This description opens with an uncharacteristic qualification and apology: There are two elements of the titles of each of these programs that were not adequately explained in the broadcasts themselves, although they are implicit in the subject material.
The term “Northwoods Virus” is more completely presented in FTR#1215. Among the apparent goals of the “Covid Operation” that produced SARS CoV‑2 is the turning of American public opinion against China. Operation Northwoods was a plan hatched by the Join Chiefs of Staff in the early 1960’s to stage apparent terrorist incidents against American civilian and military personnel and infrastructure in order to manipulate public opinion in this country and generate sentiment for an invasion of Cuba.
The second program refers to the Biden Presidency as “Satanic,” because behind a studiously constructed façade of identity politics, “Team Biden” is pursuing an overtly warlike, imperialist agenda that was accurately characterized by writer Henry Miller in his novel Tropic of Cancer: “America is the very incarnation of doom, and she will lead the rest of the world into the Bottomless Pit.”
Perhaps the most insidious of Biden’s programs is his “Cancer Moonshot.”
Ominously, it may well be the successor to Richard Nixon’s “War on Cancer,” which did not defeat cancer, but did serve as the apparent platform for the development of biological warfare weapons, AIDS in particular.
Modeled after DARPA, headed by a DARPA alumna whose CV intersects with that Agency’s apparent involvement with the development of Covid-19 and with an acting director who is also a former employee of that benighted organization, this new “health agency–ARPA‑H”, this agency will employ new, synthetic biology technology.
Although that development is represented as humanitarian, the structure of the agency and the national security backgrounds of its leading personnel suggest strongly that this agency, too, will serve as a clandestine platform for the next generation of biological weaponry.
We begin FTR#1292 with a reprise of the audio from a (now deleted) 55-second video of Dr. Jeffrey Sachs summarizing his two-year stewardship of The Lancet’s commission investigating the origins of SARS CoV‑2.
Sachs stated that he is “pretty convinced” it came from a U.S. biological laboratory.
Next, we recap a study released by US National Academy of Sciences at the request of the Department of Defense about the threats of synthetic biology concluded that the techniques to tweak and weaponize viruses from known catalogs of viral sequences is very feasible and relatively easy to do.
One of the central points Mr. Emory has made about the genesis of the coronavirus concerns the legal principle of “consciousness of guilt.”
Going a long way toward proving consciousness of guilt are:
1.–The classification of information about the nature of the biological agents involved with the CDC’s closure of the United States Army’s Medical Institute of Infectious Disease in early August of 2019, on the eve of the pandemic.
2.–The behavior of Peter Daszak and colleagues in “gaming” the Lancet statement on the “natural” origin of the coronavirus (Daszak’s EcoHealth Alliance–funded and advised by the national security establishment–is implicated in the creation of the SARS COV‑2.) Note that the EcoHealth Alliance was synthesizing “novel coronaviruses” at this point in time, an important factor to remember when evaluating the Metabiota/Munich Re business model being presented in 2018. (See #4 presented below.)
3.–The reaction of government officials to Trump administration figures into the origins of the virus, advising would be investigators that such inquiries would open a “can of worms,” or “a Pandora’s Box” because it would should light on U.S. funding of the projects.
4.–Metabiota–partnered with EcoHealth Alliance–was networked with In-Q-Tel (the intelligence community’s venture capital arm) and Munich Re to provide pandemic insurance. Their 2018 business model directly foreshadowed the pandemic. “ . . . . Just two years earlier, the company had run a large set of scenarios forecasting the consequences of a novel coronavirus spreading around the globe. . . . Measures that decreased person-to-person contact, including social distancing, quarantine, and school closures, had the greatest cost per death prevented, most likely because of the amount of economic disruption caused by those measures . . . .” In 2018, as well, EcoHealth Alliance proposed a “novel coronavirus” for synthesis by DARPA. Although there is no evidence that DARPA synthesized the virus, the U.S. did synthesize closely related viruses. With the genome of that novel virus having been published, it may well have been synthesized either by DARPA or someone else, given the contemporary technology. Again, this, also was in 2018.
5.–Many aspects of the SARS COV‑2 virus, including its curious FCS site and institutionalized obfuscation of aspects of the pandemic it caused suggest deliberate cover-up. Why would the NIH redact 290 pages of a document requested by an FOIA suit!! Why were sequences of bat coronavirus genomes removed from public view.
The program features a recap of some of the more important articles in the long series on the coronavirus, followed by discussion of the Energy Department’s conclusion that the coronavirus escaped from a Chinese laboratory.
Excellent analysis presented by the Moon of Alabama blog notes that the Wall Street Journal article breaking the “news” about the Energy Department’s conclusion was co-authored by Michael R. Gordon, who trumpeted the “Lab Leak” meme in the spring of 2021.
In a previous journalistic incarnation, Gordon helped generate enthusiasm for the invasion of Iraq by parroting the disinformation about Saddam Hussein having WMD’s.
Surprising to Moon of Alabama but not to us is Edward Snowden’s endorsement of the Lab Leak Hypothesis.
Far from being the “hero” Snowden has made out to be, Snowden is an extreme right-winger, whose work on cyber-security appears to be the work of a conscious double agent. (We have covered Snowden’s escapades in numerous programs over the years, particularly FTR#’s 1078–1081.)
For the convenience of the listener, we recap a 2001 article discussing the all-encompassing scope of U.S. electronic snooping—an article that reveals the depth of Snowden’s duplicity.
In addition to touching on a story of a recently-released book about the Coronavirus being synthesized as part of a U.S. biological warfare program, the program recaps the Biden administration’s creation of a “Medical DARPA.”
Following discussion of Moderna’s deliberate withholding of data from regulators about its new bivalent mRNA vaccine, we note a study that indicates that new, deadly variants of Covid that could overwhelm the healthcare system are a distinct possibility.
Of great significance is analysis of a diplomatic breakthrough engineered by China. Brokering a rapprochement between Iran and Saudi Arabia in the Middle East, China has helped to re-set the political landscape of the Middle East.
As noted by M.K. Bhadrakumar, the realignment may signal a demise of the dollar as the global reserve currency of choice. IF such a development ensues, it will prove devastating to America’s imperial status, curtailing the military industrial complex in particular.
Mr. Emory expresses his great fear that this will not be allowed to develop—the above-mentioned “Cancer Moonshot” and lethal, synthesized micro-organisms and pandemics will very likely be the American answer to the long-term economic and political implications of the Chinese diplomatic coup.
In these programs, we continue our discussion of Nick Turse’s 2008 tome The Complex: How the Military Invades Our Everyday Lives.
Writing in his novel Tropic of Cancer, Henry Miller wrote: ” . . . . America is the very incarnation of Doom. And she will lead the rest of the world into the Bottomless Pit. . . .” (The quote was included in his Forgive My Grief books by pioneering JFK assassination researcher Penn Jones.
Epitomizing Miller’s observation is what Mr. Emory terms the resonant synthesis of video games and military training and training technology:
“. . . . Certainly, the day is not far off when most potential U.S. troops will have grown up playing commercial video games that were created by the military as training simulators; will be recruited, at least in part, through video games; will be tested, post-enlistment, on advanced video game systems; will be trained using simulators, which will later be turned into video games, or on reconfigured versions of the very same games used to recruit them or that they played kids; will be taught to pilot vehicles using devices resembling commercial video game controllers; and then, after a long day of real-life war-gaming head back to their quarters to kick back and play the latest PlayStation or Xbox games created with or sponsored by their own, or another, branch of the armed forces.
