China's People Will Tell the World the Truth About COVID-19

 Common sense dictates if the Chinese were truly intent in getting to the  bottom of this with nothing to hide why are they dodging, laying down road blocks, to every facet of the investigation?

The only question for me is was it released accidentally or intentionally. Intentionally you say?  Yes, I wouldn't put it past them to experiment on their own people and it got out of control. Who believes only 4,636 Chinese died of Covid? What bullshit! In my opinion I believe this whole episode is going to get swept under the rug which proves the Chinese have the whole world by the balls. This is what Chang had to say. I pray he's right and I'm wrong. 

"The Chinese state can convince Biden that the origin of the disease is not important. Beijing can even intimidate the Embareks of the world and the World Health Organization, but there are brave Chinese souls willing to risk everything to tell us what they know.

And because of them, everyone will eventually find out. Beijing cannot hide the greatest crime of this century for much longer."

Opinion

Gordon G. Chang

Peter Ben Embarek, the head of the World Health Organization's (WHO) last mission to Wuhan, is now saying that COVID-19 could have been caused by a lab accident.

"A lab employee infected in the field while collecting samples in a bat cave—such a scenario belongs both as a lab-leak hypothesis and as our first hypothesis of direct infection from bat to human," he told Danish state-owned television station TV2 in a documentary that aired last Thursday. "We've seen that hypothesis as a likely hypothesis."

Now he tells us. Embarek sang a very different tune in an interview with Sciencein February. More important, his mission's final report listed a lab leak as "an extremely unlikely pathway" and as the least probable scenario, even less likely than transmission by frozen food.

How did the report come to this startling conclusion? As Embarek explained in the Danish documentary, a Chinese colleague would allow a mention of the possibility of a lab leak "on the condition we didn't recommend any specific studies to further that hypothesis."

Embarek has done himself no credit by explaining the politics behind the drafting of the WHO report, clearly revealing that it was a heavily negotiated document and that China wielded an effective veto. The report, by Embarek's admission, did not state what mission members believed to be true.

He and other mission members had an obligation to state their findings—not to propagate what their Chinese interlocutors wanted them to report.

Fortunately, we do not have to rely on Embarek or the WHO. There are the Chinese people, who have already taken great risks to tell us what they have observed and what they believe.

There was, for instance, the Wuhan Eight: Li Wenliang and seven other doctors in that city who were detained beginning late December 2019 for spreading rumors, specifically, "issuing false information on the internet regarding the seven SARS cases at the Huanan Seafood Wholesale Market." Li, an ophthalmologist, contracted the disease, apparently treating patients, and died in February of last year.

Especially fearless was Chen Qiushi and other "citizen journalists" who traveled to Wuhan and reported on the disease in its first days. Chen was taken into indefinite custody in early February 2020 by authorities, and others were also disappeared. Chen's gripping videos, made from a bare room, were some of the first reports to the Chinese people—and the world.

Chinese officials, eager to counter the charge that they were slow to warn, bragged that they quickly shared the underlying coronavirus genome with the public. In fact, they sat on their findings. The Wuhan Institute of Virology identified the new coronavirus and mapped its genetic sequence by January 2 of last year.

Chinese President Xi Jinping waves as he attends the art performance celebrating the 100th anniversary of the Founding of the Communist Party of China on June 28, 2021 in Beijing, China. Lintao Zhang/Getty Images

Professor Zhang Yongzhen's team at the Shanghai Public Health Clinical Centre, defying orders from higher-ups, posted the world's first genome sequence on two public platforms on January 11. The day after the posting, the Shanghai Health Commission shuttered Zhang's lab for "rectification." No reason was given for the action. The Level 3 facility had passed its annual inspection on January 5.

And then there is Dr. Li-Meng Yan, a virologist. While working at a WHO reference lab at the University of Hong Kong, she countered, at great personal risk, what she thought was a cover-up by the Chinese regime and the WHO. On January 19 of last year, Yan provided YouTube's LUDE Media channel with information showing there was human-to-human transmission of COVID-19, that there were no wild animal intermediate hosts and that the Wuhan seafood market was not the origin of the outbreak. She also noted that the virus could cause a global pandemic and mutate quickly.

