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RED SWAN: The Story of a Secret Cable and the Crisis We Could Have Seen Coming
The Economic Standard ^ | 4/24/2020 | Daniel McGroarty

Posted on 04/24/2020 6:14:52 AM PDT by Hamiltonian

COVID-19: It’s all we talk about, on the cable news, and in our 6-foot socially-distanced prison walks around our silent neighborhoods. And in nearly every conversation comes the intellectual shrug, “who could have seen this coming?” A single phrase that neatly absolves governments and experts alike of any responsibility of predicting the pandemic and, if not being able to stop it, at least cushioning its blow........

But is it unfair to engage in so much 20-20 hindsight? After all, who could see COVID coming?

Well, we did. We — as in nodes within the U.S. Government tasked with tracking critical infrastructure on a global scale, literally maintaining a list of critical materials and capabilities, wherever they may be around the globe......

While the document’s State Department senders designated the cable “SECRET/NOFORN” (no foreign nationals) and marked it for de-classification in 2019. Wikileaks made it public a decade ahead of schedule, revealing an intriguing list of “Critical Infrastructure/Key Resources” outside of the U.S. “whose loss could critically impact the public health, economic security, and/or national and homeland security of the United States.”

What’s on the no-longer-Secret U.S. Government list?

Under the heading for China: “Polypropylene Filter Material for N-95 Masks”

…Precisely the ones the federal government and states are scrambling to source right now. That’s right: The U.S. Government knew in 2009 that N-95 masks were critical, came from China… And did nothing about it.

But there’s more – and it goes to the broader supply-chain dependence on China that has only deepened in the past decade. The classified list includes a series of Chinese mines deemed critical:

“Fluorspar Mine

Germanium Mine

Graphite Mine

Rare Earth Minerals/Elements

Tin Mine and Plant

Tungsten – Mine and Plant”

(Excerpt) Read more at theeconomicstandard.com ...


TOPICS: Foreign Affairs; Front Page News; Government; News/Current Events
KEYWORDS: 2009; 2020election; blackswan; cable; chicoms; china; chinavirus; chinavirusorigin; chine; ci; critical; danielmcgroarty; dnctalkingpoint; dnctalkingpoints; economicstandard; election2020; epa; filtermaterial; fluorspar; germanium; graphite; infrastructure; keyresources; masks; mediawingofthednc; mines; mining; n95facemask; n95masks; onthechinesetake; partisanmediashills; polypropylene; presstitutes; rareearths; redswan; resources; smearmachine; supplychain; tin; trade; tungsten; wikileaks
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To: Mogger

Source for my post 57; reply to you:

https://www.freerepublic.com/focus/news/3838739/posts


61 posted on 04/26/2020 3:37:39 PM PDT by Syncro (Facts is Facts)
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To: Hamiltonian; All
The U.S. remains 100% dependent for fluorspar, graphite and rare earths. China remains the world’s top supplier. And while the dependency has eased a bit for germanium, tin and tungsten, the U.S. remains more than 50% import dependent for each, while China’s role as global provider stands unchanged.

And this, despite the fact that the U.S. hosts known resources for all six, but simply fails to make mining, refining and recovering them a policy priority....

In any case, the warning could hardly be more clear. The U.S. has a choice: It can take immediate steps to reduce its dangerous dependency on a Chinese supply chain for critical technology metals.

Or we can hope COVID 2.0 will not disrupt supply in a second global shut-down – or that Beijing won’t one day decide to curtail access to these critical materials in time of crisis."

"Beijing won’t WILL one day decide to curtail access to these critical materials in time of crisis."

We are in that crisis now and China is doing just that.

If we cannot mine the material we need on our land, we must get them from friendly countries that have them.

I push comes to shove, we must go into China and commandeer what ever we need.

And we need to keep our knowledge that if China sends us any PPE at all that it may be defective or corrupted with a Chinese virus, if not the present Wuhan virus, but a different one.

China had more viruses than the Codid-19 in labs including the one in Wuhan.

The threats from China are the most dangerous we have ever encountered.

62 posted on 04/26/2020 5:32:21 PM PDT by Syncro (Facts is Facts)
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To: Ancesthntr; Ex gun maker.

Yes, and YES!


63 posted on 04/26/2020 5:35:28 PM PDT by Syncro (Facts is Facts)
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To: RedStateRocker

To fail to close the borders by February 1 was criminally irresponsible (and they’re still not closed, although it no longer matters). None of this needed to happen.

That the Senate would have removed Trump on February 5 had he done so is an excuse.

I had a teacher in ninth grade whose favorite phrase was “that is not an excuse, that is a reason for failure”.

What Hillary would have done is irrelevant. She’s not the President.


64 posted on 04/26/2020 5:42:41 PM PDT by Jim Noble (There is nothing racist in stating plainly what most people already know)
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To: volunbeer

My husband and I talk about this problem all the time. We were led to believe the “mega transformers” are made in South Korea and take months to make and we have no spares on hand.
2.2 Trillion and not one dime put toward an EMP attack by a enemy or naturally occurring, where millions would die within months.


65 posted on 04/27/2020 6:40:57 AM PDT by thirst4truth (America, What difference does it make?)
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To: Hamiltonian

bkmk


66 posted on 04/27/2020 5:47:32 PM PDT by SueRae (An administration like no other.)
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To: Hamiltonian

Problem is, there are a gazillion SECRET/NOFORN documents, it’s not like higher ups are likely to see it unless interpreted as immediately serious by some low-to mid level bureaucrat


67 posted on 05/07/2020 1:07:18 PM PDT by cookcounty (Susan Rice: G Gordon Liddy times 10.)
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