On Sunday, former House representative for Hawaii Tulsi Gabbard released a video calling for the Biden administration to work with Russia and other parties to establish a ceasefire in Ukraine so dangerous pathogens held by US-funded biological research labs in the country could be destroyed.
Despite the undeniable evidence that there are Pentagon-linked biological labs in Ukraine, any concern about the pathogens has been labeled “Russian propaganda” by hawks in Washington. In response to Gabbard’s video, Sen. Mitt Romney (R-UT) labeled her as “treasonous.”
“Tulsi Gabbard is parroting false Russian propaganda. Her treasonous lies may well cost lives,” Romney wrote on Twitter.
Gabbard’s video also elicited a response from Rep. Adam Kinzinger (R-IL), one of the leading proponents of the idea that the US should impose a no-fly zone over Ukraine, which would mean direct conflict with Russia and risk nuclear war. “Actual Russian propaganda. Traitorous,” Kinzinger said.
In response to Romney, Gabbard challenged Romney to provide evidence that what she said was not true. “Senator Romney, please provide evidence that what I said is untrue and treasonous. If you cannot, you should do the honorable thing: apologize and resign from the Senate,” she said.
Gabbard also presented evidence of the US’s involvement with Ukrainian biolabs, including a Pentagon fact sheet dated March 11 that details US funding of the facilities. The Pentagon funds labs in Ukraine through its Defense Threat Reduction Agency (DTRA). The fact sheet said since 2005, the US has “invested” $200 million in “supporting 46 Ukrainian laboratories, health facilities, and diagnostic sites.”
Gabbard’s concern about the pathogens being released in Ukraine is also shared by Pentagon officials involved with the DTRA. In a February 25 article published by the Bulletin of Atomic Scientists, Robert Pope, the director of the DTRA’s Cooperative Threat Reduction Program, warned that the fighting in Ukraine could lead to dangerous pathogens being released from the labs.
Pope said some of the labs could contain biological weapons left over from the Soviet Union while insisting the facilities are not capable of developing such pathogens. According to the article, the US government has worked with 26 such biological research facilities in Ukraine. Pope and other US officials maintain that the DTRA’s work in Ukraine is meant to eliminate the threat of Soviet-era weapons of mass destruction.
It’s not clear exactly what pathogens have been held in the labs. Russia says it has documents that show the Ukrainian Health Ministry ordered the destruction of samples of plague, cholera, anthrax, and other pathogens, although they have not been verified. But the World Health Organization bolstered Russia’s case last week by saying it advised the Ukrainian Health Ministry to destroy “high-threat pathogens” around the time Russia invaded.
Russia brought the issue of the US-funded labs to the UN Security Council on Friday, infuriating Washington. China has joined Russia in calling on the US to explain its involvement in the labs, and said the UN should properly address the issue. US State Department spokesman Ned Price said China’s position is “disturbing” and suggested any country that gives “credibility” to Russia’s claims essentially backs its invasion.
Mitt Rommel
Well said!
Rommel was far more honorable than Romney.
Nothing to see here. We are price gouging you on gas, shouldn’t you be complaining about that? Stop paying attention and fight with you neighbor about politics, abortions, and taxes!
Plus, who has the best BBQ!
The ferocity of the reaction suggests that there is truth in the allegations.
Look how quick they turned the vevalation on it`s head by accussing Russia of planning chemical / biolgical atttacks , who knows the British backed terrorists the white helmets might just show up to stage the attacks like they did in Syria.
Speaking about Nazi’s….
US were, and still is, in some of these biowarfare labs surrounding Russia and China, researching RACE-SPECIFIC viruses and for that purpose collecting Russian and Chinese DNA.
I can’t think of anything more devilish than that.
This is enough for Russia and China to legally and in self defence wipe out the United States from the face of the earth but they won’t. They are civilized countries.
There are no such things as race specific viruses … while there may be slight differences in impact, that’s most likely related to healthcare and nutrition and not “race” … humans are too similar genetically for such things.
The most recent James Bond movie seems to have made a bunch of people think that such technology exists.
Give it enough time and research, and it probably will in the future.
It’s not impossible, though it wouldn’t actually be “race” as that’s not a thing scientifically. What could be done is to target genes that tend to be found among certain groups (genes for straight hair, red hair, eye colour or combinations (green/blue)). Not very practical unless you’re a megalomaniac bent on worldwide genocide.