After threats on her life, Yan left her husband and fled Hong Kong for the United States, where she has continued coronavirus research and warned the American public that China's biological research labs are connected to the Chinese military. She also has been making the case that SARS-CoV-2, the pathogen causing COVID-19, was engineered in a lab.

Yan's contentions—especially regarding the circumstances relating to release of the disease—are controversial, but no one can deny that she epitomizes bravery and self-sacrifice.

Her work has had an impact. It looks like her warnings prompted Beijing to become far more forthcoming. China's first public admission of human-to-human transmissibility came only a few hours after the posting of the LUDE Media video.

What happens next? On May 26, President Biden ordered the U.S. intelligence community to report back in 90 days on the origins of COVID-19. He does not appear particularly interested in the topic, however. After all, he spent two hours on the phone with Chinese ruler Xi Jinping in February and did not raise the subject even once.

In fact, Biden ordered the intelligence community to look into the matter only after an uproar triggered by a CNN report that his State Department spiked a similar Trump-era investigation.

Do not expect the intelligence community later this month—90 days from May 26 brings us to August 24—to come to the conclusion that SARS-CoV-2 came from a lab. Leaks suggest its report will be inconclusive.

The Chinese state can convince Biden that the origin of the disease is not important. Beijing can even intimidate the Embareks of the world and the World Health Organization, but there are brave Chinese souls willing to risk everything to tell us what they know.

And because of them, everyone will eventually find out. Beijing cannot hide the greatest crime of this century for much longer.

Gordon G. Chang is the author of The Coming Collapse of China. Follow him on Twitter: @GordonGChang.

The views expressed in this article are the writer's own.

China's People Will Tell the World the Truth About COVID-19

Afghanistan debacle

From CNBC 

"The rapid disintegration of Afghan security forces and the country’s government have shocked the world and led many to question how a collapse could happen so quickly after two decades of American nation-building and training efforts."

Can't say I'm shocked.

I know one thing the guy on the right would never have allowed this to happen.

Afghanistan debacle

Is it a coincidence Inept and Biden have the same amount of letters?

 

Check out this 30 second video. If it wasn't for incompetence he wouldn't have any skills at all.

Bribem July 8th 2021:

Video 634

Biden: 'It Is Not Inevitable' That Taliban Takes Over Afghanistan

Try telling that to these guys:

8-15-2021

(Reality sets in)

TALIBAN POSE IN KABUL'S PRESIDENTIAL PALACE AS AFGHAN LEADER FLEES COUNTRY: ISLAMISTS DECLARE ISLAMIC EMIRATE AMID CHAOTIC SCENES AT AIRPORT AS THOUSANDS TRY TO GET OUT

So let me ask.. how much of that border shit do you believe?

Is it a coincidence Inept and Biden have the same amount of letters?

Last days of Saigon déjà vu

Taliban Fighters Enter Kabul As Helicopters Land At U.S. Embassy

A U.S. Chinook helicopter flies over the U.S. Embassy in Kabul, Afghanistan, Sunday, Aug. 15, 2021. Helicopters are landing at the U.S. Embassy in Kabul as diplomatic vehicles leave the compound amid the Taliban advanced on the Afghan capital. Rahmat Gul/AP

The American taxpayer's gazillions... saying adios.

KABUL, Afghanistan (AP) — Taliban fighters entered the outskirts of the Afghan capital on Sunday and said they were awaiting a "peaceful transfer" of the city after promising not to take it by force, but panicked residents raced to the leave, with workers fleeing government offices and helicopters landing at the U.S. Embassy.

In a nationwide offensive that has taken just over a week, the Taliban has defeated, co-opted or sent Afghan security forces fleeing from wide swaths of the country, even though they had some air support from the U.S. military.

On Sunday, they reached Kabul. Three Afghan officials told The Associated Press that the Taliban were in the districts of Kalakan, Qarabagh and Paghman in the capital.

