What is not being said, perhaps is more important. Of course, the USA is the obvious choice.

Posted by: JG | Feb 27 2023 7:46 utc | 3

wait what did snowden do wrong???

Posted by: Tom_Q_Collins | Feb 27 2023 8:00 utc | 5

Even if it WAS a leak from the Wuhan lab, there is no denying American funding, organizing, etc…so why is Snowden being accused of echoing US DoS propaganda?

Posted by: Tom_Q_Collins | Feb 27 2023 8:04 utc | 7

Snowden is not a CPC admirer like B, one reason he fled Hong Kong and the PRC to Russia and South America. The FBI/NSA are still amateurs on “1984” compared to the CPC and Snowden knew that. He would have been served on a platter to US VP Biden to keep mutual busine$$ as usual. Ask Hunter.
The PRC had one BSL4 lab, in Wuhan. 1 + 1 = 2, not 0.
I don’t plead US DoD free at all from their “EcoHealth” suicidal research, but the CPC (and other regimes elsewhere) let it happen on their soil. Many other nations did not go for this madness.

Posted by: Antonym | Feb 27 2023 8:07 utc | 9

Maybe it is alright to point out that they are now endorsing something that they vigorously denied, and had meetings to work out how they were going to deny it – even if there was some other disturbing truth behind it all.

Posted by: John Stone | Feb 27 2023 8:22 utc | 11

Folks, the issue here isn’t some lab leak theory.
This is about anti-China propaganda and how it is pushed into the U.S. mainstream.
Snowden is dumb for not recognizing this and, by tweeting about it, only helps to amplify it.

Posted by: b | Feb 27 2023 8:31 utc | 13

I think you are judging Snowden too harshly. Propagandists aren’t stupid. Anybody can fall for their tricks, no matter how smart he might be.

Posted by: mataj | Feb 27 2023 8:34 utc | 15

Seem to recall, from Russiagate, that “low confidence” means somewhat less reliable than a guess.

Posted by: necromancer | Feb 27 2023 8:42 utc | 17

This is the same B that has been so informed on so many matters? He reckons an experienced non compromising professional like Edward Snowden would also be stupid? Cognitive dissonance here?
The guy simply stated what is very likely to be a fact. Many others have said it before him. The evidence is there. Is China and the CPC a sacred cow?
It’s remarkable how B can be neutral and remain purely factual in his writing style, when dealing on most matters, including the most concerning ones, like an ongoing war on European soil, and at the same time go off and aim at the messenger when it is about the COVID crisis. Is there anything there Mr B who we could help you with? 🙂
We each and all of us have our subjectivity.
Anyway, I hope my above words will be well received, as sarcasm is not my purpose at all.
I must again tip my hat to B for his open discussion spirit.

Posted by: Stephane | Feb 27 2023 9:00 utc | 19

Saying it came out of a lab doesn’t mean saying the Chinese govt created it. Ever heard of Peter Daszak and the Eco Health Alliance?

Posted by: Peter | Feb 27 2023 9:07 utc | 21

Climate change is a good example – it is a real thing, but we only know about it because it suits the mafia agenda.
Posted by: Tim Richard Glover | Feb 27 2023 7:39 utc | 3
You climate cultist scum are pathetic. Just a bunch of rabid animals that need to be put down in like manner.

Posted by: Michigan Dude | Feb 27 2023 9:18 utc | 23

The Wall Street Journal has the best articles. Here is one from today that somehow misses the sabotage of the NS pipelines.

War in Ukraine Drives New Surge of U.S. Oil Exports to Europe
With the West mostly shunning Russia’s oil and gas, U.S. crude exports increase
A year of war in Ukraine is revitalizing U.S. oil exports as a source of financial influence and geopolitical power.
As the West has shunned most Russian energy, unleashing a pressure campaign against the Kremlin’s petroleum revenues, record U.S. crude exports have helped fill the gap in Europe with the oil needed to produce gasoline, diesel and jet fuel.
…

https://www.wsj.com/amp/articles/u-s-regains-its-energy-clout-as-ukraine-war-enters-second-year-2b910ff
With regard to Covid-19’s origin, everything studied passes through human hands.

