Usamah "Sam" Husseini

Origin of Pandemic and Biowarfare: Writings and Interviews

2023-12-26T16:32:00Z

My most recent pieces are on my new Substack which means you can get future pieces via email -- please sign up.

Below are pieces relating to the origin of the pandemic. I was one of the few who publicly raised this possibility from early 2020.

Major pieces, some investigative, are in bold.

On Feb. 11, 2020:
Questioning the CDC: Is it a Complete Coincidence That China's Only BSL4 Is in Wuhan? -- Audio and Video

April 24, 2020:
"Contrary to claims, the pandemic may have come from a lab — and regardless, it exposes the threat of biowarfare arms race."

(Originally published by Salon)

April 30, 2020:

"Averting our Gaze from Biowarfare: Pandemics and Self-fulfilling Prophecies"

A version of this was also published as "The Long History of Accidental Laboratory Releases of Potential Pandemic Pathogens Is Being Ignored In the COVID-19 Media Coverage" by Independent Science News on May 5, 2020.

May 2020:

Featured in "Perspectives on the Pandemic" -- see video and transcript -- going through findings on the above pieces.

Interview with Pat Thomas of the Organic Consumers Association.

Interview with Geopolitics and Empire.

June 2020:

Interview with Joanne Leon on "Around the Empire."

US Right to Know has a strong list of reporting on this issue.

Dec. 16, 2020:

"Peter Daszak’s EcoHealth Alliance Has Hidden Almost $40 Million In Pentagon Funding And Militarized Pandemic Science."

(Originally published by Independent Science News)

Dec. 28, 2020:

Interview with David Swanson: "Talk Nation Radio: Where Did Coronavirus Come From?"

Jan. 4, 2021:

I'm quoted in Nicholson Baker's piece in New York magazine: "The Lab-Leak Hypothesis: For decades, scientists have been hot-wiring viruses in hopes of preventing a pandemic, not causing one. But what if …?" (Audio is here.)

May 2021

Interview with Sameer Dossani. (Somewhat autobiographical)

June 2021:

Interviews with Scott Horton: "Collapse of the Official Coronavirus Origin Narrative"

With Whitney Webb, who has also done much to make connections to the 2001 anthrax attacks: "COVID Origins and Gain of Function."

With Cindy Sheehan. (Parallels between lab origin story and Iraq WMD story)

July 14, 2021:

Interview with Russell Mokhiber of Corporate Crime Reporter

July 23 on Substack:

Interview with Nadine Strossen on Threat of Big Tech and Big Gov Collusion Against the First Amendment

Aug. 25 on Substack:

"Crucial Points on Pandemic Origins Debate" -- also published on CounterPunch

Sept. 1 Washington Babylon interview with Andrew Stewart:

Eleven Minutes With Sam Husseini on Distinct Possibility that Covid-19 Originated in Chinese Lab

Flyer: Nations Should Invoke the Genocide Convention at the World Court Against Israel

2023-12-10T16:58:34Z

Download gen_conv.pdf

State Department Claims They are Not Pressuring Abbas Against Invoking the Genocide Convention; Is Put on Notice Regarding Their Own Complicity Under the Convention.

2023-11-07T14:58:55Z

Video coming -- please sign up at husseini.substack.com to get it. [Partial video here.]

On Monday I asked about Israel’s genocide against the Palestinians at the State Department, including if the US government is trying to stop Abbas from invoking the Genocide Convention at the International Court of Justice — also known as the World Court — in the Hague. I also asked if State Department personal may face prosecution.

International law professor Francis Boyle notes that the US Genocide Convention Implementation Act stipulates:

d)Attempt and Conspiracy.—

Any person who attempts or conspires to commit an offense under this section shall be punished in the same manner as a person who completes the offense.

AFP reports: “Palestinian president Mahmud Abbas decried Sunday Israel's "genocide" in the Gaza Strip amid its war on Hamas militants there, in remarks to visiting US Secretary of State Antony Blinken.” But Abbas has not tried to invoke the Genocide Convention.

In response to my question, State Department representative Vedant Patel claimed that the US government has not been pressuring the Palestinian Authority to not invoke the Genocide Convention or any other legal mechanism. In fact, international law professor John Quigley states: “Of course, the US has been pressuring Abbas for several years not to go to the International Criminal Court or International Court of Justice for anything.”

The record backs up Quigley. The Times of Israel reported in 2021 “Biden officials privately pushed Abbas to shelve ICC probe against Israel” and Axios reported in 2022: “Abbas rejects U.S. request to not push for UN court opinion on Israeli occupation,” quoting a State Department spokesperson: “We believe it is critical for Israel and the Palestinian Authority to refrain from unilateral steps that exacerbate tensions and undercut efforts to advance a negotiated two-state solution.”

Regardless of US pressure, the question to Abbas is, why has he not invoked the Genocide Convention? Moreover, it is quite possible that other countries are wanting to invoke the Genocide Convention at the International Court of Justice (also known as the World Court), but Abbas is holding them back.

That is what Francis Boyle has been recommending as I noted in my questioning, below. Such a maneuver, Boyle argues, may be the strongest legal avenue since the International Criminal Court “is rigged and has done nothing for the Palestinians.”

Patel claimed the State Department has a “rigorous process for evaluating whether something constitutes genocide.”

Boyle charged in an email to me that the “Internal State Department Review on Genocide is always political. For example, after I won my first Order at the World Court for Bosnia to the Yugoslavians to cease and desist from committing all acts of Genocide, [then Secretary of State] Warren Christopher started a propaganda campaign by State to detract and undercut its significance.”

Boyle added: “‘Diplomacy’ by the Biden administration and Blinken in particular is in fact just their international stage-managing of the Zionist genocide against the Palestinians.”