Later, Afghan forces at Bagram air base, home to a prison housing 5,000 inmates, surrendered to the Taliban, according to Bagram district chief Darwaish Raufi. The prison housed both Taliban and Islamic State group fighters.

The lightning speed of the push has shocked many and raised questions about why Afghan forces crumbled despite years of U.S. training and billions of dollars spent. Just days ago, an American military assessment estimated it would be a month before the capital would come under insurgent pressure.

Taliban spokesman Suhail Shaheen told Qatar's Al-Jazeera English satellite news channel that the insurgents are "awaiting a peaceful transfer of Kabul city." He declined to offer specifics on any possible negotiations between his forces and the government.

But when pressed on what kind of agreement the Taliban wanted, Shaheen acknowledged that they were seeking an unconditional surrender by the central government.

Taliban negotiators headed to the presidential palace Sunday to discuss the transfer, said an Afghan official who spoke on condition of anonymity for fear of reprisals. It remained unclear when that transfer would take place.

The negotiators on the government side included former President Hamid Karzai and Abdullah Abdullah, the head of the Afghan National Reconciliation Council, an official said. Abdullah long has been a vocal critic of President Ashraf Ghani, who long refused giving up power to get a deal with the Taliban.

The official, who spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss details of the closed-doors negotiations, described them as "tense."

Acting Defense Minister Bismillah Khan sought to reassure the public in a video message.

"I assure you about the security of Kabul," he said.

Earlier, the insurgents also tried to calm residents of the capital.

"No one's life, property and dignity will be harmed and the lives of the citizens of Kabul will not be at risk," the insurgents said in a statement.

However, a voice message circulating social media purportedly from a Taliban commander also warned "no one is allowed to enter into Kabul province."

Despite the pledges, panic set in as many rushed to leave the country through the Kabul airport, the last route out of the country as the Taliban now hold every border crossing. Rapid shuttle flights of Boeing CH-47 Chinook helicopters near the embassy began a few hours later after the militants seized the nearby city of Jalalabad. Diplomatic armored SUVs could be seen leaving the area around the post.

The U.S. State Department did not immediately respond to questions about the movements. However, wisps of smoke could be seen near the embassy's roof as diplomats urgently destroyed sensitive documents, according to two American military officials who spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to discuss the situation. The smoke grew heavier over time in the area, home to other nation's embassies as well.

Sikorsky UH-60 Black Hawk helicopters, which typically carry armed troops, later landed near the embassy as well. At least one attack helicopter could be seen overhead as helicopters launched flares to distract possible missile fire. The U.S. decided a few days ago to send in thousands of troops to help evacuate some personnel from its embassy.

Thousands of civilians now live in parks and open spaces in Kabul itself, fearing a Taliban government that could reimpose a brutal rule that all but eliminated women's rights. Some ATMs stopped distributing cash as hundreds gathered in front of private banks, trying to withdraw their life savings.

At Kabul International Airport, Afghan forces abandoned the field to Western militaries, said a pilot who spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss security matters. An Afghan flight earlier landed at the airport from Kandahar loaded with troops who surrendered to the Taliban, even after taking shrapnel damage from a mortar attack, the pilot said.

Ghani, who spoke to the nation Saturday for the first time since the offensive began, appears increasingly isolated as well. Warlords he negotiated with just days earlier have surrendered to the Taliban or fled, leaving Ghani without a military option. Ongoing negotiations in Qatar, the site of a Taliban office, also have failed to stop the insurgents' advance.

Jalalabad, Afghanistan's last major city besides the capital not held by the militants, fell to the Taliban earlier Sunday. Militants posted photos online showing them in the governor's office in Jalalabad, the capital of Nangarhar province.

Abrarullah Murad, a lawmaker from the province told The Associated Press that the insurgents seized Jalalabad after elders negotiated the fall of the government there. Murad said there was no fighting as the city surrendered.

The militants took also Maidan Shar, the capital of Maidan Wardak, on Sunday, only some 90 kilometers (55 miles) from Kabul, Afghan lawmaker Hamida Akbari and the Taliban said. Another provincial capital in Khost also fell to the Taliban, said a provincial council member who spoke on condition of anonymity for fear of reprisals.

