Who Is Afraid of Fort Detrick Probe By Finian Cunningham
(2021-08-08 at 18:17:01 )

Who Is Afraid of Fort Detrick Probe By Finian Cunningham

An international online petition calling for an investigation into a United States military laboratory and the possible origin of Covid-19 was hacked at the weekend. The hackers were reportedly based in the United States.

Fort Detrick in Maryland is the center of United States of American biowarfare research. It is just one of the hundreds of such infectious disease laboratories located across the United States. During the Cold War, Fort Detrick was the main site for experimenting with lethal pathogens, including viruses causing deadly influenza.

In 2001, when a disgruntled researcher is believed to have killed five people by mailing deadly anthrax spores it was Fort Detrick that was the origin of the lethal material.

However, the network of secretive United States biowarfare laboratories is also infamous for safety violations and accidents. In August 2019, Fort Detrick was shut down abruptly for several months when its wastewater decontamination process failed.

It is not unreasonable to call for an investigation into the practices and records at the Maryland center to ascertain if it had any connection to the Covid-19 pandemic which has so far killed over four million people worldwide and more than 600,000 in the United States alone.

Of course, United States of American politicians and media dismiss the appeal as "disinformation" put out by Russia and China. United States of Americans have accused China of being the origin of the pandemic after the first cases of Covid-19 were detected in the city of Wuhan at the end of 2019. More sinisterly, the Wuhan virology institute has been fingered as the source of the virus even though an international survey by the World Health Organization concluded such a release was "extremely unlikely".

Scientific consensus contends that the virus evolved naturally and was most likely transmitted to humans from animals.

United States President Joe Biden has given credibility to the conspiracy theory unleashed by his predecessor Donald Trump that the Wuhan laboratory was the origin of the Covid-19 virus. President Biden has tasked his intelligence agencies to look into the claims. They are due to report back on their findings next month. Washington,D.C. berates China for not being transparent about its laboratory and is demanding that Beijing open up its facility for inspection. The United States of Americans claim China was not fully open with WHO investigators who cleared the lab as not being the origin of the virus.

But two can play that game. If the United States of Americans accuse China and demand an investigation into secret laboratories then why can China not level the same at the United States?

It is still not known where the Covid-19 pandemic originated. It may take years to determine that. But what is certainly hindering an answer is the politicization of the disease. Washington,D.C. is using it to smear China while hypocritically suppressing any questions about its own conduct.

The early cases of Covid-19 were detected in Wuhan. But who is to say that cases may have existed elsewhere but were simply not detected and reported in other countries? The United States had an unprecedented surge in influenza deaths in 2019 before the Wuhan cases. Were some of these misdiagnosed as flu instead of Covid-19?

Fort Detrick has a notorious history of safety failures. It works on a wide range of biowarfare pathogens with little public oversight. And it was shut down in mid-2019 for reasons that are not clear to the public.

It is therefore reasonable for China to demand a probe into the United States of American facility. This is not just a matter of "counter-propaganda" to turn the tables over American speculation about the Wuhan institute. There are empirical grounds for suspecting Fort Detrick as possibly having a role in the origin of the pandemic.

An online petition was started in China earlier this month demanding the WHO launch an investigation into Fort Detrick. It had gathered over 10 million signatures when the online site was hacked into at the weekend. Apparently, the petition was defended by its cybersecurity system and continues to operate.

According to Chinese reports the hackers were identified as having computer server addresses located in the United States. If that is confirmed then the suspicions around the murky practices of Fort Detrick become more acute.

It looks like the United States of Americans are afraid to permit a probe into the site, even though they make high-handed accusations and demands on China over tenuous claims about Wuhan.

Reprinted here from the "Strategic Culture Foundation" provides a platform for exclusive analysis, research and policy comment on Eurasian and global affairs. We are covering political, economic, social and security issues worldwide. Since 2005 our journal has published thousands of analytical briefs and commentaries with the unique perspective of independent contributors. SCF works to broaden and diversify expert discussion by focusing on hidden aspects of international politics and unconventional thinking. Benefiting from the expanding power of the Internet, we work to spread reliable information, critical thought and progressive ideas.