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Sick West
Goes Viral
By Finian
Cunningham
April 02,
2020 "Information
Clearing House"
- The world is in a sick place. We’re not
just talking about the escalating coronavirus
pandemic, serious though that is with global deaths
doubling over the past week. What is also sick is
the way gestures of solidarity are being cynically
twisted.
Take
the arrival of Russian medical aid to the US this
week. That was promptly arranged after US President
Donald Trump asked his Russian counterpart Vladimir
Putin in a phone call for help in coping with the
coronavirus crisis. Even before the Antonov-124
cargo plane touched down at JFK airport certain US
media outlets were
labelling the
gesture of solidarity as a “propaganda gimmick” by
the Kremlin.
It was
surmised that the Russian response to the US request
for aid was “to push efforts for relief from
sanctions” imposed by Washington. The cynical
inference is that supposed Russian conniving and
deceit knows no bounds in the black art of
manipulation.
How about
just simply acknowledging the evident fact that
Russia is sending vital medical help to the US at a
time of need motivating by no other sentiment than
basic humanitarian compassion? The fact that Russia
has been slapped with numerous US sanctions over
recent years since the Ukraine crisis as well as
stemming from bizarre claims of Moscow meddling in
the 2016 US presidential election – only goes to
show Russia’s capacity for magnanimity. Simple as
that folks.
The same
pathetic distortion was earlier voiced regarding
Russian and Chinese aid to Italy and other European
countries stricken with the deadly virus.
This
week a European Union so-called media watchdog
warned that Russia
and China were engaged in a disinformation campaign
to “undermine public trust in national health-care
systems”.
There
are also reports of
claims by US
intelligence and other officials that China is to
blame for spreading the disease because it
deliberately under-reported the outbreak that
initially occurred in December, thereby allegedly
leaving Western nations ill-prepared to withstand
the pandemic.
Those
claims are patently false. China had alerted the
world to the seriousness of the disease as early as
January when it was itself getting to grips with the
uncertain public health crisis.
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