The fall Saturday of Mazar-e-Sharif, the country's fourth largest city, which Afghan forces and two powerful former warlords had pledged to defend, handed the insurgents control over all of northern Afghanistan.

Atta Mohammad Noor and Abdul Rashid Dostum, two of the warlords Ghani tried to rally to his side days earlier, fled over the border into Uzbekistan on Saturday, said officials close to Dostum. They spoke on condition of anonymity as they weren't authorized to publicly speak about his movements.

Writing on Twitter, Noor alleged a "conspiracy" aided the fall of the north to the Taliban, without elaborating.

"Despite our firm resistance, sadly, all the government and the Afghan security forces equipment were handed over to the Taliban as a result of a big organized and cowardly plot," Noor wrote. "They had orchestrated the plot to trap Marshal Dostum and myself too, but they didn't succeed."

The Taliban also insisted their fighters wouldn't enter people's homes or interfere with businesses. They also said they'd offer an "amnesty" to those who worked with the Afghan government or foreign forces.

"The Islamic Emirate once again assures all its citizens that it will, as always, protect their life, property and honor and create a peaceful and secure environment for its beloved nation," the militants said. "In this regard, no one should worry about their life."

Despite the pledge, those who can afford a ticket have been flocking to Kabul International Airport, the only way out of the country after the Taliban took the last border crossing still held by the government Sunday at Torkham. Pakistan's Interior Minister Sheikh Rashid Ahmed told local broadcaster Geo TV that Pakistan halted cross-border traffic there after the militants seized it.

Last days of Saigon déjà vu

I great question

The Afghan Military Was Built Over 20 Years. How Did It Collapse So Quickly?

I have noticed this throughout my lifetime. Anytime we go into a country and try to prop it up militarily the inevitable result once we leave... they fold like a cheap suit. Case in point. Iraq had 250,000 troops and they couldn't hold off 15,000 ISIS fighters. Just like the South Vietnamese forces got their ass kicked by the Viet Cong. How would we like to have all the American lives lost and the gazillions of dollars we spent on these dogs back in our own coffers?

This turns my stomach:

"The swift offensive has resulted in mass surrenders, captured helicopters and millions of dollars of American-supplied equipment paraded by the Taliban on grainy cellphone videos. In some cities, heavy fighting had been underway for weeks on their outskirts, but the Taliban ultimately overtook their defensive lines and then walked in with little or no resistance."

  Where's Bribem?

Joe Biden heads to Camp David until WEDNESDAY while the Taliban rampages through Afghanistan

Bribem's go to quote during the campaign "America is back" 

We certainly are ... back to where we were 20 years ago!

 One last thing. America isn't the only country who failed in Afghanistan. Ask the Russians. Ironically, we were the idiots that gave the Afghans stinger missiles which ultimately turned the tide against the Russians. In my opinion Afghanistan can never be civilized. We made a mistake to even try. Feel bad for the women and children going back to sharia law but then again it seems no one in the country wants to lift a finger to preserve their freedom. Like they say there's a fine line between supporting someone and them taking advantage of you. It is clearly evident they became totally dependent on us and why we are where we are today. Maybe a better strategy would have been to let no one in or out of the country and drop 'sterilization bombs' and over time let the country go back to the animals... this time the four-legged kind. Because as I see it they won't be satisfied with controlling Afghanistan and won't be long before they start planning another 9/11 type attack. 

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The Taliban’s rapid advance has made clear that U.S. efforts to turn Afghanistan’s military into a robust, independent fighting force have failed, with its soldiers feeling abandoned by inept leaders.

An Afghan police special forces soldier at a frontline position in Kandahar this month.

KANDAHAR, Afghanistan — The surrenders seem to be happening as fast as the Taliban can travel.

In the past several days, the Afghan security forces have collapsed in more than 15 cities under the pressure of a Taliban advance that began in May. On Friday, officials confirmed that those included two of the country’s most important provincial capitals: Kandahar and Herat.

