Vienna 1961 Redux: The Putin / Biden 2021 Geneva Summit

You don’t need a crystal ball to predict the consequences of the scandal over U.S. spying on European governments will have on the G7 summit in England, June 11-13 (2021). It will have little. However, it will cast a giant shadow over the critical meeting between Russian President Vladimir V. Putin, and United States President Joseph R. Biden Jr., in Geneva Switzerland, June 16th. This massive scandal, regardless how the mass media wishes to portray it, has shredded the US’s playbook for the summit.

 

The White House, and some Democratic members of Congress, as well as anti-Russian European lawmakers, were huffing and puffing that Biden would reproach Putin over allegations of the Kremlin’s malign conduct. Those allegations include Russian intelligence agencies and hackers interfering in Western democracies. How terribly ironic! For people willing to see the truth, this disclosure now, is a powerful self-indicting and hypocritical revelation of American and European elitists actual malign conduct.

The face to face summit was intended to demonstrate Mr. Biden as a world leader, which could set the stage for US / Russian superpower relationship for his presidency, and further the Russian / Chinese divide. Now, Mr. Putin can hardly believe his good fortunate. Yet, when dealing with US Presidents, except Donald Trump, he has always made out well. The general opinion in Russia is that recent liberal Democratic Presidents such as Carter (Iran), Clinton (Kosovo), Obama (Ukraine), and establishment Republicans such as Bush (Georgia), are, in the parlance of our time, “weak sisters.”

For Mr. Putin, the summit provides an opportunity to size up, or probably confirm his opinion of Mr. Biden, as then Nikita Khrushchev, First Secretary of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union, did in Vienna, Austria, June 3 - 4, 1961*, in his meeting with US President John Fitzgerald Kennedy. Mr. Khrushchev was concerned how Mr. Kennedy would react to Soviet interests in Berlin — meaning the recognition of East Germany as an independent state. Mr. Putin primary concern is how Mr. Biden will react to further Russian incursion in the Ukraine. 

The Geneva Summit is yet to happen. However, it would be irresponsible not to predict what results from this summit. 

Mr. Biden is in over his head. Mr. Putin’s view of Mr. Biden is that he is weak mentally and physically. That his election to President was illegitimate. That his diplomatic record is uneventful. That his political life is spectacularly inept and corrupt. 

Ukrainian unification is not a practical possibility, and I would posit, even the Ukrainians do not want to pay the price to get it back (the annexation of Crimea and the eastern region known as Donbas). So, Mr. Putin will tell Mr. Biden that Russian annexation is the actual state of affairs. Russia will never agree to give up land it has won in the Ukraine. Mr. Biden will reply, as Mr. Kennedy had done in Berlin: 'that Russia can do what it wants to with what is yours, but do not touch what is ours' (meaning the rest of Ukraine). 

However, Mr. Putin will act in accordance with his perceived assessment of Mr. Biden’s commitment to the Ukraine. In my view, this does not augur well for the Ukraine. The summit will confirm Mr. Putin’s impression of Mr. Biden that he can be easily outmaneuver, and therefore Mr. Putin can act more aggressively in his dealings with the United States, and that there would be little price to pay for future engagements.

Thus, given this plausible scenario, it begs the question — does anyone in the Biden Administration read anything but Critical Race Theory (CRT) and/or John Rawls, A Theory of Justice? 

It’s a rhetorical question people!

*For an outstanding history of the Vienna Summit and its crucial consequences, read Frederick Kempe, “Berlin 1961: Kennedy, Khrushchev, And The Most Dangerous Place On Earth,” New York, G.P. Putnam’s Sons, 2011. 

COVID-19: Made In China

 

"All truth passes through three stages. 

First, it is ridiculed. 

Second, it is violently opposed. 

Third, it is accepted as being self-evident”

 Arthur Schopenhauer

 

On May 26, 2021, the U.S. Senate unanimously passed a bill, S. 1867, that would require an unclassified report be provided to Congress, regarding the origin of the SARS-CoV-2, aka COVID-19 virus.

As of now, Mr. Biden claims that there still is not enough evidence to determine “whether it (COVID-19) emerged from human  contact (the official Chinese government theory) with an infected animal or from a laboratory accident.”

In March 2020, the official United States government explanation was published by the National Institutes of Health’s  (NIH) article, “The proximal origin of SARS CoV-2, Kristian G. Andersen, et al. concluded “Although the evidence shows that SARS-CoV-2 is not a purposefully manipulated virus, it is currently impossible to prove or disprove the other theories of its origin described here. However, since we observed all notable SARS-CoV-2 features, including the optimized RBD and polybasic cleavage site, in related coronaviruses in nature, we do not believe that any type of laboratory-based scenario is plausible."