More and more toys are now poised to become clandestine combat teaching tools, and more and more simulators are destined to be tomorrow’s toys. And what of America’s children and young adults in all this? How will they be affected by the dazzling set of military training devices now landing in their living rooms and on their PCs, produced by video game giants under the watchful eyes of the Pentagon? After all, what these games offer is less a matter of simple military indoctrination and more like a near immersion in a virtual world of war, where armed conflict is not the last, but the first—and indeed the only—resort. . . .”
A concrete example of that “resonant synthesis” is the battle of 73 Easting:
“. . . . Just days into the ground combat portion of the Gulf War, the Battle of 73 Easting pitted American armored vehicles against a much larger Iraqi tank force. The U.S. troops, who had trained using the SIMNET system, routed the Iraqis. Within days, the military began turning the actual battle into a digital simulation for use with SIMNET. Intensive debriefing sessions with 150 veterans of the battle were undertaken. Then DARPA personnel went out onto the battlefield with the veterans, surveying tank tracks and burned-out Iraqi vehicles, as the veterans walked them through each individual segment of the clash. Additionally, radio communications, satellite photos, and ‘black boxes’ from U.S. tanks were used to gather even more details. Nine months after the actual combat took place, a digital recreation of the Battle of 73 Easting was premiered for high-ranking military personnel. Here was the culmination of Thorpe’s efforts to create a networked system that would allow troops to train for future wars using the new technology combined with accurate historical data. . . .”
Placing Henry Miller’s quote into an ironically-relevant context, a popular video game “Doom” quickly was adapted to Martine Corps training purposes:
“. . . . In late 1993, with the green glow of Gulf War victory already fading, id Software introduced the video game Doom. Gamers soon began modifying shareware copies of this ultraviolent, ultrapopular first person shooter, prompting id to release editing software the next year. The ability to customize Doom caught the attention of members of the Marine Corps Modeling and Simulation Management Office who had been tasked by the corps’ Commandant Charles Krulak with utilizing “‘computer (PC)-based war games”‘to help the marines ‘develop decision making skills, particularly when live training time and opportunities are limited.’
“Acting on Krulak’s directive, the marines’ modeling crew nixed Doom’s fantasy weapons and labyrinthine locale and, in three months’ time, developed Marine Doom, a game that included only actual Marine Corps weaponry and realistic environments. Krulak liked what he saw and, in 1997, approved the game. . . .”
Next, Turse discusses Pentagon plans to operate in urban slums in the Third World. Mr. Emory notes that many combat veterans of this country’s long counter-insurgency wars in Afghanistan and Iraq are joining the increasingly militarized police forces in this country.
Pentagon strategy as discussed here by Turse may, eventually be realized, to an extent, in the U.S., particularly in the event of an economic collapse.
More about Pentagon plans for urban warfare in slums, ostensibly in the developing world:
” . . . . As both the high-tech programs and the proliferating training facilities suggest, the foreign slum city is slated to become the bloody battlespace of the future. . . . For example, the U.S. Navy/Marine Corps launched a program seeking to develop algorithms to predict the criminality of a given building or neighborhood. The project titled Finding Repetitive Crime Supporting Structures, defines cities as nothing more than a collection of ‘urban clutter [that] affords considerable concealment for the actors that we must capture.’ The ‘hostile behavior bad actors,’ as the program terms them, are defined not just as ‘terrorists,’ today’s favorite catch-all bogeymen, but as a panoply of nightmare archetypes: ‘insurgents, serial killers, drug dealers, etc.’. . .”
Program Highlights Include: Discussion of Colonel Dave Grossman’s book On Killing against the background of the resonant synthesis of video games and military training; analysis of the use of gaming apps by Nazi elements to celebrate school shootings and encourage them; discussion of school shooter Nikolas Cruz of Parkland high and his Nazi, white supremacist and Trumpian influence; discussion of alt-right use of websites catering to people suffering from depression for recruiting purposes.
In these programs, we continue our discussion of Nick Turse’s 2008 tome The Complex: How the Military Invades Our Everyday Lives.
In this program, we examine how the military exerts dominant influence over our entertainment activities and how that, in turn, both affects and bolsters the Pentagon.
We begin by “going to the movies.”
The synthesis of Hollywood and “The Complex” is summarized by Nick Turse in the passage below. It should be noted that the melding of Hollywood and the military is a foundation of the derivative synthesis of the military and the video-gaming industry–the focus of the bulk of these programs.
“. . . . As David Robb, the author of Operation Hollywood: How the Pentagon Shapes and Censors the Movies, observed: ‘Hollywood and the Pentagon have a collaboration that works well for both sides. Hollywood producers get what they want—access to billions of dollars’ worth of military hardware and equipment—tanks, jet fighters, nuclear submarines and aircraft carriers—and the military gets what it wants—films that portray the military in a positive light; films that help the services in their recruiting efforts.’. . .”
Indeed, the very genesis of video games in derivative of the defense industry: ” . . . . In 1951, Ralph Baer, an engineer working for defense contractor Loral Electronics (today part of Lockheed Martin) on ‘computer components for Navy RADAR systems,’ dreamed up the idea of home video games, which he termed ‘interactive TV-based entertainment.’. . . .”
The Hollywood/Pentagon/gaming industry synthesis is epitomized by the Institute of Creative Technologies:
” . . . . The answer lies in Marina Del Rey, California, at the Institute for Creative Technologies (ICT), a center within the University of Southern California (USC) system. There, in 1999, the military’s growing obsession with video games moved to a new level when Secretary of the Army Louis Caldera signed a five-year, $45-million contract with USC to create ICT, says the center’s Web site, ‘to build a partnership among the entertainment industry, army and academia with the goal of creating synthetic experiences so compelling that participants react as if they are real.’. . .”
The video game/Pentagon relationship has evolved into a fusion of the two: “. . . . The rest followed, leading to the current continuous military gaming/simulation loop where commercial video games are adopted as military training aids and military simulators are reengineered into civilian gaming money makers in all sorts of strange and confusing ways. . . .”
Author Turse looked ahead (in 2008) and foresaw a future that, to a disturbing extent, has become reality: ” . . . . Certainly, the day is not far off when most potential U.S. troops will have grown up playing commercial video games that were created by the military as training simulators; will be recruited, at least in part, through video games; will be tested, post-enlistment, on advanced video game systems; will be trained using simulators, which will later be turned into video games, or on reconfigured versions of the very same games used to recruit them or that they played kids; will be taught to pilot vehicles using devices resembling commercial video game controllers; and then, after a long day of real-life war-gaming head back to their quarters to kick back and play the latest PlayStation or Xbox games created with or sponsored by their own, or another, branch of the armed forces. . . .”
The program begins with an excerpt that comes from the consummately important Whitney Webb article he has used on many occasions.
The Project For A New American Century’s Rebuilding America’s Defenses argues that biological warfare–particularly when twined with genetic engineering–can become a “politically useful tool.”
Indeed, as we have said so many times, if one is going to detach the second-largest economy from the world and alienate that country from others, the Covid-19 pandemic is, indeed, “a politically useful tool” for so doing.
(In FTR#1190, we examined the PNAC agenda, its codification in national security policy in a document largely crafted by Philip Zelikow. Zelikow headed the 9/11 Commission and was centrally involved in writing its flawed report, the systematic shortcomings of which could be said to characterize the commission as “The Omission Commission.)
Zelikow is now heading a commission to examine the Covid-19 pandemic, including the so-called “Lab-Leak Hypothesis.”