Posted by: too scents | Feb 27 2023 9:24 utc | 25

If you want a “lab leak” you should be in Chapel Hill, NC and ask Ralph Baric.
You might also ask how ModeRNA was using a “spike protein genome sequence” back in 2016 that turned up in the “pandemic”
https://weather.com/en-IN/india/coronavirus/news/2022-02-26-new-study-finds-covid-19-dna-linked-to-moderna-patent-filed-in
China has long been the source of most flu because of pigs proximity to humans BUT the “Spanish Flu” originated in USA not China and was virulent with the young……………because…….

Posted by: Paul Greenwood | Feb 27 2023 9:32 utc | 27

Snowden does have his ideas about things. Like about humanitarians from Saudi Arabia:
(Saudi Arabia to send $410 mln humanitarian aid to Ukraine
https://tass.com/world/1581791 )
Edward Snowden: Israeli spyware was used to track and eventually kill Jamal Kashoggi
https://www.businessinsider.com/edward-snowden-israeli-spyware-nso-group-pegasus-jamal-khashoggi-murder-2018-11
And about kindly mom & pop Swiss financiers:
Snowden’s memoir: Key takeaways on his time in Geneva
https://www.swissinfo.ch/eng/politics/permanent-record_key-takeaways-from-snowden-s-book-on-his-geneva-spying/45239584
“Snowden says he was based at the US Mission in Geneva, a city which was “a refined Old World capital of family banking” at the intersection of EU and international fibre-optic networks and “within the shadow of key communications satellites”.”

Posted by: Bruised Northerner | Feb 27 2023 9:39 utc | 29

1) I personally think the ‘lab leak theory’ is, more likely than not, true.
2) But I am 100% against war with China and propaganda that promotes it. War with China is just as dumb of an idea as war with Russia, maybe dumber.
Given the limited context here, It’s not clear that Snowden was even endorsing the lab leak theory. What he was doing is pointing out that corporations who have appointed themselves as thought police are now allowing an idea which they had previously disallowed.

Posted by: rockstar | Feb 27 2023 10:04 utc | 31

Even if the lab leak is an accident, like it could well be, the fact that it happened in China does not absolve the US at all. In fact it should incriminate the US as it is the US who outsourced this work there, because US laws prevented the Faucy gang from doing this work on US soil.
In the same fashion, the US set up many such labs around the world, in the Ukraine and in Georgia for example.

Posted by: Stephane | Feb 27 2023 10:13 utc | 33

(Saudi Arabia to send $410 mln humanitarian aid to Ukraine
Elsewhere a few weeks ago I read Saudi had sent aid to Donbas…………..so it is nothing special, and hopefully they have sent aid to Syria and Turkey……….and Yemen

Posted by: Paul Greenwood | Feb 27 2023 10:43 utc | 35

https://www.profilenews.com/en/saudi-aid-to-donbass/
https://www.urdupoint.com/en/world/rpt-saudi-arabia-ready-to-provide-humanitar-1648422.html
https://english.alarabiya.net/News/gulf/2021/09/23/Saudi-Arabia-is-world-s-biggest-donor-of-humanitarian-aid-to-Yemen-KSrelief

Posted by: Paul Greenwood | Feb 27 2023 10:46 utc | 37

Just a quick skim of this thread shows exactly how & why amerikans lap up so much horeshit then turn to their mate and say “Hey Chip that horseshit is a mighty fine intelligence pill” As long as what is being said conforms to a carefully implanted prejudice that Chip, Bing & Chuck have ingested since birth, they gobble it down & fail to notice the subtext of the garbage they have just been fed courtesy of the usual sources nyt, cable news whatever.
The biden mob have been forced to back off their balloon horseshit cos it was so ridiculous so now stupid amerikans are being fed the kung flu crap once more and are gobbling it down like it’s mother’s milk without thinking “Hmm after all those years of denial why is the blob feeding us this now? ”
Anyone with half a brain can see this is about selling amerikans on “China is evil, they destroyed amerika’s economy & culture by spreading covid”
Keep lapping up the horseshit, swallow this unquestioningly and pretty soon amerikans will be able to wallow in another big lie that confirms their so-called culture war prejudices at the same time as it builds up enmity for China, Russia, Iran or whoever else has shown amerika a well deserved middle finger. You’ll be nuked with a huge shit eating grin on yer faces and then the rest of the world will get to laugh.

