Those biolabs in Ukraine
You may notice that I haven’t written about the Ukrainian biolabs and all the swirling speculation about them. That’s because I think we don’t know all that much, but it’s also because I’m in general agreement with this statement of Ace’s:
I don’t particularly care that a foreign country that doesn’t threaten the US has a bioweapons program. Most countries do. I guess in a perfect world I’d like no one to have these programs, but I also don’t worry about it…
I also do not remotely believe this supplies Putin with some justification for invasion. Putin himself has a bioweapons program that dwarfs anything the Ukranians could come up with.
In addition, the Ukranians already had the old Soviet bioweapons. Are they really afraid that Ukraine has come up with some incremental advance that makes anthrax 1% more transmissible and 4% more deadly?
But what I do care about is the endless, endless remorseless lies from the government, and the insistence that we are not allowed to ask questions. And that if we point out that their obvious lies are in fact obviously lies, we’re Russian Agents…
I no longer expect the US government to behave with morality or honor. But can it lie with something approaching everyday-joe intelligence?
I actually do not expect to find anything especially shocking or nefarious at the end of this spool of lies. But I will not hold it against people who do harbor those suspicions.
The Biden administration has richly earned our distrust, unfortunately. That doesn’t mean that everything they say is a lie, including “and” and “the.”
ADDENDUM: For what it’s worth, the UN isn’t buying Russia’s claim that it’s a bioweapons lab. One of Russia’s problems was that it presented no evidence to that effect.
Mary McCarthy was one of the better novelists of her generation.
She wrote a very distinctive psychological story of a 60’s youth called “Birds of America”
I think there are a number of important questions regarding these labs:
1) What was the research being done, and why?
2) How much was the funding provided by the US?
3) Why weren’t they secured before when it was obvious that Russia was even thinking about invasion?
4) In partial answer to 1), I suspect, with no evidence except past behavior, that this has Fauci’s fingerprints all over it. Getting around the regulations against gain of function research by off loading to foreign labs.
Like everything else with this administration, it reeks to high heaven.
Which US Govt official / agency, which stupid moron, decided that the USA should help fund a bio-weapons research lab in ANY foreign nation??
This is simply incredible.
The stupidity and incompetence of govt officials is simply incredible.
And when the Russians were massing 200,000 troops along the Ukraine border, did any official in the US govt think of removing those bio materials when this was concurring?
Why not?
That stupid , dumb-ass, inept, incompetent Victoria Nuland KNEW !!! these facilities were there and she did nothing at all to shut down this lab or at least shut it down.
Yep, our tax dollars at work; supporting a ruling class that is beyond stupid, beyond incompetent, beyond inept.
This is just disgusting.
On the topic of the odious V Nuland, one should not forget that she was Hillary’s principal agent, at massive expense to the taxpayers, in the “meddling” (to use the euphemism) in Maidan 2014 (others would call it a U.S.-backed coup, with the installation of a compliant regime), not to mention her significant part in Russiagate and in the dissemination of the infamous “Steele dossier”. She has been rewarded for her nefarious activities with steady promotion at State. On a related topic, all are encouraged to read the post by Paul Sperry (RealClearInvestigations) on the lobbying by Ukraine for the Democrats against Trump in 2016. It is curious indeed that a corrupt and poor country can afford to spend so much money lobbying in DC’s foetid swamp.
Well, it is about as competent as Brandon’s exit from Afghanistan. Dunning-Kreuger (or Kreuger-Dunning as it is written on my copy).
As an aside I recall first reading about Dunning-Kreuger in ~1999(?) as cited in the Journal of Irreproducable Results (Ignoble Prizes fame). I shared it with a union electrician who was taking college classes towards a psychology degree. Good old days at the Hanford Site.
Problem: turns out that the Democratic Party is totally compromised on the matter of foreign policy. Call it amateurism, call it destruction, call it corruption, call it adventurism.
Call it what you want.
In the case of Ukraine this has EVERYTHING to do with the Democrats’ grand plan to screw Donald Trump (whose subsequent delivery of arms to Ukraine during his presidency is one big reason why Ukraine is currently doing as well as it is…but no good deed, as they say, should go unpunished…)
In any event, the Ukraine leadership’s catastrophic decision to align themselves with the Party that brought us Russiagate (among other things) should serve as a CAT5 warning to any country relying on the US for anything related to “support”. (IOW Israel and Taiwan—for starters—had better have a Plan B ready, tested and workable.)
To be sure, this lesson ought to have been learned following the “groundbreaking” JCPOA “Deal” during the Obama years….
Should be noted that not only is the Democratic Party totally compromised, but so are the government agencies that are supposed to be non-partisan.
And so, in a relative instant, American foreign policy and those who set its policy have acquired the reputation of a heavily-used outhouse.
