How the U.S. Pot Calls China’s Coronavirus Kettle ‘Black’

Eric Zuesse, originally posted at The Saker

According to Gallup’s samplings and calculations, the actual number of Americans who had the coronavirus-19 infection on April 3rd was certainly not the 239,279 which was reported, but instead was probably at least 730,000.

However, three neoconservatives — such as Matthew Pottinger, the top advisor to U.S. President Donald Trump regarding China policy — fed to the neoconservative Michael Bloomberg’s neoconservative Bloomberg News the headline story on April 1st that “China Concealed Extent of Virus Outbreak, U.S. Intelligence Says”, and they reported that, “China has concealed the extent of the coronavirus outbreak in its country, under-reporting both total cases and deaths it’s suffered from the disease, the U.S. intelligence community concluded in a classified report to the White House, according to three U.S. officials” (who were not identified by the billionaire Bloomberg’s propagandists for the U.S. Government against the Chinese Government).

Trump doesn’t want the rotten U.S. intelligence reports which falsely said that he had colluded with Russia to win the White House to be believed, but he does want the rotten U.S. intelligence reports which (we don’t know, true or false) say that China was intentionally undercounting its coronavirus-19 cases to be believed. But how stupid does a member of the U.S. public have to be in order to believe a U.S. intelligence community which, prior to the liar George W. Bush’s invasion of Iraq in 2003, had told him that proving Saddam Hussein’s possession of WMD would be a “slam dunk” — in other words, that he would confirm exactly what the President wanted the American public to believe? America failed to execute for treason that intelligence official (who served the President by confirming his lies to the public) and the U.S. President who followed-up on this jiggered “intelligence” by then invading Iraq — a country which had never invaded nor threatened to invade the United States. That’s an international war-crime, but Americans protect their international war-criminals, instead of prosecute them. Equally appalling, Americans continue not to despise the CIA and the other lying intelligence agencies for repeatedly lying to the public. 

But, then, the German investigative journalist who anonymously blogs as “Moon of Alabama” headlined on April 3rd “China Did Not Deceive Us — Counting Deaths During An Epidemic Is Really Difficult”, and he explained the several very important reasons why obtaining anything other than underestimates of infections and of deaths from the counts in a novel virus epidemic is literally impossible to do — any mere count will be an enormous under-estimate, and only an actual estimate can even possibly be approximately accurate.

Whereas Gallup now has informed its readers that in the United States, right now, the extent of this under-estimation is somewhere around two-thirds (i.e., that the figures which are being reported right now are around one-third of the actual totals), Americans are supposed to believe ‘our’ (actually, the U.S. Deep State’s, which are America’s billionaires’) intelligence agencies, when reporting about foreign countries that America’s billionaires want their Government to sanction, invade, or otherwise conquer, we’re not supposed to believe even U.S. sources such as Gallup when they are reporting that the U.S. Government’s official coronavirus-19 infection figures are systematically and unavoidably way underestimating (by two-thirds) the reality. We’re supposed to believe the U.S. Government, when it unavoidably undercounts a problem inside the U.S., and also to believe the U.S. Government when it intentionally lies to us (as it always does) about a country that America’s billionaires are craving to take over — such as happened regarding Iraq 2003, Syria 2011-now, Libya 2011, Yemen 2015-now, Iran now, Venezuela now, Iraq again, and many other countries. This is U.S. imperialism.

Americans are so accustomed to having been lied-to by our Government, so that it’s routine, and patriotism in this country is now assumed to consist of believing the lies that the Democratic Party puts out if one is a Democrat, and of the lies that the Republican Party puts out if one is a Republican. There are two alternate ‘realities’ that are considered acceptable (or “politically correct”) to Americans: Democratic Party lies, and Republican Party lies. And when both Parties are lying in the same direction — which always happens whenever it’s the neoconservative or pro-U.S.-imperialism direction, which are lies against a foreign country that America’s billionaires want to control — disbelief in such a lie is considered to be ‘unpatriotic’, or even treasonous. Any news which encourages disbelief in those lies is what ‘news’ media like the Washington Post or Fox ‘News’ label as “fake news.” It’s ‘news’ which doesn’t happen to fit that particular billionaire’s Party. Americans are supposed to be like two herds of sheep, both being marched toward the same ultimate abattoir of exploitation, through different paths and gates — different groups of lies, but to the same ultimate ends, the ends of the billionaires of both Parties. Even if Americans have, actually, no foreign enemies at all, the domestic enemies are real, and they are far more than enough, because those enemies are constantly victorious against the vast body of the American public, which they exploit by means of lies.

Instead of America’s ‘news’ media reporting that ALL counts of coronavirus-19 cases are far less than the authentic numbers, we get fed lies saying that counts of such cases can be approximately accurate, and that estimates of such cases cannot be approximately accurate. Such a “pot” has no justification, ever, for criticizing a foreign country’s Government for under-estimating the number of coronavirus-19 cases. Treating the American public as if they are fools might be accurate for many of us, but it is an insult to all of us, and any Government which does it should be despised by every American — and not merely by the ones who are fools.

‘News’-reports such as  “China Concealed Extent of Virus Outbreak, U.S. Intelligence Says” are unsourced (or extremely unreliably sourced) hate-mongering for the purposes of America’s domestic elite, and this elite are themselves the real problem that’s displayed by such dubious ‘news’-reports. And even if China has been more careful than the U.S. Government is to do the counting accurately, the truth (in any country) is a large multiple of whatever this count is. Therefore, ‘news’-reports that are like this, are simply displaying a ‘news’-medium which is untrustworthy — no actual news, at all. They are stenographic reporting of what some highly political liars are asserting, and a granting of entirely unearned credence to it.

The U.S. Government, which has repeatedly been proven to have lied in order to spread hate against a target it seeks to conquer or at least destroy, routinely pontificates against merely alleged lies from such targets. America’s credibility, and that of its mainstream ‘news’-media, is, by now, utterly gone, except amongst the willingly self-deluded (such as any paying subscribers to Bloomberg ‘news’ or to any other mainstream U.S. ‘news’ medium).

Whereas other countries’ Governments might be routinely lying, America’s Government does routinely lie. Only news-reports which recognize and acknowledge this fact whenever reporting what this Government says, might be trustworthy. The others aren’t, not even possibly.

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Investigative historian Eric Zuesse is the author, most recently, of  They’re Not Even Close: The Democratic vs. Republican Economic Records, 1910-2010, and of  CHRIST’S VENTRILOQUISTS: The Event that Created Christianity.