Posted by: Debsisdead | Feb 27 2023 10:58 utc | 39

In the covid lockdown there was lots of discussion about Chinese live animal markets and why the Chinese eat dogs. Us Westerners are heavily brainwashed by Bible teachings so it’s weird for us to eat certain things.
I’ve no idea if it’s true, but it was postulated that animals are seen in China as a source of spiritual energy, and enraging the dog increases the
energy consumed. I find it curious that Fauci was involved in ” increasing functionality ” of a virus, as if the collaboration with Chinese scientists had removed certain Christian taboos against Animism, getting energy from creation.
I worked at a tiny food company owned by the Sultan of Brunei, based here in England, and we were astonished to hear that in a strict Muslim country there was an overwhelming desire not to offend local ” spirits ” in Brunei when it came to siting a factory or using a spring..
Bearing in mind that our cultures are so different, the excitement engendered by Chinese collaboration introduced concepts that are revolting to us but inspiring to them. Gain of function of a virus sounds appalling to us , but fascinating to them.
The manager of the Wuhan Lab, which was partially funded by the US Defence Dept. , had continuously warned about the risk of but viruses spreading to humans for 30 years. Her interest was medical. US Defence Dept.’s interest was medical? Or lethal?
Anyway , the Anglosaxons weakest point is not medical, but spiritual. 2000 years after Jesus pbuh taught to do to others as you would be done by, and not to judge others whose circumstances you do not know or understand, the West has never implemented these basic spiritual lessons into its Foreign Policy. Why? Only now that a non-biblical society is looking at the West is it suddenly realised that the West, the hosts of every tome of monotheism , implements none of their teachings.
But the East , receiver of none of those teachings, still retains politeness and respect to all from their own historicsl teachings.
Food for thought there. No problem of communication should be shied away from.
Yes. The word Kufr/ disbelief means denial, sweeping things under the carpet, refusing to admit inconvenient truths. God is testing us to see who turns to goodness and who to badness. It seems that the holders of knowledge are sometimes the ones who break all the rules, and maybe that is because God tests them at PhD level and they fail.
The up to date PhD textbook for hunan life on earth is the Qur’an. The PhD answers are not in the Bible, nor Confucianism.

Posted by: Giyane | Feb 27 2023 11:31 utc | 41

Just to say that I watched a part of a US Congress Session very recently in which Rand Paul was seriously questioning a USA Government official about Covid and the Wuhan Lab. His questions were highly relevant and he went after the official relentlessly. He was essentially saying that Congress had now been informed that the USA was covertly funding research on Covid in the Wuhan Lab bypassing Congress in the process. By chance, Congress had been informed anonymously about it. He was like a Rottweiler with this official but very professional. Very insightful questions. The Official was clearly struggling with the questions. I haven’t got a link and I cannot remember which Blog I got the video clip from. If I find it I’ll post it.

Posted by: Jo Dominich | Feb 27 2023 11:36 utc | 43

So Snowdon was the useful idiot that came to the defence of the bioweapon creators.

Posted by: BM | Feb 27 2023 11:38 utc | 45

Here are the critical paragraphs in that Wall Street Journal article that raised B’s hackles over Edward Snowden’s tweet:

… Yet no confirmed animal source for Covid-19 has been identified. The lack of an animal source, and the fact that Wuhan is the center of China’s extensive coronavirus research, has led some scientists and U.S. officials to argue that a lab leak is the best explanation for the pandemic’s beginning.
U.S. State Department cables written in 2018 and internal Chinese documents show that there were persistent concerns about China’s biosafety procedures, which have been cited by proponents of the lab-leak hypothesis.
Wuhan is home to an array of laboratories, many of which were built or expanded as a result of China’s traumatic experience with the initial severe acute respiratory syndrome, or SARS, epidemic beginning in 2002. They include campuses of the Wuhan Institute of Virology, the Chinese Center for Disease Control and Prevention, and the Wuhan Institute of Biological Products, which produces vaccines. …

