Monthly Archives: July 2021
mRNA Vaccine Inventor: COVID-19 Vaccines May Make Virus More Dangerous
Dr. Robert Malone warns that the development of antibody dependent enhancement among those vaccinated with COVID vaccines ‘is the vaccinologist’s worst nightmare.’ The scientist has recently been calling for a halt to vaccinations.
Dr. Robert Malone
by Raymond Wolfe via LifeSiteNews – Top vaccine scientist Dr. Robert Malone warned that vaccines could be making COVID-19 more dangerous and said the vaccination push may need to be halted altogether in an interview Wednesday on Steve Bannon’s War Room.
Dr. Malone notably claims to have been the chief inventor of mRNA technology and mRNA and DNA innovations while working with the Salk Institute in the 1980s. Both the Pfizer and Moderna COVID-19 vaccines rely on mRNA technology. Malone is also a licensed physician who received his medical training at Northwestern University, Harvard University medical school, and UC Davis.
In his interview with Bannon, Malone responded to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s (CDC) recent reversal on face masks, noting what he called “increasingly desperate and abrupt rollouts of information.”
Earlier this week, the CDC updated guidance to state that Americans should once again mask up indoors if they are in areas of “high” or “substantial” virus transmission, even after receiving COVID-19 vaccines. “Emerging evidence suggests that fully vaccinated persons who do become infected with the Delta variant are at risk for transmitting it to others,” the agency’s guidelines now say, citing “unpublished data,” some of which was released Friday.
“We’ve seen a progression of increasingly desperate and abrupt rollouts of information, beginning with Pfizer’s alert a couple of weeks ago that they think we were going to need to have a booster after six months, and Fauci reprimanding them, and then the government flip-flopping and saying that we were going to have to have boosters for Pfizer recipients after six months in elderly and immunocompromised, and then the bomb dropped last night,” Malone said. “And I’m afraid that it’s precisely what I have been concerned about.”
He noted a report by NBC News on Tuesday that claimed that the CDC’s backtrack on masks reflected data showing that vaccinated people “could be carrying higher levels of virus than previously understood” and possibly infecting others, according to “multiple sources” close to the Biden administration. The NBC article has been heavily edited since publication.
Based on statements in the report, Malone inferred that viral levels were higher in vaccinated people than in unvaccinated people. As he later explained on Twitter, this has not been resolved.
A CDC report published today said that viral loads between the vaccinated and unvaccinated are likely “similar,” though “microbiological studies are required to confirm these findings.”
“This is precisely what one would see if antibody dependent enhancement (ADE) was happening,” Malone said regarding higher virus levels among the vaccinated. “What is antibody dependent enhancement? Briefly, it’s that the vaccine causes the virus to become more infectious than would happen in the absence of vaccination, would cause the virus to replicate at higher levels than in the absence of infection.” (See further ADE explanation here)
“This is the vaccinologist’s worst nightmare. It happened with the respiratory syncytial virus and in the ‘60s and caused more child deaths in vaccine recipients than unvaccinated. It happened with Dengvaxia, the dengue vaccine,” Malone continued.
“And it’s happened with virtually every other coronavirus vaccine development program, certainly in humans, known in history, and it’s what the vaccinologists like myself have been warning about since the outset, is the risk of antibody dependent enhancement.”
Malone said that antibody dependent enhancement seems most apparent in people injected with Pfizer’s vaccine. “So, we now know that the Pfizer protection is waning at six months,” he said. “And what the data seem to suggest is those who have received Pfizer, which is probably the least immunogenic of the three in terms of durability, length of protection, people that are now in the waning phase of the immune response to the Pfizer vaccine seem to be getting infected.”
“Notice they keep talking about Pfizer and not about the other two. So, this suggests this is exactly what you would anticipate, is the window of greatest susceptibility to antibody dependent enhancement is in this long tapering phase as the vaccine response declines.”
The top mRNA vaccine expert also criticized Dr. Anthony Fauci, who stated in an appearance on MSNBC this week that levels of virus in the noses of vaccinated people who contract COVID-19 are “exactly the same as the level of virus in an unvaccinated person who’s infected.”
“And I think Dr. Fauci is being very disingenuous,” Malone said. “I’m accused of being now an anti-vaxxer and promoting disinformation. But to my eyes, the government is obfuscating what’s happening here.”
“And I don’t mean to sound alarmist, but what seems to be rolling out is the worst-case scenario, where the vaccine in the waning phase is causing the virus to replicate more efficiently than it would otherwise, which is what is we call antibody dependent enhancement is what the word is. And people have been warning about this since the outset of this rushed vaccine campaign.”
Dr. Malone also criticized Fauci, who recently blamed unvaccinated people for variants, for a “misleading set of statements” about the mutations. Malone said “the escape mutants that are escaping vaccine selective pressure are most likely developing in the people that have been vaccinated, not in the unvaccinated.” “So that’s just another convenient lie,” he said, adding that “antibody dependent enhancement can be influenced by escaped mutants.”
“If the data are consistent with [antibody dependent enhancement], we have to stop the vaccine campaign,” Malone stressed. “We have to pivot to expediting as much as possible drug treatments, which have been largely blocked and suppressed at the FDA level, particularly for repurposed drugs.”
Vaccine ‘groupthink’
Commenting on the Biden administration’s move to impose new COVID-19 vaccines requirements for all federal employees, Malone said he is witnessing “the most florid example, to my eye, of groupthink that I’ve ever seen in my life.”
“I think that they are all in on the logic that we need universal vaccination to open up the economy. We don’t,” he said. “They think that vaccines are the pathway to getting to herd immunity. They’re not.”
“And they think the vaccines are perfectly safe. And not only they’re not perfectly safe, if this is true, that NBC reports, and the titers are higher in vaccinated than unvaccinated, that means we got the worst case type of adverse event that scares vaccinologists, all vaccinologists, which is antibody dependent enhancement.”
“They’re all in, and they seem to be unable to process this new information, and it seems to be causing cognitive dissonance and causing these people to be increasingly frantic and transparent in their chaotic messaging,” Dr. Malone continued.