The program references this excerpt, designating Covid-19 as a “politically useful tool.”
As seen below, there are indications that the DARPA program was, indeed, looking at the exploitation of genetics in the application of biological warfare.
Next, we highlight an excerpt from an article that is featured in FTR#‘s 686 and 1115. ” . . . . The production of vaccine against a stockpiled BW weapon must be considered an offensive BW project According to MIT scientists Harlee Strauss and Jonathan King, ‘These steps—the generation of a potential BW agent, development of a vaccine against it, testing of the efficacy of the vaccine—are all components that would be associated with an offensive BW program.’27 Clearly, without an antidote or vaccine to protect attacking troops, the utility of a stockpiled BW agent would be seriously limited. . . .”
We then review material from FTR#1166, among other programs, looking at the development of Moderna’s vaccine, the drug remdesivir and military domination of the Operation Warp Speed Covid vaccine program.
They key consideration is: do these developments indicate the dynamic Strauss and King cite above?
At a minimum, they are no more than the proverbial six degrees of separation from being part of an offensive biological warfare program.
In previous posts and programs, we have noted that Moderna’s vaccine work has been financed by DARPA. We have also noted that the overall head of Operation Warp Speed is Moncef Slaoui, formerly in charge of product development for Moderna!
Of great significance is the central role of the military in the development of treatment for Covid-19:
1.–The program notes that: ” . . . . Remdesivir predates this pandemic. It was first considered as a potential treatment for Ebola, and was developed through a longstanding partnership between the U.S. Army and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. . . .”
2.–Jonathan King, who has chaired the microbial physiology study section for the NIH has sounded the alarm about “vaccine research” masking offensive biological warfare research: “. . . . King, who has chaired the microbial physiology study section for the NIH, believes that without intensive independent scrutiny, the Pentagon is free to obscure its true goals. ‘The Defense Department appears to be pursuing many narrow, applied goals that are by nature offensive, such as the genetic ‘improvement’ of BW agents,’ King says. ‘But to achieve political acceptability, they mask these intentions under forms of research, such as vaccine development, which sound defensive. . . .”
3.–Moderna’s vaccine development was overseen by an unnamed Pentagon official: ” . . . . Moderna’s team was headed by a Defense Department official whom company executives described only as ‘the major,’ saying they don’t know if his name is supposed to be a secret. . . . .”
4.–The pervasive role of the military in Operation Warp Speed (the Trump administration’s vaccine development program) has generated alarm in civilian participants:”. . . . Scores of Defense Department employees are laced through the government offices involved in the effort, making up a large portion of the federal personnel devoted to the effort. Those numbers have led some current and former officials at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention to privately grumble that the military’s role in Operation Warp Speed was too large for a task that is, at its core, a public health campaign. . . .”
5.–General Gustave Perna–one of the principals in Operation Warp Speed–has chosen a retired Lieutenant General to oversee much of the program: ” . . . . ‘Frankly, it has been breathtaking to watch,’ said Paul Ostrowski, the director of supply, production and distribution for Operation Warp Speed. He is a retired Army lieutenant general who was selected to manage logistics for the program by Gen. Gustave F. Perna, the chief operating officer for Operation Warp Speed. . . .”
6.–The military will be able to trace the destination and administration of each dose: ” . . . . Military officials also came up with the clever idea — if it works — to coordinate the delivery of vaccines to drugstores, medical centers and other immunization sites by sending kits full of needles, syringes and alcohol wipes. Vaccine makers will be alerted when the kits arrive at an immunization site so they know to ship doses. Once the first dose is given, the manufacturer will be notified so it can send the second dose with a patient’s name attached several weeks later. The military will also monitor vaccine distribution through an operations center. ‘They will know where every vaccine dose is,’ Mr. [Paul] Mango said on a call with reporters. . . .”
Central to the inquiry about a laboratory genesis for the virus is Ralph Baric. In the context of some of his actions in conjunction with the development of vaccines and prophylactic measures in connection with biological warfare, we note that:
1.–Baric’s modification of a horseshoe bat virus to make it more infectious (in collaboration with Shi Zhengli and in an EcoHealth Alliance affiliated project) took place in North Carolina, not Wuhan. “. . . . Critics have jumped on this paper as evidence that Shi was conducting “gain of function” experiments that could have created a superbug, but Shi denies it. The research cited in the paper was conducted in North Carolina. . . .”
2.–Baric has been using related techniques to text remdesivir (in 2017) and the Moderna vaccine. This places him in a milieu inextricably linked to the military and pre-dating the pandemic. ” . . . . Using a similar technique, in 2017, Baric’s lab showed that remdesivir — currently the only licensed drug for treating covid — could be useful in fighting coronavirus infections. Baric also helped test the Moderna covid vaccine and a leading new drug candidate against covid. . . .”
The flimsy evidentiary foundation of the Trump/Biden “Oswald Institute of Virology” did it charge is evidenced by a new allegation coming from David Asher, senior fellow at the right-wing Hudson Institute and the former State Department adviser who co-authored a fact sheet last January on activity inside the lab as described in Katherine Eban’s “Vanity Fair” piece.
Note that:
1.–Asher reportedly told NBC News that he is “confident” that the Chinese military was funding a “secret program” that involved Shi Zhengli’s coronavirus research at the WIV.
2.–Shi reportedly worked with two military scientists at the lab. (Not surprising given that the vast bulk of BW research is inherently “dual-use.”
3.–Asher claims he was told this by several foreign researchers who worked at the WIV who saw some personnel there in military garb.
4.–IF true, the [alleged] members of this secret Chinese military biowarfare research team apparently didn’t think it was important to not wear military clothing during their secret research at a research facility intended for civilian use only.
5.–We aren’t told the identity of these foreign researchers who allegedly saw this.
6.–We aren’t told if Asher meant “foreign researchers”–non-Chinese researchers working at the WIV (so foreign to China) or Chinese researchers working at the WIV (so foreign to Asher).
7.–Shi’s research could be characterized as funded by the US military through the EcoHealth Alliance collaboration.
8.–Keep in mind that this remarkable claim is based on anonymous sources that may not exist but are are claimed by Asher to exist.
Asher’s anonymously-sourced allegations contrast with information from a Bloomberg News article about Danielle Anderson, a bat-borne virus expert who worked at the WIV as late as November 2019
Note that:
1.–Anderson would have been at WIV during the period when an outbreak from the WIV would presumably have taken place under a lab-leak scenario.
2.–Anderson is described as the only foreign researcher working at the WIV.
3.–If Anderson was the lone foreign researcher at the WIV, who are Asher’s “several anonymous foreign WIV researchers?”
A chilling article may forecast the potential deployment of even deadlier pandemics, as operational disguise for biological warfare and genocide.
Note that the sub-heading referring to the lab-leak hypothesis is followed by no mention of the lab-leak hypothesis, per se.
Is this a between-the-lines reference to impending biological warfare development and the deployment of another pandemic?
Note that the Army scientist quoted in the conclusion offers an observation that is very close to a Donald Rumsfeld quote reiterated by Peter Daszak in an article we reference in FTR#1170.
1.–From the Defense One article: ” . . . . ‘We don’t want to just treat what’s in front of us now,’ [Dr. Dimitra] Stratis-Cullum said. ‘I think we really need to be resilient. From an Army perspective. We need to be agile, we need to adapt to the threat that we don’t know that’s coming.’ . . .”