The paragraphs are buried deep in the article. It is possible Snowden didn’t read the entire article but only read the headline. If he had read further, he would have seen the bit where the Energy Department made its judgement about how the virus emerged “with low confidence” in its report.
Apart from those paragraphs, the article is (deliberately perhaps) ambiguous about which lab the leakage occurred in. The paragraphs quoted above may have been added into the article just before it was published in the WSJ. Readers are being pushed into believing that a lab in Wuhan is the source of the leakage even though a careful perusal of the article shows that it does not actually say that a Wuhan lab is the source. The writers took care to craft the article so that they cannot be accused of libel should the Chinese raise a fuss.
The significant part which Caitlin Johnstone highlights is that one of the writers of the WSJ article is the same guy who wrote nearly 30 years ago that Iraq was seeking to obtain WMDs without evidence that the country was doing so. So we should not have any confidence in the WSJ article at all.

Posted by: Jen | Feb 27 2023 11:45 utc | 47

David Stockman proposes his own peace plan –
But go back to the fact that George Kennan was right 26 years ago and the truth that nothing has changed in the interim to alter his judgement. In that context, what would a president not entombed in the false narrative of the past quarter century actually do?
Here are a few possible starters:
Arrange exile for Zelensky in Costa Rica ( far better than he deserves);
Agree to a settlement in Ukraine that partitions the country and allows the territories in the east and south previously known as Novorossiya (New Russia) to go their separate way or rejoin Mother Russia;
Remove NATO’s missiles and other advanced warfare capability from the former Warsaw Pact countries, so as to eliminate the military threat on Russia’s doorstep;
Arrange for the early dissolution of NATO after the Ukraine proxy war has been extinguished;
Re-open and complete an updated version of the nuclear arms treaties enacted near the end of the Cold War, two of which were abrogated by Washington and one this week by Moscow;
Cut the egregiously bloated $850 billion defense budget by 50% and lead the world into a new global treaty to drastically reduce the scale and cost of conventional arms;
Begin the nearly insuperable challenge of sharply paring back the nation’s $2 trillion plus annual deficits, which extend as far as the eye can see.
That would be a start. It would put America back on the road toward rational homeland security, and enable a global future not imperiled by the threat of Nuclear Armageddon.
Link to entire article
https://www.lewrockwell.com/2023/02/david-stockman/no-more-ukraines/

Posted by: Exile | Feb 27 2023 11:49 utc | 49

This is precisely why from day one I have been pointing out that arguing for the zoonotic origin theory for SARS MkII was completely misguided. The fact that it was a chimerical virus cooked up in the US deployed as a bioweapon against China should have been the focus from the very start. Failing that has been a huge mistake.
Why?
Because the artificial nature of the virus cannot be kept hidden forever, and when the lab origin is revealed the western mass media will do everything possible to pin it on China: “Ha! They did it to themselves!”, kinda like how we are told the people of Donbas have been shelling themselves since 2014. This is precisely what is now happening.
Years of pushing a false narrative (“zoonotic origin from mystery animal”) takes you out of the debate once the lab origin is established. Nothing the zoonotic proponent can say carries any weight anymore at that point.
Now instead of having years nurturing the narative that SARS MkII was created in the US and seeded in Wuhan as a weapon to cripple the Chinese economy and distract from leaks from Fort Detrick, you have nothing to counter the mass media’s victim-blaming narrative that “China did it!”
Sadly, this is a huge mistake.

Posted by: William Gruff | Feb 27 2023 11:53 utc | 51

Maybe Mr Snowden, (not Snowdon) finds it a little hard to believe this virus magically appeared in a wet market through some mystical bat fuckery, while conveniently masking the fact a lab which was working on gain of function of corona viruses research existed within walking distance.
The fact this narrative coincides with anti-Chinese US sponsored propaganda is unfortunate, though i personally don’t think i am an idiot for being suspicious about the origins of the virus, nor anyone else for that matter. Perhaps those immediately subscribing to false dichotomies could be characterised more accurately with that term…

Posted by: Et Tu | Feb 27 2023 12:12 utc | 53

re: BM | Feb 27 2023 11:51 utc | 53
You’re right, but birds have a horrible sense of taste anyway.
And my bird doesn’t seem to mind, but she does complain that the WSJ has a strange smell of bat-shit to it.
Now, some of my friends read the WSJ, because they say, you have to know what the enemy is thinking.
And they say it doesn’t matter if they read it before my bird reads it or after she reads it.
They say that it’s full of shit anyway.