Let’s just say (1) I’ve never heard of a virus or bacteria that discriminates like we humans do and (2) those inherent traits you mention like hair and eye color are very trivial aspects of our genetics (except culturally) … very difficult to design something significantly deadly to target such a triviality as hair color.
You must have graduated from a very unique law school. Legal my patooties. There is plenty of stink to go around-Russia in Chechnya,China in Tibet and organ thefts .Either way, masses of little people suffer for the evil of a few elites.
Did they steal pianos too?
No doubt a momentary lapse. She forgot her doublethink which she learned in the US military. … Come on Corporal Tulsi, “TRUTH IS LIES! TRUTH IS LIES!
TRUTH IS LIES!…HOO WAH!
Gabbard’s post has offered the US Senate, and the country at large the opportunity to identify its worst members, and Romney dutifully stepped into the breach.
Yes he’s given Hillary a run for gold medal.
Her and so many, many others. We can count the good ones much easier. Zero.
Is Mitt Romney just plain STUPID, or is he just so poorly informed that he makes a fool of himself. When he calls Tulsa Gabbard treasonous for telling the tuth. Perhaps he has early onset dementia, but whatever it is, it is not understandable or funny. Gabbard ought to sue him for slander.. Mitt calls TulsI Gabbard treasonous, but days before, the woman who started this whole political fiasco in Senate testimony, when asked by Marco Rubio (under oath) Are there bio weapon labs in Ukraine, she replied yes. And went on to testifyn that “We” are afraid that the Russiand might get their hanfs on the pathogens in thesr labs. This woman who was Dick Cheney adviser in the W. Bush administration and is now the current under seceretaty of state in the Biden administration, it turns out was also the top actor in the coup in Ukraine that toppled their elected president.
Could Mitt be so inastute that he did not see this woman in all her full blown blundering glory, make a self goal in the august U.S. senate only days ago…..????? Whatever malady caused Romney to be so oblivious should disqualify him from any high office, and maybe speaking in public on America’s governance.
Or we could just do it the old fashioned way: tar and feather him and kick his a– out of town!
Him and many others.
Well, then, I think we are talking about Revolution…
“A little revolution now and then is a healthy thing, don’t you think?” – The Hunt for Red October
Not here. There’d be so many factions, we’d be wishing we were Syria.
LOL!
The blob now thinks he was a prescient sage for warning against Russia in the past. Maybe they should realize the hawks created the Russia danger by that very type of talk and action.
It’s very strange: how can there be treason when we are not at war? Have people forgotten this is between two foreign countries, that we’re not involved? Finally, when exactly did American citizens lose our right to free speech?
Nothing the americans do surprises me anymore , thats why i have said many times america is the greatest threat to man kind and the planet , so why do the Brits / Europeans stay quiet ? .
Complicity?…
Because America is finishing the crowd’s wars for them. Do you think it’s a coincidence that we went into Iraq and other places the UK failed in in yesteryear. Don’t forget England and Russia fought wars and the crown has needed revenge for many decades.
A while back Romney was being praised profusely by the MSM for what he said about Russia in 2012 as a presidential candidate and now he feels emboldened to shoot off his mouth. Sickening how these politicians’ careers are being revived for all the wrong reasons. George W is a perfect example.
The sensible thing would be to investigate the claims that the Ukrainian labs may contain dangerous pathogens. Whether the funding the Pentagon has been providing was for cleaning up old soviet era facilities or for new research is secondary to securing the sites against some accident caused by the current conflict.
This will necessitate a degree of cooperation between the US and Russsia.
I have yet to make my mind up about Tulsi Gabbard. Sometimes she makes sense, sometimes she comes off as a political opportunist
I doubt she is treasonous though.
This issue should be non partisan as whatever is going on over there has been going on under several different administrations
“Treason” has a very specific legal definition, codified in the Constitution. “Anything Mitt Romney doesn’t like” isn’t in that definition.
Yes, Gabbard is an opportunist. That doesn’t mean she’s always wrong, though. She tends to be right when she sees a chance to get in the spotllght for being right.
Gabbard is NOT an opportunist.
She is a very genuine individual AND a very consistent about what She says and does.
If She became the US president – humanity on our long suffering planet would’ve been saved. Naturally, Her chances are pretty.
Never expected such a twisted interpretation of Tulsi from you.
