DISPATCHES FROM MOON OF ALABAMA, BY "B"
This article is part of an ongoing series of dispatches from Moon of Alabama
Throughout the last month there have been a number of reports with headlines like:
- China Lab In Focus Of Coronavirus Outbreak
- US officials sounded alarm about Wuhan lab years before coronavirus outbreak
- US officials were reportedly concerned that safety breaches at a Wuhan lab studying coronaviruses in bats could cause a pandemic
All the above and many more hark back to a Washington Post opinion piece by Josh Rogin published on April 14 and headlined:
State Department cables warned of safety issues at Wuhan lab studying bat coronaviruses.
Josh Rogin is a neo-conservative hack who carries water for the Trump administration. That administration has launched a 'blame China' campaign to distract from its failure to contain the epidemic outbreak in the United States. To that purpose they handed Rogin an old diplomatic cable and told him how to 'interpret' it. Rogin dutifully does as he is told.
He begins:
Two years before the novel coronavirus pandemic upended the world, U.S. Embassy officials visited a Chinese research facility in the city of Wuhan several times and sent two official warnings back to Washington about inadequate safety at the lab, which was conducting risky studies on coronaviruses from bats. The cables have fueled discussions inside the U.S. government about whether this or another Wuhan lab was the source of the virus — even though conclusive proof has yet to emerge.
That sets the frame for describing the one cable that was given to Rogin. But when one extracts the facts from his reporting while eliminating the propaganda this picture arises:
- The Wuhan Institute of Virology has a level 4 bio-security laboratory.
- The institute is known for research on coronaviruses that occur in bats from south China.
- Some of the research was done in collaboration with two U.S. universities and financed by the U.S. government.
- The laboratory had asked to receive additional U.S. support for further studies.
- The January 2018 the U.S. embassy in China sends two diplomats to visit the laboratory. Neither of them is an expert for laboratory safety or virology.
- The diplomats are told that research on bat derived coronaviruses is important as such viruses, like SARS, can threaten humans.
- They are told by the Chinese researchers that more work could be done if the laboratory had more trained technicians.
- The diplomats travel back to their embassy. They write a cable using the researchers' arguments to recommend that additional U.S. support should be granted to the laboratory.
- No additional funds are granted.
When described as above the story is one that occurs in publicly financed research institutions day in and out. Everyone research institution is always looking for new grants. It communicates with possible grant givers and empathizes the necessity of its research and the need for further support.
But Rogin constructs a rather wild picture from those facts:
What the U.S. officials learned during their visits concerned them so much that they dispatched two diplomatic cables categorized as Sensitive But Unclassified back to Washington. The cables warned about safety and management weaknesses at the WIV lab and proposed more attention and help. The first cable, which I obtained, also warns that the lab’s work on bat coronaviruses and their potential human transmission represented a risk of a new SARS-like pandemic.
“During interactions with scientists at the WIV laboratory, they noted the new lab has a serious shortage of appropriately trained technicians and investigators needed to safely operate this high-containment laboratory,” states the Jan. 19, 2018, cable, which was drafted by two officials from the embassy’s environment, science and health sections who met with the WIV scientists.
A real warning about safety issues at the lab would certainly be classified. What Rogin describes as "warning about safety" is a warning of a new SARS like pandemic. The "management weakness" is the desire to get the U.S. to finance more personnel at the laboratory. Rogin admits as much in his next paragraph:
The Chinese researchers at WIV were receiving assistance from the Galveston National Laboratory at the University of Texas Medical Branch and other U.S. organizations, but the Chinese requested additional help. The cables argued that the United States should give the Wuhan lab further support, mainly because its research on bat coronaviruses was important but also dangerous.
Rogin then introduces an additional scare factor by lamenting about 'gain of function' research on viruses. Such research attempts to manipulated viruses to give them additional features. He is trying to associate the Wuhan lab with such type of research:
As the cable noted, the U.S. visitors met with Shi Zhengli, the head of the research project, who had been publishing studies related to bat coronaviruses for many years. In November 2017, just before the U.S. officials’ visit, Shi’s team had published research showing that horseshoe bats they had collected from a cave in Yunnan province were very likely from the same bat population that spawned the SARS coronavirus in 2003.
...
The research was designed to prevent the next SARS-like pandemic by anticipating how it might emerge. But even in 2015, other scientists questioned whether Shi’s team was taking unnecessary risks. In October 2014, the U.S. government had imposed a moratorium on funding of any research that makes a virus more deadly or contagious, known as “gain-of-function” experiments.
The link Rogin provides goes to a Nature piece on a debate about a certain 'gain of function' research. The research in question was experiments at University of North Carolina, not in Wuhan. The paper describing that research, A SARS-like cluster of circulating bat coronaviruses shows potential for human emergence, was written by Professor Ralph S. Baricwho had also designed the experiment. The paper lists a total of fifteen collaborators. One of the listed authors is indeed Zhengli-Li Shi who leads the laboratory in Wuhan.
But neither Zhengli-Li Shi, nor her laboratory, were actually involved in any of the experiments. At the and of the research paper the contributions of each co-author are listed. About Zhengli-Li Shi it says:
Z.-L.S. provided SHC014 spike sequences and plasmids.
The Wuhan laboratory only provided specific gene sequences from its pool of bat viruses, the laboratory's and Zhengi-Li Shi's specialty, that the researchers in North Caroline wanted to use in their experiment.
To construe that furnisher function as involvement in 'gain of function' experiments is a unjustified exaggeration. I have found no evidence that the Wuhan lab itself ever engaged in such research.