Posted by: Gerald | Feb 27 2023 12:30 utc | 55

Of course the WaPo article is propaganda against China. This is evidenced by the timing of the article. The senate committee report came out in October 2022, almost five months ago.
But that is completely missing the point that Snowden makes. Evidence for the lab theory was already strong in February of 2020 and overwhelming in June 2020. Yet everybody who mentioned it was called a trumpist, a conspiracy nutter or unscientific moron. No mainstream media would go near it. But today, two years later, it is a certainty. This is a perfect example of mainstream media bias or mainstream media thought control. Take a mainstream media article or a fact checker piece of 2020 and put it next to the WaPo piece and you have irrefutable evidence that the pseudoreality of the mainstream media is unhinged nonsense.
Therefore Snowden is absolutely correct by pointing to this article.
You ever try to convince a conformist that he lives in a fictional world? It’s like the movie ‘They Live’; you have to beat people over the head to make them see. This WaPo hit piece makes a really good stick for that.

Posted by: futkon | Feb 27 2023 12:42 utc | 57

And my bird doesn’t seem to mind, but she does complain that the WSJ has a strange smell of bat-shit to it.
Now, some of my friends read the WSJ, because they say, you have to know what the enemy is thinking.
And they say it doesn’t matter if they read it before my bird reads it or after she reads it.
They say that it’s full of shit anyway.
Posted by: Gerald | Feb 27 2023 12:30 utc | 58
Well in that case, out of compassion I would urge you to offer her some nicely aromatic speeches by President Putin. She’d appreciate it.

Posted by: BM | Feb 27 2023 12:49 utc | 59

https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-022-00584-8
The lab leak theory comes out of the swamp of the US far right.
It is designed to ignore the role of capitalism in creating and mismanaging pandemics, and to create justification to renege on debts to China. Essentially it accuses China of a crime against humanity.

Posted by: Wilbur | Feb 27 2023 12:54 utc | 61

Even if the lab leak theory is the right one I still have no idea what that’s supposed to entail. Bombing runs on Shanghai?

Posted by: asfgers | Feb 27 2023 13:12 utc | 63

Now instead of having years nurturing the narative that SARS MkII was created in the US and seeded in Wuhan as a weapon to cripple the Chinese economy and distract from leaks from Fort Detrick, you have nothing to counter the mass media’s victim-blaming narrative that “China did it!”
Sadly, this is a huge mistake.
Posted by: William Gruff | Feb 27 2023 11:53 utc | 54
Indian researchers said at the onset that this was an engineered virus.
They retracted their findings after some serious coercion during the hysteria at the time.
Strange that!

