One of the basic principles involved in concealing a covert politico/military action is to wrap the whole thing in multiple layers of cover so that when exposure occurs you can say, well, OK, it wasn't that. It was really this!
In the case of the Wuhan virus disaster, there were initial reports that the virus had somehow "leaked" from the Chinese viral lab at Wuhan.
The WHO, headed by a well compensated Ethiopian Marxist friend of the CCP, pushed back hard against that claiming that wild meat in a market had caused the disease. In this he was greatly assisted by the US leftist media crying RACISM! at anyone who said otherwise.
The wild meat story was a second layer of the cover "onion."
The next development is a "leak" from within the USIC that local bat meat consumption had nothing to do with it. The local bats have been identified by genetic analysis of the virus as being the wrong bats. The bat genes in the virus come from hundreds of miles away.
Ah! time for revelation of a third and deeper layer of "cover," which is "Oh, well," it was an accident. "Nobody is perfect, and anyone who thinks this might have been an inept criminal scheme under international law is a disciple of "tailgunner Joe."
I left out a few minor flourishes in the "cover" game. There was an early effort to see if the world public would "buy" the idea of American soldiers infecting Wuhan with the virus. Only hardened believers in US evil paid any attention to that. There have been efforts to say that China was deeply wounded by the outbreak. Really? Where? The consumer economy in Shanghai and Beijing is roaring along with all stores and restos open. The death toll in each of these cities has been less than a thousand. How lucky they were!
We are going to continue to burrow down through the layers of "cover" until the truth becomes apparent.
The governments are unlikely to accuse the CCP and China directly of the depth of their perfidious attacks on the US and the West. Diplomacy must continue. Pig slaughter and lima bean production and export must resume, but, the truth will be known. There will be consequences. pl
Addendum 18 April: Perhaps the release from the Wuhan lab was accidental but the CCP has behaved in a way compatible with a covert action.
I am just now re-reading William H. McNeill’s Plagues and Peoples. Possibly some of the readers of the good Colonel’s forum might find it of interest. This is a link to the book on Amazon:
https://www.amazon.com/Plagues-Peoples-William-H-McNeill-dp-0385121229/dp/0385121229/ref=mt_paperback?_encoding=UTF8&me=&qid=1587058738
And this is a description of the book published on that site:
Upon its original publication, Plagues and Peoples was an immediate critical and popular success, offering a radically new interpretation of world history as seen through the extraordinary impact–political, demographic, ecological, and psychological–of disease on cultures. From the conquest of Mexico by smallpox as much as by the Spanish, to the bubonic plague in China, to the typhoid epidemic in Europe, the history of disease is the history of humankind. With the identification of AIDS in the early 1980s, another chapter has been added to this chronicle of events, which William McNeill explores in his new introduction to this updated editon.
Thought-provoking, well-researched, and compulsively readable, Plagues and Peoples is that rare book that is as fascinating as it is scholarly, as intriguing as it is enlightening. “A brilliantly conceptualized and challenging achievement” (Kirkus Reviews), it is essential reading, offering a new perspective on human history.
Regards,
David
Anyone with access to GenBank and who received the full gene sequence released in early January by the lab in China before the CCP clamped down on accessing it, knows it is SARS (bat) natural evolution, not a “bioweapon.” The only open question is patient zero. This has already been closely studied by experts across the world.
Anyway the US picking a fight with China is a non starter, China is many times stronger. Russia won’t go along, India who cares, Japan makes noises but is interested in economic opportunities, Europe the same.
Colonel, if China is behind this what exactly happened in Wuhan?
LondonBob
China is not many times stronger, but you should learn to speak Chinese. It IS true that China is many time stronger than the UK.
Offtrail
We will find that out for you.
Colonal, How can “consequences” be enacted while they hold the
pharmaceutical supply chain hostage? It’d take a long time to
bring the pharma manufacture back home. Many ppl would die during
the interim & our economy in ruins.
elaine
I will recommend to the WH that they raise the white flag of surrender immediately. You have no idea what awful things we can do to China. No hope! Sob! No hope! They have the penicillin!
London Bob, My neighbor from Jamaica tells me that someday soon the United Kingdom will be ruled from Kingston, his weed is pretty good I hear.
Not so what we can do to China, as what we can do to the CCP and it’s ‘helpers’ AND it won’t just be the US in the mix.
I very much look forward to watching this space to see the onion being peeled. Should the final layer unveil proof of China having sown the COVID-19 wind, then I would expect the consequent whirlwind to be quite something. The CCP will come to regret this.
The consequences for possible detente with Russia (already looking better since the OPEC+ deal) will be very interesting to watch. Hope springs eternal that US policymakers finally wise up to Zbig’s “most dangerous scenario” and realize that we westerners have far more in cultural common with Russia than we do with the Middle Kingdom of the Han.
