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Saturday, September 9, 2023
WND's Farah Uncritically Repeats Russian Propaganda
Topic: WorldNetDaily

WorldNetDaily has effectively taken Russia's side in its invasion of Ukraine, with a roster filled with Putin apologists. Editor Joseph Farah is one, having attacked Ukraine President Volodomyr Zelensky for cracking down on internal dissent while censoring the fact that those dissenters are aligned with Russia. Farah because a full-blown disseminator of Russian propaganda, however, in his July 21 column:

Remember those stories about the secret Ukrainian bio-labs? It was just Russian disinformation, right? Not really.

It's getting new currency in the U.N. now that Russia and China are getting behind a charge of censorship against the U.S. that will not go away anytime soon.

Worried about this is the U.S. State Department, which has launched an active outreach campaign to neutralize Russian accusations that U.S. military biologists had violated the provisions of the Biological Weapons Convention, as stated by the Russian Defense Ministry and a bold new presentation made on July 14 by Lt. Gen. Igor Kirillov.

Kirillov claims that documents acquired from Russian-occupied territories in Ukraine demonstrate a plot by the Pentagon to test unregistered medical products on local populations with the subsequent approval of regulatory bodies in favor of Big Pharma.

According to him, this was accomplished via a "network of subordinate biolaboratories and intermediary organizations," including Metabiota, which is funded by Hunter Biden. Hunter Biden? What do bio-labs have to do with Hunter Biden?

[...]

Moscow has claimed that secret American biological-warfare labs in Ukraine were a justification for its unprovoked invasion of Ukraine.

"U.S. President Joe Biden himself is involved in the creation of biolaboratories in Ukraine," Russia's State Duma Speaker Vyacheslav Volodin said, according to state media.

"An investment fund run by his son Hunter Biden funded research and the implementation of the United States' military biological program. It is obvious that Joe Biden, as his father and the head of state, was aware of that activity," said Volodin.

Farah then asserted, "It's not far-fetched." Actually, it is. As PolitiFact pointed out, "There are no U.S.-run bioweapons facilities in Ukraine, which joined the U.S. in signing the 1972 convention that prohibited the development, production and possession of biological weapons," adding that "the line from Ukraine’s biological research to Hunter Biden is convoluted, with the younger Biden at least a few degrees of separation away from the labs in question, rather than directly bankrolling their operation." PolitiFact further summarized:

  • The new Hunter Biden narrative is based on his affiliation with an investment firm that raised money for and invested in Metabiota, a startup that does work related to global health. It’s unproven that Biden was involved with the investment decision.
  • Metabiota separately received money from the Pentagon’s Defense Threat Reduction Agency for subcontracted work related to the biological research labs in Ukraine. That work involved helping to train and otherwise support scientists at those facilities.
  • PolitiFact found no evidence that Metabiota’s work assisting staff at the labs in Ukraine was directly financed by Hunter Biden or his investment firm. Metabiota said that the work it performed in Ukraine was fully financed by the DTRA.

As backup for all this, Farah cited only dubious right-wing sources like the New York Post, the Daily Mail and Gateway Pundit. He did not explain why anyone should trust those highly biased sources, why anyone should take anything members of the Russian government -- which has a history of mucking about in American politics -- at face value. All that matters is the Russians hate Biden as much as he does, so he will never fact-check them, no matter how bad it looks for him to parrot Russian propaganda. Indeed, he pushed more wacky claims from them:

Additionally, Kirillov claims that an increase in the number of non-endemic Asian tiger mosquitoes has already been recorded in southern and central Europe, with populations having established in five federal districts of Germany. Furthermore, another mosquito species (Culex modestus), a vector of West Nile fever, has been identified in Sweden and Finland.

Maybe a pandemic is being readied as another election year surprise.

Kirillov goes on to charge that the work of U.S. military biologists is "aimed at the formation of 'artificially managed epidemics' not controlled by the Biological Weapons Convention." He also claims to have seized documents proving that the Pentagon maintained bioweapons research institutions in Ukraine through Walter Reed Army Institute of Research and was participating in bio-warfare in the mainly Russian-speaking Donbass from 2014 to 2022.

Farah then name-checked his favorite ex-Fox News host: "That was what drove Tucker Carlson to find the truth about this story. Then he was fired and ridiculed. Tucker is always right." No, he's not.

Farah concluded by actually rooting for the Russians:

With other friends in Cuba, Brazil, throughout Latin America and Africa, Iran, Syria, North Korea, Afghanistan, Pakistan, including admirers in Canada and Mexico, maybe Russia will have another shot at the U.N.

Like I said, it's all quite plausible.

Like we said, it's not plausible at all, and Farah's blind trust in Russian propaganda doesn't make it any more so -- and it demonstrates how much he apparently hates America.


Posted by Terry K. at 2:13 AM EDT
Updated: Saturday, September 9, 2023 2:15 AM EDT

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