She was “Republicans’ favorite Democratic hawk” until she saw a chance to expand her fundraising base with “antiwar” donations to supplement the Hindu nationalist donations and Sheldon Adelson funding that got her to, and kept her in, Congress. And even then, she was only “antiwar” in the sense that she didn’t want US troops put at risk murdering Muslims. She preferred to use drones for that.
I did not know any of that but do remember very well what she was saying in the last couple of years. Perhaps she matured as a politician. I can’t find any faults with her thinking now.
It appears that Russia did in Ukraine what the US was unable to in Iraq – launched an attack on a nation which was in possession of prohibited WMD’s. I can only assume that Russia went in looking for the evidence of Bio Weapons and Nuclear Weapons, ie they knew the WMD’s were there.
Detailed information about the implementation of a project by the United States on the territory of Ukraine to study the transfer of pathogens by wild birds migrating between Ukraine and Russia and other neighboring countries was of particular interest. According to the documents, the American side planned to organize work on pathogens of birds, bats and reptiles in Ukraine in 2022. And further study of the possibility to transfer of African swine fever and anthrax by them.
According to the documents, experiments with samples of bat coronavirus were carried out in biological laboratories created and funded in Ukraine. We know that the United States had a contract with the Wuhan Lab in China to supply samples of bat coronavirus via Eco Health Alliance.
The purpose of these and other Pentagon-funded biological research in Ukraine was the creation of mechanism for the covert spread of deadliest pathogens. On the evidence presented it would appear that the United States had criminally breached international law on The Biological Weapons Convention (BWC).
I believe documents were published on a Russian site, Thirty labs are found. Russia must have had the intelligence that alliwed them to zoom in on the sites. The whole world can see it.
Why would this be a secret? If any of the published data is not accurate — Romney is free to speak up.
This is one of the reasons why Sullivan’s meeting with Chinese in Rome in Monday lasted seven hours. US published a short statement. Chinese have plenty to say acording to the semi-official Global Times.
US trusted Ukraine with the labs? Does not US know the real story of Chernobyl? Or perhaps because it does.
Tulsi Gabbard is one of the few Leaders still speaking the truth and needs to be silenced by the powers to be.
Mit you lieing son of a witch your gonna back the loogey from i diana….ust be politcs in utah and iniana are just the same only the scum can surface in that political cess pool
Mitt Romney gave a speech with Liz Cheney (today I think), where he talked of the need to preserve our democracy, lol. It seems the Democrats have tried to rehabilitate every Republican warmonger in the .ast fee years. Pretty soon John Bolton will be hanging out with the Democrats. It would be laughable if the stakes weren’t so high.
Mittens is up to his a$$ in the money monkeying going on in Ukraine. He needs to frighten leople away from looking there, so he doesn’t get found out.
Romney is a despicable slime, but in truth, I think Tulsi is trying to draw a very fine line between bio labs and bio weapons, and pretending like there is a big difference is misleading.
Tulsi: “Number one is they are accusing me of saying that somehow there are bio weapons labs in Ukraine. I said no such thing at any point.”
At least some of these pathogens could be turned into bioweapons at a moment’s notice, regardless of whether that is their “stated intent” or not. And if they really aren’t bioweapons, why are the labs being run by the military and why are they secret and why in Ukraine of all places, and why does there need to be 26 of them, and why are they so worried about the Russians taking control of them, and how do we know what kind of pathogens are in the lab and how viable they are, and why is no one in the media asking these questions? Are we just supposed to swallow the carefully worded denials by the administration without any kind of verification? I like that she made an issue of it, but she should fully own the implications of what she said and be proud of it, instead of downplaying it by making a distinction between labs and weapons.
” During the U.S. military draft for the Vietnam War, Romney sought and received two 2-S student deferments, then a 4-D ministerial deferment while living in France as a missionary. He later sought and received two additional student deferments. When those ran out, he drew number 300 in the December 1969 draft lottery, ensuring he would not be drafted. – Wikipedia
Tulsi Gabbard is a decorated veteran of two combat tours to the Middle East, a twenty year member of the Army reserves where she still serves as a lieutenant colonel.
Romney consistently supported the Indochina war and demonized the protestors who opposed the war that he would not fight.
Who do you trust?
Neither of them.
