Playing Russian Roulette With Swine: Vaccine or Bioweapon?

“With at least the tacit backing of U.S. Central Intelligence Agency officials, operatives linked to anti-Castro terrorists introduced African swine fever virus into Cuba in 1971.” – San Francisco Chronicle,  January 10, 1977

Days of Castro and saboteurs are history right? In History is a Weapon we find “The CIA had also been involved in assassination plots against Castro of Cuba and other heads of state.”

According to Jim Rasenberger, the 1961 “Bay of Pigs” fiasco was evident to all stakeholders, Cuba, Russia and the responsible party, the U.S.  Rasenberger’s book, “The Brilliant Disaster:  JFK, Castro, and America’s Doomed Invasion of Cuba’s Bay of Pigs” may not have considered the irony and magnitude of another invasion. How did the U.S. rationalize their actions?  “Plausible Denial.”

Speaking on control and invasions, as to Havana, Cuba, was former US Secretary of State setting the stage of propaganda in his speech “we notice now the regime in Havana has taken advantage of the COV-19 pandemic to continue its exploitation of Cuban medical workers…”

Evidence? One could turn for support to Raymond A. Zilinskas 1999 “Cuban Allegations of Biological Warfare by the United States: Assessing the Evidence,” but “In a case like this, though, they would always give them (CIA officials in Washington) plausible deniability.” Reportedly and by his own admission, the former Secretary of State in his role at the CIA participated in lying.

One thing is clear, whether accidental or by design, a virus spread and created an opportunity to enhance surveillance systems in western governments. — Facilitated by both a central intelligence (CIA) and artificial intelligence, (CAI).

On February 26, 2020, the Former National Intelligence Council Chair Gregory Treverton spoke on the “Future of Intelligence.” He stated:

“There’s been some interesting experiments. There was a Latin American experiment. I have just committed a security violation. Never mind. An experiment in some country with the CIA stationed in the future. I thought that was interesting. That’s been sort of rolled up.”

US President called for a lock down the following month.

Cuba → China ↔ World

Ironically, sixty years after America’s 1961 “Doomed Invasion of Cuba’s Bay of Pigs” the Swine invaded one more. In the Chinese lunar calendar, Chinese zodiac marks 2019 as the Year of the Pig.

On August 3, 2018, South China Morning Post reported “China culls 900 pigs after reports of first African swine fever outbreak in country.”  Reports by the BBC of the spread to parts of Southeast Asia in 2019 followed. It was only a matter of time before it spread once more and reached Eastern Europe.

In March 2020, soon after US and the World officially announced the lockdown for COVID-19, Journal of Virology reports:

“Currently, ASF is endemic in more than 20 sub-Saharan African countries. In Europe, ASF is endemic on the island of Sardinia (Italy)… affecting Georgia, Armenia, Azerbaijan, and Russia…outbreaks occurring in 2018 to 2019 in China, Mongolia, Vietnam, Laos, Cambodia, Serbia, Myanmar, North Korea, and the Philippines…Belgium.”

Vaccine?

Scientists’ description: “African swine fever virus (ASFV) is the etiological agent of a contagious and often lethal disease of domestic pigs that has significant economic consequences for the swine industry.”

In any design of a bioweapon, an antidote or vaccine is also created. Or, attempted, as we find in the March 17, 2020 article, “Development of a Highly Effective African Swine Fever Virus Vaccine by Deletion of the I177L Gene Results in Sterile Immunity against the Current Epidemic Eurasia Strain.”

Authors, posit that “The use of attenuated strains is currently the most plausible approach to develop an effective ASF vaccine. We believe that the results presented here demonstrate that ASFV-G-ΔI177L can be considered a strong vaccine candidate to protect animals against the ASFV Georgia isolate and its derivatives currently causing outbreaks in a wide geographical area from Central Europe to China and Southeast Asia.”

Speaking of “strains” and “plausible” suggests the use of a vaccine as a weapon, especially when one considers that the aforementioned paper/project was “partially funded through an interagency agreement with the Science and Technology Directorate of the U.S. Department of Homeland Security.”

BIOWEAPON?

In this global pandemic, hearing the cry of pain as the beastly virus lures its head, it would serve man well to take into account the words of Mark Wheelis in A Short History of Biological Warfare and Weapons:

“Although biological weapons have been used only sporadically throughout human history, and their military effectiveness has never been clearly demonstrated by use in war, the impact of natural disease outbreaks continually reminds us that they are potentially very effective weapons.”

Who will be the next “target of opportunity”?  Responding to the audience on the question of Coronavirus and China and germ warfare, Treverton stated:

“I think this does show is the inherent limitations of an authoritarian regime. It also means, I assume, since Xi is central in his power, that he’s also taken more responsibility. Anything bad that happens in China is now him. So I’d be surprised if there aren’t people around him now trying to figure out how to get rid of him, very quietly…It just seems like it’s a kind of natural thing to do.”

Sure, Treverston, for intelligence it readily appears that taking out targets is the “natural thing to do.”

Wheelis’  concluding words may serve as a reminder and warning:

“The scientific advances are matched by rapid changes in biotechnology and the pharmaceutical industries, as they too assimilate the new methods. All of this is likely to bring new military interest in biological weapons, perhaps even in countries not now considered proliferation risks.”