I have watched in depressed horror all the flare ups of violence across the country tonight and it makes me glad I am not in the continental US right now. Tomorrow I will put up a post on the subject – advancing what some may think is a controversial theory. However, today, I wanted to catch up on some news that is not getting as much coverage as it should.
That story is Trumps idiotic withdrawal from the World Health Organization (WHO). Even at the height of the Cold War, the US was never stupid enough to withdraw from an organization that it founded. And unlike other UN organizations had, for the most part, avoided political controversy while accomplishing a lot of good for the world as a whole.
Trump, being the pyschopath that he is, cannot let that happen. So he took the opportunity to engage in legitimate China bashing over Hong Kong, to slip in a few dozen lies about the WHO, all to distract from his own egregious failures regarding Coronavirus.
Lets look at the worst of them, shall we?
TRUMP: Why is it that China shut off infected people from Wuhan to all other parts of China? It went nowhere else. It didn’t go to Beijing. It went nowhere else. But they allowed them to freely travel throughout the world, including Europe and the United States.
That statement is a bald-faced lie. This is simply not true. China had cases that spread to every province and territory in China, including Beijing. And most of the travel bans went into effect after the virus had spread in China and therefore some infected people traveled from China to Europe. Which, by the way, is where they think most of the US infections came from initially.
Trump: Chinese officials ignored their reporting obligations to the World Health Organization and pressured the World Health Organization to mislead the world when the virus was first discovered by Chinese authorities. Countless lives have been taken, and profound economic hardship has been inflicted all around the globe. They strongly recommended against me doing the early ban from China, but I did it anyway and was proven to be 100 percent correct.
Another lie- which misses the failure of Trump to take action when warned about what was going on in China. US intelligence knew the severity of the outbreak, briefed decision-makers on it and there is documented evidence it was in the Presidential briefing binders as early as January.
And as for China and the WHO? Another complete set of lies starting with the allegation that the WHO aided China in covering up the virus. First, China notified the WHO on 31 December specifically citing a cluster of cases of pneumonia in Wuhan, Hubei Province. The US and other nations were notified on 5 January. ( And there is good evidence US diplomatic channels knew before then).
It is true that Trump banned travel from China, but people did not, as Trump claims, try to stop him. Many experts pointed out that limiting it to China was not a robust means of preventing travel from China. Especially since most people travel through Japan, Hong Kong, South Korea, and Taipei. The China travel ban was a fig leaf – nothing more. It is especially true since he did not coordinate the ban with other nations in order to prevent the arrival of Chinese visitors in Europe before the Chinese New Year.
Now that does not mean that China made no mistakes. But the point is we new China was making mistakes – and did nothing to protect ourselves in spite of them. For that, the blame lies on the Trump administration alone.
But China runs the WHO?
No, it doesn’t. The WHO is an independent international body that works with the United Nations. It does not work “for” any one individual nation. Here, Trump is merely repeating the long time grievance that the UN does not rubber-stamp US positions. Furthermore, it shows that Trump does not understand what the WHO can and cannot do. They have no authority to go into another country and tell that country what to do or force them to disclose anything. The WHO simply reports what China or any other member station reports to them.
It wasn’t the WHO that told Trump to ignore the pandemic and allow his son in law to fuck up any preparations. The blame for that lies exclusively inside the United States and inside the Trump administration.
Trump: We have detailed the reforms that it must make and engage with them directly, but they have refused to act. Because they have failed to make the requested and greatly needed reforms, we will be today terminating our relationship with the World Health Organization and redirecting those funds to other worldwide and deserving, urgent, global public health needs.
Really? Maybe you should show what the reforms are before complaining that someone has not instituted them. On May 19, he gave the WHO 30 days to reform. Now it is ten days later, and no one – most of all, Trump can clearly explain what those reforms are. Indeed, the WHO doesn’t know what they are.
By the way, rolling over and helping Trump cover up his failure to respond is probably not one they are going to accept.
Saying, “Trump lies” is like saying, “the sun comes up in the east.” However, what is so ridiculous is how blatant Trump lies are – and how easily they are proven false. He’s not just a liar – he’s a lousy liar.
But, we have known that since 2015 and before.
“It is better to offer no excuse than a bad one.”
― George Washington