…Which in and of itself should prompt questions about “Biden”‘s curious decision-making WRT to the latest Ukraine crisis (and the decisions “he” made to mitigate or even cover up those decisions).
…Even as Putin’s invasion must be resisted by every means possible.
” Ukraine Worked With Democrats Against Trump In 2016 To Stop Putin — And It Backfired Badly”
https://www.zerohedge.com/geopolitical/sperry-ukraine-worked-democrats-against-trump-2016-stop-putin-and-it-backfired-badly
File under: “How to Weaken America and Strengthen its Enemies (for Dummies)”
There is no basis whatsoever for assuming, much less trusting that our Federal government is not working to develop 100% fatal bioweapons in every facility it funds.
Both parties have utterly destroyed their credibility. That is the inescapable consequence of their corrupt betrayal of America.
That one criminal is a murderer and another a rapist doesn’t lessen the monstrousness of the rapist.
Here is a piece by Jim Geraghty at NRO Plus that talks about the biolabs.
https://www.nationalreview.com/corner/the-real-especially-dangerous-materials-in-those-ukrainian-biological-research-labs/
He mentions the fact that lab exist near the ports to analyze what rats and other things might be bringing into the country, and that some of these labs have existed as a response to the plague. He also says that the US may have been
funding them to upgrade them and improve their safety.
I don’t know whether you can get around a paywall, but Geraghty is a common sense guy worth reading.
The problem with people who have, through reason and research, do not believe in conspiracies is that, while many conspiracies are fantasies, there are still conspiracies that are true, that actually exist.
Charlie Martin at Instapundit linked with to this interview with historian Stephen Kotkin who’s been the Russian specialist at Princeton…well, forever.
Because of past disputes here, I’ll excerpt just one question he answers.
Remnick: “ We’ve been hearing voices both past and present saying that the reason for what has happened is, as George Kennan put it, the strategic blunder of the eastward expansion of nato. The great-power realist-school historian John Mearsheimer insists that a great deal of the blame for what we’re witnessing must go to the United States. I thought we’d begin with your analysis of that argument.
Kotkin: “I have only the greatest respect for George Kennan. John Mearsheimer is a giant of a scholar. But I respectfully disagree. The problem with their argument is that it assumes that, had nato not expanded, Russia wouldn’t be the same or very likely close to what it is today. What we have today in Russia is not some kind of surprise. It’s not some kind of deviation from a historical pattern. Way before nato existed—in the nineteenth century—Russia looked like this: it had an autocrat. It had repression. It had militarism. It had suspicion of foreigners and the West. This is a Russia that we know, and it’s not a Russia that arrived yesterday or in the nineteen-nineties. It’s not a response to the actions of the West. There are internal processes in Russia that account for where we are today.
“I would even go further. I would say that nato expansion has put us in a better place to deal with this historical pattern in Russia that we’re seeing again today. Where would we be now if Poland or the Baltic states were not in nato? They would be in the same limbo, in the same world that Ukraine is in. In fact, Poland’s membership in nato stiffened nato’s spine. Unlike some of the other nato countries, Poland has contested Russia many times over. In fact, you can argue that Russia broke its teeth twice on Poland: first in the nineteenth century, leading up to the twentieth century, and again at the end of the Soviet Union, with Solidarity. So George Kennan was an unbelievably important scholar and practitioner—the greatest Russia expert who ever lived—but I just don’t think blaming the West is the right analysis for where we are.”
https://www.newyorker.com/news/q-and-a/stephen-kotkin-putin-russia-ukraine-stalin
The entire interview is up at the New Yorker, but to cut and paste, I used archivex.
It’s entitled “The weakness of the Despot” and it asks why this historical pattern of Russia’s is so unchanged over time, the one with which Kotkin frames his answer above.
And it reminds me that Russian opinion data from Lavbov, cited at Zerohedge a week or two ago, gives Putin 66% support for this “defensive” use of force.
Well, propaganda works. And while time will run out on Putin, he’s had a long time to see this narrative cemented again in Mother Russia – despite its obvious weakness revealed by events.
One such measurement is where the war refugees are going? Statista cite UNHRC data. And they show 2.5 million going to Europe, the majority to Poland. And only 108,000 leaving Ukraine for Russia.
Of course, perhaps these figure mislead us; perhaps even the resistance evident within the country overlooks the obvious? That maybe pro-Russian opinion is simply staying put in Eastern Ukraine BECAUSE they welcome the invasion.
With seemingly every authority, expert, leader, and institution having discredited themselves–especially over these last few years–with the demonstrated untrustworthiness of the MSM, the political spin of parties on all sides, here in the U.S. and elsewhere–and with the advances CGI in movies and video games have given to image manipulation—what of what we are seeing and being told is real?
How can we discern the truth?