Patel repeated the US establishment mantra backing “Israel's right to defend itself against these terrorist attacks by Hamas” but legal scholar Richard Falk emailed me: “Gaza remains from the perspective of international law and the UN an 'Occupied Palestine Territory' subject to the Forth Geneva Convention. This means that Israel as Occupying Power has a primary obligation to safeguard the safety of the civilian population. It is entitled to take reasonable lawful means to restore its security in the aftermath of such an attack. As such, it has no international legal right of self-defense; even if it had a right of self-defense it would have no legal or moral basis for engaging in a genocidal assault, the character of which has been strongly confirmed by Israel's top leaders, Netanyahu, Gallant, and to a more indirect sense, Herzog. … I do not share the view that Hamas can be written off as 'terrorist' while Israel remains a legitimate state despite its record of state terrorism.” See Falk’s recent piece “Israel-Palestine war: Israel's endgame is much more sinister than restoring 'security'“.

Transcript of exchange at State Department:

HUSSEINI: President Lula of Brazil recently joined a growing list of world leaders [Colombia, South Africa, Pakistan] condemning Israel not just simply for war crimes, not just simply for crimes against humanity, but for genocide. The late president of the Center for Constitutional Rights, Michael Ratner, during Israel’s 2014 assault on Gaza which killed 2,000 Palestinians, advocated that the Genocide Convention be invoked in that case against Israel, saying that legally, for genocide, quote, “You don’t need to kill all of them. You just need to have the mental intent to kill part of them.”

Craig Mokhiber, who just resigned as director of the New York office of the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, noted that intent, usually the hardest part of genocide to prove, isn’t in this case. He wrote in his resignation letter, quote, “Explicit statements of intent by leaders in the Israeli Government and military" leave “no room for doubt or debate.”

Finally, Francis Boyle, who successfully prosecuted – or who successfully represented Bosnia and Herzegovina in their genocide case against Yugoslavia before the International Court of Justice, has similarly argued that the Palestinians, or any other signer to the Genocide Convention, should immediately instigate a – initiate an emergency legal process invoking the Convention at the International Court of Justice, yet no government has done so.

My question to you --

PATEL: Do you have a question soon?

HUSSEINI: My question to you is: Has the US Government pressured or bribed or threatened in any way, shape, or form Abbas, the people around him, institutions around him, from invoking this or any other legal mechanisms against Israel to stop its attack?

PATEL: I don’t even know where to start there, Sam. No, the US has not been involved in pressuring or anything like that to any officials within the Palestinian Authority. What I will just say again in the context of this conflict: We have been incredibly clear that as Israel defends itself and defends its security that it is imperative that it continues to make a distinction between Hamas terrorists and Palestinian civilians, and that’s something we’ll continue to raise directly with Israeli counterparts.

I will also note that we, within the US Government, have a rigorous process for evaluating whether something constitutes genocide, and we have not made that assessment in this case. And it’s really important to remember that Hamas bears responsibility for sparking this war and they brought this tragic war to Gaza. They have compounded and perpetuated the suffering of the Palestinian people at every step of this crisis. And as I said, we continue to support Israel's right to defend itself against these terrorist attacks by Hamas.

HUSSEINI: You claim – excuse me. You claim that you want Israel to make the distinction, but you don't seem to be — making the distinction.

PATEL: We absolutely make this distinction, Sam.

HUSSEINI: If I might – I didn't interrupt you. I didn't interrupt you. The Center for Constitutional Rights just put out a statement: "Legal Organizations Put Members of Congress on Notice for Complicity on Genocide." Quote: "Please take note” — this is a letter that they sent to members of Congress. Center for Constitutional Rights: "Please take notice that should you vote in favor of that package," the Biden package for Israel, "you risk facing criminal and civil liabilities for aiding and abetting genocide, war crimes and crimes against humanity under international law, and may face investigation and prosecution." Do members of the State Department face similar possibilities?

PATEL: Again, Sam, as I said, we have – the US Government has a rigorous process in place for evaluating whether something constitutes genocide, and we have not made that assessment in this case.

HUSSEINI: But you continue to pretend —

PATEL: I'm going to – I've taken —

QUESTION: — that the bombing of hospital after hospital, bakery after bakery, university after university – and somehow you keep pretending that, oh, they're just after military people of Hamas.

PATEL: I appreciate – I appreciate your questions, Sam. I've taken two of them. Now I'm going to work the room a little bit.

Full video and transcript according to the State Department is here.

Note: This is the first time I was called on at a State Department briefing since Israel started its current bombing campaign against Palestinians in Gaza. This despite having gone to most of the briefings with my hand raised at virtually every opportunity. (I did inject myself into the Oct. 10 news conference but was never actually properly called on.)

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See related pieces:

Israel's Incremental Genocide and Its Genocidal Moment: Finally Time for the World to Use the Genocide Convention?

VIDEO -- Be Targeted or Be Instrumentalized: State Dept. Shifting Stance on International Criminal Court from Overtly Undermining to Using it Against Russia

Listen to the voice sayin' follow me...

2023-05-15T04:26:27Z

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Does Gen. Hayden Know What the Fourth Amendment Says?

2022-12-06T00:26:56Z

I’m currently at an event organized by Hayden Center at the National Press Club. Michael Hayden is here. Last time I saw him here he falsified what the Forth Amendment said. I did an accuracy.org news release on it, below, which interestingly I could not find on the web just now. [See twitter thread.]

Sam Husseini

Anthrax War

2021-09-14T02:31:07Z

"Anthrax War" via Canadian Broadcasting Corporation's "The Passionate Eye"

Video.

Transcript:

And now on the Passionate Eye - Who was behind the 2001 anthrax attacks in the United States?

Montage: “He's dead. And they can close the case and he can't defend himself.”

“The lone gunman theory fits the needs of the FBI.”

The investigation spans the globe, uncovering the deadly world of germ warfare.

Montage: “It was about killing people and not being able to be found out. Designing assassination weapons, classic spy stuff.”

Are we on the verge of the unthinkable?

Montage: “They could launch biowarfare by means of anthrax anywhere in the world today.”