The swift offensive has resulted in mass surrenders, captured helicopters and millions of dollars of American-supplied equipment paraded by the Taliban on grainy cellphone videos. In some cities, heavy fighting had been underway for weeks on their outskirts, but the Taliban ultimately overtook their defensive lines and then walked in with little or no resistance.

This implosion comes despite the United States having poured more than $83 billion in weapons, equipment and training into the country’s security forces over two decades.

Building the Afghan security apparatus was one of the key parts of the Obama administration’s strategy as it sought to find a way to hand over security and leave nearly a decade ago. These efforts produced an army modeled in the image of the United States’ military, an Afghan institution that was supposed to outlast the American war.

But it will likely be gone before the United States is.

While the future of Afghanistan seems more and more uncertain, one thing is becoming exceedingly clear: The United States’ 20-year endeavor to rebuild Afghanistan’s military into a robust and independent fighting force has failed, and that failure is now playing out in real time as the country slips into Taliban control.

American soldiers overseeing training of their Afghan counterparts in Helmand Province in 2016.

How the Afghan military came to disintegrate first became apparent not last week but months ago in an accumulation of losses that started even before President Biden’s announcement that the United States would withdraw by Sept. 11.

It began with individual outposts in rural areas where starving and ammunition-depleted soldiers and police units were surrounded by Taliban fighters and promised safe passage if they surrendered and left behind their equipment, slowly giving the insurgents more and more control of roads, then entire districts. As positions collapsed, the complaint was almost always the same: There was no air support or they had run out of supplies and food.

But even before that, the systemic weaknesses of the Afghan security forces — which on paper numbered somewhere around 300,000 people, but in recent days have totaled around just one-sixth of that, according to U.S. officials — were apparent. These shortfalls can be traced to numerous issues that sprung from the West’s insistence on building a fully modern military with all the logistical and supply complexities one requires, and which has proved unsustainable without the United States and its NATO allies.

Soldiers and policemen have expressed ever-deeper resentment of the Afghan leadership. Officials often turned a blind eye to what was happening, knowing full well that the Afghan forces’ real manpower count was far lower than what was on the books, skewed by corruption and secrecy that they quietly accepted.

And when the Taliban started building momentum after the United States’ announcement of withdrawal, it only increased the belief that fighting in the security forces — fighting for President Ashraf Ghani’s government — wasn’t worth dying for. In interview after interview, soldiers and police officers described moments of despair and feelings of abandonment.

On one frontline in the southern Afghan city of Kandahar last week, the Afghan security forces’ seeming inability to fend off the Taliban’s devastating offensive came down to potatoes.

After weeks of fighting, one cardboard box full of slimy potatoes was supposed to pass as a police unit’s daily rations. They hadn’t received anything other than spuds in various forms in several days, and their hunger and fatigue were wearing them down.

“These French fries are not going to hold these front lines!” a police officer yelled, disgusted by the lack of support they were receiving in the country’s second-largest city.

By Thursday, this front line collapsed, and Kandahar was in Taliban control by Friday morning.

Afghan troops were then consolidated to defend Afghanistan’s 34 provincial capitals in recent weeks as the Taliban pivoted from attacking rural areas to targeting cities. But that strategy proved futile as the insurgent fighters overran city after city, capturing around half of Afghanistan’s provincial capitals in a week, and encircling Kabul.

“They’re just trying to finish us off,” said Abdulhai, 45, a police chief who was holding Kandahar’s northern front line last week.

The Afghan security forces have suffered well over 60,000 deaths since 2001. But Abdulhai was not talking about the Taliban, but rather his own government, which he believed was so inept that it had to be part of a broader plan to cede territory to the Taliban.

The months of defeats all seemed to culminate on Wednesday when the entire headquarters of an Afghan Army corps — the 217th — fell to the Taliban at the northern city of Kunduz’s airport. The insurgents captured a defunct helicopter gunship. Images of an American-supplied drone seized by the Taliban circulated on the internet along with images of rows of armored vehicles.

