Faithful kissing and licking shrine in Iran
This ongoing, multi-part study will include a series of verbatim translations, gists, and commentary from the Arabic media, supported by entries from other (usually western) media, and interspersed with the author’s analysis.
PART II
(Gists of a pair of essays from the Arabic media, one from aljazeera.net, and the other from alarabiya.net)
THE HORIZONS OF THE GEO-STRATEGIC STRUGGLES IN THE AFTERMATH OF THE CORONA CRISES
Khitaar Abu Diyaab, writing for www.alarabiya.net believes that China has successfully contained the virus and that “neo-liberalism” (by which he means the Western Democracies) have failed to properly deal with the crisis. From there he goes on to claim that with the liberal democracies discredited, monarchial and authoritative governments will replace those liberal democracies and we will have a world with the “rule of the elites rather than the chaos of democracy.”
On the geo-strategic level he believes that the G-20 will become the new, multi-polar world order and will replace the UN. As evidence to “support” this position, he pointed to Saudi King Salman calling a video conferencing meeting of the G-20 to discuss the Corona crisis, while the UN has done very little.
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COMMENT: Readers should bear in mind that al-arabiya is a Saudi-owned media outlet, consequently the editorial content should be expected to track fairly well with official Saudi viewpoints.
With that in mind, there are a number of things wrong with Abu Diyaab’s analysis. First, and most obvious, he has bought the Chinese reporting on the Wuhan flu hook line and sinker–as have virtually all the world’s media, including that in the United States. But, exactly how successful has China’s efforts really been? Exactly how many have died there?
Second, he assumes that the democracies have failed while the autocratic/authoritarian regimes have done much better in controlling the epidemic. The faulty reasoning there should be obvious. The authoritarian regimes such as China and Iran (both of whom have been hit worse than any of the Democracies once true figures are made known) are free to lie about their numbers, whereas Democracies tend to be a lot more honest. Where the Democracies, such as the U.S. and Italy have failed is in placing too much trust on the Chinese. The one country on this planet that has fared the best vis-à-vis the Wuhan flu, is the one which is racially and ethnically identical to China, and nearly adjacent geographically. And this is the country of Taiwan–which is a Democracy, by the way. Taiwan succeeded where other Democracies have failed because they understand the mindset of the CCP much better than westerners do and therefore took preventative actions vis-à-vis the possibilities of a Communist Chinese generated pandemic long before the western countries did.
Third, Mr. Abu Diyaab’s “world ruled by elites” sounds like a true monarchist viewpoint. Ironically, it is also the view of most of the West’s “progressives.” The only argument there is who’s “elites” are the ones who get to rule.
Fourth, his belief that the new world order will be based on the current G-20 is based on the fantasy that in this Brave New World, the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia (KSA) will have a voice equal to world powers such as the U.S., India, Russia, China, and UK. Unfortunately, the current royal family in KSA might become one of the casualties of the Wuhan flu–not because they all get sick and die, but because once the Mullahs in Iran fall (which is probably only months away), the U.S. will have little interest in keeping the corrupt Sa’ud clan in power in the Middle East. More on that later in this series.
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Covid-19
CORONA FLIES LIKE A CRUISE MISSILE–AND IT PREFERS BLOOD TYPE “A”
This “unauthored” article posted on www.aljazeera.net recounted most of the aspects of Covid-19 that the western media has, with one exception: They quoted a Chinese study saying that the virus hits blood type “A” people much harder than it does people with other blood types. On the other hand, people with blood type “O” have it the easiest vis-à-vis the novel Corona virus.
This does not mean that people who do not have blood type “A” will never get the virus, but just that their symptoms will generally be less severe. The danger, of course, is that non-blood type “A” people can easily be carriers of the virus without knowing it, then pass it on to a blood type “A” person who then dies from it.
COMMENT: Just out of curiosity I looked up blood types for Jews and found only one study, and that was on “Sephardic” Jews. According to this study, 45% of Sephardic Jews have blood type “A,” an unusually high percentage. Left unanswered are the questions if “Ashkenazi” Jews also have a preponderance of blood type “A?” And, what about the Arabs, who are genetically related to Jews, especially the Sephardic Jews?
However, the badly skewed death rates for New York City might be an indication that “Ashkenazi” Jews also have a preponderance of blood type “A.”
ANALYSIS:
The first question that needs to be answered is whether or not COVID-19, or, more properly, the Wuhan flu, was naturally occurring in nature before jumping to mankind, or was it synthetically produced in a lab? By synthetically produced, nobody who has speculated on this means to imply that the Chinese created an entirely new virus from scratch, but rather that they took an existing Corona virus, such as the original 2004 SARS, and then played around with its DNA to create a more virulent version.
Here are some basic facts that should help to answer that question:
ONE: China’s city of Wuhan hosts the Chinese Institute of Virology, where deadly viruses are “studied.” Wuhan also hosts the Chinese National MicroBiology lab where similar studies are undertaken. China’s Biological Weapons research lab is attached to one of those research centers.