2.–From the article from Independent Science News: ” . . . . ‘There are known knowns; there are things we know that we know. There are known unknowns; that is to say, there are things that we know we don’t know. But there are also unknown unknowns — there are things we don’t know we don’t know.’ (This Rumsfeld quote is in fact from a news conference) . . . . In the subsequent online discussion, Daszak emphasized the parallels between his own crusade and Rumsfeld’s, since, according to Daszak, the ‘potential for unknown attacks’ is ‘the same for viruses’. . . .”
We conclude with another “look back looking forward.”
In FTR#456, we noted the eerie foreshadowing the the 9/11 attacks by Turner Diaries author William Luther Pierce. Key aspects of that book, in turn, foreshadow aspects of the 9/11 attacks.
In 1998, the author of that tome,–William Luther Pierce–explicitly foreshadowed the 9/11 attacks which defined and cemented Dubya’s administration. “ . . . . In one chilling commentary Pierce, (after noting that Bin Laden and the rest of the lost generation of angry Moslem youth had it with their parents’ compromises and were hell bent on revenge against infidel America) issued this stark, prophetic warning in a 1998 radio address titled, ‘Stay Out of Tall Buildings.’ ‘New Yorkers who work in tall office buildings anything close to the size of the World Trade Center might consider wearing hard hats . . .’ Pierce warned.’ . . . The running theme in Pierce’s commentaries is—to paraphrase his hero Hitler—that Osama Bin Laden’s warning to America is ‘I Am Coming.’ And so is bio-terrorism.’ . . .”
In that context, we note that China is devastated by a WMD/Third World War in Turner Diaries.
Continuing analysis of the propagation of the “Lab-Leak Theory” of the origin of Covid-19 in the context of what Mr. Emory calls “The Full-Court Press Against China,” this program highlights how what the brilliant Peter Dale Scott has termed “The American Deep State” is proceeding with the institutionalization of the anti-China effort, blaming that country for the Covid-19 pandemic, in particular.
After noting that the (primarily Pentagon and USAID-funded) EcoHealth Alliance cut-out has used Defense Department money to research organisms that can be used as biological-warfare weapons, we discuss Steve Bannon and Peter Thiel’s anti-Chinese chauvinism with regard to the Silicon Valley.
Even as liberal commentators lament the spread of anti-Asian racism, the genesis of the phenomenon is not hard to fathom.
Next, we review the institutionalization of the anti-China scare by Steve Bannon, utilizing allies like the Falun Gong cult and Uighur jihadis, now mainstays of the Full-Court Press strategy.
Although Bannon and company are now being diminished as “crackpots, xenophobes, extremists” etc., the policies they have initiated are now being carried forward by the “respectable” Biden administration.
” . . . . Fear of China has spread across the government, from the White House to Congress to federal agencies, where Beijing’s rise is unquestioningly viewed as an economic and national security threat and the defining challenge of the 21st century. . . .”
It is this continuity, that illustrates and embodies the functioning of the Deep State.
Returning to a very important (albeit heavily “spun”), modified limited hangout article from Vanity Fair article, we further develop the continuity between the “extremist” Trump administration and the “respectable” Biden administration.
Developed by Trump national security aide Mathew Pottinger and Mike Pompeo’s State Department, the Lab-Leak hypothesis was eclipsed by officials worried about exposure of the very Pentagon, USAID funding of bat-borne coronavirus research and gain-of-function manipulations at the Wuhan Institute of Virology and elsewhere in China.
As it gains momentum under the “respectable” Biden administration, the suppression of the Lab-Leak hypothesis is being spun as an attempt to avoid using that hypothesis as an extremist, chauvinist political cudgel. (This is ironic, because that is precisely what it is intended to be!)
Key aspects of the Vanity Fair article:
1.–Pompeo State Department officials pursuing the lab-leak hypothesis were told to cover it up lest it shed light on U.S. government funding of research at the “Oswald Institute of Virology!”: ” . . . . In one State Department meeting, officials seeking to demand transparency from the Chinese government say they were explicitly told by colleagues not to explore the Wuhan Institute of Virology’s gain-of-function research, because it would bring unwelcome attention to U.S. government funding of it. . . . .In an internal memo obtained by ‘Vanity Fair’, Thomas DiNanno, former acting assistant secretary of the State Department’s Bureau of Arms Control, Verification, and Compliance, wrote that. . . staff from two bureaus . . . ‘warned’ leaders within his bureau ‘not to pursue an investigation into the origin of COVID-19’ because it would ‘open a can of worms’ if it continued.’ . . . . As the group probed the lab-leak scenario, among other possibilities, its members were repeatedly advised not to open a ‘Pandora’s box,’ said four former State Department officials interviewed by ‘Vanity Fair’. . . .”
2.–The Vanity Fair article paints Trump, Bannon and company as loonies, whereas they were fundamental to the beginning of the full-court press against China: “. . . . At times, it seemed the only other people entertaining the lab-leak theory were crackpots or political hacks hoping to wield COVID-19 as a cudgel against China. President Donald Trump’s former political adviser Steve Bannon, for instance, joined forces with an exiled Chinese billionaire named Guo Wengui to fuel claims that China had developed the disease as a bioweapon and purposefully unleashed it on the world. . . .”
3.–Matthew Pottinger, a China hawk in the Trump administration, headed up a team to investigate the Wuhan lab leak hypothesis. Note that the gain-of-function milieu in the U.S. national security establishment was a retarding factor in the inquiry: ” . . . . By then, Matthew Pottinger had approved a COVID-19 origins team, run by the NSC directorate that oversaw issues related to weapons of mass destruction. A longtime Asia expert and former journalist, Pottinger purposefully kept the team small . . . . In addition, many leading experts had either received or approved funding for gain-of-function research. Their ‘conflicted’ status, said Pottinger, ‘played a profound role in muddying the waters and contaminating the shot at having an impartial inquiry.’ . . . .”
4.–Note that Lawrence Livermore scientists were involved with the genesis of the “China did it” hypothesis, after allegedly being alerted by a foreign source to look into their own files. ” . . . . An intelligence analyst working with David Asher sifted through classified channels and turned up a report that outlined why the lab-leak hypothesis was plausible. It had been written in May by researchers at the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory, which performs national security research for the Department of Energy. But it appeared to have been buried within the classified collections system. . . .”
5.–Note, also, that Chris Ford, a China hawk, was working to suppress the Wuhan lab leak hypothesis: ” . . . . Their frustration crested in December, when they finally briefed Chris Ford, acting undersecretary for Arms Control and International Security. He seemed so hostile to their probe that they viewed him as a blinkered functionary bent on whitewashing China’s malfeasance. But Ford, who had years of experience in nuclear nonproliferation, had long been a China hawk. . . .”
6.–Ford spins his obfuscation of the “Oswald Institute of Virology” link to the U.S. as not wanting to reinforce right-wing crackpots within the Trump administration: ” . . . . Ford told ‘Vanity Fair’ that he saw his job as protecting the integrity of any inquiry into COVID-19’s origins that fell under his purview. Going with ‘stuff that makes us look like the crackpot brigade’ would backfire, he believed. There was another reason for his hostility. He’d already heard about the investigation from interagency colleagues, rather than from the team itself, and the secrecy left him with a ‘spidey sense’ that the process was a form of ‘creepy freelancing.’ He wondered: Had someone launched an unaccountable investigation with the goal of achieving a desired result? . . . .”