Posted by: jpc | Feb 27 2023 13:19 utc | 65

Look at the date of China’s first request to US to explain what sickness did YS soldiers brought into China during the World Military Games.
Look at what Iran said.
March 25 2020
“https://www.globaltimes.cn/content/1183658.shtml”
“https ://www.thesun.co.uk/news/11106235/iran-blames-coronavirus-outbreak-us-biological-attack-death-toll-lockdown-cities/”
2015? perhaps this paper might be relevant?
The researchers at University of North Carolina Chapel Hill however did manipulate corona viruses to make them more human transmissible. This is the article in Nature Medicine from Nov 9 2015 that spells out the damning trail all the way back to the USA. I know, they are persistent in denying its relevance. But there are so many papers.”
“https://www.nature.com/articles/nm.3985”
Fauci told Paul at the hearing: “Dr. Baric does not do gain-of-function research, and if it is, it’s according to the guidelines and it is being conducted in North Carolina, not in China.”
“It is because of our early work that the United States was in a position to quickly find the first successful treatment for SARS-CoV-2 and an effective COVID-19 vaccine.”
“https://www.factcheck.org/2021/05/the-wuhan-lab-and-the-gain-of-function-disagreement/”
“In fact, the US is the biggest funder and doer of coronavirus research, especially Ralph Baric’s team at UNC, Zhao said.
“With the investigation of Baric’s team and their lab, it will be clear whether the coronavirus research will produce the novel coronavirus or not,” Zhao said. ”
https://www.globaltimes.cn/page/202107/1230123.shtml
This explains what exactly was paid to Wuhan lab and for what purposes. Definitely not gain of function which is illegal in China.
The alliance’s grant from the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, titled “Understanding the risk of bat coronavirus emergence,” was launched in 2014 and renewed for 5 years in 2019 after receiving an outstanding peer-review score. During the first 5 years, Daszak, with NIH vetting and approval, provided Shi with $599,000 out of a total of $3.1 million in grant funding to use lab sequencing techniques to identify bat coronaviruses that were at high risk of jumping to humans. The grant has also supported blood testing of people who live near bat caves in southern China to see whether they carried antibodies indicating they had been infected with a bat coronavirus. In the grant’s next term, through 2024, the researchers were planning to do more human, wildlife, and lab-based studies to pinpoint hot spots in southern China where the risk is highest for a bat coronavirus to jump to humans.
“funding to use lab sequencing techniques to identify bat coronaviruses that were at high risk of jumping to humans. The grant has also supported blood testing of people who live near bat caves in southern China to see whether they carried antibodies indicating they had been infected with a bat coronavirus. ”
” https://www.science.org/news/2020/04/nih-s-axing-bat-coronavirus-grant-horrible-precedent-and-might-break-rules-critics-say“

Posted by: Surferket | Feb 27 2023 13:23 utc | 67

This US lab claimed to have created a very deadly version of Omicron.
https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1101/2022.10.13.512134v1.full
This German report claimed that C19 is an artificial lab creation.
https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1101/2022.10.18.512756v1

Posted by: Surferket | Feb 27 2023 13:26 utc | 69

Posted by: Slat1 | Feb 27 2023 12:09 utc | 55
Posted by: Wilbur | Feb 27 2023 12:54 utc | 64
Who says there is no evidence of a lab -leak? Did you not read above or any other material? Have you ever heard of the leak at Fort Detrick, or the NATO bioweapon labs in The Ukraine or anywhere else?
Posted by: Cemi | Feb 27 2023 12:53 utc | 63
What makes you think that only Posted by: mjh | Feb 27 2023 10:34 utc | 36
Has the knowledge to discuss these things? Methinks you have already decided what to believe , and it appears you haven’t based it on the balance of evidence.
Do you know what a chimaera is? It means it cannot have been born in the wild , and could only have come from a lab. It was manufactured there , and was leaked by accident or on purpose. If it was released on purpose ,we all know who did it. Let me help you ,it is a cuntry that sounds like “You Ass”…

Posted by: Brother Ma | Feb 27 2023 13:36 utc | 71

Posted by Tim Richard Glover,februari 27 2023 7:39 utc/ 3
You are absolutely right, climate change is a real thing.
Posted by Michigan Dude | Februari 27 2023 9: 18 utc | 24
“Climate change is real, but we know about it because it suits the maffia agenda”
No not at all, many scientists knew about climate change many decades ago ,in spite of the Maffia. The Maffia realized that the truth about climate change is a Trojan horse loaded with socialism.
The Maffia is scared to death, that´s why they have to spread conspiracy theories…they are just a bunch of rabid animals who are afraid “to be put down in like manner…”

Posted by: Northern Eve | Feb 27 2023 13:40 utc | 73

William Gruff | Feb 27 2023 11:53 utc | 54
_____
Thanks for yet another of your insightful, gruffly stated comments. Ron Unz has all but proven the US bioweapon coincidence theory in a book-length series of articles. It is quite consistent with the US’ long, devious record and very convincing.

Posted by: Doug Hillman | Feb 27 2023 13:43 utc | 75

Snowden/Assange – two false prophets that help the little people believe someone is actually working to expose the fraud.