Ah! time for revelation of a third and deeper layer of “cover,” which is “Oh, well,” it was an accident. “Nobody is perfect, and anyone who thinks this might have been an inept criminal scheme under international law is a disciple of “tailgunner Joe.”
You may be right but you also may be wrong – as accidental releases from biosafety level 4 labs occur even in here in the US and are covered up by government and declared state secrets.
Italicized/bold text was excerpted from USA Today a report titled:
CDC keeps secret its mishaps with deadly germs
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, which has faced congressional hearings and secret government sanctions over its sloppy lab safety practices, is keeping secret large swaths of information about dozens of recent incidents involving some of the world’s most dangerous bacteria and viruses.
After taking nearly two years to release laboratory incident reports requested by USA TODAY under the Freedom of Information Act, the CDC blacked out many details including the types of viruses and bacteria involved in the mishaps and often the entire descriptions of what happened. In several cases, clues about the seriousness of incidents is revealed because CDC staff failed to consistently black out the same words repeated throughout a string of emails.
https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/2017/01/04/cdc-secret-lab-incidents-select-agents/95972126/
The consumer economy in Shanghai and Beijing is roaring along with all stores and restos open. The death toll in each of these cities has been less than a thousand. How lucky they were!
Lucky indeed as things could have easily taken a much deadlier turn for the Chinese (and still may).
Just as lady luck has been riding shotgun with us in Los Angeles (4 million people) where 405 people have perished and Chicago (2.6 million people) where 630 people have perished or Houston (2.3 million people) where 58 people have perished.
While each tally above represents individual lives and each death is a tragedy the complete economic shut down decreed across much of the US is directly responsible for the privation afflicting many Americans today.
https://www.reuters.com/article/us-health-coronavirus-usa-poor/layoffs-and-food-lines-how-the-pandemic-slams-the-poorest-u-s-workers-idUSKBN21C1M6
https://www.nytimes.com/2020/04/12/us/coronavirus-long-lines-america.html
Thankfully when the US Army Medical Research Institute of Infectious Diseases at Fort Detrick had it’s moment in the sun during Oct 2001 it was a biological agent – anthrax – that was released via US mail and not a virulent pathogen such as Smallpox (or this years Coronavirus).
https://www.justice.gov/archive/amerithrax/docs/amx-investigative-summary2.pdf
There will be consequences.
Most likely of the unintended type consequences variety – such as tens of millions of unemployed Americans unable to pay their mortgage or put food on the table or disrupting the delicate ballet of just in time supply lines that keep supermarkets shelves stocked with goods.
All
A friend in the veterinary sciences once told me trouble would come from the labs in low places were the impoverished lab ‘assistants’ would sell test animal carcass to local markets as bush meat, rather than be incinerated. A comment made years ago seems relevant now.
I think it is possible to charge Beijing with crimes of omission based on the idea that China was economical with the truth.
It is still a long way from there to proposing that China deliberately created, then released, the virus with the idea that it was always going to gain from this event. I would have thought that the CCP, having studied American history and culture, would be aware that there would be a search for a culprit and howls for a hanging. Look at what happened to Iraq after 9/11.
On a scientific note, even idiots like me know that virii mutate, especially coronaviruses. It is thus unclear to me why the CCP in its wildest dreams, would choose covid19 as a candidate bio weapon.
There are already suggestions that the virus is mutating and that this may make vaccination impossible. Would you release a tiger from the zoo on the assumption that it will only eat your enemies?
https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1101/2020.04.09.034942v1.full.pdf
To put that another way, I don’t buy the idea that China calculated it would be “less hurt” than the West and decided to profit from that idea.
I do not believe I am a “useful idiot”, “Communist dupe” or. “fellow traveler” for being skeptical of the idea the pandemic was the result of deliberate release. I can however believe that misery loves company and the CCP was not upset that the virus spread widely.
BTW, Australia is in for four more weeks of lockdown followed by opening up with mandatory implementation of the google/apple tracking app and fast response contact tracing and isolation teams for e inevitable local outbreaks.
walrus
From now on I will consider you to be a CCP apologist.
personanongrata
Another CCP apologist.
Senator Tom Cotton:
https://twitter.com/sentomcotton/status/1250601403099349004?s=21
I agree with Sen. Cotton, the CCP should be made to pay a price which should be their destruction. We must not tolerate a murderous totalitarian regime ruling China with an iron fist any longer. Every senator should join Sen. Cotton with resolve.
Col. Lang,
“ From now on I will consider you to be a CCP apologist.”.
Thank you Col. Lang. I refer you to your own essay; “Drinking The Kool – Aid”.
I know I am not privy to the dastardly International plots you have encountered, however the allegation that the CCP has deliberately created and then infected the planet with Covid19, if true, is a bigger crime then the holocaust. You must excuse me if I cannot accept that idea uncritically and without proof.