In an previous episode of Bannon’s War Room last week, Dr. Malone emphasized the risk of complications from COVID-19 vaccines, pointing to “pretty clear evidence that the spike protein expressed from vaccines is caused from toxicity in a small subset of patients.”
“The question is, how big is that subset and how bad and broad are those toxicities? The honest truth is we don’t know, and furthermore there [are] a lot of signs that that information is being withheld from us.”
Multiple sources told him, he said, that the CDC has been “grossly underreporting” adverse events like cardio toxicity. “My senior colleagues at the FDA have known that this was the case for months and are very frustrated,” Malone said. “We have multiple examples where the CDC appears to be editing data in the support of the ‘noble lie.’”
Hundreds of thousands of complications after coronavirus vaccination have been reported by federal authorities, including more than 6,300 deaths, though research has shown that the vaccine injury tracking system led by the CDC and FDA significantly undercounts adverse events.
Experts, like Dr. Peter McCullough, a renowned cardiologist and editor of two medical journals, have estimated that the total deaths attributable to the vaccines could be higher than 50,000.
Scientific Advisors To The British Government Warns That A Super SARS-CoV-2 Variant That Could Kill One In Three People Could Emerge!
Algora’s Note: For those who may be disappointed by such postings that discuss a potential worsening of the Covid scamdemic, one word of clarification. We do not in the least suggest that such a possibility could be a natural development of a virus out of control. Rather, such posts are meant to warn the public of the real possibility of an escalation of the scamdemic by the same means that made it possible in the first place. The same agenda that triggered the phase one of the plandemic continues against the public, only at a more heightened level.
An alarming warning has been issued by the Scientific Advisory Group for Emergencies (SAGE) ie a British Government body that advises the central British government in emergencies and chaired by the United Kingdom’s Chief Scientific Adviser, Sir Patrick Vallance, that future strains of the SARS-CoV-2 coronavirus could be as deadly as MERS, which kills 35% of those it infects.
The warnings were initially made to the British government and not publicly and were uncovered in accessed British Government documents. https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/1007566/S1335_Long_term_evolution_of_SARS-CoV-2.pdf
The scientist warns that a new SARS-CoV-2 variant that kills a third of the people it infects is a ‘realistic possibility’ according to the government’s science advisors.
Rapid and potent mutations are most likely to occur when the virus is widely spread as it is currently in the UK and could change in such a way that allows it to evade current vaccines.
The sudden emergence of such strains could lead to a return to tighter restrictions and lockdowns, while delivering another huge economic blow to the country.
The experts suggested the new strain could be resistant to vaccines if formed from the jab-resistant ‘South Africa’ Beta variant along with the more transmissible Alpha or Delta variants.
The report now being made public via various media has alarmed scientists and researchers all over the world with many echoing that such a possibility is extremely high.
Vice-chair of the All-Party Parliamentary Group on Coronavirus, Dr Philippa Whitford urged those in charge to pay attention to the alarming report.
She told media, “This report, which should have sent shock waves through the UK Government, was instead quietly snuck out among a glut of reports during parliamentary recess. Recommendations and comments made by SAGE bring home the simple reality ie that we have not yet ‘defeated’ this virus.”
In another report, scientists warned that the protection that vaccines give against coronavirus infection, and potentially severe disease, is highly likely to wane over time.
The scientist warns of the high possibility of a emerging variant that causes severe disease in a greater proportion of the population than has occurred to date. For example, with similar morbidity/mortality to other zoonotic coronaviruses such as SARS-CoV (~10% case fatality) or MERS-CoV (~35% case fatality).
The scientist said that this could be caused by:
-Firstly via point mutations or recombination with other host or viral genes. This might occur through a change in SARS-CoV-2 internal genes such as the polymerase proteins or accessory proteins. These genes determine the outcome of infection by affecting the way the virus is sensed by the cell, the speed at which the virus replicates and the anti-viral response of the cell to infection.
There is precedent for Coronaviruses (CoVs) to acquire additional genes or sequences from the host, from themselves or from other viruses.
-Secondly by recombination between two VOC or VUIs. One with high drift (change in the spike glycoprotein) from the current spike glycoprotein gene used in the vaccine and the other with a more efficient replication and transmission determined by internal genes, for example, a recombination between beta and alpha or delta variants respectively. Alternatively, recombination may occur between two different variants with two different strategies for overcoming innate immunity, combining to give an additive or synergistic change of phenotype resulting in higher replication of the virus – and potentially increased morbidity and mortality.
They stressed that the likelihood of genotypic change in internal genes is very likely whilst the circulation of SARSCoV-2 is high.
Also the likelihood of increased severity phenotype is also very high.
However the scientists said that unless there is significant drift in the spike glycoprotein gene sequence, then the current spike glycoprotein-based vaccines are highly likely to continue to provide protection against serious disease. However, an increase in morbidity and mortality would be expected even in the face of vaccination since vaccines do not provide absolute sterilizing immunity i.e. they do not fully prevent infection in most individuals.
But at the same time, other emerging reports are indicating that the protection that vaccines give against coronavirus infection, and potentially severe disease, is highly likely to wane over time.
Hence vaccine campaigns will continue for years to come.
One such report was titled “How long will vaccines continue to protect against COVID?”, was written by prominent virologists and epidemiologists from Imperial College London, University of Birmingham and Public Health England.
https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/1007573/S1332_How_long_will_vaccines_continue_to_protect_against_COVID-19.pdf
The United Kingdom has approved and is using three shots -Oxford-AstraZeneca, Pfizer-BioNTech and Moderna – in a mass vaccination programme that started in December 2020.
However since the emergence of the Delta variant, the Israeli health ministry has twice reported a drop in the vaccine’s efficacy against infection and a slight decrease in its protection against severe disease.
Emergence of second and third generation variants of the Delta variant and also the emergence of the new fast spreading Lambda variant is likely to change the whole kinetics of the COVID-19 pandemic and there will be fun times ahead.