Rogin concludes his scare piece by handing the microphone to the demagogue in the White House that is his source:
Inside the Trump administration, many national security officials have long suspected either the WIV or the Wuhan Center for Disease Control and Prevention lab was the source of the novel coronavirus outbreak. According to the New York Times, the intelligence community has provided no evidence to confirm this. But one senior administration official told me that the cables provide one more piece of evidence to support the possibility that the pandemic is the result of a lab accident in Wuhan.
“The idea that it was just a totally natural occurrence is circumstantial. The evidence it leaked from the lab is circumstantial. Right now, the ledger on the side of it leaking from the lab is packed with bullet points and there’s almost nothing on the other side,” the official said.
Manipulated interpretations of diplomatic cables and evidence-free claims about allegedly existing evidence were also used in warmongering campaigns about weapons of mass destruction in Iraq and chemical attacks in Syria. The neo-conservatives are now using the same old tricks against China.
The media echo shows that they have some success with this.
Posted by b on May 13, 2020 at 17:21 UTC | Permalink
The only real issue is whether Trump can use the accusations against China to win the election in November. It doesn't otherwise seem to me to have enough to justify a real economic war against them, or even a military war.
Posted by: Laguerre | May 13 2020 18:39 utc | 7
Operation mocking bird has never ended..Here in an european colony of the empire I clearly see how since 2 months the rethorical stream of anti china feelings has began and day by day gets stronger..the problem is that the masses follow MSM and then all lies repeated everyday become truths in average people.Obviously this starts from the need of ziontrump to distract american people from the real problems..and then it's carried out in the colony of europe.
Posted by: LuBa | May 13 2020 18:56 utc | 9
American capitalism is faced with accelerating economic decline and looming strategic debacles in Afghanistan (longest running war in US history), Iraq, Libya, Syria and Yemen. The Coronavirus pandemic has starkly revealed the fragility of the post-2008 financial ‘recovery’, as FED- created financial bubbles in all asset categories are all on the edge of blowing up, were it not for continuing multi- $ trillion bailouts from the Treasury/FED. The proverbial ‘next shoe to drop’ will be massive defaults on the $ 16 trillion outstanding US residential mortgage debt. The ruling elite have no solution to these structural problems, except to print more money to continue bailing out Wall St and engage in bellicose and reckless foreign policy that is going to lead to war with China and Russia. Corporate media represents the interests of the ruling elite and support Trumps foreign policy.
Someone should tell these Clowns China is not Grenada, Panama or Syria. The U.S. will not survive the consequences.
US alerted Israel, NATO to disease outbreak in China in November — TV report
TimesofIsrael-article published April 16, 2020. [for some strange reason direct link blocked. In comment preview it disappears]
White House was reportedly not interested in the intel, but it was passed onto NATO, IDF; when it reached Israel’s Health Ministry, ‘nothing was done’
US intelligence agencies alerted Israel to the coronavirus outbreak in China already in November, Israeli television reported Thursday.
According to Channel 12 news, the US intelligence community became aware of the emerging disease in Wuhan in the second week of that month and drew up a classified document.[.]
recall discussions in D.C. were deemed classified.
and
Curiously, at the CDC they were recruiting;
Public Health Advisor (Quarantine Program) for 50 states and territories.
Job ID HHS-CDC-D3-20-10640010
OPEN PERIOD: 2019-11-15 to 2020-05-15
JOB SUMMARY:
Serves as a project representative for a program responsible for preventing the importation and spread of communicable diseases.DUTIES:
"Assist in planning and implementing a program for preventing the importation of communicable diseases from abroad and spread of these diseases domestically.", "Monitor disease trends and consults with senior leaders to ensure that appropriate measures are taken to prevent the introduction/spread of communicable diseases by travelers, etiologic agents or vectors.", "Provide [.] "Develop and present training to various governmental agencies and local partners on emergency response protocols, communicable diseases and quarantine activities." [.]
As if China has no one that reads English or monitors to push back. No, not at all. China kept it hidden.
Posted by: Likklemore | May 13 2020 19:03 utc | 11
Trump will be on his own in this.
The US needs China but hates it.
The rest of the world needs China and knows it.
Posted by: bjd | May 13 2020 19:10 utc | 12
Second week of November 2019. How could US intel have known that early?
Posted by: lysias | May 13 2020 19:11 utc | 13
A stupendously massive failure by Trump personally in dealing with the pandemic ... the election is in SIX MONTHS! -- ALL HANDS ON DECK!! ... what is the most likely distraction that the public might buy? .......
Posted by: chet80 | May 13 2020 19:26 utc | 15
John Bolton, surprisingly, is not in favor of suing China for damages. He's not against the idea per se he just doesn't think it will work for various reasons....it will take too long, China won't co-operate and they won't pay up anyway...
https://news.yahoo.com/john-bolton-calls-suing-china-231550797.html
Posted by: dh | May 13 2020 19:31 utc | 16
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"b" is Moon of Alabama's founding (and chief) editor. This site's purpose is to discuss politics, economics, philosophy and blogger Billmon's Whiskey Bar writings. Moon Of Alabama was opened as an independent, open forum for members of the Whiskey Bar community. Bernhard )"b") started and still runs the site. Once in a while you will also find posts and art from regular commentators. You can reach the current administrator of this site by emailing Bernhard at MoonofA@aol.com.
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International License.
This is a good example of how journalists are used to promote propaganda. They are well paid by the elites for lying to us.