Zed,
Did you ask about bad lab procedures by employees, in countries where bush meat sales were common or is it only Westerners who can make mistakes at work ? Did your friend tell you what the retail price of cut up bats that had been used in the lab would be and what
a) he/she/zer could expect to get per bat
b) the lab employee was getting paid by the lab
c) what time of day did the individual have to get to the market to sell them and
d) just how many bat sales were need to make not finding another job that paid more than that combination of income (and risk of getting both fired and jailed) in the booming Chinese economy?
Lets not forget also, the wet markets are open again!
Walrus,
“with mandatory implementation of the google/apple tracking app”
Welcome to the self imposed police state. You had a nice democracy, while it lasted.
walrus
I was destroyed in government for not “Drinking the Koolaid” in many cases including that of Iraq. I will leave the light on for you in honor of your quality and that of your father.
Some believe that the profile thus far of this matches that of an incomplete attenuated live virus vaccine.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Attenuated_vaccine
The wuhan biolab found the bats with SARS-like viruses, and tried to make a vaccine for the future. These efforts were not successful. Chinese funded / operated labs in usa and canada try too. Maybe our labs had success? And that is what was trying to be smuggled back to china?
From that point on there is many possible layers and paths, but this is my working theory:
Maybe the ccp called up the biolab and said, we are getting destroyed on trade with usa, “we want to punish them, what are the options?” And they went with setting loose a fast spreading virus that would allow them cover for doing a real life test of their biowarfare lockdown procedures, cover for killing dissents and stopping the hong kong freedom movement in its tracks. Shutting down their country and sacrificing a few thousand people and a few months of industry, while pretending to hide and cover up a much larger crisis so that the rest of the world would think this virus was like smallpox mixed with AIDS instead of the flu.
Elaine, good time to learn how many drugs are actually proven “life saving drugs; and how many more are highly-marketed, lifestyle drugs designed for the worried well of little proven efficacy. We can handle producing truly life-saving drugs.
Maybe this was payback for the Opium Wars. China moves in centuries; not minutes.
The following video was posted on Zerohedge a couple weeks ago.
It’s an interesting analysis of the source of the virus by an American who lived in China.
“I Found The Source of the Coronavirus”
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bpQFCcSI0pU
When this video first appeared, several commenters on Youtube stated that the Chinese language documents included in the video said what the author of the video claimed they did. There are now over 10,000 comments on the video, so it may take some scrolling to find them.
Colonel,
As JJackson put it in an earlier thread, it’s your track record in applying critical thinking and logic to many controversial issues over the years that makes the tack being pursued on this one hard to take.
The seriousness of the allegation demands the highest standards of proof. As Walrus and others have pointed out, even assuming a willingness on the part of the Chinese to take such a step, it’s difficult to see how they could have viewed it as a sensible strategy. Too uncertain in its outcome, too prone to blowback and (arguably) economically counter-productive. The risk/reward seems terrible.
It doesn’t help that members of this Committee of long standing are treated to ad hominem attacks for questioning various aspects of the allegations.
IE I do not operate on the basis of rigorous academic or legal proofs. I operate on the basis of a preponderance of evidence. Go your own way.
Colonel,
Understood. Just to be clear, it wasn’t rigourous academic or legal proofs I had in mind.
search for a culprit and howls for a hanging. Look at what happened to Iraq after 9/11.
Posted by: walrus | 16 April 2020 at 06:08 PM
Corona as 9/11 Redux?
You have no idea what awful things we can do to China. No hope! Sob! No hope! They have the penicillin!
Posted by: turcopolier | 16 April 2020 at 03:25 PM
We came, we saw, … we dismantled their factories, brought penicillin production back home?
zài jiàn, màn zou
Colonel,
We would never thought that your analysis has no sound premise (If there were such evidence, it would still be classified information, I believe).
So we are stuck in puzzlement why China would make such a stupid move, it they did.
US stock market is already precariously hanging with trillions of dollars of derivatives. If we payed attention to that, then we see why the Fed actions recently made sense. The Fed has no choice, they need to keep the whole house of derivative cards from falling.
“Anyway the US picking a fight with China is a non starter, China is many times stronger.”
LondonBob,
I believe from some of your earlier posts that you work in capital markets. If so, you must know of the precariousness of the financial system in China. Their banking system is many times the size of their economy and they have been papering over substantial degradation and losses by rolling over their assets for a good long time. Additionally, the dollar debt of their businesses is very large relative to their cash flows. This of course is a problem writ large all over emerging markets.
Trump began the move to put a spanner in the works of growing the supply chain base in China. The Wuhan virus is bringing home to many countries their vulnerabilities in basing their industrial production in China. Any reduction in exports means less dollars to service that gigantic USD debt. The eurodollar market has been for some time seeing shrinking liquidity. This only exacerbates the dollar debt problem.