Final Note: Off course hopefully by the time the ‘Omega variant’ finally arrives sometime by the mid of 2023, then only maybe the world might finally realize its stupidity of relying too much on antibody based therapeutics instead of identifying or developing a combination antiviral drugs.
Off course lets hope that all the stupid and ignorant ‘dinosaurs’ are eradicated from the face of the earth by then!
Mask-Free Sweden Nears Zero Daily Covid Death
Stockholm, July 1, 2021
As the CDC urges Americans to mask up against the Delta variant, Sweden’s chief epidemiologist has argued that more data is needed about the strain’s infectiousness. His mask-free nation is hovering at zero Covid deaths per day.
Anders Tegnell said on Friday that there was “a lot we do not know” about Delta and cautioned against drawing “far-reaching conclusions” about the coronavirus strain. He noted that the variant had been circulating in Sweden “for quite some time” with little effect, particularly in high-risk settings such as nursing homes.
His comments were made in response to newly released data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) suggesting the Delta strain is more transmissible and could potentially cause more severe illness. The New York Times and other media outlets ran stories reporting that the CDC now believes the Delta variant is as contagious as chickenpox – but this comparison didn’t seem to impress Tegnell.
“It is difficult to say how contagious Delta is, [as] when it comes to chickenpox, we have been able to follow the disease for several years. The infectivity [of Delta] seems to be very uneven – in some cases, one person infects a hundred people, then we have other occasions when an infected person does not infect anyone at all,” he told Sweden’s Aftonbladet.
In separate remarks, he pointed to the fact that one-third of the country’s municipalities reported zero new Covid cases over the past week. At the same time, there was an uptick in cases among young people in Stockholm and other large cities.
And while US health authorities are pressing Americans in “high transmission” areas to mask up, Sweden dropped its last remaining mask recommendation – related to public transport – on July 1. While Sweden’s public health agency has supported measures such as social distancing and remote working, it has no recommendations for the use of face coverings in public spaces.
Reviled by the media for refusing to impose harsh lockdowns, Sweden’s less draconian approach to the health crisis appears to be paying off: The Scandinavian nation has recorded a total of eight Covid-linked deaths so far this month, an average of 0.25 deaths per day. While it’s possible this number will increase due to reporting lags, deaths have undoubtedly plummeted over the past several months. On June 4, Sweden reported 13 deaths – more than the entire month of July.
Daily hospitalizations have also hovered near zero in July: On most days this month, the country saw between 0-2 Covid-cases requiring hospital treatment. At the same time, daily cases have fallen sharply since April.
Despite the promising developments, Tegnell warned against getting too comfortable. He stressed on Friday that Sweden was still in a pandemic and urged his countrymen, especially those in younger age groups, to get vaccinated.
CDC Releases Study Showing 3/4 of Delta Cases Are Among the Vaccinated
File photo: People waring face protecting masks walk on Hollywood Blvd in Las Angeles, March 21, 2021 @Reuters
The CDC has released a study backing up its decision to recommend indoor masking for both vaccinated and unvaccinated Americans. The study examined one outbreak and found three-quarters of people testing positive were vaccinated.
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) revised its masking guidelines on Tuesday, urging all Americans in areas with high Covid-19 transmission to mask up when indoors, regardless of vaccination status. Mask mandates in companies, government departments, and certain local jurisdictions followed, as CDC Director Rochelle Walensky insisted the decision was made on the back of fresh scientific evidence.
The CDC released that evidence on Friday. In a study of 469 cases of Covid-19 that broke out in the resort town of Cape Cod, Massachusetts, earlier this month, 74% occurred in “fully vaccinated persons.” Four out of five patients hospitalized were fully vaccinated, and on average the inoculated had completed their two rounds of doses only 86 days before infection.
The cases studied occurred in people vaccinated primarily with Pfizer and Moderna shots, with a smaller number having received Johnson & Johnson’s one-dose jab. No one vaccine was singled out as providing better or worse protection, and none appeared to prevent symptoms from developing. Some 79% of vaccinated patients were symptomatic, the study noted.
Lab testing revealed that 90% of all the Cape Cod infections involved the Delta variant of the coronavirus.
The report lends weight to the argument that the current crop of vaccines aren’t as effective against the Delta variant, although the CDC and World Health Organization (WHO) both insist that vaccination is effective against “severe disease and death” from the virus, to quote WHO technical lead Maria Van Kerkhove in a briefing earlier on Friday.
However, the CDC study noted that similarly high viral loads were found in vaccinated and unvaccinated people. Walensky stated on Friday that “high viral loads suggest an increased risk of transmission” and raised concern that “vaccinated people infected with Delta can transmit the virus.” The study itself is less alarmist, stating that “microbiological studies are required to confirm these findings.”
Walensky said that the Cape Cod study was “pivotal” in informing the CDC’s decision to recommend indoor masking. Previously, the agency drew flak from Republicans for using an extremely limited Indian study on viral loads and potential transmission to back up the mask guidance, as was revealed by documents leaked to the Washington Post on Thursday.
The study appears to negate the argument by top health officials that unvaccinated Americans are responsible for the fourfold rise in Covid-19 cases in the US since June. “This is an issue predominantly among the unvaccinated, which is the reason why we’re out there, practically pleading with the unvaccinated people to go out and get vaccinated,” White House coronavirus adviser Dr. Anthony Fauci told CNN on Sunday, adding that the US is currently moving “in the wrong direction” with regard to stamping out Covid-19.
Whether mask mandates will slow the spread of the Delta variant will be borne out with time. Beyond requiring masks and pressuring Americans to get vaccinated, the White House is running out of options. A national vaccine requirement is “not under consideration at this time,” Deputy Press Secretary Karine Jean-Pierre told reporters on Friday. Jean-Pierre also stated that “we are not going to head towards a lockdown.”
The Taliban Go to Tianjin
by Pepe Escobar via Asia Times
Nine Taliban representatives meet with Chinese officials in Tianjin. In the center are Taliban co-founder Mullah Baladar and Foreign Minister Wang Yi. Photo: Chinese Foreign Ministry
So this is the way the Forever War in Afghanistan ends – if one could call it an ending. Rather, it’s an American repositioning.
