Pentagon bioweapons in Ukraine

Says Wikipedia:

The Biological Weapons Convention bans biological and toxin weapons by prohibiting their development, production, acquisition, transfer, stockpiling and use …

… Article I requires each state never to develop, produce or stockpile :

1. microbial or other biological agents … that have no prophylactic, protective or other peaceful purposes;
2. weapons, equipment or means of delivery designed to use such agents or toxins for hostile purposes or in armed conflict.

Now contrast the wall to wall coverage of the highly dubious Mariupol hospital claims with how little is being made – the Guardian’s search tool gave a null result ¹ – of this Congressional Hearing exchange on Tuesday (March 8) between Under Secretary of State Victoria Nuland, and Republican Senator Marc Rubio:

Nuland admits the presence of US owned biological “research” facilities in Ukraine, which may be misused  by the advancing Russians: a response pithily summed up by one BTL comment:

We weren’t making bioweapons but we are concerned that Russian troops are about to capture our bioweapons… ²

One determined truth-seeker has spent years pursuing the shady existence of US bio-warfare facilities in Central Asia and Eastern Europe, including Ukraine. She is Bulgarian investigative journalist Dilyana Gaytandzhieva. ³ Before I hand over to her, let me point out that if we add this disturbing and hugely inflammatory factor to the situation depicted here …

… we have some measure of the recklessness – the criminal insanity – of a US Empire incensed at Russia’s (and of course China’s) refusal to submit to a unipolar, dollarised world – ruled from Washington and Wall Street

In April 2018 Ms Gaytandzhieva began a post on her website with this:

The Pentagon Bio-weapons

The US Army regularly produces deadly viruses, bacteria and toxins in direct violation of the UN Convention on the prohibition of Biological Weapons. Hundreds of thousands of unwitting people are systematically exposed to dangerous pathogens and other incurable diseases.  Bio warfare scientists using diplomatic cover test man-made viruses at Pentagon bio laboratories in 25 countries across the world. These US bio-laboratories are funded by the Defense Threat Reduction Agency (DTRA) under a $ 2.1 billion military program – Cooperative Biological Engagement Program (CBEP), and are located in former Soviet Union countries such as Georgia and Ukraine, the Middle East, South East Asia and Africa.

Georgia as a testing ground

The Lugar Center is the Pentagon bio laboratory in Georgia. It is located just 17 km  from the US Vaziani military airbase in the capital Tbilisi. Tasked with the military program are biologists from the US Army Medical Research Unit-Georgia (USAMRU-G) along with private contractors. The Bio-safety Level 3 Laboratory is accessible only to US citizens with security clearance. They are accorded diplomatic immunity ⁴ under the 2002 US-Georgia Agreement on defense cooperation.

Information obtained from the US federal contracts registry clarifies some of the military activities at The Lugar Center – among them research on bio-agents (anthrax, tularemia) and viral diseases (e.g. Crimean-Congo Hemorrhagic Fever), and the collection of biological samples for future experiments.

Pentagon contractors produce bio agents under diplomatic cover

The Defense Threat Reduction Agency (DTRA) has outsourced much of the work under the military program to private companies, which are not held accountable to  Congress, and which can operate more freely and move around the rule of law.  US civilian personnel performing work at The Lugar Center have also been given diplomatic immunity, although they are not diplomats. Hence, private companies can perform work, under diplomatic cover, for the US government without being under the direct control of the host state – in this case  the Republic of Georgia. This practice is often used by the CIA to provide cover for its agents. Three private American companies work at the US bio-laboratory in Tbilisi – CH2M Hill, Battelle and Metabiota. In addition to the Pentagon, these private contractors perform research for the CIA and various other government agencies …

Continue reading …

As it happens Dilyana’s lucid, comprehensive and admirably detailed report was brought to my attention – Dave Hansell again! – only this morning: just a few hours after I’d been burning the midnight oil for her lengthy but riveting interview with Dan Cohen of MintPress, apropos the Nuland admission. Her strongly accented English had me leaning in so as to miss nothing, but the effort was richly rewarded.

* * *

1. My “null Guardian cover” claim was true at 08:30 today (March 11). Ten hours later, at 18:42, the Guardian ran a story with this header:

   

   Note (a) the US-compliant kicker, which dutifully echoes Nuland’s deflection, and (b) the Guardian still has not linked to that crucial footage of her exchange with Rubio.

   By 22:20 another Guardian story carried this header:

   

   It too makes no mention, far less shows, Nuland’s admission. I despise the Guardian.

2. Speaking of pithy commentators, here’s Brazilian political analyst Pepe Escobar. On the Strategic Culture Foundation site yesterday – Cutting through the fog … – he wrote:

   The first-class investigative work of Dilyana Gaytandzhieva on Pentagon bioweapons was fully vindicated. Based on documents received from Ukrainian biolab employees, the Russian ModD revealed that research with samples of bat coronavirus, among other experiments, were conducted in a Pentagon-funded biolab.

   The purpose of all this research – which included another Pentagon project to study the transfer of pathogens by wild birds migrating between Ukraine and Russia and other neighboring countries – was “to create a mechanism for the covert spread of deadly pathogens.”

   In trademark pysop mode, everything was turned upside down by the United States government: those evil Russkies could take control of biological samples, so any “accident” involving biological and chemical weapons in Ukraine would have to be blamed on Russia.

   The White House, in yet another flagrant display of unredeemable stupidity, accused Russia of “false claims” and China of “endorsing this propaganda”.

   Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov came up with the adult perspective: “The whole world will be interested to know what exactly the American bio-laboratories in Ukraine were doing.”

3. For a separate example of the thoroughness with which Dilyana Gaytandzhieva puts together her evidence, see her work on the cases, widely invoked as instances of Kremlin devilry, of the Skripals and Navalny. Some of us have raised eyebrows at the many anomalies and glaring coincidences – not to mention their convenience to that “incensed” US Empire – both throw up:

   Putin poisons water in Navalny’s hotel room. Navalny gets sick and is taken to a Russian state hospital. Nobody kills him there, though a hospital is an easy place to do so. Doctors find no poison, authorities approve his transfer to Berlin, where medics find novichok and accuse Russia. France agrees, EU imposes sanctions. Makes perfect sense, doesn’t it?

   The Skripals? What kind of coincidence theorist doesn’t raise eyebrows at the location, a stones throw from Porton Down, and the fact the first person on the scene is a senior army nurse?

   But Ms Gaytandzhieva’s attention to detail on the one hand, ability to set out a cogent summary on the other, are as laudable as the refusal of corporate media to do their job – rather, to condemn so basic a watchdog duty as the dissemination of ‘fake news’ and  ‘conspiracy theory’ – is damning.

4. In her interview with Dan Cohen, Dilyana Gaytandzhieva clarifies what is meant by ‘diplomatic immunity’. Just as US  mercenaries were indemnified from prosecution by Iraqi authorities for offences up to and including murder, the 2002 US-Georgia Agreement on defense cooperation gives immunity to US workers in these sinister facilities, in the event of civilian deaths howsoever arising from their activities.