Now, it is quite possible, that even with the massive money printing by the Fed, and contrary to consensus macro opinion, the dollar could rise even further relative to other countries currencies. That would be like a wrecking ball to the Chinese financial system and in particular their banking system which may have to be completely taken over by the government.
While many perceive China’s biggest strength as economic, I don’t think many are examining closely their economic Achilles Heel – their massive banking system sitting on huge losses and the gigantic outstanding USD debt in their corporate including SOE sector.
Just as a point of reference China’s banking system is now larger relative to GDP than Japan’s was at its peak in the late 80s. We’ve seen that movie before.
The YouTube video by laowhy86 entitled “I found the source of the Coronavirus” is a good example of the advantage of knowing the language and culture of a target region when conducting collection and analysis, even open source collection and analysis. Thanks to Outrage Beyond for pointing out the video in his earlier comment.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bpQFCcSI0pU
The video lays out how the “Bat Lady” researcher from the Wuhan Virology Lab did research in southern China and discovers that some locals there were infected with a coronavirus from the local bat population. She brought some of these bats back to her lab for further research. A researcher from the lab became infected with what would eventually become known as covid-19 and apparently died in late December. Then the coverup started. The dead researcher’s body was not properly handled and the virus began to spread. The Chinese government waited several weeks, until there were several dozen infected in Wuhan, before notifying WHO that there was a problem.
This story is in line with the IC report provided to Trump in early January that the virus escaped from the Wuhan lab and not from local bats. The wet market story was probably part of the CCP coverup. IMO the reports of a deliberate Chinese bioweapon or a deliberate US Army bioweapon are both shithouse rumors worthy of QAnon. Genomic sequencing of the virus puts those conspiracy theories to rest.
https://www.nature.com/articles/s41591-020-0820-9
https://www.scripps.edu/news-and-events/press-room/2020/20200317-andersen-covid-19-coronavirus.html
China’s initial coverup and continuing lack of candor are largely to blame for the worldwide spread of the virus and the ensuing misery. They don’t give a rat’s ass about us barbarians. But Trump’s coverup and lack of candor have to share in the spread of the virus in the US. Lives could have been saved and the economic damage could have been mitigated if he acted on the information provided to him. He chose to believe Xi and his gut rather than his IC and some in his own administration.
https://twitter.com/marshablackburn/status/1250878212743278592?s=21
Senators Blackburn and McSally introducing this legislation is important. What’s McConnell gonna do? Back CCP?
Sorry Colonel but you sound like the Prussian General Staff talking about Russia, except 1914 was a few years ago and even then they only ended up destroying the world they knew and loved.
America has as many problems as Britain does, these problems are largely domestic, and unless the Chinese start engaging in the same sort of activities the likes of Soros and his fellow travelers do they will remain well down on my enemies list. The Chinese will be the dominant power in Eurasia and APAC, I just hope my country still exists in some sort of form I recognise when I am an old man.
Walrus, reading Dr Henry Niman he says the virus has mutated in to an Italian strain that is now dominant and that is more virulent than the Wuhan original, he concurs with many others that, like most coronaviruses, it mutates too much for a vaccine to work.
Actually if I were to suspect the Chinese it might be that they actually overplayed the deadliness of the virus and encouraged us to lockdown, damaging our own economies as much as they did theirs. Then again if our leadership were less pathetic we could have closed our borders and kept our economies open as many such as Taiwan, Japan and Australia did to varying degrees.
This plot is truly difficult to unravel, what with the “official narrative” changing all the time. But personally, I find myself tossing around a different idea. No definite proof, just pure conjecture – if I may.
We all accept the existence of a US Deep State. And China? What of the CCP Deep State?
In 2003, just after the assassination of Dr David Kelly, I came to the realisation that there existed an international brotherhood amongst the spooks of many nations. After all, these people live in a very rarefied atmosphere where they can only commiserate with their fellow spooks. Whether those of allied nations, or non-allied nations. You see some of the latter in John leCarre’s stories where he writes of the joshing between UK/US and Soviet spooks. Sure that’s fiction, but he had been a spook himself.
So, we know Trump is in a battle with his own Deep State. Is Xi in a similar situation? Or worse, are the two Deep Doo-Doo Sates joined at the hip?
Don’t mean to be rude. Just conjecture, as I say. But my wife thinks there may be something to it.
Colonel
You have to realize that your opinion and words carry more weight than any organ of USG ( forget the media, a pack of yapping dogs). And what you say scares the crap out of everyone.
Charlie Wilson
Ingolf,
Actually, the real risk is low to non-existent. The virus almost exclusively kills the old and infirm. It takes out those who are no longer contributing to society. Chinese thinking would see this as a benefit.