7.–The “China did it/Wuhan lab leak” hypothesis survived from the Trump administration and Mike Pompeo’s State Department to the Biden administration: ” . . . .The statement withstood ‘aggressive suspicion,’ as one former State Department official said, and the Biden administration has not walked it back. ‘I was very pleased to see Pompeo’s statement come through,’ said Chris Ford, who personally signed off on a draft of the fact sheet before leaving the State Department. ‘I was so relieved that they were using real reporting that had been vetted and cleared.’ . . . .”
8.–Avril Haines, whom we have cited in this series as a key participant in the Deep State shepherding of the “Lab-Leak Hypothesis,” looms large in the inquiry into the perpetuation of this propaganda meme: ” . . . . Inside the U.S. government, meanwhile, the lab-leak hypothesis had survived the transition from Trump to Biden. On April 15, Director of National Intelligence Avril Haines told the House Intelligence Committee that two ‘plausible theories’ were being weighed: a lab accident or natural emergence. . . .”
In what may be shaping up to be a disturbing reprise of Philip Zelikow’s role in the events surrounding the 9/11 attacks and the resulting invasion of Iraq, Zelikow is positioned to preside over a commission to “investigate” the Covid-19 pandemic, ” . . . . an examination of the origins of the virus—including the contentious ‘lab leak’ theory. . . .”
We note that:
1.–The financial backers of the project include: ” . . . . Schmidt Futures, founded by Mr. Schmidt and his wife Wendy; Stand Together, which is backed by the libertarian-leaning philanthropist Charles Koch; the Skoll Foundation, founded by the eBay pioneer Jeff Skoll; and the Rockefeller Foundation. . . .”
2.–Former CIA and State Department chief under Trump Mike Pompeo is a protege of the Koch brothers.
3.–Zelikow’s 9/11 Commission presided over significant oversights and omissions: ” . . . . There is now evidence, much of it systematically suppressed by the 9/11 Commission, that before 9/11, CIA officers Richard Blee and Tom Wilshire inside the CIA’s Bin Laden Unit along with FBI agents such as Dina Corsi, were protecting from investigation and arrest two of the eventual alleged hijackers on 9/11, Khalid al-Midhar and Nawaf al-Hazmi—much as the FBI had protected Ali Mohamed from arrest in 1993. . . .”
4.–PNAC (The Project for a New American Century) called for Rebuilding America’s Defenses: ” . . . . ‘The process of transformation,’ it reported, “even if it brings revolutionary change, is likely to be a long one absent some catastrophic and catalyzing event—like a new Pearl Harbor.’ This was only one instance of a widely accepted truism: that it would take something like a Pearl Harbor to get America to accept an aggressive war. So the question to be asked is whether Cheney, Rumsfeld, or any others whose projects depended on ‘a new Pearl Harbor’ were participants in helping to create one. . . .”
5.–Zelikow helped draft the 2002 document that concretized the PNAC strategic goals: ” . . . . In 2002, the PNAC goals of unchallenged military dominance, plus the right to launch preemptive strikes anywhere, were embodied in the new National Security Strategy of September 2002 (known as ‘NSS 2002’). (A key figure in drafting this document was Philip Zelikow, who later became the principal author of the 9/11 Commission Report.) . . . .”
6.–PNAC’s paper foreshadowed what we feel underlies the pandemic: ” . . . . In what is arguably the think tank’s most controversial document, titled ‘Rebuilding America’s Defenses,’ there are a few passages that openly discuss the utility of bioweapons, including the following sentences: ‘…combat likely will take place in new dimensions: in space, ‘cyber-space,’ and perhaps the world of microbes…advanced forms of biological warfare that can ‘target’ specific genotypes may transform biological warfare from the realm of terror to a politically useful tool.’ . . .”
7.–There are indications that the anthrax attacks that occurred in the same time period as the 9/11 attacks may well have been a provocation aimed at justifying the invasion of Iraq and spurring the development off biological weapons, as advocated in the PNAC document. Ft. Detrick insider Steven Hatfill was a suspect in the attack, although he appears to have worn “operational Teflon.” “. . . . Steven Hatfill was now looking to me like a suspect, or at least, as the F.B.I. would denote him eight months later, ‘a person of interest.’ When I lined up Hatfill’s known movements with the postmark locations of reported biothreats, those hoax anthrax attacks appeared to trail him like a vapor cloud. But in February 2002, shortly after I advanced his candidacy to my contact at F.B.I. headquarters, I was told that Mr. Hatfill had a good alibi. A month later, when I pressed the issue, I was told, ‘Look, Don, maybe you’re spending too much time on this.’ Good people in the Department of Defense, C.I.A., and State Department, not to mention Bill Patrick, had vouched for Hatfill. . . . In December 2001, Dr. Barbara Hatch Rosenberg, a noted bioweapons expert, delivered a paper contending that the perpetrator of the anthrax crimes was an American microbiologist whose training and possession of Ames-strain powder pointed to a government insider with experience in a U.S. military lab. . . . Hatfill at the time was building a mobile germ lab out of an old truck chassis, and after S.A.I.C. fired him he continued work on it using his own money. When the F.B.I. wanted to confiscate the mobile lab to test it for anthrax spores, the army resisted, moving the trailer to Fort Bragg, North Carolina, where it was used to train Special Forces in preparation for the war on Iraq. The classes were taught by Steve Hatfill and Bill Patrick. . . . Meanwhile, friends of Fort Detrick were leaking to the press new pieces of disinformation indicating that the mailed anthrax probably came from Iraq. The leaks included false allegations that the Daschle anthrax included additives distinctive to the Iraqi arms program and that it had been dried using an atomizer spray dryer sold by Denmark to Iraq. . . .”
8.–Two key Democratic Senators were targeted by weapons-grade anthrax letters prior to changing their opposition to the Patriot Act: “. . . . We should not forget that the Patriot Act was only passed after lethal weapons-grade anthrax letters were mailed to two crucial Democratic Senators—Senators Daschle and Leahy—who had initially questioned the bill. After the anthrax letters, however, they withdrew their initial opposition. Someone—we still do not know who—must have planned those anthrax letters well in advance. We should not forget, either, that some government experts initially blamed those attacks on Iraq. . . .”
The “Lab Leak Theory” has been promulgated by Michael R. Gordon, who was instrumental in advancing the Saddam Hussein WMD connection which helped lay the propaganda foundation for the Iraq War.
Will the “Zelikow Pandemic Commission’s” treatment of the Lab-Leak Theory function in such a way as to pave the way for U.S. war with China, by focusing blame for the pandemic on what Mr. Emory has called “The Oswald Institute of Virology”?