Questioning Dan Rather of CBS Evening News about US War Crimes in Yugoslavia in 1999

2021-07-03T04:30:00Z

June 25, 1999 at the National Press Club

Dan Rather: On my second trip to Belgrade I was there the night they turned off the lights. Remember, the first time we had a raid that shut down the power, turned off the lights for most of Yugoslavia and that also meant turning off the water because the water needed the power to go. You could not only see it, hear it, but feel it, the change in mood between before they shut off the lights and the power and the next day after they shut off the lights and the power. I said to myself at the time and I wrote in my notebook, "I think this might be the decisive moment in the war." ... I think there's a legitimate question to be asked, "Well, If we had chosen to use this weaponry on the second, third, fourth day or the second or third week of the war, would it have made a difference?" I don't know the answer to that question. I'm here to bear witness, eye witness, that when we did do it, when we did turn off the lights for the first time, there was a distinct change in mood. The mood of the Serbian street and countryside ceased to be one of complete, total, and utter defiance and complete confidence that they would prevail, to something considerably less than that. So make of that what you will. Yes sir.

Sam Husseini: Thank you. I was struck by your comments just now about when you say "we" took out the lights. You seemed to be criticizing the U.S. government for waiting as long as it did to take out the lights and the water facilities. Isn't part of the reason -- I hope -- part of the reason that they waited as long as they did, is that that's a war crime? And it troubles me when you say "we" when your talking about the U.S. government when you're, presumably, a journalist and an independent journalist.

Dan Rather: I would hope not presumably -- I take your point.

Sam Husseini: And why do we -- [laughs] why do we -- seem to only recognize a war crime when it's done by another government and not our own?

Obituary of Mike Gravel by Lynne Mosier

2021-06-27T22:01:00Z

Lynne Mosier is Mike Gravel's daughter. On Sunday, she appeared with Daniel Ellsberg on the Katie Halper Show.

Download Senator_Mike_Gravel_Obituary__short_final.pdf

Interview on the O'Reilly Factor with John Gibson on Palestinians - "Give me Liberty or Give me Death"

2021-06-24T14:51:00Z

October 13, 2000

JOHN GIBSON, GUEST HOST: Hi, everybody. I'm John Gibson filling in for Bill O'Reilly, who's on assignment. Thanks for watching us tonight.

We've got a packed program for you. The political Hollywood film "The Contender" is released today and the producer and one of the stars say the studio chiefs reedited it to present a pro-Gore agenda. Much ado about now much or Hollywood liberals at it again?

Plus, the presidential race is in a statistical dead heat, but the violence in the Middle East could affect who wins in November. We'll find out how the stakes have changed. And the crisis in the Mideast is our top story tonight. Here are the latest developments.

One Palestinian is dead and 12 injured in clashes today in Hebron. Ninety-eight people have been killed in 16 days of violence. President Clinton is calling for calm while many say the peace process is dead. What will it take to resolve this and have the Palestinians been treated unfairly?

Joining me now from Washington, D.C. is the former media director for the American-Arab Anti-Discrimination Committee, Sam Husseini.

Sam, what is the case for the notion that Palestinians have been treated unfairly?

SAM HUSSEINI, INSTITUTE FOR PUBLIC ACCURACY: Well, going back to the beginning of the Oslo Accords, if you take a look at it, as the group that I'm currently with, the Institute for Public Accuracy, has been doing, you find that the Oslo Accords were tremendously unfair to the Palestinians and the agreements that they have gone through since then, since the big handshake, the big photo-ops and so on.

They hide the fact that Israel continues to perpetuate its occupation over the Palestinians.

GIBSON: But Sam…

HUSSEINI: All the Israelis have done is withdrawn from some population areas.

GIBSON: Sam, I'm confused. Didn't the Palestinians agree to the Oslo Accords? So who was unfair to who?

HUSSEINI: Well, it was either agree or get nothing. Basically the Palestinians were put a gun to their head saying agree to this piece of paper or you get nothing or you get bombed or you, you know, just stay out of the picture or you get absolutely nothing at all because Israel's got all the weapons.

There's a tremendous disparity -- Israel's got one of the biggest, most powerful militaries in the world. They've got 200 nuclear weapons. And what they are at war, some people are saying against, is a civilian population…

GIBSON: But Sam…

HUSSEINI: … that's unarmed, that all they've got is rocks.

GIBSON: But Sam…

HUSSEINI: So it's an incredibly…

GIBSON: Israel is not going to bomb Gaza with nuclear weapons. That wouldn't…

HUSSEINI: No, but they can bomb other people in the region.

GIBSON: Well, sure, but -- all right, Sam, look…

HUSSEINI: They can determine their dominance of the region.

GIBSON: … how do you expect the American people at large to develop some empathy for the Palestinians when we see in the last couple of days mobs killing a couple of guys…

HUSSEINI: Well, you know, John…

GIBSON: … guys waving their bloody hands out a window in triumph?

HUSSEINI: Right, exactly. Exactly.

GIBSON: How does that build any empathy?

HUSSEINI: Yeah, what doesn't build empathy and I hear the music and I guess they'll show the clips that are getting played, I want to see the clips that haven't gotten played. There have been almost 100 Palestinian civilians, not soldiers -- I'm sorry about those soldiers, those Israeli soldiers getting killed. But what were they doing there? They're occupying soldiers.

GIBSON: They were…

HUSSEINI: They're occupying…

GIBSON: They were there by mistake.

HUSSEINI: They weren't in uniform, John.

GIBSON: They ran to the Palestinian police station for protection.

HUSSEINI: They weren't in uniform, John. You know, they're undercover units, OK? It's not a secret.

GIBSON: Well, Sam, I know that's in dispute. But I mean one picture…

HUSSEINI: So, let's see the pictures…

GIBSON: At least one picture today…

HUSSEINI: Let's see the pictures that we're not seeing…

GIBSON: … showed the guy in uniform being…

HUSSEINI: … of our -- John.

GIBSON: … shoved to the ground.

HUSSEINI: John, the other pictures of our, of American made helicopter gunships hitting civilian targets, of Palestinian children being shot. Neither one of the presidential candidates had the guts to say I condemn Israel's killing almost 100 Palestinian civilians.

