United States of America eSeries: 'Something happened'

'Something happened'

Posted by :

May 25, 2021

Stephen Collinson and Caitlin Hu

'Something happened'

Nearly a year ago, then-President Donald Trump's vague assertions that Covid-19 originated in a Chinese lab -- and that Beijing either chose not to contain it "or something happened" -- were widely seen as an attempt to distract from his disastrous mismanagement of the pandemic. But a newly leaked US intelligence report that says scientists at a lab in Wuhan, the city where the virus was first discovered, fell sick in late 2019 is prompting questions about whether Trump knew more than he was letting on. Unfortunately, the report is also reviving a boatload of conspiracy theories.

It is crucial to find the origin of Covid-19 in order to prevent global pandemics in the future and to improve early warning systems. The disclosures, first reported by the Wall Street Journal, have prompted new questions about initial assessments that the disease jumped from animals to humans, possibly at a wet market. China says the report is baseless. But if it's true, it would have a grave impact on Beijing's reputation and its relations with nations brought to their knees by the virus.

Trump's social media army sees the report as yet another means to whitewash history, by casting blame for the deaths and destruction on China rather than on the US response. But in reality, Trump didn't just ignore vital epidemiological guidance -- he was also slow to hold China to account for not being more transparent about a spreading global health threat. In the early stages of the crisis, he told Americans that his "friend" Chinese President Xi Jinping had everything under control.

History will disdain Trump because he always viewed the pandemic through the prism of his personal political prospects — even as hundreds of thousands of Americans died. Ironically, he might have won reelection had he not given up on fighting the pandemic. While Chinese culpability would be an earthshaking development, any such revelations about the origins of Covid-19 will not clear Trump of his own responsibility once the virus was on US soil.

Subscribe to Meanwhile in America

The world and America

The EU banned planes from Belarus after a dissident journalist's flight was diverted to Minsk.

Samoa swore in its first female prime minister in a tent instead of Parliament.

More than 200 people were injured when two trains collided in Kuala Lumpur.

Mali's President and Prime Minister were arrested.

Meanwhile, Americans have been warned not to travel to Japan.

The Supreme Court denied a hearing to a death row inmate who'd requested a firing squad.

And a lost fisherman was found after 17 nights in the Oregon wilderness.

Italy launched a manslaughter probe into Sunday's cable car collapse in Piedmont.

'Don't repeat this insanity'

Daniel Ellsberg had one more secret.

Fifty years ago, he was the whistleblower who leaked the Pentagon Papers that showed the US government had long covered up the disaster that was the Vietnam War. In the process, he stoked Richard Nixon's paranoia and hatred of the press that led to the 37th President's downfall during Watergate.

Now, at the age of 90, Ellsberg has released documents that suggest US military planners pushed the White House in 1958 to consider using nuclear weapons against mainland China, with the aim of deterring an invasion of Taiwan. The trove, first reported by the New York Times, suggested that US military brass knew such an attack — possibly even hitting major cities like Shanghai —could cause retaliation in kind from the Soviet Union against Taiwan and the US base in Okinawa, Japan.

Such an escalation could have sparked a more global nuclear showdown. It is not surprising that President Dwight Eisenhower, who knew the carnage of war after commanding US forces in Europe in World War II, overruled the use of nuclear weapons. But even so, the fact the military considered it only 13 years after the US atomic attacks on Hiroshima and Nagasaki is chilling.

It's resonant now since the US and China appear to be on the precipice of a new Cold War and tensions are rising alarmingly — again over Taiwan.

"Note to @JoeBiden: learn from this secret history, and don't repeat this insanity," Ellsberg wrote on Twitter.

'They have been after Roman for a long time'

Despite international outrage, dissident journalist Roman Protasevich remains detained by Belarusian authorities after his Ryanair flight was diverted to Minsk this weekend. On Monday, his father, Dimitry Protasevich, told CNN that he sees his son as a "hero" but fears abuse will follow.

"We are very worried as we expect that tortures and physical abuse can be applied to our son, although we hope that won't happen. But knowing the KGB methods of work, they even resort to tortures and abuse," he said, adding: "They have been after Roman for a long time."

The elder Protasevich described longtime President Alexander Lukashenko as a "vengeful person" who is scared of public exposure to the actions of his government and "scared of people talking openly about what is happening" in the country.

Thanks for reading.

On Tuesday, International Monetary Fund chief Kristalina Georgieva will speak on how to reignite the global economy. Russian FM Sergey Lavrov holds talks with Maltese counterpart Evarist Bartolo in Sochi. Russia and Saudi Arabia hold an intergovernmental online meeting.