According to the CDC the virus has killed < 17,000 in the US; far less than, say, pneumonia. However, their getting the media to hype the virus and create panic has created massive destruction to the US economy and to the ideology of freedom. I'd say that's a huge benefit (for the Chicoms) for the most acceptable cost of a few thousand dead elderly. https://www.cdc.gov/nchs/nvss/vsrr/covid19/index.htm
Charlie Wilson
I recognize my responsibility in this matter.
TTG,
The “Bat Lady” story is probably somewhat true. Once the virus is out of the lab, how ever that happened, opportunities present.
For all we know, the Chinese tested the virus on “dissidents”.
I don’t know how you think Trump was supposed to act more quickly. He wanted to stop travel and the democrats and the media leaped on him with the standard slurs of “racism” and “dictator”. Short of immediately sealing the borders and leaving Americans stuck OCONUS, there was no way to keep the virus out of the US.
TTG
In the “Nature Medicine” article you cite the researchers do not state that their conclusions with regard to origins are more than “possibilities.”
TTG
“Qanon” I had never focused on this phenomenon. I read the wiki after you mentioned it.
Chinese Coronavirus Is a Man Made Virus According to Luc Montagnier the Man Who Discovered HIV:
https://www.gilmorehealth.com/chinese-coronavirus-is-a-man-made-virus-according-to-luc-montagnier-the-man-who-discovered-hiv/
I’m sorry, I am a little confused here. The ever-changing reports on what did/didn’t happen in Wuhan are those that we have all been reading in the English-language MSM.
The Chinese government may be many things, most bad, but nobody believes that it controls the western media. You have to look elsewhere for that.
That what has been reported regarding the initial outbreak and spread of this disease has been fragmented is not something I dispute. Clearly it has been All Over The Shop.
Perhaps that is indicative of a deliberate and sophisticated multi-level cover story. Perhaps. I don’t discount it out of hand.
But isn’t it also what you would expect if the Chinese were caught by surprise and were floundering around and struggling to understand what, exactly, was happening?
Conflicting theories, alternate rationalizations, finger-pointing here-there-and-everywhere is exactly what I would expect when a government is struggling with something that it wasn’t expecting and isn’t prepared for.
Eric,
“It takes out those who are no longer contributing to society.”
What is the contribution of a fetus to our society? Whose opinion of “contribution” is going to be used, yours?
pl,
The possibilities mentioned by the genome sequencing researchers refers to the two origin possibilities of either “the virus evolved to its current pathogenic state through natural selection in a non-human host and then jumped to humans” or “a non-pathogenic version of the virus jumped from an animal host into humans and then evolved to its current pathogenic state within the human population.”
pl,
QAnon seems to be the wackiest true believers of the Trumpists. It’s a toss up whether the QAnon followers or the evangelicals believing Trump is sent by God are the vanguard nutcases of the Trump movement. I think there’s a lot of overlap between the two.
TTG,
“China’s initial coverup and continuing lack of candor are largely to blame for the worldwide spread of the virus and the ensuing misery.”
I agree.
“Lives could have been saved and the economic damage could have been mitigated if he acted on the information provided to him.”
Was that action supposed to take place in December, when the House committee investigating the Ukraine “whistleblower”, hearings which led to the impeachment in the House; was that when he was supposed to shut down travel from China?
Was that action supposed to take place on January 11th when the House impeachment managers released their 100+ page impeachment memorandum? Was it the day the Chief Justice of the Supreme Court refused to allow members of the Senate to mention the name of the alleged “whistle blower” or was it supposed to happen immediately after the Senate voted not to remove him from office?
Was that action supposed to take place on February 4th, when Trump mentioned the Corona virus in his State of the Union speach, the one Speaker of the House Pelosi ripped up on global tv?
“He chose to believe Xi and his gut rather than his IC and some in his own administration.”
How do you know that? Which IC told him what, the Russia Collusion ones? Just kidding. So public reports now, in April, say the administration was warned earlier. I repeat the questions I asked above with the added question of what CDC and FDA were saying. You know, Fauci and Birx etc. Did they believe their gut or Xi and the WHO? Just curious since the knowlege of 16 April is not the knowledge available in January, other than the fact that many of the federal agencies are ridden with incompetence, “resistance” and in some cases outright sedition.
TTG
I will put you down as undecided about Trump and his voters. Do you think Biden will choose Stacey Abrams as his VP running mate?
TTG
I read the article. The authors are clear that these two possible origins are “possibilities.” “Possible” is the word used in each case.
Fred,
I was proposing the Chicom perspective re; productivity.
Personally, I think the elderly continue to contribute by sharing their accumulated wisdom with the young. I also think we owe the elderly care and protection.
That said, I have not missed the irony that it tends to be the generation that demanded and propagated the killing of the unborn en masse,for the economic convenience of the mother, who now want to destroy the economy out of fear for their own survival.