To date, the National Institutes of Health (NIH) still does not find plausible evidence to refute a natural origin for COVID-19. On May 5th, Dr. Anthony Fauci, Director, of the U.S. National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, stated in an interview with National Geographic, that "If you look at the evolution of the virus in bats, and what's out there now is very, very strongly leaning toward this [virus] could not have been artificially or deliberately manipulated-the way the mutations have naturally evolved. A number of very qualified evolutionary biologists have said that everything about the stepwise evolution over time strongly indicates that it evolved in nature and then jumped species."

Yet, on May 23rd, Dr. Fauci, stated “that he is “not convinced” COVID-19 developed naturally and called for further investigation into the virus’s origins after the lab-leak theory had been dismissed by many as a right-wing conspiracy theory for months” (National Review, May 23, 2021). Dr. Fauci behavior borders on schizophrenia. 

However, rational-minded people remain skeptical that COVID-19 is natural and animal-based. US Senator Tom Cotton, had this to say on Fox’s Marie Bartiromo, Sunday Morning Futures: “evidence that came out in the final days of the Trump administration, that some employees and staff at these labs may have had coronavirus-like symptoms as early as October or September of 2019, continues to point to these labs as the origin of this virus, not that food market that the Chinese Communist Party used as a cover story from the very beginning.” 

As of now, there is still no overwhelming consensus on COVID-19’s origin, mostly depending on the old policy adage, “where you stand, depends on where you sit.”

There have been multiple epidemiological studies that enhance our understanding of COVID-19’s origin. One focus was simply tracking the emergence of COVID-19. There is no evidence of an increase in pneumonia-like illness, all-cause mortality, or even purchase of medications to treat fever or respiratory symptoms prior to the emergence of illness in Wuhan in late 2019. The increase in hospitalizations and deaths started to rise in Wuhan in January 2020, and then later outside Wuhan but within Hubei Province. So the evidence does support the emergence of COVID-19 in and around Wuhan. Further, an extensive review of hospital records did not find any likely cases of COVID-19 in October or November 2019 in Wuhan, so it was likely not circulating prior to its emergence in December. 

Therefore. the data overwhelmingly supports Wuhan China as the epicenter of the COVID-19 virus. However, whether it was natural or made by man, is still being contested.

Moreover, there has been no paucity of scientific explanations regarding the origin of the COVID-19 virus. However, we do not need science to determine its origin. We need to understand the Chinese!

From the beginning (January 2020), it has been my belief that the SARS-CoV-2 virus was not only created by the Chinese government in their Wuhan Laboratory but more balefully, was purposely let out on the world, for the purpose of defeating Donald Trump's reelection. This view is countered that to do so, the Chinese government would infect and kill many of their own people, and therefore preposterous. 

Bo, You Don't Know Diddley!

During the Korean War, Mao’s Chinese Communist Party did not hesitate to spend the lives of 190,000 (Official Chinese Government figure) to 900,000 (CIA Files), with other estimates put at 400,000 people (Michael Hickey, author of The Korean War: The West Confronts Communism). Like Stalin's Soviet Communists, Mao demanded a belief in the price that other men have to pay for the good of their vision. In time, monstrous crimes would be inflicted, not just on their foreign enemies, but on their own citizens. No estimate of the Chinese death rate from COVID-19 can be convincing, given that information is provided by Chinese state media. However, a population of 1.39 billion people, and an estimated death rate ratio of 2.97 (Globally), calculates a total COVID-19 death toll in China of 461,279. 

The point is a simple one. In China, life has been and is cheap. I would strongly proffer that Chinese Communist leaders considered 461,279 Chinese citizens' deaths a bargain to stop Donald Trump's reelection.                              

It is possible that in the fullness of time, we will learn the truth. We invariably know a lot about a lot of things our government will not or cannot admit (to). There is a strongly held and valid perception today that institutions such as the Justice Department (DoJ); the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI); the Internal Revenue Service (IRS); and the US Judiciary; are all sworn to protect our democracy, have been compromised and no longer conduct themselves under the rule of law. Now, sadly, we can add the National Institutes of Health (NIH).

Indeed, "All truth passes through three stages. First, it is ridiculed. Second, it is violently opposed. Third, it is accepted as being self-evident" (Arthur Schopenhauer)