MLK: "Loving Your Enemies" Message for a Political System Based on Hate

2021-01-18T19:16:43Z

I used to think we shouldn't get MLK Day "off" since we should work extra hard on this day. But I've mellowed and think of his own debauchery and give myself some slack. No matter how many self indulgent things you've done: plagiarism, cheating on your spouse (as King did) you can still do great, even historic, things and be capable of great love. Finding "bad" things about MLK didn't make me respect him less, it made me realize that whatever I or others do that's "bad" -- we can still do good and great.

Peter Daszak’s EcoHealth Alliance Has Hidden Almost $40 Million In Pentagon Funding And Militarized Pandemic Science

2020-12-16T20:29:16Z

Independent Science News just published my piece "Peter Daszak’s EcoHealth Alliance Has Hidden Almost $40 Million In Pentagon Funding And Militarized Pandemic Science." Prior pieces on this subject are here.

Biden and Blinken on Iraq invasion

2020-11-23T15:49:58Z

See piece in Salon: "Joe Biden won't tell the truth about his Iraq war record — and he hasn't for years."

See January 2007 questioning of Biden and Tony Blinken.

Tao Te Ching

2020-11-03T22:02:21Z

Tao Te Ching Translated by S. Mitchell

Book. Text. PDF. Video:

(Archived; previous)

VotePact Gives You Leverage Over the Duopoly

2020-10-22T17:12:29Z

VotePact is a voting strategy that advocates that people vote for their actual preferences by pairing up with someone on the other side of the Democratic-Republican divide. So people can strategically vote for the candidates they most like without fear of helping those they most fear. Instead of effectively cancelling out each other -- one for Trump and one for Biden, they can both vote Libertarian or Green or whatever they want.

It is effectively DIY ranked choice voting, which allows voters to list their preferences 1-2-3. Democratic Gov. Gavin Newsom just vetoed a RCV bill in California and Republicans in Maine are still trying to block voters from using RCV in the presidential election -- which is expected to be a historic first.

Such attempts to limit voter choice are endemic to the establishment parties. indeed, much of our political and media system is designed to keep voters in perpetual subjugation to the Democratic and Republican parties: atomized, perpetually triggered by the latest outrage of 'the other side.' This effectively makes the establishment parties less and less accountable to the public since ironically, if each of the parties becomes worse, more fear kicks in spurring desperate support for the other. This creates a vicious cycle of fear and hatred and actually strengthens the duopoly. VotePact gives a strategic path out of this -- and even modest use of it could give the voting public leverage over the duopoly candidates since their votes can no longer be taken for granted."

While many establishment Democrats complain constantly that Green Party candidate Jill Stein 'took votes away' from Hillary Clinton and handed the 2016 election to Trump, they effectively block RCV reforms which would solve the problem.

But unlike RCV and other institutional reforms, VotePact doesn't require waiting for governmental sign off that may never come. Anyone can do this right now with someone from the other side of the duopoly.

A related problem is polling. Most polls are phrased something like 'if the election were held today, which of the following would you vote for: Democrat Joe Biden, Republican Donald Trump, Libertarian Jo Jorgensen or Howie Hawkins, the Green Party candidate.' But that just echos the voting bind and doesn't get at voter preference.

If pollsters cared to measure actual voter preferences, they would ask people to rank candidates 1-2-3, RCV style. Or they can ask: "Biden, Trump, Jorgensen and Hawkins are in a four-way tie. You are the tie-breaker, the deciding vote. Who do you vote for?' That would get at actual voter preference.

But voter preference and control are hindered, including by the Commission on Presidential Debates, a creation of the establishment Democrats and Republicans that is sponsoring what should be called a joint televised appearance Thursday night between Trump and Biden. Third party candidates are having their own debate with the group Free and Equal on Saturday. See my letter 'The Huge Problem with Polls' to Frank Newport of Gallup and the CPD.

Some advocate that people voting third party in safe states and 'lesser evil' in swing states, which is certainly a positive step, but it obviously restricts voter choice in 'swing states,' is likely a recipe for muffling national advocacy of third parties -- and it's not scalable. That is, a third party candidate gaining traction would likely redefine which states are safe states, though that seems unlikely this year. VoteTrumpOut lists these as swing states: Arizona, Florida, Georgia, Iowa, Maine, Michigan, Minnesota, Nebraska, Nevada, New Hampshire, North Carolina, Ohio, Pennsylvania, Texas, or Wisconsin.

But VotePact can work with two people in any state and it doesn't advocate for any candidate, it is simply a tool anyone can use to strategically vote for their preferred candidate with the radical act of cooperating with someone from the other side of the partisan divide. If needed, the issue of trust in this election can be overcome by people filling out mail in ballots together. A PAC backing Libertarian candidate Gary Johnson rebranded VotePact as 'The Balanced Rebellion' in 2016, got 37 million views on Facebook with an entertaining video featuring 'dead Abe Lincoln' and helped Johnson score the biggest third party success since Ross Perot. However, most third party candidates seem to have no strategy for electoral success, the Greens this year are saying they are largely out to preserve their ballot access.

My 9-11 and Jack Whitten's

2020-09-11T04:58:00Z

I'm not out to compare myself to Jack Whitten, but on this day, my mind is on his 9-11 story and my own.

I'm sure we all have lots of 9-11 stories, but I told one of mine for the first time in my new art show, "Invisibly Present/Visibly Absent" that just opened at Gallery Al-Quds at the Jerusalem Fund near the Kennedy Center.

The piece is "The Scorching Sun Which Brings Them Forth" (see below).

Invisibly Present/Visibly Absent, at Gallery Al-Quds

2020-09-03T02:38:27Z

Here is my talk today with Dagmar Painter, curator emerita at Gallery Al-Quds, and Mohamed K. Mohamed, executive director of the Jerusalem Fund about my new art show: "Invisibly Present/Visibly Absent." Catalogue is here.

More of my art is at: BeThatEmpty.org.

The Problem of Racism is Not Black and White

2020-06-24T14:03:45Z

The Problem of Racism is Not Black and White
by Sam Husseini

[From the January/February 1998 issue of Poverty & Race]

In what was billed as one of President Clinton's most important speeches, he urged us to "begin" a dialogue on race relations. Clinton spoke of "the problem of race." There is no such thing — except for racists. There is the problem of racism, a word Clinton managed to use only once during his speech.