Regardless, after two decades of death and destruction and untold trillions of dollars, we’re faced not with a bang – and not with a whimper, either – but rather with a pic of the Taliban in Tianjin, a nine-man delegation led by top political commissioner Mullah Abdul Ghani Baradar, solemnly posing side by side with Foreign Minister Wang Yi.
Lateral echoes of another Forever War – in Iraq – apply. First, there was the bang: the US not as “the new OPEC,” as per how the neo-con mantra had visualized it, but with the Americans not even getting the oil. Then came the whimper: “No more troops” after December 31, 2021 – except for the proverbial “contractor” army.
The Chinese received the Taliban on an official visit in order once again to propose a very straightforward quid pro quo: We recognize and support your political role in the process of Afghan reconstruction and in return you cut off any possible links with the East Turkestan Islamic Movement, regarded by the UN as a terrorist organization and responsible for a slew of attacks in Xinjiang.
Chinese Foreign Minister Wang explicitly said, “The Taliban in Afghanistan is a pivotal military and political force in the country, and will play an important role in the process of peace, reconciliation, and reconstruction there.”
This follows Wang’s remarks back in June, after a meeting with the foreign ministers of Afghanistan and Pakistan, when he promised not only to “bring the Taliban back into the political mainstream” but also to host a serious intra-Afghan peace negotiation.
What’s implied since then is that the excruciatingly slow process in Doha is leading nowhere. Doha is being conducted by the extended troika – US, Russia, China, Pakistan – along with the irreconcilable adversaries, the Kabul government and the Taliban.
Mullah Baradar speaks with Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi (right foreground) in Tianjin. Photo: Chinese Foreign Ministry
Taliban spokesman Mohammad Naeem stressed that the Tianjin meeting focused on political, economic and security issues, with the Taliban assuring Beijing that Afghan territory would not be exploited by third parties against the security interests of neighboring nations.
This means, in practice, no shelter for Uighur, Chechen and Uzbek jihadis and shady outfits of the ISIS-Khorasan variety.
Tianjin has been added as a sort of jewel in the crown to the current Taliban diplomatic offensive, which has already touched Tehran and Moscow.
What this means in practice is that the real power broker of a possible intra-Afghan deal is the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO), led by the Russia-China strategic partnership.
Russia and China are meticulously monitoring how the Taliban have been capturing several strategic districts in provinces from Badakhshan (Tajik majority) to Kandahar (Pashtun majority). Realpolitik dictates that the Taliban be accepted as serious interlocutors.
Pakistan, meanwhile, is working closer and closer within the SCO framework. Prime Minister Imran Khan could not be more adamant when addressing US public opinion: “Washington aimed for a military solution in Afghanistan, when there never was one,” he said.
“And people like me who kept saying that there’s no military solution, who know the history of Afghanistan, we were called – people like me were called anti-American,” he said. “I was called Taliban Khan.”
Pakistani Prime Minister Imran Khan (R) meets with Taliban co-founder Mullah Abdul Ghani Baradar (2d from the window on the left side of the picture) and his delegation in Islamabad on December 18, 2020. Photo: AFP / Pakistan Prime Minister Office
We are all Taliban now
The fact is that “Taliban Khan,” “Taliban Wang” and “Taliban Lavrov” are all on the same page.
The SCO is working all-out to present a road map for a Kabul-Taliban political settlement in the next round of negotiations in August. As I have been chronicling it – see, for instance, here and here – it’s all about a comprehensive economic integration package, where the Belt and Road Initiative and its affiliated China-Pakistan Economic Corridor interacts with Russia’s Greater Eurasia Partnership and overall Central Asia-South Asia connectivity.
A stable Afghanistan is the missing link in what could be described as the future SCO economic corridor, which will integrate every Eurasian player from BRICS members India and Russia to all Central Asian ‘stans.
Both President Ashraf Ghani’s government in Kabul and the Taliban are on board. The devil, of course, is in the details of how to manage the internal power play in Afghanistan to make it happen.
The Taliban have done their crash course on geopolitics and geoeconomics. In Moscow, in early July, they had a detailed discussion with Kremlin envoy for Afghanistan Zamir Kabulov.
In parallel, even the former Afghan ambassador to China, Sultan Baheen – no Taliban himself – admitted that for the majority of Afghans, irrespective of ethnic background, Beijing is the preferred interlocutor and mediator in an evolving peace process.
So the Taliban seeking high-level discussions with the Russia-China strategic partnership is part of a carefully calculated political strategy. But that brings us to an extremely complex question: To which Taliban are we referring?
There’s no such thing as a “unified” Taliban. Most old-school top leaders live in Pakistan’s Balochistan. The new breed is way more volatile – and feels no political constraints. The East Turkestan Islamic Movement, with a little help from Western intel, might easily infiltrate some Taliban factions inside Afghanistan.
Very few in the West understand the dramatic psychological consequences for Afghans – whatever their ethnic, social or cultural backgrounds – of living essentially under a state of non-stop war for the past four decades: USSR occupation; intra-mujahideen fighting; Taliban against Northern Alliance; and US/NATO occupation.
In February 1980 Afghan refugees who have fled the area of Kabul in December 1979, are shown in the Aza Khel refugee camp near Peshawar in Pakistan. Photo: AFP / EPU
The last “normal” year in Afghan society was way back in 1978.
Andrei Kazantsev, a professor at the Higher School of Economics and director of the Center for Central Asia and Afghanistan Studies at the elite MGIMO in Moscow, is uniquely positioned to understand how things work on the ground.
He notes something I saw for myself numerous times; how wars in Afghanistan are a mix of weaponizing and negotiation:
There is a little fighting, a little talking, coalitions are formed, then there is fighting again; talking again.
Some have defected over, betrayed each other, fought for a while, and then returned. It’s a completely different culture of warfare and negotiation.
The Taliban will simultaneously negotiate with the government and continue their military offensives. These are just different tools of different wings of this movement.