Fred,
I never expected Trump to do anything in December. He should have started preparing once the threat of a pandemic appears in his PDB in early to mid-January. His partial travel ban from China was implemented in a half-assed manner. Too many loopholes and insufficient screening and quarantine procedures. 46 countries shut their borders before we did. It was as if Trump’s wasn’t in it. Instead he held 9 political rallies and 4 gold outings in January and February.
In addition to the PDB warning of a possible pandemic emanating from China, Azar and Navarro were trying to get Trump to act in January and February. Fauci was pushing a policy of social distancing in February. Instead Trump was still telling us there was nothing to worry about and that Xi was being very forthcoming and acting correctly. He screwed the pooch in his early reaction to the crisis.
On the other hand, his current concentration on reopening the country is exactly what he should be doing. After an initial stumble with claiming the divine right of kings, he issued science-based guidelines for a phased restart of the economy and will work with the governors. Good on him for this.
pl,
Ha! Enjoyed your considering me as undecided concerning Trump and his most fervent followers. There are wackos and wingnuts on both sides of the political spectrum. I don’t know who Biden will pick. Stacy Abrams may have a place in the future of the Democratic Party, but I don’t see her as being ready to be president on day one. Governor of Georgia, yes, but president, that would be a crapshoot.
TTG,
“9 political rallies and 4 gold outings in January and February.”
On March 8th, two days before the Michigan presidential primary Bernie and AOC held a rally at UM. The Corona virus didn’t stop that and didn’t get mentioned at any Democratic debate until March 15th. You are saying Trump should have banned the Bernie&AOC (and others) rally, he should have banned the Chinese New Year event Pelosi went to in Febraury and he should have banned all those social gatherings in NYC de Blasio was telling people to go to? Just what legal rationale was he going to use to do that with zero cases and zero deaths in the US? It is easy in hindsight, with information unknown at the time – like China lied to us, the WHO and yes Dr. St. Fauci, and say what should have been done. He would have been removed from office during the Senate impeachment vote and President Pence would be getting railroaded by the house while the country faced an even worse mess right now. The only thing that would be worse would be if Hilary were in office, then we’d be tied up in Syria, Ukraine and Libya right now on top of this.
https://www.thesun.co.uk/news/worldnews/11414045/china-pandemic-out-clause-coronavirus/
As Col. Lang has noted more will come out in the coming days and months. It very likely will point to CCP culpability in the growth of Wuhan virus around the world.
Eric,
The fatality risk may be acceptable from China’s point of view, although I doubt anyone could have been certain about that in the early stages. The sort of risk I more had in mind is economic and reputational.
There’s no doubt the US (and most of the rest of the world) have suffered severe economic damage and, arguably, further loss of civil liberties. Laying this at China’s door is however another matter.
I’m curious that in all this commentary nobody has mentioned the statement by General Mark Milley to a question regarding the origin of this virus
Milley: “It should be no surprise to you that we’ve taken a keen interest in that, and we’ve had a lot of intelligence take a hard look at that. At this point it’s inconclusive, although the weight of evidence seems to indicate natural, but we don’t know for certain.”
I take that to mean that the USIC can find no conclusive evidence at all, and even using the yardstick of a “preponderance of evidence” no accusations can be levelled at the Chinese government.
Maybe he is wrong, of course. But he is paid to know these things, and he is experienced enough to choose his words carefully.
Yeah, right
No. It means the process is ongoing.
Fred,
“You are saying Trump should have banned the Bernie&AOC (and others) rally, he should have banned the Chinese New Year event Pelosi went to in February and he should have banned all those social gatherings in NYC de Blasio was telling people to go to?”
Yes, that is exactly what I am saying. Social distancing guidance and crowd size limitations should have been implemented long before that, by the middle of February when WHO made the same recommendations. I was getting emails from my alumni association about those measures being put in effect on RPI campuses by that time.
Instead Trump and DeBlasio were tooting the same horn. Don’t worry. Be Happy. Keep rubbing up against each other. Neither of them pulled their heads out of their asses until a month later. A wasted month. If Trump acted quicker, we’d most likely be in the same shape as Taiwan, South Korea and even Hong Kong.
Ingolf Eide,
How does your reputation get damaged if you have worked for years to get most people to be sympathetic to your BS – and cause those who accuse you be considered evil or untrusted?
The only stores open where I live are those that sell cheap Chinese junk (e.g Walmart).
The Chinese are very clever, but even clever people can mis-estimate. Maybe Chicoms mis-estimated, maybe they didn’t. How many American businesses are going to cut contracts with the Chinese? How many politicians are going to stop working with them on deals/kickbacks? How people are willing to entertain the “racist” thought that the Chinese did this on purpose, even for a minute?
