Moon of Alabama – May 13, 2020

Throughout the last month there have been a number of reports with headlines like:

• China Lab In Focus Of Coronavirus Outbreak
• US officials sounded alarm about Wuhan lab years before coronavirus outbreak
• US officials were reportedly concerned that safety breaches at a Wuhan lab studying coronaviruses in bats could cause a pandemic

All the above and many more hark back to a Washington Post opinion piece by Josh Rogin published on April 14 and headlined:

State Department cables warned of safety issues at Wuhan lab studying bat coronaviruses.

Josh Rogin is a neo-conservative hack who carries water for the Trump administration. That administration has launched a ‘blame China’ campaign to distract from its failure to contain the epidemic outbreak in the United States. To that purpose they handed Rogin an old diplomatic cable and told him how to ‘interpret’ it. Rogin dutifully does as he is told.

He begins:

Two years before the novel coronavirus pandemic upended the world, U.S. Embassy officials visited a Chinese research facility in the city of Wuhan several times and sent two official warnings back to Washington about inadequate safety at the lab, which was conducting risky studies on coronaviruses from bats. The cables have fueled discussions inside the U.S. government about whether this or another Wuhan lab was the source of the virus — even though conclusive proof has yet to emerge.

That sets the frame for describing the one cable that was given to Rogin. But when one extracts the facts from his reporting while eliminating the propaganda this picture arises:

Cont. reading: How The Trump Administration Inserts ‘Blame China’ Propaganda Into Main Stream Media