this post was submitted on 15 Mar 2022
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US could put to bed any questions regarding biolabs by answering a few simple questions:
Here's the list of documents that have been scrubbed right after the allegations from https://ua.usembassy.gov/embassy/kyiv/sections-offices/defense-threat-reduction-office/biological-threat-reduction-program/
https://web.archive.org/web/20170130193016/https://photos.state.gov/libraries/ukraine/895/pdf/dtro-kharkiv-eng.pdf
https://web.archive.org/web/20210511164310/https://photos.state.gov/libraries/ukraine/895/pdf/dtro-luhansk-eng.pdf
https://web.archive.org/web/20170221125752/https://photos.state.gov/libraries/ukraine/895/pdf/dtro-dnipropetrovsk-eng.pdf
https://web.archive.org/web/20210506053014/https://photos.state.gov/libraries/ukraine/895/pdf/dtro-vinnitsa-eng.pdf
https://web.archive.org/web/20170221125752/https://photos.state.gov/libraries/ukraine/895/pdf/dtro-dnipropetrovsk-eng.pdf
https://web.archive.org/web/20170207122550/https://photos.state.gov/libraries/ukraine/895/pdf/dtro-kherson-fact-sheet-eng.pdf
https://web.archive.org/web/20170223011502/https://photos.state.gov/libraries/ukraine/895/pdf/dtro-ternopil-fact-sheet-eng.pdf
https://web.archive.org/web/20170208032526/https://photos.state.gov/libraries/ukraine/895/pdf/dtro-zakarpatska-fact-sheet-eng.pdf
https://web.archive.org/web/20170208032526/https://photos.state.gov/libraries/ukraine/895/pdf/dtro-zakarpatska-fact-sheet-eng.pdf
https://web.archive.org/web/20170202040923/https://photos.state.gov/libraries/ukraine/895/pdf/dtro-lviv-dl-eng.pdf
https://web.archive.org/web/20170201004446/https://photos.state.gov/libraries/ukraine/895/pdf/dtro-lviv-rdvl-eng.pdf
https://web.archive.org/web/20161230143004/https://photos.state.gov/libraries/ukraine/895/pdf/dtro-eidss.pdf
https://web.archive.org/web/20210506212717/https://photos.state.gov/libraries/ukraine/895/pdf/dtro-pathogen-asset-control.pdf
https://web.archive.org/web/20170207153023/https://photos.state.gov/libraries/ukraine/895/pdf/dtro-dnipropetrovsk-rdvl_eng.pdf
https://web.archive.org/web/20170211022339/https://photos.state.gov/libraries/ukraine/895/pdf/kiev-ivm-fact-sheet-eng.pdf
Your other questions are legitimate, but does this one even need to be asked? The same thing they always delete/shred/burn when an embassy is about to (or has the potential to) fall into foreign hands... the identity of CIA agents and assets. It's not exactly a secret that this is the point of it.
"Assets" not necessarily being spies, sometimes these are people who once talked to an agent (even unwittingly). And, it's even possible to intelligently speculate on why that's sensitive... if you know who they've talked to, you can make smart guesses why they were talking to them. Wouldn't want the Russians to know who they were interested in.
But it doesn't. There are two explanations, and I won't give an opinion on which is worse. The first is that it's not innocent. The second is that even though it is innocent of the specific allegations, it has (and has had) the attitude that it doesn't need to prove anything to anyone. Which is factually true, because there exist few mechanisms to hold the government of the US to account.
The point here is that given the long history of US doing horrible things, innocence cannot be assumed and must be proven. If US sees itself as being above having to answer such questions that may play well with its allies, but it's certainly not going to help its reputation with anybody else.
If a criminal goes to trial, he may well have to prove innocence, because (despite this being acknowledged as wrong and unjust), if he fails to do so he may be found guilty.
And punished.
Who will punish the US? It does not need to prove innocence, because you, and I, and everyone else has no leverage over it.
The truth of the matter is, on this one topic, hardly no one seriously believes that they were engineering biological weapons 250 miles away from the Russian border for shits and giggles. Those who are pro-Russian or at least anti-US would do well to focus on more credible propaganda. This stuff doesn't pass the smell test. This allegation can be dismissed without comment, and that is what their response has been.
US geopolitical position is being eroded, and this attitude is only going to help rally countries against it. People in the west tend to disregard the rest of the world as being irrelevant. The reality is that Eurasian economic bloc around China is now comparable to the western economic bloc, and it's likely to surpass it within a few years. US could expect the same kind of economic bullying directed against it that it's been using to attack its enemies. Stuff like this will be used as justification for that.
So are mountains. I wouldn't hold your breath waiting for those or US geopolitics to be ground down to sand grains though.
And it isn't even clear what, when that day comes, you will have won. Woohoo, the US is weak, the US isn't in charge! Yay! There is no more USSR in such a picture, it lost first. If you're expecting some resurgence of communism at that point, I think you will be disappointed. It makes it sound like you were always more against something than for something.
I mean, what do you have? China? I think the "People's" army showed how much for the people it was back in 1989. Cuba? Castro croaked. So have all the true believers. It's probably the closest to being the last real holdout.
It could. I don't find this prediction implausible. Given what you know about China, does that make you happy somehow? It's about as communist as the Russian Federation is, though I guess that's easier to pretend untrue, given that the regime change was a little quieter.
If true socialism/marxism/communism did try to rise up somewhere near China, how do you think they'd react to it? Seems to be that they are at least as much your enemy as mine. I don't suggest that makes us friends, but in other threads you don't seem dumb or delusional... China's bad for pretty much everyone who's not a billionaire or high-ranking in the party.
Did you read through the whole linked thread? About how the type and amount of activity is so small as to be completely inconsistent with bioweapons research? Russia knows this, so they are just spreading conspiracy theories in the West to weaken the resolve around sanctions.
I did and it makes a ton of assumption such as the idea that all of the research was done there. Furthermore, we know those a bioweapon labs because some of them are left over from USSR days.
As I've noted in my comment, US could easily dispel all allegations by answering a few simple questions and allowing international inspection. I simply can't think of any reason not to do that.
Meanwhile, western resolve around sanctions is going to be weakened by western economies crashing, no need to create conspiracy theories for that. The people in the west don't seem to understand the seriousness of the economic blow back they're facing.