Don’t Get Fooled Again!
The Lab Leak Theory is a Gateway to Cold War 2.0.
As I am seeing a growing acceptance in the mainstream media of the theory that COVID-19 originated at the Wuhan Institute of Virology, I can’t help feeling very concerned. This week’s (June 3, 2021) Means Morning News (available only with a Means TV subscription) analyzed it as this decade’s weapons of mass destruction (WMD). Although I criticize China for its treatment of Uyghur Muslims and its use of facial recognition everywhere (while also acknowledging that the U.S. commits similar atrocities), I also see the lab leak theory as an attempt to increase the approval of a cold war with China. At the risk of sounding like a conspiracy theorist myself, it is rather coincidental that this nonsense is ramping up as we see increased saber-rattling from President Joe Biden, Secretary of State Anthony Blinken, old-school neoconservatives, and their allies in Congress.
If you pay close attention, you will notice that epidemiologists and virologists are shouting from the rooftops that the evidence still points to zoonotic origins of COVID-19. Starting with infected researchers employed at a virology lab and concluding that the virus is a bioweapon overlooks established genetic research subjected to the scientific method and academic peer review. It is akin to assuming rotting food generates maggots without realizing that flies lay eggs on the food as they eat it and that the maggots hatch from the eggs. In the run-up to the pandemic, the Wuhan researchers were likely exposed to the virus at wet markets, one of which is within walking distance of their place of employment. They then transmitted it in the same manner that millions of other humans have transmitted it. Even Forbes, a right-leaning pro-capitalist publication that one could hardly call an apologist for China, has determined that the lab leak theory is not valid.
I was in the UK when WMD mania broke out in early 2003. While CNN and the New York Times were calling for war after then-Secretary of State Colin Powell addressed the UN on WMD in Iraq, Channel 4 News in London always reminded viewers that there was no evidence to support what Washington and Downing Street were trying to sell us. However, when I read emails from my loved ones back home, they parroted the Bush Administration’s talking points and even accepted lies that Saddam Hussein was behind 9/11. It was a very frustrating time because none of my U.S. contacts had heard of Channel 4 or The Guardian (which was also a vocal opponent of invading Iraq) and would not question news from the corporate media. Keep in mind that this was before podcasts, Media Matters for America, or YouTube — and before I had discovered Democracy Now, then one of a small handful of U.S. media sources opposing the “War on Terror” in 2003. It took several years and hundreds of thousands of casualties before many Americans realized that they had been duped.
While it is unlikely that a new cold war would turn hot, it would waste the precious little remaining time we have to avert catastrophic climate disruption. As the two largest emitters of greenhouse gases, the U.S. and China would endanger most life on Earth by failing to work together on this existential threat. Additionally, a new cold war would destroy valuable relationships between U.S. and Chinese scholars and educational institutes. Finally, a new cold war would normalize Sinophobia and increase hate crimes against Asian Americans and Pacific Islanders (AAPI) — similarly to how the “War on Terror” increased hate crimes against Muslims, Sikhs, and (more generally) Middle Easterners, and South Asians. Let’s not allow mere speculation to masquerade as fact and lead to disastrous consequences. To paraphrase the old saying, “Fool us once, shame on you. Fool us twice, shame on us.”