I’m buying: how much?
The most important fact is that the Taliban are, de facto, a constellation of warlord militias. What this means is that Mullah Baradar in Tianjin does not speak for the whole movement. He would have to hold a shura with every major warlord and commander to sell them whatever political road map he agrees with Russia and China.
This is a huge problem as certain powerful Tajik or Uzbek commanders will prefer to align themselves with foreign sources, say Turkey or Iran, instead of whoever will be in power in Kabul.
The Chinese might find a detour around the problem by literally buying everyone and his neighbor. But that still wouldn’t guarantee stability.
What Russia-China are investing in with the Taliban is to extract iron-clad guarantees:
- Don’t allow jihadis to cross Central Asian borders – especially Tajikistan and Kyrgyzstan;
- Fight ISIS-Khorasan head-on and don’t allow them sanctuary, as the Taliban did with al-Qaeda in the 1990s; and
- Be done with opium poppy cultivation (you did give it up in the early 2000s) while fighting against drug trafficking.
An Afghan farmer harvests opium sap from a poppy field in Dara-l-Nur, District of Nangarhar province, in 2020. Photo: AFP / Wali Sabawoon / NurPhoto
No one really knows whether the Taliban political wing will be able to deliver. Yet Moscow, much more than Beijing, has been very clear: If the Taliban go soft on jihadi movements, they will feel the full wrath of the Collective Security Treaty Organization.
The SCO, for its part, has kept an Afghan contact group since 2005. Afghanistan is an SCO observer and may be accepted as a full member once there’s a political settlement.
The key problem inside the SCO will be to harmonize the clashing interests of India and Pakistan inside Afghanistan.
Once again, that will be up to the “superpowers” – the Russia-China strategic partnership. And once again, that will be at the heart of arguably the top geopolitical riddle of the Raging Twenties : how to finally pacify the “graveyard of empires.”
America’s ‘Great Retreat’ is Well Underway
by Stephen Bryen via AsiaTimes
Sailors assigned to the amphibious assault ship USS Makin Island clear out of the way of a Marine Corps F-35B Lightning II in preparation for takeoff from the flight deck of the ship. Photo: US Marine Corps / Patrick Crosley
Why would the US Department of Justice drop five cases against Chinese researchers including Dr Juan Tang, a cancer researcher who allegedly lied on her visa application after photos of her were found wearing a Chinese military uniform?
Part of the answer is that Tang’s case was dropped to facilitate Deputy Secretary of State Wendy Sherman’s high-level visit this week to China, where she was treated hostilely by her Chinese hosts.
The five cases are just part of a bigger picture which can best be termed as “The Great Retreat.” In many areas, the US is lowering its profile and backing away from its commitments.
For example, the US has pulled its only aircraft carrier, the USS Ronald Reagan, from the Pacific ostensibly to cover the retreat from Afghanistan. But whether the Ronald Reagan carrier will return to Japan in the future isn’t altogether clear.
As the need for an aircraft carrier while the US pulls out of landlocked Afghanistan is questionable, the result is that the US is leaving the Pacific devoid of carrier coverage, which appears to contravene the US policy of protecting its regional allies and partners in the region.
In Guam, the US has moved its big bombers including the B-1 and B-52 back to the continental United States (CONUS in Penatgonese) and is using the Guam base mostly as a forward depot where it can try and cycle in bombers on an as-needed basis. The real problem: Guam is increasingly threatened by Chinese missiles.
Military vehicles carrying YJ-18 anti-ship and land-attack cruise missiles drive past Tiananmen Square during the military parade to celebrate the 70th anniversary of the founding of the People’s Republic of China, in Beijing, China. Photo: AFP via Sputnik / Anna Ratkoglo
Meanwhile, the B-1 “Bone” strategic bombers, which have played an important tactical role in Afghanistan, are now mostly grounded with problems ranging from fuel delivery issues to failing aerostructures. Less than 10 B-1s are currently flyable.
There are only 21 B-2 stealth bombers in the entire US inventory, but most if not all of these would be on standby for a nuclear mission. This leaves the lumbering B-52 as the main US long-range bomber that can be used on conventional missions.
Unfortunately, the B-52 is an easy target and can only operate with standoff weapons, removing its main advantage which is the ability to deliver heavy bomb loads on targets.
The US has also pulled its air defense systems, including the Patriot and THAAD from Saudi Arabia, Iraq, Jordan and the United Arab Emirates, making clear its displeasure with those countries and underscoring its effort to conciliate Iran.
Of course, the decision to leave Afghanistan was taken without adequate coordination with Afghan authorities. US troops and contractors left Bagram Air Base in the middle of the night unannounced, and never formally turned the base over to the Afghan army. The base was immediately looted.
A helmet among the destroyed trailer trucks and electronics sold for the price of iron at a bazzar outside Bagram Air Base in a district north of Kabul, Afghanistan, May 19, 2021. Photo: AFP via Anadolu Agency / Haroon Sabawoon
Along with Afghanistan, President Biden is preparing to take US troops out of Iraq. Already the US Embassy in the Green Zone in Baghdad is subject to regular rocket attacks.
The US has the C-RAM gun system in place, but its effectiveness against rockets is poor. It won’t be long before the embassy will be indefensible.
Meanwhile, the US Defense Department has released information about yet another war game apparently focused on the “battle for Taiwan.” But the Pentagon thinks that US forces in support of Taiwan would be “swiftly and thoroughly dominated.”
The latest wargame only reaffirms results in earlier wargames run by Rand Corporation, the US Marines and a number of think tanks. But the difference is that now the Pentagon has come to the realization (if it hadn’t known before) that its warfighting methods no longer can work in peer-to-peer or peer-to near-peer conflicts.
Making matters worse, US air defense systems remain a shambles and probably are ineffective in any war scenario.
The US relies on three main systems: tactically on Patriot PAC 3, strategically on AEGIS (at sea and ground-based) and THAAD. The fourth system, the Ground Based Interceptor (GBI) is at the moment a nearly dead letter, despite huge costs, because it needs a new interceptor missile.