In what may be shaping up to be a disturbing reprise of Philip Zelikow’s role in the events surrounding the 9/11 attacks and the resulting invasion of Iraq, Zelikow is positioned to preside over a commission to “investigate” the Covid-19 pandemic, ” . . . . an examination of the origins of the virus—including the contentious ‘lab leak’ theory. . . .” Backers of the project include the Rockefeller Foundation and a David Koch NGO (Ex-CIA chief and Secretary of State Mike Pompeo is a Koch Brothers protege.) Zelikow’s 9/11 Commission presided over significant oversights and omissions: ” . . . . There is now evidence, much of it systematically suppressed by the 9/11 Commission, that before 9/11, CIA officers Richard Blee and Tom Wilshire inside the CIA’s Bin Laden Unit along with FBI agents such as Dina Corsi, were protecting from investigation and arrest two of the eventual alleged hijackers on 9/11, Khalid al-Midhar and Nawaf al-Hazmi—much as the FBI had protected Ali Mohamed from arrest in 1993. . . .” PNAC (The Project for a New American Century) called for Rebuilding America’s Defenses: ” . . . . ‘The process of transformation,’ it reported, ‘even if it brings revolutionary change, is likely to be a long one absent some catastrophic and catalyzing event—like a new Pearl Harbor.’ Zelikow helped draft the 2002 document that concretized the PNAC strategic goals: ” . . . . In 2002, the PNAC goals of unchallenged military dominance, plus the right to launch preemptive strikes anywhere, were embodied in the new National Security Strategy of September 2002 (known as ‘NSS 2002’). (A key figure in drafting this document was Philip Zelikow, who later became the principal author of the 9/11 Commission Report.) . . . .” ” . . . . In what is arguably the think tank’s most controversial document, titled ‘Rebuilding America’s Defenses,’ there are a few passages that openly discuss the utility of bioweapons, including the following sentences: ‘…combat likely will take place in new dimensions: in space, ‘cyber-space,’ and perhaps the world of microbes…advanced forms of biological warfare that can ‘target’ specific genotypes may transform biological warfare from the realm of terror to a politically useful tool.’ . . .” There are indications that the anthrax attacks that occurred in the same time period as the 9/11 attacks may well have been a provocation aimed at justifying the invasion of Iraq and spurring the development off biological weapons, as advocated in the PNAC document. Ft. Detrick insider Steven Hatfill was a suspect in the attack, although he appears to have worn “operational Teflon.” “. . . . Steven Hatfill was now looking to me like a suspect, or at least, as the F.B.I. would denote him eight months later, ‘a person of interest.’ When I lined up Hatfill’s known movements with the postmark locations of reported biothreats, those hoax anthrax attacks appeared to trail him like a vapor cloud. But in February 2002, shortly after I advanced his candidacy to my contact at F.B.I. headquarters, I was told that Mr. Hatfill had a good alibi. . . . In December 2001, Dr. Barbara Hatch Rosenberg, a noted bioweapons expert, delivered a paper contending that the perpetrator of the anthrax crimes was an American microbiologist whose training and possession of Ames-strain powder pointed to a government insider with experience in a U.S. military lab. . . .Hatfill at the time was building a mobile germ lab out of an old truck chassis, and after S.A.I.C. fired him he continued work on it using his own money. When the F.B.I. wanted to confiscate the mobile lab to test it for anthrax spores, the army resisted, moving the trailer to Fort Bragg, North Carolina, where it was used to train Special Forces in preparation for the war on Iraq. The classes were taught by Steve Hatfill and Bill Patrick. . . .” Two key Democratic Senators were targeted by weapons-grade anthrax letters prior to changing their opposition to the Patriot Act: “. . . . We should not forget that the Patriot Act was only passed after lethal weapons-grade anthrax letters were mailed to two crucial Democratic Senators—Senators Daschle and Leahy—who had initially questioned the bill. After the anthrax letters, however, they withdrew their initial opposition. Someone—we still do not know who—must have planned those anthrax letters well in advance. We should not forget, either, that some government experts initially blamed those attacks on Iraq. . . .” The “Lab Leak Theory” has been promulgated by Michael R. Gordon, who was instrumental in advancing the Saddam Hussein WMD connection which helped lay the propaganda foundation for the Iraq War. Will Zelikow’s investigation help prime the pump for war with China? Will this be done by pointing blame for the pandemic on what Mr. Emory has called “The Oswald Institute of Virology”?
This program continues our series analyzing the Wuhan Institute of Virology as having been set up to take the fall for the Covid-19 pandemic, which–in our considered opinion–is a covert operation by the U.S. as part of the full-court press against China.
Underscoring a point of analysis from previous broadcasts, we note that, of paramount importance in this context, is the fact that ANY virus can be made in a laboratory, from scratch as is being done for the SARS-CoV‑2 (Covid-19) virus.
Ralph Baric–who did the gain-of-function modification on the Horseshoe Bat coronavirus, has been selected to engineer the Covid-19.
Note what might be termed a “virologic Jurassic Park” manifestation: ” . . . . The technology immediately created bio-weapon worries. . . . Researchers at the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) drove that point home in 2005 when they resurrected the influenza virus that killed tens of millions in 1918–1919. . . .”
Central to the inquiry about a laboratory genesis for the virus is Ralph Baric. We note that:
1.–Baric’s modification of a horseshoe bat virus to make it more infectious (in collaboration with Shi Zhengli and in an EcoHealth Alliance affiliated project) took place in North Carolina, not Wuhan. “. . . . Critics have jumped on this paper as evidence that Shi was conducting “gain of function” experiments that could have created a superbug, but Shi denies it. The research cited in the paper was conducted in North Carolina.
2.–Baric has been using related techniques to text remdesivir (in 2017) and the Moderna vaccine. This places him in a milieu inextricably linked to the military and pre-dating the pandemic. ” . . . . Using a similar technique, in 2017, Baric’s lab showed that remdesivir — currently the only licensed drug for treating covid — could be useful in fighting coronavirus infections. Baric also helped test the Moderna covid vaccine and a leading new drug candidate against covid. . . .”
Next, we present analysis of a very important, albeit slanted Vanity Fair article:
1.–Pompeo State Department officials pursuing the lab-leak hypothesis were told to cover it up lest it shed light on U.S. government funding of research at the “Oswald Institute of Virology!”: ” . . . . In one State Department meeting, officials seeking to demand transparency from the Chinese government say they were explicitly told by colleagues not to explore the Wuhan Institute of Virology’s gain-of-function research, because it would bring unwelcome attention to U.S. government funding of it. . . . . In an internal memo obtained by Vanity Fair, Thomas DiNanno, former acting assistant secretary of the State Department’s Bureau of Arms Control, Verification, and Compliance, wrote that. . . staff from two bureaus . . . “warned” leaders within his bureau ‘not to pursue an investigation into the origin of COVID-19’ because it would ‘open a can of worms’ if it continued.’ . . . . As the group probed the lab-leak scenario, among other possibilities, its members were repeatedly advised not to open a ‘Pandora’s box,’ said four former State Department officials interviewed by Vanity Fair. . . .”
2.–Setting the orthodoxy in early 2020 with a Lancet article ruling out a laboratory origin for the virus was Peter Daszak, with approval from Ralph Baric: ” . . . . It soon emerged, based on emails obtained by a Freedom of Information group called U.S. Right to Know, that Daszak had not only signed but organized the influential Lancet statement, with the intention of concealing his role and creating the impression of scientific unanimity. . . .”
3.–” . . . . In late March, former Centers for Disease Control director Robert Redfield received death threats from fellow scientists after telling CNN that he believed COVID-19 had originated in a lab. . . . ”
4.–Matthew Pottinger, a China hawk in the Trump administration, headed up a team to investigate the Wuhan lab leak hypothesis. Note that the gain-of-function milieu in the U.S. national security establishment was a retarding factor in the inquiry: ” . . . . By then, Matthew Pottinger had approved a COVID-19 origins team, run by the NSC directorate that oversaw issues related to weapons of mass destruction. A longtime Asia expert and former journalist, Pottinger purposefully kept the team small . . . . In addition, many leading experts had either received or approved funding for gain-of-function research. Their ‘conflicted’ status, said Pottinger, ‘played a profound role in muddying the waters and contaminating the shot at having an impartial inquiry.’ . . . .”
5.–Note that Lawrence Livermore scientists were involved with the genesis of the “China did it” hypothesis, after allegedly being alerted by a foreign source to look into their own files. ” . . . . An intelligence analyst working with David Asher sifted through classified channels and turned up a report that outlined why the lab-leak hypothesis was plausible. It had been written in May by researchers at the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory, which performs national security research for the Department of Energy. But it appeared to have been buried within the classified collections system. . . .”