“I was destroyed in government for not ‘Drinking the Koolaid'”
Colonel, I would suggest that the example you set was not ignored by your colleagues, and that the gag reflexes of a decent man prevented your self destruction.
Eric,
Well, to the extent China has succeeded in establishing a more favourable reputation over the years, whether by BS or not, the potential cost of risking those gains is commensurately higher.
Of course clever people can make mistakes, they do it all the time. My doubts about the hypothesis that China deliberately created and/or released the virus have nothing to do with racist considerations but stem from my perception that ex ante it just wouldn’t make sense. Any upside would be highly uncertain while a realistic appraisal would throw up a multitude of potential downsides.
Phil Giraldi’s take on this subject.
“In the U.S., Republican politicians and pundits, as well as the president, have exploited the uncertainty by persisting in calling the coronavirus the “Wuhan virus” or the “China virus.” There has also been considerable chatter about how Beijing is “to blame” for it, which, of course, intentionally shifts the narrative away from the actions or lack thereof by the American president.”
“Additional theories being promoted by Rush Limbaugh and others promote the belief that the Chinese communists deliberately created and unleashed the virus to destroy western capitalism.”
https://www.strategic-culture.org/news/2020/04/16/the-russians-get-blamed-again-but-who-is-really-subverting-american-democracy/
TTG,
Trump = De Blasio? That’s a new one. Hindsight is great. What would the impeachment vote have been in the Senate had he done what you propose?
Ingolf Eide,
Did the Chinese initially aggressively suppress discussion and release of info about the virus? Did they permit international travel from Wuhan after they knew about the virus?
Yes they did.
How is that good for their image? Did they care?
Fred,
Yes, they were the true odd couple for a while. If Trump implemented social distancing measures and forced manufacturers to make PPE and ventilators before the impeachment vote, the Republicans would have praised him for his bold and decisive leadership. The Democrats would have screamed unconstitutional and imperial overreach. The vote would have been the same.
TTG,
“the Republicans would have praised him for his bold and decisive leadership.”
Thanks, I needed a good laugh today. I look forward to the “not fast enough” impeachment we’ll be having once Nancy and company come back to D.C..
I operate on the basis of a preponderance of evidence.
You have no evidence for your claims, Pat. And you are now rejecting even well founded scientific arguments of ‘plankowners’ of this blog.
‘Drinking the Cool Aid’ was a masterpiece. Now you have fallen into the very trap that it described.
Did you not notice that all of the sane grown ups have left this place? Where are FB Ali, Habbakuck and others?
A sad ending of a platform that for nearly two decades was worth a daily visit.
May you die in peace.
b
“Die in peace?” What a sad thing to say or write. Let us see who responds to your ill will.
Colonel Lang and b,
It is very sad to see two of the most respected ananlysts having this bitter exchange:
Colonel Lang: “I hope to piss on your grave”
b: “May you die in peace”
I hope you both would calm down. Flame war is juvenile and not worthy of your statures.
b.,
“rejecting even well founded scientific arguments of ‘plankowners’ of this blog.”
The ‘plank owner’ is the host, not guest authors. Scientfic arguments are those publicly available – see the latest Robert Williams just posted commentary about.
It’s a shame your correspondents over at your own website can’t recognize that just because US employees at the WHO in Geneva (nice gig) were getting information from China meant that China was giving them accurate information. oh, wait, that you! I do commend you on quoting a Lebanese American ‘journalist’ no one had heard of until Ilhan Omar got elected. Apparently she hasn’t caught on that it was her poliitcal party’s people pushing the economy destroying response to this virus and almost nobody in the US outside of a tiny minority of college professors and students gives much thought to Palestinians. It’s going to be even fewer for years to come thanks to her democratic friends.
b
Walrus was right, a Dr Schadenfreude you are. With a blog of your own you still felt the need to make a special visit here to deliver such an unwelcome and disrespectful sentiment. Pitiful.
MoA carries good analysis from time to time, but no amount of blog content can make up for deficiencies of character in the blogger. SST remains peerless on that account and will always attract those who recognize this.
TonyL
When I want your advice I will ask for it.
Eric,
“Aggressively suppress”? That may be too strong but it certainly seems the local authorities engaged in a cover-up to begin with. Here’s how a CNN report on January 27 described it:
“As more and more becomes known about the initial spread of the virus and the dangers posed by it, suspicion has grown over how authorities in Wuhan handled the first weeks of the outbreak.
While there is always some uncertainty at first with regard to new pathogens, that officials in Wuhan held a major provincial Communist Party meeting, an attempt at a world record for the largest potluck lunch involving 40,000 families, and had police go after people spreading “rumors” about the virus online, does not cast them in the most positive light.”
