By Kevin Barrett, Veterans Today Editor, interviewed by Press TV
Well, Noam Chomsky, at 91 years old is still doing his thing. He recently blasted Donald Trump and spoke out against the criminal sanctions against Iran.
And that’s all to the good. Chomsky is a very interesting, well informed for the most part, and acerbic commentator, and I have to agree with much of what he said, including when he called Donald Trump a “sociopathic buffoon.” I think that’s quite accurate.
He pointed out that the US response to the Coronavirus pandemic has been the worst in the world, which is probably also true. He said that Trump and his minions are racing to the abyss and he pointed out that beyond the Coronavirus threat there are two even more immense threats, nuclear war and global warming.
So this kind of critique of US policy is, of course, useful as far as it goes. However, where I would differ from Chomsky and where I’ve differed with him in the past, is that I think he often doesn’t go beneath the surface of the mainstream reporting of what’s supposedly happening in the world. (See my Left Forum talk “Why Chomsky Is Wrong About 9/11”:
For instance, in this case, he mentioned that there is this threat of nuclear war, but he didn’t mention the fact that it’s quite likely that the Coronavirus pandemic is the result of biological warfare, possibly a deliberate attack designed to destroy the world economy, which is the engine of Chinese economic growth, which will lead to China’s overtaking the US as the world’s top power, unless the global economy is destroyed as Coronavirus is at least one step towards destroying it.
And he hasn’t mentioned the threat of biological weapons, which are right up there with nuclear weapons, given the advances in genetic engineering.
One would have expected that Chomsky would use the Coronavirus crisis to say: “Look, maybe this just escaped from a lab, but we know that the statements in The Lancet and Nature Magazine that claim that this couldn’t be a biological weapon are ridiculous lies that the authors of those pieces do not believe themselves.”
They couldn’t possibly believe them, because anyone with a high school science education or even elementary logic training can see that that argument is a straw man, and it’s completely bogus. (Listen to biological weapons expert Dr. Meryl Nass explain it)
So why are they lying in this way? Chomsky should be pointing out that our whole global economy has been destroyed by what’s likely a biological weapon and that this means that we need to put teeth in the Biological Weapons Convention because the threat from bioweapons is every bit as bad as the threat from nuclear weapons.
He didn’t say that. Why not? Well, he has a pattern of not saying the thing that could mobilize useful action in the wake of the worst crimes of the US and Israeli national security states.
He has spent his life denying the obvious fact that John F Kennedy was murdered in a coup d’etat by right wing American military forces in alliance with Israel, and that one of the biggest purposes was to stop Kennedy from stopping the Israeli nuclear program.
He also spent the past two decades lying about the fact that 9/11 was obviously a false flag inside job by exactly the same forces that murdered President Kennedy.
And he has ridiculed those of us who tell the truth about this.
Why is Chomsky allergic to speaking the truth about the most important subjects that would get the most powerful emotional resonance going among the American people and lead to actual policy changes that would radically reform the sociopathic US empire that he criticizes?
Is he not as intelligent as he appears? Or is he as, Professor Anthony Hall’s article series puts it, “a disinfo agent for Israel” and/or the American deep state? See: https://ahtribune.com/in-depth/1063-noam-chomsky.html
Personally, I just don’t know. I think maybe he’s just trying to preserve his place at the table, where he is allowed to get major media coverage for saying these things that don’t go to the heart of the matter.
Kevin Barrett is an American author, journalist and radio host with a Ph.D. in Islamic and Arabic Studies. He recorded this article for Press TV website.
Press TV’s website can also be accessed at the following alternate addresses:
https://www.livescience.com/coronavirus-not-human-made-in-lab.html
“Kristian Andersen, an associate professor of immunology and microbiology at Scripps Research, and his colleagues looked at the genetic template for the spike proteins that protrude from the surface of the virus. The coronavirus uses these spikes to grab the outer walls of its host’s cells and then enter those cells. They specifically looked at the gene sequences responsible for two key features of these spike proteins: the grabber, called the receptor-binding domain, that hooks onto host cells; and the so-called cleavage site that allows the virus to open and enter those cells.
“That analysis showed that the ‘hook’ part of the spike had evolved to target a receptor on the outside of human cells called ACE2, which is involved in blood pressure regulation. It is so effective at attaching to human cells that the researchers said the spike proteins were the result of natural selection and not genetic engineering.
“SARS-CoV-2 is very closely related to the virus that causes severe acute respiratory syndrome (SARS), which fanned across the globe nearly 20 years ago. Scientists have studied how SARS-CoV differs from SARS-CoV-2 — with several key letter changes in the genetic code. Yet in computer simulations, the mutations in SARS-CoV-2 don’t seem to work very well at helping the virus bind to human cells. If scientists had deliberately engineered this virus, they wouldn’t have chosen mutations that computer models suggest won’t work. But it turns out, nature is smarter than scientists, and the novel coronavirus found a way to mutate that was better — and completely different— from anything scientists could have created, the study found.
“Another nail in the ‘escaped from evil lab’ theory? The overall molecular structure of this virus is distinct from the known coronaviruses and instead most closely resembles viruses found in bats and pangolins that had been little studied and never known to cause humans any harm.
“‘If someone were seeking to engineer a new coronavirus as a pathogen, they would have constructed it from the backbone of a virus known to cause illness,’ according to a statement from Scripps.”
The argument here appears to be stronger than Dr. Meryl Nass claims.
Suspect scientists are not the only ones to make such arguments. For example, Richard Ebright who I know Meryl respects has said: ““There’s absolutely nothing in the genome sequence of this virus that indicates the virus was engineered. The possibility this was a deliberately released bioweapon can be firmly excluded.”
The argument that Meryl is targeting is that there is no “genetic manipulation” in COVID-19 which I interpret to refer to modern genetic engineering. The methods she says are being (deliberately) overlooked are all methods that she says are “more primitive means of causing mutations.”
I would also submit that just because COVID-19 might have leaked from a bio-lab does not mean that the virus was “constructed in a lab.” Bio-labs deal with naturally occurring viruses. They also may be the site where against expectations a virus jumps from an animal to a human, naturally mutating in the process.
Notes from a March 1993 Chomsky lecture tape: quoting an 18th Century ruler:
Those who own the country should rule it,
and their managers should run it.
Others are spectators who must remain isolated.