I don’t always agree with Gabbard. But she tells the truth as she sees it and consistently puts her principles ahead of her self interest. If she had not quit as Vice Chair of the DNC to back Sanders in 2016 and met with Assad in 2017 she could have been in Harris’ office or at least a member of Biden’s cabinet.
On the contrary. If she had not quit as vice chair of the DNC to back Sanders in 2016 and met with Assad in 2017, she’d still be an almost entirely unknown US Representative from a small state whose major prospect of political advancement was the possibility of eventually becoming a an ever so slightly less-unknown US Senator from that same small state. At the very far outside, she might have expected to parlay her religion, and the backing of Modi’s US Hindu nationalist supporters, into some kind of position in US/India mutual relations. Probably not the ambassadorship, since she’s too in the tank for one Indian political party, but maybe something.
Her only shot at relevance and distinction was some kind of rebel/gadfly act. So that’s the way she went.
I disagree, Tom. In 2016 Tulsi was on a fast track for higher office. In 2012 Tulsi was an underdog when she won a six way Democratic congressional primary. She hadn’t even won her seat when Obama and the DNC made her a featured speaker at the 2012 Democratic Convention. Pelosi introduced her as an “emerging star.” She was made co-chair of the DNC – a coveted position that gave access to donors and connections. She was even introduced to the Adelsons who tried to get her under their wing. That is special treatment reserved for people like Obama. Tulsi was an energetic and effective fundraiser. They wanted her to be an integral part of the Clinton campaign. She was being groomed for higher office on a very fast track when she threw it all away because of her opposition to regime change wars and her disgust at the way Sanders’ campaign was being sabotaged. When she was making her quixotic run for the presidential nomination in 2020 she gave up one of the safest house seats in the country, even though she knew she had no chance of winning the presidential nomination. In four November elections she never received less than 77 % of the vote. And meeting with Assad was not going towin her points with either political party. And she has continued to be critical of the war hawks in both parties and strongly opposed Trump in both elections.
She appears to be soft on Modi and Hindu nationalism and unduly worried about Iran’s nuclear program. But she has convinced me that she puts principle above politics and that her commitment to service is sincere.
Well, we’re both entitled to our opinions.
When she started her 2020 run, I considered making my first non-Libertarian-Party campaign donation in probably 25 years. I read up on her as much as I could, from both admiring sources and negative ones. I watched at least one lengthy interview with her (Joe Rogan). Aside from finding her record disturbing and opportunistic, I got a very fake vibe from her in that interview.
I DID end up making that first-in-a-long-time campaign contribution — to Mike Gravel. I thought he had less of a chance of getting into the primary debates, but as for vibe, I actually knew the guy and had had some great conversations with him when he was running for the Libertarian Party’s presidential nomination in 2008 (I worked for a different candidate, but all the campaigns were conferring with each other on how to beat Bob Barr). Whatever you could say about Mike, “fake-sounding slimy politician” wasn’t on the list.
I do still prefer Gabbard to just about any other Democrat I can name. But that’s not saying much.
I don’t always agree with Gabbard. But she tells the truth as she sees it and consistently puts her principles ahead of her self interest. If she had not quit as Vice Chair of the DNC to back Sanders in 2016 and met with Assad and Trump in 2017 she could have been in Harris’ office or at least a member of Biden’s cabinet.
There are credible relorts of a false flag — to silence this fiasco. This would take us as close to an atomic war or a pre-atomic war with Russia.
A clear sense of desparation is sensed from the team Blinken-Sullivan mansging this. Russia is being systematic, and zoomiing in in cities where neo-nazis have embedded themselves, and have just taken the entire Kherson region bordering Crimea. In fact it is ficusing on Rusdisn majority territory, while hanging around Kyev.
No Shock and Awe. Just dull plodding. Except Mariupol. Alm efforts seem to have failed to entice Azov brigade to let population go. Getting them out will liok like Aleppo.
But nobody seems to care about their Naz hate of Russians. They are useful — thus Nazism, terrorism, all is fungible. For as long as they fight Russians. I wonder if the seizable Jewish community in Ukraine trusts them as mych as rhe President Zelenski does.
Mitt Romney is a cheat, a steal. In real life he is a low-life. He owns Bain Capital. A real cancer operation.
Romney has his eye on the White House and has to make a little noise once in awhile, it’s obvious human life means very little to him or he would be working to stop the killing and end the war in Ukraine not the exact opposite.