Posted on 03/10/2022 7:10:57 AM PST by Meet the New Boss
The head of a U.S.-funded biolab in Tbilisi, Georgia has spoken about how the facility is battling Russian disinformation and conspiracy theories as it tests for coronavirus in the country.
On the outskirts of Tbilisi, staff at the U.S.-funded Lugar Research Center are helping to limit the spread of COVID-19 in Georgia by testing hundreds of samples and turning results around in under 24 hours.
The lab, funded by $350 million in American taxpayer dollars, has been at the center of Georgian media coverage for weeks. But for years prior to this pandemic, it’s been the subject of media attention for a different reason – as a key target for Russian disinformation campaigns.
In January, the lab activated its emergency response unit, and quickly focused its resources on testing for COVID-19. When Russian and Chinese state media began claiming the coronavirus is the product of a U.S. military bioweapons operation, one Russian outlet, Kremlin-backed RenTV, went further: it attempted to pin the pandemic to the Tbilisi Lugar Lab.
“This is propaganda. What can we do?” said Paata Imnadze, director of the lab in an interview with Coda Story...
Conspiracy theories about the work done at the Lugar Lab have persisted for years. Coda Story previously wrote about the lab in 2018 when the Russian Defense Ministry claimed the facility was a secret U.S. bioweapons project, posing a threat to neighboring Russia’s security.
(Excerpt) Read more at codastory.com ...
The Russian posters on FR and perhaps our younger FReepers have probably never heard of Democrat Senator Sam Nunn, but there was a time when there were some Democrats in DC who were patriotic.
"CTR provides funding and expertise for states in the former Soviet Union (including Russia, Ukraine, Georgia, Azerbaijan, Belarus, Uzbekistan, and Kazakhstan) to decommission nuclear, biological, and chemical weapon stockpiles"
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nunn%E2%80%93Lugar_Cooperative_Threat_Reduction
The Russian government uses the existence of this program to spin conspiracy theories that are retailed as propaganda in the domestic Russian media and social media to convince ordinary Russians that its attacks on neighboring countries are justified and also on websites in the West to try to capitalize on legitimate distrust among conservative Americans of US government institutions.
Yes, I remember Sam Nunn. The word "Blue Dog Democrat" always referred to him.
Yes, he did propose this legislation - in 1986! According to the CTR website, "the purpose of the CTR Program is to secure and dismantle weapons of mass destruction and their associated infrastructure in former Soviet Union states." An alternative explanation of the program is "to secure and dismantle weapons of mass destruction in states of the former Soviet Union and beyond".
So 36 years later, we still have not fully DISMANTLED these dangerous labs? Why not?
I'm not disagreeing with you, but BOTH SIDES need to try harder when shoveling their bullshyte.
Thank goodness our bio labs are fighting the viruses that they create! Can you imagine the Danger of creating new Frankenviruses with the Chinese and Ukrainians and NOT having vaccines?
I misread the title as “US-funded lab in Tulsi Gabbard.”
Maybe it’s true, maybe it isn’t. The State department called this conspiracy theory less than 2 weeks ago.
Right about now we see why the lies and coverups and straight up criminality of covid, election 2016 and 2020, Pissgate, etc all matter.
Our government is too dishonest to believe at face value.
So maybe, maybe not. The USSR collapsed 30 years ago. Mitigation of their bio programs should have ended 2 decades ago.
This would be like saying a program in Germany in the 1970s was busy dismantling nazi weapons labs. At this point, it is no longer mitigation and dismantling.
What you posted is a cover story.
“to convince ordinary Russians that its attacks on neighboring countries are justified and also on websites in the West to try to capitalize on legitimate distrust among conservative Americans of US government institutions”
So in other words, your wife screws the plumber and the mailman, and someone uses that fact to capitalize on your distrust of the whore? Seems like the real problem there is the whore.
Russia did the same thing in the 1950s over segregation. They loudly championed the cause of civil rights in America and pointed out every shortcoming. Their goal was to harm America. But still, the segregationists, KKK, and people screaming at students at Little Rock High may as well have been paid by the KBG.
Time for the US Government to clean up it’s act instead of bitching about others exploiting their dishonesty.
What is the US Department of Defense’s connection to these labs??
There is no bright line between biodefense and bio weapons.
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