And Northcom assesses that North Korea could overwhelm and knock out the GBI as early as 2025, if not sooner, and potentially attack the United States. GBI is based in Greely, Alaska and Vandenberg Air Force Base near Lompoc, California.
A THAAD interceptor is test-launched in Kodiak, Alaska, on July 11, 2017. Photo: Leah Garton / Missile Defense Agency / Handout
In the latest test of AEGIS against two short/intermediate-range ballistic missile targets, only one of the targets was hit. That test, on July 24, 2021, took place off of Hawaii.
The AEGIS system was installed on the USS Ralph Johnson (DDG-114) and used the AEGIS interceptor missile, SM-6 Dual II. The ship fired four missiles against two targets and hit only one.
This was an improvement over a previous test last May where a single target was not intercepted. AEGIS is regarded as perhaps the best US system for short and intermediate-range terminal ballistic missile defense and is the backbone of Japan’s sea-based interceptors.
In missile defense, it is generally understood that firing two missiles at a target should yield a 95% probability of a hit. The latest AEGIS test only achieved 50%.
Concern over missile defenses is matched by the increasing vulnerability of US weapons platforms and bases. While the US has bases in Japan including on Okinawa, and further away in South Korea and Guam, all of them would be exposed to massive Chinese missile attacks.
In addition, US aircraft carriers, even if available, will have to locate hundreds, if not thousands, of miles from a war front such as Taiwan, rendering them less than useful for launching and supporting fighter aircraft. Most US carriers do not support the F-35.
The latest wargame also suggests that the US could not maintain networked communications, meaning that they could be disrupted by the enemy.
An F-35B Lightning II set for take off aboard the amphibious assault ship USS Makin Island (LHD 8) in support of Northern Edge 2021. Photo: US Navy / Ethan Jaymes Morrow
A key US wartime advantage is the ability to mass firepower on high-value targets using networked systems to find the target, direct the nearest interceptor to the target, and knock it out. Networked communications is an important US force multiplier and key to US battle dominance.
Not included in the wargame released information is the distinct possibility that the Pentagon does not have high confidence in the usefulness or survivability of the semi-stealthy F-35.
The F-35 is mainly a tactical air superiority platform that carries only a limited number of bombs because it must carry them internally. It has somewhat limited range and it will have to potentially compete in a conflict scenario with increasingly better Chinese aircraft (Su-35, J-20) equipped with beyond visual range (BVD) air-to-air missiles and advanced AESA radars.
The Navy’s surface ships are primarily useful for anti-air missions and for challenging China’s surface ships. There is some progress in anti-ship missiles, especially the Long Range Anti-Ship Missile (LRASM) which can be used by aircraft including the F-18, B-1B and F-35 and on surface ships.
It has a range of 300 miles and is regarded as stealthy. Unlike the Russian Tsirkon (Zircon) hypersonic missile, which flies at 5,000 mph or 8,047 kph and fits in existing ship launch tubes, the LRASM (when it is deployed) is subsonic.
The Russians successfully test-launched a Tsirkon missile from the frigate Admiral Gorshkov on July 19. The Tsirkon has a range of 1,000 kilometers (621 miles) and can’t be detected on radar, according to the Russians.
Whether China will acquire the Russian missile or build their own is not known, but the Tsirkon significantly outperforms anything the US now has or will have in the next four or five years.
The Arleigh Burke-class guided-missile destroyer USS Barry (DDG 52) transits the East China Sea. Photo: US Navy / Samuel Hardgrove
Meanwhile, the Biden administration’s proposed defense budget (roughly $716 billion) is 4% less than the 2020 Trump defense budget after galloping inflation is taken into account. The Biden administration is maintaining the US Navy at 296 ships, down from the Trump administration goal of 316 ships by 2026.
The Navy will get only one new Arleigh Burke class guided-missile destroyer at a cost of $2 billion, not two as the Navy had planned. The proposed defense budget also cuts older US Air Force jets from the inventory, including some of the A-10 fleet (42 to be retired from a fleet of 367), and retiring 47 F-16 C/Ds, 48 F-15 C/Ds, 14 KC-10 and 19 KC-35s.
The US Marines’ expeditionary capability is also being terminated, leaving the Marines as some sort of adjunct to the US Navy. The Army’s budget is also being cut back compared to the other services, but yet it hopes to be able to overmatch potential opponents, mainly China, by 2035.
In essence, then, the current US posture is best defined as “The Great Retreat.” The US is pulling in its military horns, at least for the time being, leaving partners and allies, especially in the Middle East and East Asia, exposed and uncertain.
Under the circumstances, many current US allies and partners may thus seek accommodation with China or in the Middle East aligned instead with Russia and Iran.
Over 950 Comments by Doctors Maimed by the Covid Vaxx
Read over 950 comments (as of July 30th, 2021) by doctors maimed by the Covid vaxx – on doctor’s only web site.
The CDC’s Hysterical Delta Flip-Flop Might Be Its Final Undoing
Authored by Jeffrey Tucker via RealClearMarkets.com,
The crazy, convoluted, mixed up messaging from the CDC – it’s been this way from the beginning of the pandemic until now – has taken yet another turn. Now the CDC is recommending masks not just for the unvaccinated but for the vaccinated too. This is supposedly because of the discovery that the variant known as Delta is making an end-run around the vaccines, causing not only infections but infectious spread.
So we have an odd situation developing…
The layperson’s understanding of a vaccine is that it protects a person against infection, like measles or smallpox. In other words, you won’t get Covid, exactly as President Biden accidentally and apparently inaccurately said in a press conference last week.
That is apparently untrue in this case. That realization seemed to dawn on people only a few weeks ago, as reports from Israel revealed that half the new infections listed were with people who had been fully vaccinated.
I pity anyone who took a few weeks’ vacation from the news during this period. We went from believing that the whole point of the vaccines was to protect against infection to realizing that this was not the case. You can still get the bug. The point of the vaccines, we were newly told, is to protect against severe outcomes. Okay, that’s reasonable enough except that we know the demographics of severe outcomes, and hence the question presents itself: why is the policy priority near-universal vaccination?
