Posted on 03/23/2020 4:57:17 AM PDT by Kaslin
As COVID-19 continues to spread, we are learning and adapting as a society; so is our enemy. Both state and non-state actors have watched as the United States became bogged down in conflicts our technologically superior military was ill-equipped to handle. The barefoot insurgent with an AK has proven determinedly resilient against a multi-trillion-dollar war machine consisting of gear and equipment designed to fight a different enemy in a different type of war. Abrams tanks, Bradley Fighting Vehicles, Strykers, Little Birds, Chinooks, and a fleet of fighters and bombers developed around a post-World War II Soviet threat have been unable to effectively counter an enemy using the populace as camouflage and relying on fifty-dollar IEDs to defeat armored vehicles costing millions. A protracted war of attrition against an enemy defending home soil does not favor the side wearing all the watches. In fighting an expeditionary counterinsurgency force, the enemy knows how to run down political and public support by sending a steady stream of bodies home in flag-draped caskets.
As effective as the enemy has been over the past two decades in Iraq and Afghanistan, a microscopic virus originating in a live animal “wet market” half a world away has proven even more successful at spreading fear on home soil, decimating markets and threatening to destabilize the country to point not seen in a generation. Much as our enemies have taken notes on our failures in the broader Middle East and Southcentral Asia, they are studying the impact of COVID-19 and evaluating how best to exploit our weaknesses in the future. Even more efficient than the insurgent who moves amongst a civilian population is an invisible threat that infects and kills without giving its opponent an opportunity to target it with kinetic weapons.
The weaponization of infectious diseases is nothing new. Fredrick I poisoned Italian wells with dead bodies in 1155. In a more well-known tactic, the Mongols used catapults to launch bodies infected with plague into the fortified city of Caffa. The Spanish sold wine mixed with the blood of those infected with leprosy to the French in the 1400s. The British, French, and Germans experimented with and used various bioweapons in the 1600s and 1700s. In the lead up to, and during, the Second World War, the Japanese took the lead in bioweapons research, testing different strains on prisoners while employing them in wide-scale attacks against the Chinese. With history as our teacher, we know they will be used again.
When I first heard of the Wuhan coronavirus this past December, I was already deep into my research on bioweapons for my fourth novel. My reading was focused on a particular strain of the Marburg Hemorrhagic Fever (classified as a Category A bio-warfare agent by the Centers for Disease Control) called Marburg Variant U. The first outbreak was sited in Marburg, Germany in 1967, the result of exposure to African green monkeys imported for polio research and testing purposes. It wasn’t until after the collapse of the Soviet Union, when a Russian scientist immigrated to the United States, that the intelligence community learned the full scope of the Soviet bioweapons program, specifically Marburg Variant U. In the waning days of the Cold War, Dr. Nikolai Ustinov inadvertently pricked himself with a needle contaminated with Marburg. Placed in quarantine his body slowly liquified from the inside out. During his excruciating demise, he took detailed notes in a journal that was later recovered and studied. Blood was extracted from Dr. Ustinov’s body for research. This variant of Marburg, now called the U Variant after Dr. Ustinov, was studied and weaponized. Its transmission could be aerosolized and spread via fine dust particles. It remains one of the most potent bioweapons ever developed.
With the collapse of the Soviet Union, did Marburg Variant U find its way out of the bioweapon facilities? Did information and research from the classified Soviet programs proliferate as researchers looked for work? Those answers are known only to the those who worked the programs and the intelligence community and CIA case officers who may have recruited them.
Our adversaries continually study us and adapt. They have seen our system disrupted by COVID-19. Are they making plans to one day unleash an invisible weapon against us from within? Perhaps one released through proxies? Or are non-state actors that organize in a virtual space formulating a strategy that includes targeting our urban and financial centers with a bioweapon incubated and weaponized within our own boarders? If you were the enemy, what would you do?
I believe the author meant borders, not boarders
The barefoot insurgent with an AK has proven determinedly resilient against a multi-trillion-dollar war machine consisting of gear and equipment designed to fight a different enemy in a different type of war.
—
The “barefoot insurgent” is not restrained when they begin killing and destroying things.
If the US ever went full “WWII” against such enemies they would die without ever knowing what hit them, along with their family and pet dog, and their cities and culture.
Since WWII we (the US has tried to fight “humane” wars with rules. It is no wonder we can not defeat them. We have given them an advantage that makes “victory’ for us impossible.
Encourage and support the election of CommiecRATS.
I think moving forward a more aggressive bio terrorism strategy should be addressed.
“As effective as the enemy has been over the past two decades in Iraq and Afghanistan, a microscopic virus originating in a live animal “wet market” half a world away has proven even more successful at spreading fear on home soil,....”
Blame the media which will use a scorched earth policy in an attempt to destroy this President and blame as well a population composed in large (too large) part of Lemming like individuals without the ability or desire to look deeply into what is being reported but blindly accept everything negative without question.