Concerning the Russian invasion of the Ukraine–the invasion is certainly real–but, are the Russians actually taking a real beating and suffering from poor training, logistics, equipment, and morale?
(I’ve seen images on Youtube of some destroyed tanks out of columns of Russian tanks and APCs, Russian jets and helicopters being shot down, reports of hundreds of Russian jets, dozens of helicopters, and around 300 Russian tanks destroyed, plus reports of 9-10,000 Russian soldiers being killed but, no casualty counts for the Ukrainian side.)
Are the numbers for Russian deaths true?
Are the Ukrainian forces on the verge of utter defeat?
It certainly appears that the Russians have the wherewithal to gain “air superiority” if they cared to expend the aircraft and crews to do so.
(Looking at various sources, it appears that the Ukrainian Air Force may have a total of a couple of hundred aircraft, of which perhaps 30-50 or so are fighters but, I’ve seen one report claiming that the active Ukrainian Air Force consists of just a dozen jets and a couple dozen helicopters.)
I am pretty convinced that the number of Ukrainians who have already fled the Ukraine is more than a million and, I’ve seen videos of lots of smashed buildings and Ukrainian civilian casualties but, how many civilian casualties–killed and injured–have there actually been?
I’ve seen pictures of Ukrainian forces using Manpads and anti-tank weapons against supposed Russian aircraft and tanks but, how effective are they really?
Are there enough of these weapons, and are they effective enough to turn the psychological tide if the Russians just keep pouring in tanks and aircraft?
As between the Russian invaders and the Ukrainians I’m certainly on the side of the Ukrainians but, other than that,I really don’t know who or what to believe about the state of play or, if I should believe any–good or bad–of what I am seeing, hearing, and reading.
but Geraghty is a common sense guy worth reading.
He’s an inveterate NeverTrumper. No.
TJ:
I also linked the same NewYorker article flagged by Charlie Martin of InstaPundit.com at 04:00 today but did not provide the quote that you extracted.
Thanks!
You have added value.
Will minds be changed? Who can say.
Someone, I think Alex Berenson, argues the bio labs are a “jobs program” for East European scientists so they don’t get hired by bad guys to do dangerous stuff.
I’m not arguing in favor or against since I know nothing, just adding it to the mix of possibilities.
I no longer exclude “and” and “the.” Every government or government media report requires independent corroboration, and often the same applies to conservative media reports, except that those are far more likely to include identified sources and are therefore more believable.
That maybe pro-Russian opinion is simply staying put in Eastern Ukraine BECAUSE they welcome the invasion.
Neither of the Russophile parties represented in the Ukrainian parliament favors merger of Russia and the Ukraine. There’s a considerable constituency for that in White Russia. In the Ukraine, such people are a single-digit minority.
Anatoly Karlin has for some years maintained a blog at Unz frequented by Russian nationalists (conversing in English). There was a strand of opinion in that set that if Russia just seizes novorossiya, the population will roll over and play dead. Only the degenerate Poles in the western part of the country will object, and we can eschew them. No clue how prevalent this opinion has been in Putin’s camarilla, but it’s a strand of opinion that’s out there.
Note the Karlin crew were addled by the notion that you could decide who was who by esoteric discussions of Russian history or of the share of which population had which haplogroup. They simply did not consider it significant that at this time the population of the Ukraine was just not interested in joining their political projects and the interjections of Ukrainians on those threads could not shake them. Bubbleworld.
One military analysis I just saw was of the opinion that one reason the Russians have not been able to establish air dominance is that instead of producing and maintaining the main aircraft in their inventory they have, instead, spent a lot of money on new aircraft and missiles that are just for propaganda purposes.
Aircraft which never actually enter production or are just a few hand produced copies used for high profile appearances.
This is also money that is diverted from training so that it is possible that the Russian Air Force is just not capable of establishing air dominance.
I also note that since the Ukrainian military was largely equipped with Russian weapons and equipment they can almost immediately put to use most of the Russian weapons and equipment they capture.
TJ,
“Kotkin: “I have only the greatest respect for George Kennan. John Mearsheimer is a giant of a scholar. But I respectfully disagree. The problem with their argument is that it assumes that, had nato not expanded, Russia wouldn’t be the same or very likely close to what it is today.”
That is a nonsensical assertion. Kennan didn’t and Mearsheimer hasn’t disputed Russia’s historical nature.
Mearshiemer attributing causal blame for the conflict to the West is solely centered upon the consistent, repeated and adamant communications to the West by Russia that the Ukraine’s incorporation into NATO is considered by Russia to be an Existential Threat to a Core Interest one that they will not, under any circumstances tolerate.
One that they are prepared to resort to whatever degree of force is required to prevent. Putin’s activation of his nuclear forces is a direct and unequivocal signal of Russia’s seriousness on this issue.