It went on to say:
“There is also the almost staggering contrast in how the crisis has been handled since the central government got involved. Xi himself last week ordered “all-out efforts” to contain the virus’ spread and treat those affected, about a month after the virus was first detected.
Beijing-based commentator Wang Xiangwei described that as a “watershed moment.”
However, he added that the slow response from local officials was likely the result of “deeply entrenched issues,” ones that may have actually been exacerbated by Xi’s much vaunted anti-corruption campaign.”
I think this highlights something which the allegations being debated here on SST don’t take sufficient account of, namely governance snafus within China. The NYT on January 27 had a long piece devoted to exactly this problem.
https://www.nytimes.com/2020/01/25/world/asia/coronavirus-crisis-china-response.html
Your working assumption seems to be that the CCP is both omniscient and omnipotent. To my mind that viewpoint doesn’t help in trying to figure out what really happened.
b,
Re your comment. With reference to my not commenting on SST recently, that is mainly age-related. I find it burdensome to draft a comment which I would like to post here.
However, I still visit SST almost every day (as I do your blog). This testifies to my continuing respect and admiration for Col Lang.
That said, on this particular issue I do not think that the coronavirus was deliberately engineered by the Chinese to be used as a weapon against the USA. I believe it escaped from the lab, and did its damage in Wuhan before it moved abroad. If the Chinese were lax in recognizing its potential for damage, this is probably restricted to the local authorities; I think the national government informed the WHO etc as soon as it became aware of the real danger.
I find it a matter of regret that various authorities in the West believe in a Chinese conspiracy to use this virus against the West. I see no evidence of that, nor do I believe that the Chinese national government wants to wage ‘war’ against the USA or the West. In fact, I think that China wishes to have cordial relations with the West, especially in order to enhance its exports to it.
Dr. Schadenfreude is getting his timelines, among other things, mixed. The Straits Times is reporting sequencing work in China began around 24 – 26 December and the commercial virologists believed that “it looked like SARS” other commercial labs were also testing and came to the conclusion it was a new coronavirus according to the article. The results were reported to the Government which issued a ban on further work on 1 Jan.
https://www.straitstimes.com/asia/east-asia/how-early-signs-of-the-coronavirus-were-spotted-spread-and-throttled-in-china
On 1 Jan China informed the WHO and, according to the briefing I reported in my 6 March post, China may have claimed it knew nothing about the nature of the virus. The WHO then called in the International specialist labs, and an Australian one confirmed coronavirus around 4 Jan and the Dutch then confirmed it was new around 6 Jan. China then announced it to the world on 7 Jan.
The case can be made then that the emergence (if you call it that) was no surprise to the CCP. They knew it was a coronavirus and must have suspected SARS – like behaviour, including efficient human to human transmission, in late December but played dumb to the WHO while it spread internationally.
b
Your anti-Americanism knows no bounds. Why are you so obsessed with America? Don’t you have anything to write about Germany or Europe?
You are the epitome of the armchair Marxist. Living a comfortable life in western Germany while extolling the virtues of the communist party in China and the Bolivarian Chavez. Why aren’t you living in those proletarian utopias? Yeah, we know. Being a keyboard marxist is a lot easier.
Your dream of American demise will not happen in your lifetime. Your angst about America will remain as your communist utopias crumble.
At least here in America we can bitch and moan about our politics and the personalities that get to the top. In your communist utopia anyone attempting the same get the midnight knock quickly. The totalitarian communist party of China that you love so much will be destroyed in your lifetime. That house of cards will come crashing down, unfortunately with much bloodshed for many hard-working Chinese looking for a day without the jackboot of oppression.
Regarding “b” I am sorry to say I have noticed this same uncultured behavior – contrasting superior German efficiency in all things with “decadent” American or Australian practices during the last two or three years with a few German guests and acquaintances overseas.. They usually succumb to the temptationwhen drunk in bars in Croatia or Italy. I hope that is his excuse.
The last time this attitude was widespread in Germany things did not end well.
walrus
Yes. The German desire to reign over us all is persistent. I had a woman German neighbor a while back who was a Ph.D art historian. I know a fair amount about art but she could not abide that and would recite formulaic descriptions of various media etc. rather than just talk to me about it. She also liked to hold forth on the Middle East, Arab culture etc. I learned eventually that she had never been anywhere but Germany and the US. Funny
TonyL
As TTG could tell you, “I hope to piss on your grave” would be close to a term of endearment where we come from.
This German is speaking the truth of the authoritarian CCP and why they are responsible for the global calamity of the Wuhan virus.
https://twitter.com/jreichelt/status/1251431001999527936?s=21
Here’s the editorial by Bild. Of course b and his ilk will claim that Julian Reichelt is racist and an American tool.
https://www.bild.de/politik/ausland/politik-ausland/corona-krise-bild-chef-schreibt-an-chinas-staatschef-70087876.bild.html