, and any volunteers for co-writing or something, even who's best to write it isn't sure. And it needs to move kind of quick, so don't wait forever to drop your thoughts here. Thx. --Caustic Logic (talk) 09:44, 22 April 2014 (UTC)


 * Denis provided kind of a summary already with Part A but of course that is still soaked in his personal style (which I love). The whole thing will be difficult to sell anyway because the "fact" that Sarin was used is kind of a given among those who still care. I think a promotional article at GR should focus on where in the discussion and state of general research Denis chimes in with his report and try to get other professionals to look at it (I forgot Pmr9 in my earlier assessment that "we" don't have the expertise, sorry for that). If that happens and they are interested, they will be able to make it through the unusual presentation. So I think Denis should try to condense the already condensed arguments for "no sarin" for the author of that promo article. My 2cents. --CE (talk) 20:37, 22 April 2014 (UTC)


 * A promo article doesn't need to argue that no sarin was used in Ghouta. Clearly the people examined in Zamalka whose samples tested positive had been exposed to sarin somehow. Denis has built a strong case that the KB complex was not a real emergency medical centre but a managed massacre site, where captives were gassed in the basement and either brought upstairs dead to be photographed, or photographed while still alive, then shot. For the reasons he gives, sarin would not be the preferred agent for gassing people in a confined space.  It's of course entirely possible that the other emergency medical centres were genuine, and that at least some of the patients they were treating had been exposed to sarin from the rockets.  It's plausible that the rockets were not meant to cause mass casualties; these were to be provided by gassed captives.  Instead of seeing the sarin-filled rockets and the massacre of captives as two alternative explanations, we should evaluate how they complement each other.  Pmr9 (talk)


 * Okay... CE, excellent - assess the field, what's been said, how little Sarin has really been questioned, and how this bucks the trend that maybe shouldn't exist. Fresh thinking time. It's an event and it's news. I suggested experts, he's tried. I'm no better at badgering like that. Any thoughts to help, cool. Otherwise, it gets skipped. Pmr9, thanks for appearing again. If you'd be willing to be in touch as an adviser and to add second opinions, contact me Caustic_Logic@yahoo.com on the how. On Sarin in Ghouta, it wouldn't be right to argue past what's shown - I suggest by refreshing the overall no-Sarin-signs analysis, if needed. The later tests show what they do, as shown earlier all the video is pretty damn slim on supports. Ergo, maybe no Sarin, maybe a new type with different symptoms, or almost all victims kept of the videos of hundreds, can't be answered now (but the best guess is clear) ... then, in this KB study, we have a clearer and detailed assessment as a more solid case study, which it is. Most of the good photos and lots of videos are all from here, probably the best case to study anyway. --Caustic Logic (talk) 23:31, 22 April 2014 (UTC)