First, it was "wild bat meat." Now, it was "an accident!" Stay tuned!

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.

Comments

[David Solomon]

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

[LondonBob]

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.

[Offtrail]

Colonel, if China is behind this what exactly happened in Wuhan?

[turcopolier]

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.

[turcopolier]

Offtrail

We will find that out for you.

[elaine]

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.

[turcopolier]

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!

[BillWade]

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.

[Effinghell]

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.

[Barbara Ann]

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.

[Personanongrata]

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.

[Zed]

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.

[walrus]

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.

[turcopolier]

walrus

From now on I will consider you to be a CCP apologist.

[turcopolier]

personanongrata

Another CCP apologist.

[Jack]

Senator Tom Cotton:

The Chinese Communist Party is responsible for every single death, every job lost, every retirement nest egg lost, from this coronavirus. And Xi Jinping must be made to pay the price.

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.

[walrus]

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.

[Fred]

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.

[turcopolier]

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.

[Daniel Nicolas]

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.

[Deap]

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.

[Deap]

Maybe this was payback for the Opium Wars. China moves in centuries; not minutes.

[Outrage Beyond]

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.

[Ingolf Eide]

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.

[turcopolier]

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.