TWO: China began investing heavily in Biological weaponry as early as the 1980s.
THREE: Chinese scientists doubling as Chinese Intelligence agents have penetrated several North American Research labs for the purpose of not only learning all they could from Western researchers, but also to smuggle deadly viruses out of these labs back to Wuhan, China.
One researcher at Canada’s heavily Chinese-penetrated virology lab at Winnipeg was caught at the airport trying to leave the country to return to Wuhan. He was arrested for having vials of deadly Viruses stuffed in his socks hidden in his suitcase. Similar incidents have happened at the University of North Carolina, and in New York City.
FOUR: Animals are widely used as experimental subjects in these Chinese labs. When these animals die from the experiments they are supposed to be incinerated. However, it is known that employees of these facilities often smuggle these dead animals outside the facility so as to sell them in nearby “wet” markets. These “wet” markets are where meat of all sorts is sold, road kill, strange critters like bats, Pangolins, and God knows what.
FIVE: The so-called Covid-19 first broke out in Wuhan, many say in one of those very “wet” markets.
SIX: The Chinese leadership was so embarrassed about this new virus that they censored all information about it, including shutting down any and all medical personnel and scientists who tried to warn about it. This raises the question as to why were they so embarrassed? If this was truly a “natural” virus outbreak, there would have been nothing to be embarrassed about.
SEVEN: The Chinese have spent millions of dollars to have unscientific “scientific” studies published in western media outlets “proving” that Covid-19 was a naturally occurring virus. It is not logical or likely that they would be putting out such a heavy-handed propaganda effort if they didn’t have something to be truly embarrassed about that was in such bad need of being covered up.
EIGHT: A number of virologists and infectious disease experts around the world have expressed concern about the “unnatural” appearance of Covid-19’s DNA.
NINE: The Covid-19 virus appears to have several mutations in its DNA which probably could not have occurred naturally. Icelandic scientists have counted 40 mutations, and the mutations are not the same in each country.
TEN: Drugs that have been proven successful against AIDS and malaria have also been proven to be successful against Covid-19 in countries across the face of the globe. This raises the question as to whether or not snippets of AIDS and/or malaria DNA were not grafted into the Covid-19 virus which was originally a SARS virus?
ELEVEN: Sarah Damdhawi, on her show taf’aalkom which aired on Tuesday, 31 March 2020 on the al-arabiyya TV channel, interviewed an Egyptian virologists who pointed out that of the hundreds of thousands of reported cases of Covid-19 among humans, not a single domesticated animal has contracted the disease. Ms. Damdhawi then showed Skype clips of pet-owning Egyptians who were holding and caressing their dogs and cats to illustrate how unconcerned they were about catching Covid-19 from them.
The virologist then closed the session by re-emphasizing that no domesticated animal has yet caught Covid-19, in spite of being in close contact with humans who have contacted it.
UPDATED CORRECTION: There is a report of one tiger in a zoo which has tested positive for COVID-19, and another single report of domesticated dog having been tested positive for the virus. This raises the question as to whether or not this is a recent mutation by the virus applicable only to certain areas? Or, is it a harbinger of the next stage of the virus that the world at large needs to be wary of? Or, are both reports nothing more than “fake news?”
So, what can we make of this? All SARS viruses that we’ve seen in the past had the ability to jump from animals to humans and from humans back to animals. Yet, here, we have a so-called SARS virus which might be incapable of jumping from humans to animals. Therefore, we have to also assume that said virus would also be incapable of jumping from animals to humans. If animals are incapable of catching the virus, then they are also incapable passing said virus on to humans.
Therefore, if this is true,the only logical assumption is that Covid-19 is not a naturally occurring virus. It must have been created in a lab somewhere. The virus first broke out in Wuhan which hosts labs that do exactly that.
Coincidence?
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THE GEOGRAPHICAL DISTRIBUTION
China as the epicenter has been well discussed and documented. An interesting side note here is that the Chinese New Year for 2020 was towards the end of January–just when the new virus was raging throughout the city of Wuhan. Wuhan is (was) a city of 11 million. It is estimated that about half of those people scattered during the month of January to other parts of China to visit relatives. How many of those 5 plus million Wuhanians were carriers?
Interesting also is that the year 2020 in Chinese lore is the year of the Rat. And, rats have been feared throughout history as carriers of plague. They are also a delicacy in Chinese “wet” markets.
New York City as a hotspot for the Wuhan flu has already been covered. Elsewhere in the United States California and Washington State, particularly Seattle, have high concentrations of Chinese. Many of these people were travelling to and from China during the month of January to visit relatives in connection with the Chinese New Year. That explains the pockets of Covid-19 in the large West Coast cities.
IRAN
After China, Iran became the second major hotspot for the Wuhan Flu, and everyone wondered why? Particularly hard hit was the city of Qom. Qom is the holiest city on the planet for the Shi’a, possibly even outranking Mecca. So, perhaps this was a curse from Allah upon the Shi’a?