Our education system while accomplishing exactly what the Left anted has failed us terribly and if blame is to be placed it must be placed where it belongs, directly on we the people.
Marburg Virus is RACIST!
Great article.
I believe we have lost more money in our economy in the last month than the United States has spent on every war we’ve been involved with all the way back to the Revolutionary War.
You can bet your sweet fanny the enemy is watching.
This is why I believe the fedgov will begin cooking the number of confirmed cases. No way do we want our enemies to know if we are diminished in our military strength, or in our financial strength, or have the USD become weak.
Before next weekend, we will have as many confirmed cases as China (who cooked their numbers for the same reasons), who has five times our population. By next weekend, look for the CDC et al to come up with a change in the criteria for testing (as China changed it five different times), to artificially suppress the actual count.
...but that’s just my guess
I think Mr. Carr is delusional. The US military is NOT affected by COVID19 or any other constraints other than political. While a small number of individuals may be hard-down for a few weeks, the main body of all the services are willing and able to do what they have been trained to do. If some bad actor were to initiate an aggressive act against the US at home or abroad, as long as the political will exists to react, the actor would be annihilated in short order.
...and if that happens, I’m in favor of it.
Never Educate Your Enemy
NEYE
“This is why I believe the fedgov will begin cooking the number of confirmed cases.”
“Begin” cooking the numbers? They do that all the time. Even my 96-year-old mother said that the numbers that are given by the Feds can’t be trusted.
I’ve been tracking the rate of increase in confirmed cases doubling and there’s clear in indications of two periods where testing diminished. So yes, the numbers have been suppressed, but we’ll see a radical change again.
“we’ll see a radical change again.”
For the better or the worse? (It’s hard to keep up.)
How many flu deaths are being chalked up as Wuflu deaths?
We got shots quite frequently in the Navy.
From boot camp on you pass down a gauntlet with
corpsmen on both sides and they lit you up about 3-4 times.
If the same practices are still in place our military should be fine.
PING
Since WWII we (the US) has tried to fight “humane” wars with rules. It is no wonder we can not defeat them. We have given them an advantage that makes “victory’ for us impossible.
How many flu deaths are being chalked up as Wuflu deaths?
Certainly all those who died from it, but we’re never tested. An unknowable number.
The change will manifest as an unusual lessening of confirmed cases, which have been consistently doubling every 2 to 2.2 days. When we see that change, we’ll know it’s not reliable.
See my previous posts where I’ve tracked the doubling rate since our first confirmed US case to see the trend.
They have long considered the possibilities of biological terrorism.
However, the American People have responded spectacularly to this crisis, and President Trump has shown magnificent and expert leadership.
The people who defeated the evil Japanese and Nazi Empires, conquered polio, and put a man on the moon will not be defeated by terrorists.
After Pearl Harbor, Americans joined together and American Genius exploded. Yamamoto famously said: "I fear that all we have done is awaken a sleeping giant and fill him with a terrible resolve." He was right.
American resolve has been fueled and fine tuned again during the coronavirus crisis.
Strategies are in place for dealing with infectious disease crises in the future. American genius and resilience are intact.
The American People have wisely chosen a President of towering intellect and puissance. America has always produced great heroes when circumstances demanded it. They did so in the 2016 Presidential Election.
America has far more to fear from the Corrupt Establishment, including the Democrat Party, the corrupt news media, Establishment Republicans, and the Deep State, and from the Decadence of Western Civilization which has empowered them and encouraged their ambitions and their evil designs on America, than she does from biological terrorism, the coronavirus, global warming, or anything else.
These are America's domestic enemies. And they are watching too.
2020
See clearly
Sorry fellow countrymen. You didn’t do it. I pledge to you that I didn’t do it...but America is gone.
C orrupt
O organization
N ever
G iving
R easonable
E xplanations to
S leepy
S ubjects
Children are waking up from nightmares. Parents are waking up to nightmares.
Worst case scenario:
Well-disciplined militias need to get together with OUR sons, OUR daughters, OUR nieces and OUR nephews...in other words OUR armed forces in case SHTF by POLITICOS & PROPAGANDISTS foreign and domestic. CONGRE$$ won’t declare foreign war, but they are running asymmetric war on us. R.I.P. Jim, John, Rick. Great young men. Friends. Just in case.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OFPigJiISCc
Thanks, Chief.
535+++++ vs. 330 MILLION
1. Supply chains opened.
“From boot camp on you pass down a gauntlet with
corpsmen on both sides and they lit you up about 3-4 times.”
They still do this on the base I work on for the flu shot. They setup tables in the foyers of main buildings and give the flu shot. NCOs walk up an down the line checking names off personnel rosters. It’s 100% accountability for service members and civilians so everyone gets it except contractors. I get mine at Walmart. It’s free and has no preservatives so no bad reaction. Just like the shots I used to get in the Army.
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