President Barr

2020-06-05T12:25:50Z

Barr is Cheney 2.0. He is CIA from way back. His father was OSS. His father hired Jeffrey Epstein to be a math teacher at the Dalton School. Barr was Attorney General when Bush I gave Christmas eve pardons to Elliott Abrams and others after Bush I was voted out of office in 1992.

Barr was brought into the Trump administration about the same time as Elliott Abrams. He basically declared that based on his reading of the Mueller report that there was no obstruction of justice. So Barr basically got to decide if Trump stays or goes. Trump has been serving at Barr's pleasure.

Interview on the origins of the pandemic, misreporting, and the threat of biowarfare

2020-05-23T17:58:57Z

Earlier this month, I was interviewed by John Kirby and Libby Handros of "Perspectives on the Pandemic." Under a tight deadline, they did a great job of pulling together some visuals as well. Transcript attached (which I've not double checked as yet.) Unfortunately, some of their content is getting purged and my interview seems to be shadow banned.

Download Husseini2.pdf

Averting our Gaze from Biowarfare: Pandemics and Self-fulfilling Prophecies

2020-04-30T22:25:10Z

by Sam Husseini

Those bastards in their white lab coats
Who experiment with mountain goats
Should leave the universe alone
It's not their business, not their home
-- John Prine, "Lonesome Friends of Science"

People who are dismissing the possibility that the pandemic might have come from a lab -- either accidentally from a Wuhan lab or them being effectively framed, as we saw with the 2001 anthrax attacks -- are basically risking the future of humanity because they don't want to have an uncomfortable discussion.

On Feb. 11, I asked Anne Schuchat, the CDC's Principal Deputy Director, at the National Press Club if it were a "complete coincidence" that the outbreak of the novel coronavirus happened in Wuhan, a center of China's declared biowarfare/biodefence capacity. I didn't get a satisfactory answer. In fact, at the end it was remarkably evasive. She wouldn't answer my followup question about whether the claimed "zoonotic origin" precluded the outbreak from being caused pathogens from nature that then could be accidentally leaked from the labs.

But such simple facts are not being given to the public. Take "Democracy Now," the ostensible flagship broadcast of progressive thought. A search on "Democracy Now" shows that the first time the program mentioned "Wuhan" and "lab" or "laboratory" was on April 6 -- to credit "the Wuhan lab that identified the coronavirus that causes COVID-19." Mainstream outlets at least reported the existence of the lab to their audiences in a somewhat timely manner, even if they distorted the information.

And skew the info they did.

Forbes (3/17/20) published the piece "No, COVID-19 Coronavirus Was Not Bioengineered. Here’s The Research That Debunks That Idea," which depends on a misreading of a strange and misleading Nature Medicine article to dismiss the notion that it came out of a lab. The Forbes senior contributor on health, Bruce Y. Lee writes: "it’s a lot easier to leak a pocket of air though your butt than a virus from a BSL-4 facility." Apparently this was supposed to be reassuring.

Similarly CNN (4/6/20) mocked the notion of a lab leak when re-assessing the source of the pandemic, describing one possibility being that: "It leaked -- like a genie out of a bottle -- from a lab in an accident."

But even a cursory look at the record shows that these labs, where ever they exist, have a lot of accidents -- just from 2019, the New York Times (8/5/19) reported: "Deadly Germ Research Is Shut Down at Army Lab Over Safety Concerns" regarding Fort Detrick in Maryland: "Problems with disposal of dangerous materials led the government to suspend research at the military’s leading biodefense center." (The local paper, the Frederick News-Post has provided some coverage, including publishing letters by local activist Barry Kissin who has focused on the issue.)

USA Today had a reporter on this beat, Alison Young, but she left the paper. A sampling of her work:

Contrary to claims, the pandemic may have come from a lab — and regardless, it exposes the threat of biowarfare arms race

2020-04-24T10:31:20Z

[Originally published in Salon.]

By Sam Husseini

There is no scientific finding that the novel coronavirus was bioengineered, but its origins are not entirely clear. Deadly pathogens discovered in the wild can be studied in secret in labs — and sometimes made more dangerous. That possibility, and other plausible scenarios, have been incorrectly dismissed in remarks by some scientists and government officials, and in the coverage of most major media outlets.

Regardless of the source of this pandemic, there is considerable documentation that a global biological arms race going on outside of public view could produce even more deadly pandemics in the future.

While much of the media and political establishment have minimized the threat from such lab work, some hawks on the American right like Sen. Tom Cotton, R-Ark., have singled out Chinese biodefense researchers as uniquely dangerous.

But there is every indication that U.S. lab work is every bit as threatening as that in Chinese labs. American labs also operate in secret, and are also known to be accident-prone.

The current dynamics of the biological arms race have been driven by U.S. government decisions that extend back decades. In December 2009, Reuters reported that the Obama administration was refusing even to negotiate the possible monitoring of biological weapons.

Much of the left in the U.S. now appears unwilling to scrutinize the origin of the pandemic — or the wider issue of biowarfare — perhaps because portions of the anti-Chinese right have been so vocal in making unfounded allegations.

Governments that participate in such biological weapon research generally distinguish between "biowarfare" and "biodefense," as if to paint such "defense" programs as necessary. But this is rhetorical sleight-of-hand; the two concepts are largely indistinguishable.

"Biodefense" implies tacit biowarfare, breeding more dangerous pathogens for the alleged purpose of finding a way to fight them. While this work appears to have succeeded in creating deadly and infectious agents, including deadlier flu strains, such "defense" research is impotent in its ability to defend us from this pandemic.

The legal scholar who drafted the main U.S. law on the subject, Francis Boyle, warned in his 2005 book "Biowarfare and Terrorism" that an "illegal biological arms race with potentially catastrophic consequences" was underway, largely driven by the U.S. government.