Posted by: Steve De'ak | Feb 27 2023 13:50 utc | 77

Posted by: First Time Poster | Feb 27 2023 13:36 utc | 74
Correct. Here’s the same facts in more readily digestible form:
The EcoHealth Alliance presented an application to DARPA (Pentagon research for weapons etc) for funding for a research programme which involved gain of function. The project was rejected by DARPA specifically because of the ban on gain of function research. The exact same research project was then immediately submitted to NIAID, led by Fauci, who knew it had just been rejected by DARPA because it involved prohibited gain of function research, and who then approved funding for it despite that. The project was indeed carried out.

Posted by: BM | Feb 27 2023 13:54 utc | 79

Nonsense. He isn’t wrong. Covid 19 is Gain of function research funded by Fauci and the DOD. This and the “vaccine” are Ralph Baric’s life work. When Obama halted GOF research Fauci had it moved to Wuhan. Peter Daszak became his bagman. Zhenghli (bat lady) and Baric collaborated on the research. How much was the CCP involved? No idea. I find it hard to believe they had no knowledge though. My guess is they had a deal to review all work as they would be playing catchup in biowarfare work. Did it get released on purpose? I think it did. I believe the whole covid19 phenomenon is a DOD operation. I don’t think China was involved though but I think they knew it came out of WIV. This is why they locked down so hard and for so long. They were generally scared of it. I believe the purpose was to harm China’s development and global reputation.

Posted by: Goldhoarder | Feb 27 2023 14:03 utc | 81

I have always thought that the general consensus among many readers of this blog is that if the mainstream media says it it is a lie.
Always.
Usually but not always a complete lie – sometimes a partial lie or a lie by omission – but always a lie.
So, IMO do not waste your time considering this leak. Verify it with a more reliable source.

Posted by: a lurking reader | Feb 27 2023 14:17 utc | 83

Stephane @ 20
Stephane, you are like the Horatio Alger hero who jumped on his horse and rode off in all directions.
Make up your mind, what’s your point?

Posted by: Lawrence Miller | Feb 27 2023 14:24 utc | 85

Noone is going to war over a simple cough.

Posted by: Comandante | Feb 27 2023 14:26 utc | 87

This is absurd.
Snowden isn’t signing on to promote US government propaganda. The ‘lab leak’ theory of COVID ultimately traces directly back to the DoD and the NIH, which funded the bioweapons research that took place in the Wuhan lab and across the world. The ‘lab leak’ theory does not make the United States government look good; it directly implicates it in the greatest crime of the twenty-first century.

Posted by: Nimrod | Feb 27 2023 14:32 utc | 89

Edward Snowden @Snowden – 15:36 UTC · Feb 26, 2023
Do you remember the “institutional” and social media corpo response in the first half of 2020 when someone contradicted the consensus? They were punished for the “crime” of “disinformation.”
Corporations must never again be permitted to police speech.

I don’t get why you call Snowden an idiot for saying such a sensible thing. Can someone explain where I failed?

Posted by: Norwegian | Feb 27 2023 14:37 utc | 91

I don’t get why you call Snowden an idiot for saying such a sensible thing. Can someone explain where I failed?
Posted by: Norwegian | Feb 27 2023 14:37 utc | 93

Exactly, I had to read it twice and still missed the connection.
One credible hypothesis regarding Snowden was that he was a CIA asset (mole) inside the NSA. His revelations all damaged the NSA, not his original employer. He was part of the Beltway turf war for funding and prestige. He may still be working for them for all we know.

Posted by: Opport Knocks | Feb 27 2023 14:52 utc | 93

Posted by: Norwegian | Feb 27 2023 14:37 utc | 93
All explained here Posted by: BM | Feb 27 2023 11:36 utc | 47 and 48.

Posted by: BM | Feb 27 2023 14:55 utc | 95

The point being that being a “proven exiled outsider” living in Moscow gives Snowden additional credibility with the crowd that likes to dig deeper.
Kind of like Sy Hersh 😉

Posted by: Opport Knocks | Feb 27 2023 14:58 utc | 97

@BM | Feb 27 2023 14:55 utc | 97
Ok, but see Norwegian | Feb 27 2023 14:53 utc | 96 It is debatable who the idiots are.

Posted by: Norwegian | Feb 27 2023 15:06 utc | 99