6.–Note, also, that Chris Ford, a China hawk, was working to suppress the Wuhan lab leak hypothesis: ” . . . . Their frustration crested in December, when they finally briefed Chris Ford, acting undersecretary for Arms Control and International Security. He seemed so hostile to their probe that they viewed him as a blinkered functionary bent on whitewashing China’s malfeasance. But Ford, who had years of experience in nuclear nonproliferation, had long been a China hawk. . . .”
7.–The “China did it/Wuhan lab leak” hypothesis survived from the Trump administration and Mike Pompeo’s State Department to the Biden administration: ” . . . .. . . . The statement withstood ‘aggressive suspicion,’ as one former State Department official said, and the Biden administration has not walked it back. ‘I was very pleased to see Pompeo’s statement come through,’ said Chris Ford, who personally signed off on a draft of the fact sheet before leaving the State Department. ‘I was so relieved that they were using real reporting that had been vetted and cleared.’ . . . .”
8.–Avril Haines, whom we have cited in this series as a key participant in the Deep State shepherding of the “Lab-Leak Hypothesis,” looms large in the inquiry into the perpetuation of this propaganda meme: ” . . . . Inside the U.S. government, meanwhile, the lab-leak hypothesis had survived the transition from Trump to Biden. On April 15, Director of National Intelligence Avril Haines told the House Intelligence Committee that two ‘plausible theories’ were being weighed: a lab accident or natural emergence. . . .”
9.–The article concludes with the interesting use of the term “cut-out” to describe the EcoHealth Alliance. The term generally refers to an intelligence-community front organization. Is the author hinting at more? Did her editor take information out? ” . . . . The United States deserves a healthy share of blame as well. Thanks to their unprecedented track record of mendacity and race-baiting, Trump and his allies had less than zero credibility. And the practice of funding risky research via cutouts like EcoHealth Alliance enmeshed leading virologists in conflicts of interest at the exact moment their expertise was most desperately needed. . . .”
We conclude with two important points from an article used earlier in the program.
1.–Shi Zhengli has noted that opening up the WIV’s records is unacceptable: ” . . . . That demand is ‘definitely not acceptable,’ responded Shi Zhengli, who directs the Center for Emerging Infectious Diseases at the Wuhan Institute. ‘Who can provide evidence that does not exist?’ she told MIT Technology Review. Shi has said that thousands of attempts to hack its computer systems forced the institute to close its database. . . .”
2.–The U.S. would not be acceptable to such a proposition, if the Chinese demanded access to Ft. Detrick (part of which was shut down by the CDC in early August of 2019 on the eve of the pandemic). A commenter also noted the Rocky Mountain lab in his analysis, which we noted was one of the areas where Willy Burgdorfer appears to have worked on the development of Lyme Disease.) ” . . . . If a disease had emerged from the U.S. and the Chinese blamed the Pentagon and demanded access to the data, ‘what would we say?’ [Dr. Getrald] Keusch asked. ‘Would we throw out the red carpet, ‘Come on over to Fort Detrick and the Rocky Mountain Lab?’ We’d have done exactly what the Chinese did, which is say, ‘Screw you!’’ . . . .”
This program continues our series analyzing the Wuhan Institute of Virology as having been set up to take the fall for the Covid-19 pandemic, which–in our considered opinion–is a covert operation by the U.S. as part of the full-court press against China.
As the “Lab Leak Hypothesis” of the pandemic’s origins moves toward becoming a mainstreamed propaganda theme, we note that:
1.–Anthony Fauci himself set forth the “lab leak” scenario in his 2012 endorsement of a moratorium on gain-of-function manipulations, setting the intellectual stage for the “gaming” of just such a scenario. In FTR#1187, we noted that Fauci’s NIH NIAID was among the institutions that presided over EcoHealth Alliance’s funding of experimentation on bat-borne coronaviruses at the Wuhan Institute of Virology. ” . . . . In 2012, Dr. Anthony Fauci, who leads NIH’s National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, came out in support of a moratorium on such research, posing a hypothetical scenario involving a poorly trained scientist in a poorly regulated lab: ‘In an unlikely but conceivable turn of events, what if that scientist becomes infected with the virus, which leads to an outbreak and ultimately triggers a pandemic?’ Fauci wrote. . . .”
2.–USAID’s PREDICT project trained many of the scientists at the WIV. From the standpoint of covert operations, this would afford the opportunity to place one or more operatives inside that apparently targeted institution: [USAID is a State Department subsidiary that is one of the largest funders of the EcoHealth Alliance and a frequent cover for CIA activity.] ” . . . . . . . . Many of the scientists at the Wuhan Institute of Virology have been trained by the U.S. government’s PREDICT project. . . .”
3.–The journalistic generation of the lab-leak theory comes, in part, from Michael R. Gordon, who has a history of generating dubious journalism to support the plans of the national security establishment. Gordon: ” . . . . was the same man who, along with Judith Miller, wrote the September 8, 2002 article falsely asserting that Iraqi President Saddam Hussein was seeking to build a nuclear weapon. . . The claim was a lie, funneled to the Times by the office of US Vice President Dick Cheney. . . On May 26, 2004, the Times published a letter from its editors entitled ‘FROM THE EDITORS; The Times and Iraq,’ ‘acknowledging that the Times repeatedly ‘fell for misinformation.’ . . . The letter notes: ‘But we have found a number of instances of coverage that was not as rigorous as it should have been... On Sept. 8, 2002, the lead article of the paper was headlined ‘U.S. Says Hussein Intensified Quest for A‑Bomb Parts.’ That report concerned the aluminum tubes that the administration advertised insistently as components for the manufacture of nuclear weapons fuel. … it should have been presented more cautiously . . . .”
4.–Gordon: ” . . . . On April 20, 2014 . . . co-authored an article entitled ‘Photos Link Masked Men in East Ukraine to Russia,’ which claimed to identify masked men operating in eastern Ukraine in opposition to the US-backed coup regime as active-duty Russian soldiers. . . .Four days later, the Times Public Editor was again compelled to retract the claims in Gordon’s reporting, calling them ‘discredited.’ . . .”
5.–New York Times right-wing columnist Ross Douthat has highlighted the propaganda significance of pinning the “Lab Leak Theory” on China: ” . . . . to the extent that the United States is engaged in a conflict of propaganda and soft power with the regime in Beijing, there’s a pretty big difference between a world where the Chinese regime can say, We weren’t responsible for Covid but we crushed the virus and the West did not, because we’re strong and they’re decadent, and a world where this was basically their Chernobyl except their incompetence and cover-up sickened not just one of their own cities but also the entire globe. . . .”
6.–Pompeo State Department officials pursuing the lab-leak hypothesis were told to cover it up lest it shed light on U.S. government funding of research at the “Oswald Institute of Virology!”: ” . . . . In one State Department meeting, officials seeking to demand transparency from the Chinese government say they were explicitly told by colleagues not to explore the Wuhan Institute of Virology’s gain-of-function research, because it would bring unwelcome attention to U.S. government funding of it. . . . .In an internal memo obtained by Vanity Fair, Thomas DiNanno, former acting assistant secretary of the State Department’s Bureau of Arms Control, Verification, and Compliance, wrote that. . . staff from two bureaus . . . “warned” leaders within his bureau ‘not to pursue an investigation into the origin of COVID-19’ because it would ‘open a can of worms’ if it continued.’ . . . . As the group probed the lab-leak scenario, among other possibilities, its members were repeatedly advised not to open a ‘Pandora’s box,’ said four former State Department officials interviewed by Vanity Fair. . . .”