For years, many scientists have raised concerns regarding bioweapons/biodefense lab work, and specifically about the fact that huge increases in funding have taken place since 9/11. This was especially true after the anthrax-by-mail attacks that killed five people in the weeks after 9/11, which the FBI ultimately blamed on a U.S. government biodefense scientist. A 2013 study found that biodefense funding since 2001 had totaled at least $78 billion, and more has surely been spent since then. This has led to a proliferation of laboratories, scientists and new organisms, effectively setting off a biological arms race.

Following the Ebola outbreak in west Africa in 2014, the U.S. government paused funding for what are known as "gain-of-function" research on certain organisms. This work actually seeks to make deadly pathogens deadlier, in some cases making pathogens airborne that previously were not. With little notice outside the field, the pause on such research was lifted in late 2017.

During this pause, exceptions for funding were made for dangerous gain-of-function lab work. This included work jointly done by U.S. scientists from the University of North Carolina, Harvard and the Wuhan Institute of Virology. This work — which had funding from USAID and EcoHealth Alliance not originally acknowledged — was published in 2015 in Nature Medicine.

A different Nature Medicine article about the origin of the current pandemic, authored by five scientists and published on March 17, has been touted by major media outlet and some officials — including current National Institutes of Health director Francis Collins — as definitively disproving a lab origin for the novel coronavirus. That journal article, titled "The proximal origin of SARS-CoV-2," stated unequivocally: "Our analyses clearly show that SARS-CoV-2 is not a laboratory construct or a purposefully manipulated virus." This is a subtly misleading sentence. While the scientists state that there is no known laboratory "signature" in the SARS-Cov-2 RNA, their argument fails to take account of other lab methods that could have created coronavirus mutations without leaving such a signature.

Questioning the CDC: Is it a Complete Coincidence That China's Only BSL4 Is in Wuhan? -- Audio and Video

2020-04-17T00:14:07Z

I asked about the origins of the outbreak at a news conference with a Center for Disease Control representative at the now shuttered National Press Club on Feb. 11. I asked if it was a complete coincidence that the pandemic started in Wuhan, which seems a hub of Chinese biowarfare capacity -- with the only declared BSL4 (biosafety level 4 laboratory, which deals with the most deadly pathogens) while the bat caves (in Yunnan province) some have cited as the relevant source of bats are over 1,000 miles from Wuhan. I noted that controversial gain-of-function lab work results in more deadly pathogens (like making them airborne), and that major labs, including in the U.S., have had accidents. The CDC's Principal Deputy Director Anne Schuchat replied that based on the information she has seen, the virus was of "zoonotic origin." She also stated regarding gain-of-function lab work that it's important to "protect researchers and their laboratory workers as well as the community around them and that we use science for the benefit of people."

I followed up, asking if an alleged natural origin didn't preclude it coming out of a lab, since a lab could have acquired a bat virus and been working on it. Schuchat replied to the assembled journalists that "it is very common for rumors to emerge that can take on life of their own," but didn't answer the question. She noted that in the 2014 Ebola outbreak, some pointed to nearby labs as the possible cause, claiming this "was a key rumor that had to be overcome in order to help control the outbreak." And she reiterated: "So based on everything that I know right now, I can tell you the circumstances of the origin really look like animals to human. But your, your question, I heard."

But there's no rumor. It’s a fact: Labs work with dangerous pathogens. U.S. and China have such dual use biowarfare/biodefense programs. China has major facilities at Wuhan. There are leaks from labs. (See Preventing a Biological Arms Race, MIT Press, 1990, edited by Susan Wright -- see (partial) review in Journal of International Law (10/92).)

Notice of event is here. Full video here and my questioning begins at 41:41. Audio attached, my question begins at 6:10 on the audio. Full article to come. Transcript:

Husseini: Obviously the main concern is how to stop the virus and deaths and so on. But I think that we should look into the origins of this. Is it the CDCs contention that there's absolutely no relation to the BSL4 lab in Wuhan? It's my understanding this is the only place in China with a BSL4 lab. We in the United States have I think two dozen or so and there have been problems and incidents. Some of them have been shut down out of concerns of leakage of potential pathogens. And it's an ethical struggle in the United States about gain of function research. That is, research that actually attempts to make pathogens more lethal. China is a very opaque society [with a] totalitarian regime. We have no idea, or I don't know, you tell me: Do you have any idea of what kind of research could potentially be done? I'm not contending that this was intentional in any way. I'm just asking is it a complete coincidence that this outbreak happened in the one city in China with a BSL4 lab and shouldn't we be having at least some of the discussion about the ethics of some of the research that happens here? Thank you.

Schuchat: Thank you for those comments. Based on everything that I know about what is going on with this outbreak and the research that's being conducted, well as the genomic sequences that have been posted and the comparison with animals strains, the pattern that we're seeing is quite consistent with emergence from animal to human acquisition and adaptability or mutations that permit the virus to be easily spread between people. There's some emerging research about, you know, the virus itself is related to bat viruses, that's what the SARS virus and the MERS virus. But there was an intriguing report about pangolin sequencing -- an animal that is apparently a large part of the wildlife trade around the world, with 99 percent similarity. But what our scientists tell us is you actually need more like 99.9 percent similarity for us to understand origin. The animal origins and the circumstances of the emergence of this virus are really important to understand and it's one of the key questions that the global community wants to look into.

Schuchat: In terms of the question about gain of function research and laboratory issues. Very important for us as a scientific community to have practices that protect researchers and their laboratory workers as well as the community around them and that we use science for the benefit of people. So I am closely involved in this response and everything that I've seen so far is very consistent with the animal to human spread that we've seen other zoonotic origin.

Husseini: May I follow up on that -- just -- I mean, the two things don't necessarily preclude each other. That is, the Chinese lab could well have acquired the bat [virus]. It's one or two thousand miles away -- the caves where the bats are [from] that are allegedly the cause. So wouldn't -- the two things aren't mutually exclusive, are they?