None of this makes sense – if you are still looking for policies to make sense, which you probably gave up on long ago.
Now to the great mask conundrum.
In May, Anthony Fauci showed up to a Senate hearing fully vaccinated but wearing a mask. Rand Paul lit into him, claiming that this was absurd. Fauci, he said, was undermining confidence in the vaccines. We need to give people a reward for being vaccinated, he said. If you can’t even take off your mask, why bother?
I suspect that the CDC listened carefully to his point. Senator Paul might just be one guy but he is positioned to impact policy because he has unusual access to the public, and to Fauci himself. Fauci is otherwise only on friendly terms with media who listen and adore every pronouncement. Paul has access by virtue of Senate protocol and therefore can make a dent in what’s actually happening out there in CDC land.
The CDC had become very aware that vaccination rates had flattened. They figured it was worth a try. So in early May, the agency did a messaging turnaround. It announced that people who are vaccinated no longer need to wear a mask. Fauci dutifully went on all the talk shows and invited the vaccinated to enjoy their privileges. He even smiled when saying so!
That was an interesting day for me because many of my anti-lockdown friends celebrated that the 16 months of living hell had officially ended. They correctly predicted that everyone, including the unvaccinated would now take off their masks and life could go back to normal. They were correct for everyone except the poor children who, because there is no vaccine for them, became permanently marked as wild-born disease carriers even though they are not.
Hey, the CDC had to be consistent, even when the results were cray cray, and therefore did not exempt children.
Well, how did vaccination rates respond? Far from incentivizing people to get the jab, everyone took off their masks and dared authorities to ask for their papers. This is because after a year and months of egregious restrictions on freedom, people were fed up and looking for some means by which they could pretend to go back to normal. Vaccination rates stayed stuck for the reason that everyone who wanted a vaccine already got it, while the rest possess natural immunity, are wary of the medicine, or were more than willing to accept the risks of exposure.
Now the CDC had a problem. The great goal of a 70% rate among all people was elusive, and infuriating the pandemic planners who demanded this based on the pharmaceutical definition of herd immunity. They embraced that definition because, for some reason that remains inexplicable for everyone not working for vaccine manufacturers, natural immunity has been thoroughly dismissed as primitive and irrelevant. Talk about ignoring the science!
Then on July 22, the influential Washington Post published the following:
So the CDC needs to state, as it should have in May, that unless there is a way to distinguish between the vaccinated and unvaccinated, indoor mask requirements should be reinstated…. The Biden administration has done many things right during the pandemic, but it made a grave error with its premature return to normalcy. It must hit reset and issue new guidance that addresses the escalating infections, waning interest in vaccination and unknowns of the delta variant. If it doesn’t, we could well be on our way to another national surge — and one that was entirely foreseen and entirely preventable.
The CDC seems more easily led by op-eds in political newspapers than actual scientific papers on the topic, of which there are many thousands now. They want digestible, clear instructions on what they should be doing. This piece in the Washington Post provided exactly that. Thus did the CDC reverse itself yet again.
But in doing so, it needed some rationale. This is when the agency jumped on the excuse of how the Delta variant often evades the vaccines, so therefore even the vaccinated need masks. It’s not clear whether and to what extent the CDC realizes that it has just once again undermined public confidence in the vaccines! The horns of the dilemma are obvious to anyone who is watching this clown show unfold. If the CDC removes the mask guidance, people don’t get vaccinated; if they add it back in, people have another excuse to avoid the jab.
Masks in this case remain what they always were: a tool to prod the public into compliance with other mandates and dictates, purely a symbol of fear and its unrelenting trigger. And with fear comes obedience. Maybe.
The real problem, conclude many, is this bogus freedom of choice. This is why there is more constant talk about vaccine mandates, and why NPR gets breathless with excitement at every new directive – from the Department of Veterans Affairs, for example – of new mandates. What they are really pushing for is a society-wide mandate that would push the shot on everyone. Biden reportedly will impose this on the whole federal workforce.
The Department of Justice has paved the way by issuing an opinion that such mandates are perfectly in keeping with the law. More mayors are backing the idea. The public is warmed up day by day to accept what two years ago would have universally been considered an Orwellian nightmare of passports and papers for access to regular life. It’s completely unAmerican in every way, and wholly unnecessary. It is further proof that once disease panic gets underway, and governments use it to enhance their powers in shocking ways, it becomes extremely difficult to dial it back.
Remember when only the “conspiracy theorists” said that the real goal was a passport and eventually a China-style social credit score?
At this point, anything is possible. The Biden administration can’t even bring itself to lift Trump-era restrictions on flights from Europe, even though every strain circulating there has long been circulating here. The default motive of exposure avoidance has completely spun out of control, holding even basic freedoms in the balance. Today your human rights are wholly contingent on what the pandemic planners desire, whether it is stay-at-home orders, school closures, mask mandates, or compulsory jabs.
What ultimately may be our saving grace here are the furious parents who have just been told that they must once again strap a cloth on the kids’ faces this fall.
These poor kids have been messed with enough as it is.
Maybe this will be the last straw, the final discrediting of the CDC, and the moment at which the American people will demand that enough is way more than enough.
Let the debates Begin! ‘Dissidents’ and ‘Conspiracy Theorists’
Robert Bridge is an American writer and journalist. He is the author of ‘Midnight in the American Empire,’ How Corporations and Their Political Servants are Destroying the American Dream.
People protest against the covid-19 vaccine outside of the Raymond James Stadium prior to the Super Bowl match between Kansas City Chiefs and Tampa Bay Buccaneers in Tampa, Florida. © AFP / CHANDAN KHANNA
It is common practice for patients to request a second opinion before submitting to any medical treatment. Yet in the age of Covid only one opinion appears to count at all. This approach flies in the face of sound science.