Mearsheimer also freely admits to the destructiveness that Putin’s Russia has visited upon the Ukraine. He also suspects that the longer the Ukraine refuses to yeild to Putin’s recent demands the greater the destruction that Putin will wreck upon the Ukraine.
The argument that had NATO not expanded, the central and eastern European nations would be under greater threat by an expansionist Russia is, however probable… a separate issue than Russia viewing the Ukraine joining NATO as an intolerable, existential threat.
Nor does it matter whether NATO is in fact a threat to Russia.
What matters is that Russia absolutely sees it that way and is willing to use whatever measures are necessary to protect Mother Russia.
Mearsheimer reminds us that Great Powers cannot afford to back down when their most basic core interests are threatened.
In the Cuban Missile Crisis that is exactly the position that the US took with the Soviet Union to what we correctly viewed as an existential threat. We were prepared to start a nuclear war over it.
That we had a moral right then and today Russia viewing NATO upon its borders as an existential threat is strongly disputed, doesn’t change the geopolitical reality in the least.
Hasn’t learned a thing. Useless, dug in.
LOL Oh I agree… when you know you have the right of it. You don’t back down.
Useless, impervious to information, utterly assured in his own analysis. Hubris.
From the “Now-They-Tell-Us” file:
(Not that we didn’t already know, but still…)
“Stoltenberg Says Ukraine’s NATO Membership Was Never “Imminent” Or “On The Agenda””—
https://www.zerohedge.com/geopolitical/stoltenberg-says-ukraines-nato-membership-was-never-imminent-or-agenda
One might think that Stoltenberg would have made this clear to “Biden”. (Even if the former is a wacky Norwegian.) Well, perhaps—or “no doubt”?—he did….
OTOH, why should the SecGen of NATO communicate anything with “POTUS”?
More specifically, why should the SecGen of NATO expect that “POTUS” would actually pay attention to him (given “POTUS”‘s policy of jumping at EVERY opportunity to implement “creative destruction”)…or, perhaps in this case, remember anything that he was told….
The sorry “comedy” continues apace….
And then there’s this curious—if it’s true—tidbit:
“Russian spy chiefs ‘under house arrest’ as Putin turns on his security chiefs over invasion setback”—
https://news.yahoo.com/russian-spy-chiefs-under-house-163301889.html
H/T Instapundit.
Well gotta blame somebody (Hillary would certainly understand)—and what’s a body to do when there’s no KULAKS left (or perhaps there’s too many of ’em, especially “Urban Kulaks”…and they’re spread out all over the place?…).
Hey, maybe Hillary and the American media—global experts in the “genre”—can help out here….
And to get a flavor of the wildly inconsistent logic of the ‘how can we live with Vlad’ approach to foreigh policy and world affairs here is an interview from 3/10/22 with Andrew Bacevich on the Federalist Radio Hour.
It contains many interesting things but at least Andrew owned up to being in favor of the “A” thing, appeasement, regarding Vlad. because reasons.
By the short hairs.
https://www.stitcher.com/show/the-federalist-radio-hour/episode/what-the-foreign-policy-blob-gets-wrong-about-russia-201305609
Wuhan, revisited.
The way to deal with Vlad the competitor, is to remove the viability of his moral argument, and establish an ethical alternative. The regime in Kiev had 32 trimesters to offer reconciliation and remediation to the Ukrainian people… persons disenfranchised and under assault since the 2014 coup, the Slavic Spring. Oh, and either shutdown or open the Wuhan labs. The same with the nucleat facilities and enrichment.
Unlike the Confederates, Nazis, Chinese communists, et al, the Ukranians who invited the Russian intervention, do not rest their argument on slavery, diversity, redistributive change, and [elective] abortion.
#HateLovesAbortion
n.n.
Well that was longer than your usual riddles.
The evil NATO or the paranoid plotting Putin?
https://www.rferl.org/a/putin-ukraine-nato-rasmussen-russia-interview/31749844.html
Ukraine never had any of the Soviet biological weapons facilities to the best of my knowledge (and I’ve made some study of that particular program).
And the actual weapons were never delivered to frontline units as their shelf life was extremely limited (a few days at most in the transport containers and actual weapons).
Ukraine, like any SSR, did have and probably still has, offices of the “anti-plague institute” for collecting specimens of pathogens in the wild, cataloguing them, and leading the nation’s efforts to combat outbreaks.
Which is effectively the function that the CDC and USAMRIID have in the USA, and isn’t related to weapons development at all (though in the USSR and probably Russia as well the samples collected by them were forwarded to the Biopreparat and other military facilities for weapons research, and senior staff often moved from positions in one to the other).
What shocks me more than anything is the ease with which the western right has moved from questioning everything the Russian government says to believing everything they say just because they don’t like Ukraine’s links with Biden, and in many cases sadly because the Ukrainian president is a Jew (and thus the entire country is bad by definition, apparently).