7.–Setting the orthodoxy in early 2020 with a Lancet article ruling out a laboratory origin for the virus was Peter Daszak, with approval from Ralph Baric: ” . . . . It soon emerged, based on emails obtained by a Freedom of Information group called U.S. Right to Know, that Daszak had not only signed but organized the influential Lancet statement, with the intention of concealing his role and creating the impression of scientific unanimity. . . .”
8.–” . . . . In late March, former Centers for Disease Control director Robert Redfield received death threats from fellow scientists after telling CNN that he believed COVID-19 had originated in a lab. . . . ”
As the title indicates, this program presents political and historical foundation for the exponential expansion of American biological warfare infrastructure following the 2001 anthrax attacks.
Important background information comes from the Whitney Webb article about DARPA spending on bat-borne coronaviruses.
The Broadcasting Board of Governors–a CIA “derivative”–and The Washington Times (owned by the Unification Church) helped develop disinformation about SARS CoV‑2 coming from a Chinese Biological Warfare lab. Both were instrumental in hyping the anthrax attacks as authored by Saddam Hussein, as well. The Washington Times also presented information floated by Steven Hatfill that foreshadowed subsequent charges that Saddam Hussein was developing bioweapons and was behind the 2001 anthrax attacks.
In addition, the Project For a New American Century was advancing an agenda in which genetically-engineered biological warfare technology as essential to continued American global dominance.
As will be seen below, a key functionary in the PNAC milieu was former Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld, former chairman of the board of Gilead Sciences.
In FTR #‘s 1135, 1136 and 1137, we relied heavily on the Kris Newby’s Bitten: The Secret History of Lyme Disease and Biological Weapons. In that book, Ms. Newby networked with a group of experienced, Cold War biological warfare professionals whom she termed “the Brain Trust.” They were convinced that Fort Detrick scientist Bruce Ivins–the “lone nut” who conveniently committed suicide and was fingered as the sole perpetrator of the 2001 anthrax attacks–was framed. ” . . . . Among other subjects, they discussed . . . technical details on why they believed that their colleague Bruce Ivins had been framed as the anthrax mailer . . . .”
Much of the program centers on the 2001 attacks and the suspicion that focused on Steven Hatfill as a possible perpetrator of them. Although exonerated in the attacks, Hatfill was the focal point of considerable suspicion in connection with the event. Our suspicion is that he is an operative of one or another intelligence agency, CIA being the most probable.
We suspect that the anthrax attacks were a provocation aimed at justifying the invasion of Iraq and spurring development of the U.S. biological warfare capability.
Of particular note is the apparent “operational Teflon” worn by Hatfill. Although circumstantial evidence pointed in his direction, he appeared to be altogether “off limits” to investigative elements of Alphabet Soup. Don Foster noted the unusual treatment accorded to Hatfill by the powers that be.
Of significance, as well, are the numerous examples of foreshadowing of the forensic circumstances of the anthrax attacks, as well as other “false alarm” incidents that occurred before and after the fatal attacks. It requires little to see statements and articles by notables such as Bill Patrick and the seemingly ubiquitous Steven Hatfill as laying a foundation of credibility for subsequent events.
Note that the National Institutes of Health have also partnered with CIA and the Pentagon, as underscored by an article about a BSL‑4 lab at Boston University.
1.–As the article notes, as of 2007, the U.S. had “more than a dozen” BSL4 labs–China commissioned its first as of 2017. a tenfold increase in funding for BSL4 labs occurred because of the anthrax attacks of 2001. Those attacks might be seen as something of a provocation, spurring a dramatic increase in “dual use” biowarfare research, under the cover of “legitimate” medical/scientific research. In FTR #1128, we hypothesized about the milieu of Steven Hatfill and apartheid-linked interests as possible authors of a vectoring of New York City with Sars COV2: ” . . . . Before the anthrax mailings of 2001, the United States had just two BSL4 labs—both within the razor-wire confines of government-owned campuses. Now, thanks to a tenfold increase in funding—from $200 million in 2001 to $2 billion in 2006—more than a dozen such facilities can be found at universities and private companies across the country. . . .”
2.–The Boston University lab exemplifies the Pentagon and CIA presence in BSL‑4 facility “dual use”: ” . . . . But some scientists say that argument obscures the true purpose of the current biodefense boom: to study potential biological weapons. ‘The university portrays it as an emerging infectious disease lab,’ says David Ozonoff, a Boston University epidemiologist whose office is right across the street from the new BSL4 facility. ‘But they are talking about studying things like small pox and inhalation anthrax, which pose no public health threat other than as bioweapons.’ . . . The original NIH mandate for the lab indicated that many groups—including the CIA and Department of Defense—would be allowed to use the lab for their own research, the nature of which BU might have little control over. . . .”
As noted in past programs, Gilead Sciences is very well-connected professionally, with former Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld (among other political luminaries) serving on its board of directors. Rumsfeld was chairman of the board from 1997 until he left in 2001 to become George W. Bush’s Secretary of Defense.
Rumsfeld was Secretary of Defense during the period in which the 2001 anthrax attacks occurred.
During the post‑9/11 period of exploding government investments in biodefense programs, Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld was still holding onto massive amounts of Gilead stock, which was increasing in value dramatically. What kind of relationship did Gilead develop with the US biodefense national security state during this period? That seems like a pretty important question at this point in time.
The U.S. government was among the customers whose purchases drove up the Gilead earnings and stock price: ” . . . . What’s more, the federal government is emerging as one of the world’s biggest customers for Tamiflu. In July, the Pentagon ordered $58 million worth of the treatment for U.S. troops around the world, and Congress is considering a multi-billion dollar purchase. . . .”
Several years into his tenure at the Pentagon, Rumsfeld made a killing on the sale of Gilead Sciences’ stock, which rose exponentially in value following its development of Tamiflu as a treatment for H5N1 avian flu.” . . . . The firm made a loss in 2003, the year before concern about bird flu started. Then revenues from Tamiflu almost quadrupled, to $44.6m, helping put the company well into the black. Sales almost quadrupled again, to $161.6m last year. During this time the share price trebled. Mr Rumsfeld sold some of his Gilead shares in 2004 reaping – according to the financial disclosure report he is required to make each year – capital gains of more than $5m. The report showed that he still had up to $25m-worth of shares at the end of 2004, and at least one analyst believes his stake has grown well beyond that figure, as the share price has soared. . . .”
Donald Rumsfeld was a signatory to the 1998 letter to President Clinton by the Project for a New American Century. That letter advocated a harder line against Iraq. ” . . . . Rumsfeld has strong ties to the Intelligence Community, as well as to the Atlantic Institute, and is a member of the Bilderberg group. He is a financial supporter for the Center for Security Policy. Rumsfeld was one of the signers of the January 26, 1998, Project for the New American Century (PNAC) letter sent to President William Jefferson Clinton. . . .”
DARPA and the Pentagon have into the application of genetic engineering in order to create ethno-specific biological warfare weapons, as discussed by the Project for a New American Century.
In past programs and posts, we have noted that DARPA was researching bat-borne coronaviruses. One can but wonder to what extent the PNAC doctrine helped spawn the DARPA research into coronaviruses and, possibly, the Covid-19 pandemic.
Recent Comments