On Tuesday, the top headlines on the Drudge Report, a popular US news aggregate for trumpeting the liberal party line, captured the full spirit of the ‘new normal’, which the doomsayers fear is snowballing into nothing less than a totalitarian police state:
- ‘CDC recommends vaccinated people wear masks indoors again…’
- ‘Government officials, health groups move to REQUIRE corona vaccines for workers;’
- ‘Maskless will have to wear stickers declaring status?’
- ‘More EU states require passes to enter bars, restaurants.’
And so on, ad infinitum, ad nauseam. Each passing day brings more of the same five-alarm articles about why people should get the jab, wear a mask, remain at home, even avoid casual conversation with their neighbors. At the same time, the media duly sugarcoats the grim prospect of a joyless bureaucratic future when a ‘vaccine passport’ will be required for performing the most mundane activities – shopping, traveling, attending a sporting event or concert – that we all took happily for granted in the ‘old normal’.
Conspicuous by their absence from the news headlines, however, is any sign of opposing voices to the official medical narrative. And that is no accident. Any doctor, activist or health organization that merely hints at an alternative method for tackling the pandemic is smacked down as a quack and dispatched to the sleek new version of Solzhenitsyn’s ‘gulag archipelago’. These are banishment from social media, news media and polite society. In a word, disappeared.
Considering that a tiny number of health officials are now dictating from their bully pulpits how the majority will be expected to conduct their lives from here to eternity, shouldn’t we, the masked taxpayers, demand a bit more bang for our buck? Before the citizens of any democracy are expected to be pricked, poked and probed for the rest of their lives, they should be demanding the greatest debate the free world has ever seen.
Yet this is precisely what the Covid totalitarians fail to grasp. By refusing to engage with the other side, they have become their very own worst enemies; censoring the views of ‘the dissenters’ only helps fuel conspiracy theories and ‘vaccine hesitancy’. We are not talking about ‘dissenters’ in the form of Alex Jones or David Icke, but rather the views of prominent medical doctors and scientists.
Just this weekend, for example, The New York Times ran with some sensational panic porn on its front page entitled, ‘The Most Influential Spreader of Coronavirus Misinformation Online’. So, who is this ghastly villain leading the masses to slaughter? None other than Joseph Mercola, a Florida-based osteopathic physician, who has argued that Covid vaccines do not provide immunity or halt the spread of the disease, but rather “alter your genetic coding, turning you into a viral protein factory that has no off-switch.” Mercola is by no means the first doctor to forward such off-script arguments. Yet, although the author of the piece, Sheera Frenkel, said that Mercola’s “assertions were easily disprovable,” she offered nothing by way of medical discussion to disprove his claims, nor was a link provided to Mercola’s original piece so people could read it for themselves.
Among Dr. Mercola’s apparent ‘hate’ crimes is his profiting from “a vast operation to push natural health cures,” which makes the man sound like a Colombian drug lord pushing broccoli sprouts on unsuspecting youngsters. In February, Mercola received a warning letter from the FDA for attempting to sell products like Liposomal Vitamin C and Liposomal Vitamin D3 as methods for treating and preventing coronavirus. Ah, good to see that the ‘war on drugs’ is finally nabbing some baddies. The New York Times also seemed particularly peeved with Mercola because “rather than directly stating online that vaccines don’t work, [his] posts often ask pointed questions about their safety and discuss studies that other doctors have refuted” [Gulp, he asked “pointed questions” and challenged other doctors! Clearly a madman!].
However, the most disturbing thing about the Times piece was that it linked to the Center for Countering Digital Hate (CCDH), part of George Soros’ vast empire of action committees, which placed Mercola at the top spot among the so-called ‘Disinformation Dozen’, a group of shady individuals said to be responsible for “sharing 65 percent of all anti-vaccine messaging on social media.” While the messaging from these doctors and activists may (or may not be) wrongheaded, can it really fall into the ‘hate’ category?
Another individual who ranks in the ‘dirty dozen’ is Robert F. Kennedy Jr., whose organization Children’s Health Defense tackles a range of controversial subjects now affecting minors, including the passage of a law in the District of Columbia that allows children as young as 11 to be vaccinated without their parents’ knowledge or consent. Does that issue not deserve some discussion? Another story currentlyfeatured on its website reports that Pfizer and Moderna will increase the number of children in their Covid vaccine clinical trials after the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) told the vaccine makers “the size and scope of their pediatric studies…were inadequate to detect rare side effects,” including myocarditis, an inflammation of the heart muscle. Oops!
Anyone who thinks these individuals are just a small fraction of dissenting voices in the great Covid ‘debate’ has probably never heard of the Great Barrington Declaration, a document citing “grave concerns about the damaging physical and mental health impacts of the prevailing COVID-19 policies.” The document has been signed by thousands of epidemiologists and public health scientists, as well as private citizens.
Authored by Dr. Martin Kulldorff, professor of medicine at Harvard University; Dr. Sunetra Gupta, professor at Oxford University, an epidemiologist with expertise in immunology; Dr. Jay Bhattacharya, professor at Stanford University Medical School, and co-signed by 44 other prominent doctors, the declaration says in part that “[A]s immunity builds in the population, the risk of infection to all – including the vulnerable – falls. We know that all populations will eventually reach herd immunity – i.e. the point at which the rate of new infections is stable – and that this can be assisted by (but is not dependent upon) a vaccine. Our goal should therefore be to minimize mortality and social harm until we reach herd immunity.”
That is medical advice that is never reported by mainstream journalists except in a negative, condescending manner. Any medical opinion that discusses the possibility of natural immunity, herd immunity or other means of protection against the coronavirus aside from vaccines is shunned by the fourth estate, which is odd to say the least. The job of the media is not to declare allegiance to any one side of a debate, but rather to allow all of the voices be heard so that Joe Public and his government representatives can decide what is best for him.
In addition to being shoddy journalism, it is unethical medical practice not to consider other professional opinions when formulating a medical response that affects literally billions of lives around the planet, especially with mandatory vaccine passports on the horizon. People deserve to hear both sides of the Covid debate, not just the side that repeats the talking points of the pharmaceutical industrial complex.