Nah.
It was because China has invested heavily in Iran, and has been engaged in numerous huge infrastructure projects in the city of Qom. It is estimated that 300,000 Chinese workers had been working there–about half of them from the city of Wuhan. Many, or most, of them went back to China to visit relatives for the Chinese New Year, then returned to Qom.
There are several shrines in Iran that are holy to the Shi’a, and people have traditionally come to those shrines to “heal” themselves of spiritual and physical illnesses. During this current Corona virus pandemic, some have had videos made of them kissing and licking the shrines, or even the walls of a shrine “so as to take in all the Corona virus to show how harmless the virus is at the shrine.”
However, some Iranians are calling for closing the shrines to slow the spread of the virus.
Iran, like China, is an authoritarian state so official figures cannot be taken seriously. Satellite photos of the Qom area show that the authorities cannot dig graves fast enough. The virus has also spread widely throughout the rest of Iran with the authorities incapable of being able to recognize the cause and source of the epidemic, which renders them incapable of being able to treat those stricken or make any effort to find a cure. Instead, all they can do is babble on about the epidemic being a result of “biological warfare against them by the United States.”
That being said, it is not likely that anyone is being fooled by the Mullahs’ propaganda. Prior to the outbreak, Iran had been besieged with anti-regime protests indicating that the people of Iran were sick and tired of the theocratic state and wanted regime change. The regime’s handling of the Corona virus, or lack thereof, is likely to exasperate those emotions.
The outbreak of the virus and subsequent curfews imposed by the regime have put an end to the mass demonstrations–for now. However, once the fear of the virus is over look for an explosion in Iran.
THE ARAB STATES
Many of the Arab states, but particularly those on the Gulf, have large Shi’a minorities. As these people returned from pilgrimages to sites in Iran, many of them brought the virus back with them.
Actually, being able to predict this happening, states such as Jordan, U.A.E., KSA, and Egypt began imposing strict lockdowns as soon as they saw what was happening in Iran, and even before they had any reported cases of their own. However, in spite of those precautions, numbers in the Arab states are starting to climb. Al-Jazeera has reported that the governor of Riyadh now has the virus, and king Salman has self-quarantined on an island in the Red Sea.
Iraq, however, never did close its borders with Iran. It can’t, because they have allowed themselves to become nothing more than an appendage of Iran. Chicom virus cases should be sky rocketing in Iraq. However, reporting is likely spotty for a variety of reasons.
Another huge problem facing the Middle East are the on-going wars in Libya, Yemen, and Syria, and continued quasi war in Iraq. These areas could become breeding grounds for the virus, and then spread to neighboring countries.
TURKEY
As of 09 April 2020, Turkey was reporting 42,000 confirmed cases and nearly 1,000 deaths. Most of this occurred rapidly over the last week or so. Turkey’s problem? It shares a border with Iran, and shares borders with Syria and Iraq where continued fighting and instability make efforts to control the spread of the virus impossible.
ITALY
Why Italy? Answer:
China has also invested heavily in Italy, with thousands of Chinese living in Italy especially the northern part of the country where the virus has hit the hardest. Most of them went home for the Chinese New Year, many to Wuhan, and then returned to spread the virus among the Italians.
Italians are also not well known for keeping “social distancing” to say the least.
WHY SPAIN?
The Spanish government with its coalition partner, the Iranian and Venezuelan financed Marxist party called “Podemos” knowingly endangered public safety by encouraging the public to engage in more than 75 “feminist” marches held across Spain on March 8, to mark International Women’s Day. These nation-wide rallies were aimed at protesting the international Left’s big bugbear: The alleged “patriarchy” of Western civilization (a civilization that has done more to liberate women than all other civilizations in history).
Even though the virus has been swirling in Spain, and had internationally been declared a pandemic, as early as 30 January, the Spanish government was so determined to ensure that the feminist marches took place on 08 March that it deliberately downplayed the warnings about the pandemic. The government even deliberately failed to report any new cases of the corona virus between 06 and 09 March, apparantly in an effort to downplay the danger to the public of attending the rallies.
In a case of ironic justice, since the 08 feminist marches several high-profile attendees have come down with the virus–including Spain’s deputy prime minister, the prime minister’s wife, the prime minister’s mother, and the wife of the leader of Podemos.
(The above data on Spain was taken from an essay by Soen Kern posted on wwwgatestoneinstitute.org on 30 March 2020).
In Spain, Leftist ideology was much more important that human lives.
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Barry Webb has logged a 25-year career as an Arabist for the NSA, has two MA degrees in related subject matter, and is currently a Senior Fellow with Americans for Intelligence Reform www.intelreform.org. He is the author of Confessions of an (ex) NSA spy: Why America and its Allies are Losing the War on Terror. His website is www.barrywebbauthor.com
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