Brig. Gen. Abbas Tawakoli, commander of the 217th Afghan Army corps who was in a nearby province when his base fell, echoed Abdulhai’s sentiments as reasons for his troops’ defeat on the battlefield.

“Unfortunately, knowingly and unknowingly, a number of Parliament members and politicians fanned the flame started by the enemy,” General Tawakoli said, just hours after the Taliban had posted videos of their fighters looting the general’s sprawling base.

“No region fell as a result of the war, but as a result of the psychological war,” he said.

That psychological war has played out at varying levels.

Afghan pilots say that their leadership cares more about the state of the aircraft rather than the people flying them: men and at least one woman who are burned out from countless missions of evacuating outposts — often under fire — all while the Taliban carry out a brutal assassination campaign against them.

What remains of the elite commando forces, who are used to hold what ground is still under government control, are shuttled from one province to the next, with no clear objective and very little sleep.

The ethnically aligned militia groups that have risen to prominence as forces capable of reinforcing government lines also have nearly all been overrun.

The second city to fall this week was Sheberghan in Afghanistan’s north, a capital that was supposed to be defended by a formidable force under the command of Marshal Abdul Rashid Dostum, an infamous warlord and a former Afghan vice president who has survived the past 40 years of war by cutting deals and switching sides.

On Friday, another prominent Afghan warlord and former governor, Mohammad Ismail Khan, who had resisted Taliban attacks in western Afghanistan for weeks and rallied many to his cause to push back the insurgent offensive, surrendered to the insurgents.

“We are drowning in corruption,” said Abdul Haleem, 38, a police officer on the Kandahar frontline earlier this month. His special operations unit was at half strength — 15 out of 30 people — and several of his comrades who remained on the front were there because their villages had been captured.

“How are we supposed to defeat the Taliban with this amount of ammunition?” he said. The heavy machine gun, for which his unit had very few bullets, broke later that night.

As of Thursday, it was unclear if Mr. Haleem was still alive and what remained of his comrades.

As the Taliban carry out an almost uninterrupted sweep of the country, their strength has been in question. Official estimates have long sat at somewhere between 50,000 to 100,000 fighters. Now that number is even murkier as international forces and their intelligence capabilities withdraw.

Some U.S. officials say the Taliban numbers have swelled because of an influx of foreign fighters and an aggressive conscription campaign in captured territory. Other experts say the Taliban have taken a bulk of their strength from Pakistan. 

Yet even amid what could be a complete surrender by the Afghan government and its forces, there are troops still fighting.

More often than not, as is the case in any conflict since the beginning of time, the soldiers and police are fighting for each other, and for the lower-ranking leaders who inspire them to fight despite what hell lies ahead.

In May, when the Taliban were breaching the outskirts of the southern city of Lashkar Gah, a hodgepodge group of border force soldiers were holding the line. 

The police officers who were supposed to be defending the area had long surrendered, retreated or had been paid off by the Taliban, as has occurred in many parts of the country over the past year.

Equipped with rifles and machine guns, some dressed in uniforms, others not, the border soldiers beamed when their stubble-bearded captain, Ezzatullah Tofan, arrived at their shell-racked position, a house abandoned during the fighting.

Capt. Ezzatullah Tofan, second right, arriving at a beleaguered Afghan Border Force position on the front line in Lashkar Gah in May.

He always comes to the rescue, one soldier said.

Late last month, as the Taliban pushed into Lashkar Gah, the provincial capital of Helmand Province, an outpost called their headquarters elsewhere in the city asking for reinforcements. In an audio recording obtained by The New York Times, the senior commander on the other end asked them to stay and fight.

Captain Tofan was bringing reinforcements, he said, and to hold on a little longer. That was around two weeks ago.

By Friday, despite the Afghan military’s tired resistance, repeated flights of reinforcements and even American B-52 bombers overhead, the city was in the hands of the Taliban.

Taimoor Shah and Jim Huylebroek contributed reporting from Kandahar, Afghanistan. Najim Rahim and Fatima Faizi contributed from Kabul. Eric Schmitt contributed reporting.

I great question