Schuchat: Yeah, let me leave a comment. Information is critical and having the very best information available to those who -- to everyone, to be able to protect themselves, their families, their communities is essential. In the midst of new infections, it is very common for rumors to emerge that can take on life of their own. So as you mentioned, a laboratory in the center of what else is happening in that province -- I'm reminded of concerns we heard when I was in Sierra Leone in 2014 with the Ebola response. There was a concern that there was a hemorrhagic virus research center in Sierra Leone, and maybe that's where the virus had come from. It was a key rumor that had to be overcome in order to help control the outbreak. So based on everything that I know right now, I can tell you the circumstances of the origin really look like animals to human. But your, your question, I heard.

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Sanders Suspends: What Happened? What Now?

2020-04-08T17:42:40Z

Kyle Kulinski of Secular Talk commented just as Bernie Sanders suspended his campaign: "Bernie made a number of mistakes that I highlighted and broke down in detail. No excuses. Having said that, you're out of your fucking mind if you think I'll forget or look past 'bloody monday', aka the day Obama got Pete & Amy to drop & endorse Biden. Saving his campaign."

In fact, the "Bloody Monday" move -- when Pete Buttigieg and Amy Klobuchar both endorsed Biden just after his South Carolina win and just before "Super Tuesday" -- might be the tip of the iceberg in terms of how the DNC or other establishment forces molded the campaign to produce this outcome.

Consider:

* Kamala Harris and Cory Booker pulled out of the race before South Carolina, paving the way for Biden's win there. Jim Clyburn of course endorsed Biden just before South Carolina. Tragically, Jesse Jackson only endorsed Sanders after.

* Warren split the progressive ranks throughout and ultimately refused to endorse Sanders.

* Even the choices of the candidates was useful to stopping Sanders. Pete Buttigieg was from Indiana and the net effect of his campaign was to deny Sanders a clear win in not-so-far-away Iowa. Amy Klobuchar was from Minnesota and so the net effect of her campaign was to throw that state to Biden so that Biden won something substantial outside of the south on Super Tuesday, making his rise appear national and therefore plausibly inevitable.

* Ostensibly antiwar candidate Tulsi Gabbard throughout refused to meaningfully criticize the war addicted Biden -- even when she had a clear shot to do so during the debates on his Iraq war lies. Meanwhile, Sanders just kept saying Biden voted for the Iraq war while Sanders didn't. Sanders never meaningfully made the case that Biden played key role in making the Iraq invasion happen and never really tore into his lies.

* Mike Gravel -- who might have really tore into Biden -- was excluded from the debate stage throughout.

* Julián Castro was marginalized shortly after he attacked Biden.

* Bloomberg coming in had the net effect of Warren going after him -- for things she could well have gone after Biden about but didn't. His demise effectively gave the base a sense of weird relief that Biden is the nominee: "Well, at least we didn't get stuck with Billionaire Bloomberg".

You couldn't have planned it better for Biden if you tried. And lots of forces -- from the DNC to the establishment media did try in thousands of ways.

Additionally, the entire "Ukrainegate" obsession -- contrary to a slew of deluded progressive commentators at the time -- built up Biden as the anti-Trump. Trump was trying to attack him, so he must be the one Trump is afraid of was the obvious logic. That was the net effect of the entire media focus on that including the ultimate impeachment (remember impeachment?).

Indeed, in this incredibly vicious cycle, just as many Republicans likely turned to Trump because they felt they needed a corrupt celebrity to stop Hillary Clinton, many Democrats likely turned to Biden for similar reasons this year.

And at a societal level, the pandemic struck chords of fear in people's collective psychology. It was like the Y2K story. As January 1, 2000 approached, people were filled with dread and fear, so that what should have been a time for great hope was a time for just hoping to get by. Like now. The pandemic pushed many people to turn to the familiar, to something that they associate with not being a disaster. (This is the opposite of what happened in 1900 -- that period was apparently greeted with great embrace.)

Then there's Sanders' own role, his incapacity -- or more likely, his unwillingness -- to mount sharper attacks on Biden, of shedding his imperial presumptions and more deeply taking on the foreign policy establishment. Sanders' ultimate legacy may be what the late great Bruce Dixon called "Sheepdogging."

So, now what?

As I outlined last month:

There are two obvious responses:

Burn it Down: The impulsive thing to do would be to want to burn down the Democratic Party. It’s possible that the establishment of the Democratic Party would be OK with this — they seem to fear a President Sanders more than the fear another term of Trump. So, people would stay home or vote for a third party or independent candidate who openly states that they have virtually no chance of winning.

Cave In: Others might insist that no matter how badly the Democratic Party establishment treats its voters, they need to get in line come November and vote for whoever the nominee is. This is euphemistically referred to as “hold your nose and voting.” People have done this for decades and it’s typically resulted in the corporate wing of the Democratic Party becoming more and more powerful.

The first of these will be disastrous because it will help Trump.

The second will be disastrous because it effectively surrenders control of the Democratic Party to the corporate wing, probably for the foreseeable future.

But there is a third choice: The VotePact strategy.

With the VotePact strategy, in the general election, disenchanted Democratics team up with a disenchanted Republicans. They pair up: spouses and friends and coworkers and neighbors and debating partners and ex-facebook friends. Instead of the two of them voting for candidates they don’t want, they pair up and vote for the third party or independent candidate of their choice.

Given the pandemic, all bets may be off. Things could slide into disaster -- or a great new world could be born. One could almost envision the rise of the Stay-At-Home party. People can talk to their loved ones in a way they never have. And they may embrace their neighbors -- even if it is at ten feet -- as the never have before. Zoom could be filled with hopes and dreams and a path might be found to get there. We might be driven by fear and shallow hate and sectarian thinking -- or we might decide to come together as a country and as a world as we never have before.

VotePact takes work. But it's a path out of the duopoly and toward freedom. Given the tumult before us, it is actually a rather moderate proposal, drawing us to a sane center, away from the disastrous paths of both Biden, which gave birth to Trump -- and Trump himself.

[Addendum: See timeline of DNC manipulation in 2016.]

Big ABC Debate Friday Night. Tell Them What You Think Saturday.

2020-02-03T20:47:00Z

Download IPA_picket_abc_dem_debate_feb_8_FULL_PAGE_FLYER.pdf

Giving Thanks for Political Disagreements

2019-11-27T19:00:26Z

How a Would-be Thanksgiving Argument Can Help Birth a Revolution

by Sam Husseini

It's become something of a cliché: Many people dread Thanksgiving in part because they have to break bread with friends -- and especially relatives -- who they adamantly disagree with politically.

One is pro-immigration, the other wants to build a bigger wall, etc.

But what if this annoying encounter was actually a blessing?

I don't identify as either a Democrat or a Republican, but I recognize that there are millions of people who identify as "Democrats" for some good reason and there are lots of people who identify as "Republican" for good reason.

Thing is, those "good reasons" mostly have to do with how bad the other party is.

And a further rub is that many rank and file Democratic voters and Republican voters agree on certain core issues: They are sick of Wall Street and big business domination. They are skeptical of perpetual wars, etc. This is in spite of the fact that the establishment of both the Democratic and Republican parties are deeply tied to Wall Street and back perpetual wars, occasional rhetoric to the contrary.

Can the Religious Left Take Down Nuclear Weapons?

2019-11-22T16:50:05Z

Pope Francis will travel to Hiroshima and Nagasaki this weekend. On Sunday, he will give a public address at the ground-zero site of the nuclear attack on Nagasaki. He is expected to give the clearest articulation yet of the Vatican's position, since 2017, that condemns the "very possession" of nuclear weapons. This is something Plowshares activists have been arguing -- and acting upon -- since 1980.

***

Prosecutor E. Greg Gilluly railed to the jury as he held up a copy of Daniel Ellsberg's book -- The Doomsday Machine: Confessions of a Nuclear War Planner: It was evidence, but not "for the truth of it." Judge Lisa Godbey Wood of the US District Court for the Southern District of Georgia only grudgingly allowed the book to be entered into evidence since the seven activists, who could face decades in prison, had left it at Kings Bay base which houses the Trident submarine nuclear weapons arsenal on the Atlantic coast.

In her testimony, Plowshares defendant Clare Grady of the Ithaca, New York Catholic Worker community tried to explain to the jury the motivation and urgency of the group: US government is using nuclear weapons daily as a gun pointed at the head of the planet. But even as she spoke, she had a series of legal guns pointed at her own head. She and her fellow defendants had been threatened with contempt if they disobeyed Wood's edict not to cite evidence or legal arguments that might result in acquittal. As law professor Francis Boyle warned before the trial: “This is a kangaroo court with a rubber stamp and a railroad all put together.”

So, Grady and the six others -- the Kings Bay Plowshares 7 -- pleaded with the jury to look to their conscience. The activists were following the biblical edict to turn swords into plowshares, after all. But the jury seemingly didn't crack open either Ellsberg's book or their hearts, deciding on guilty verdicts on all four counts, including conspiracy, destruction of property and depredation, against all seven defendants in under two hours late last month.

Defendant Elizabeth McAlister, the 79-year-old widow of Phil Berrigan from Jonah House in Baltimore, who donated her own blood for the action said: “The government has set up a religion of nuclearism. It is terrifying and dead, dead wrong. It is a form of idolatry in this culture."

If that seems like hyperbole, consider that Wood allowed prosecution witnesses to state -- under oath -- that they could "neither confirm or deny" the existence of nuclear warheads at the base. The defense had objected to this -- which had been allowed in prior trials of Plowshares activists -- in pretrial motions, but as with much else, the prosecution got away with things without so much as an objection being heard by the jury. Thus Wood effectively denied the central empirical reality of the case, that Kings Bay houses six Trident submarines each submarine can carry 24 submarine-launched ballistic missiles designated Trident D5. Each of those missiles can carry up to eight 100-kiloton nuclear warheads -- about 30 times the explosive force of the Hiroshima bomb. All the while, the defense was effectively dismissed for acting on their "subjective" beliefs.

Plowshares History Talk by Art Laffin

2019-10-27T20:52:58Z

Plowshares History Talk

(Talk by Art Laffin given on Oct. 22, 2019 at evening support gathering during the Kings Bay Plowshares 7 Trial at St. Athanasius Episcopal Church, Brunswick, Georgia. This version Includes some slight revisions. Audio is here. Laffin is member of the Dorothy Day Catholic Worker community in Washington, D.C. He is also editor of the two-volume work Swords into Plowshares, which has a forward by the late Father Daniel Berrigan.)

Art Laffin on Plowshares 2

2019-10-23T01:03:00Z

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Art Laffin on Plowshares Actions Part 1

2019-10-23T01:02:35Z

Download New_Recording_15.m4a

Part 2.

Biden Taking Iraq Lies to the Max

2019-09-13T14:28:22Z

Presidential candidate Joe Biden is adding lies on top of lies to cover up his backing of the Iraq invasion.

At last night's ABC/DNC debate Biden lied about his Iraq record, just like he did at the first two debates.

In the July debate, Biden claimed: “From the moment ‘shock and awe’ started, from that moment, I was opposed to the effort, and I was outspoken as much as anyone at all in the Congress.”

When he first said that, it received virtually no scrutiny except for Mideast scholar Stephen Zunes, who wrote the piece "Biden Is Doubling Down on Iraq War Lies." Zunes outlined much of Biden's record, including his insistence in May 2003 -- months after the Iraq invasion -- that “There was sufficient evidence to go into Iraq.”

At last night's debate on ABC, Biden claimed that he voted for the Iraq invasion authorization to "to allow inspectors to go in to determine whether or not anything was being done with chemical weapons or nuclear weapons."

But the congressional vote happened on October 11 (see Biden's speech then). And by that time Iraq had agreed to allow weapons inspectors back in. On Sept. 16, 2002, the New York Times reported: "U.N. Inspectors Can Return Unconditionally, Iraq Says." (This was immediately after a delegation organized by the Institute for Public Accuracy -- where I work -- had gone to Iraq.)

Now, independent journalist Michael Tracey, who interviewed Biden in New Hampshire recently, reports that Biden made the ridiculous claim that he opposed the invasion of Iraq even before it started. Said Biden: “Yes, I did oppose the war before it began." See Tracey's piece: "Joe Biden's Jumbled Iraq War Revisionism" and video.