Note by the Saker: considering the fact that the anti-COVID-Crusaders desperately want to peddle their theories on this blog (Ron Unz just got hit with over 1200 comments!!) I am not allowing comments under this (excellent) report by Mansoureh Tadjik. I apologize to Mansoureh and to all the sane readers: I am swamped with work, I am about to interview a very famous personality (in 2 weeks) and I have not time to deal with this paranoid Kindergarten. Kind regards, The Saker
By Mansoureh Tajik for the Saker Blog
A worldwide war against humanity has been waged with the help of lab-constructed silver biollets camouflaged as CoV and its progenies and biolistic missiles camouflaged as medicines and vaccines. To aid and abet in protecting the global public against health and life, the public itself was weaponized. The public was pitted against the public using fear as an affective device, ambiguity as non-random noise, intimidation of dissenting scientific voices to suppress signals, corrupt scientists as catalysts-synergists, and media as high-speed centrifuges. What an enriched world in which we live when we master the spin to deceive.
“Sometimes they would take us to wars; war against the people we did not know. And pulling our swords against those with whom we had no animosity, even against those who were our companions, our colleagues, and our fellow humans in faith and fate. These wars, as that sage once said, consisted of wars between two groups of people who were fighting without knowing one another for the benefit of those who were not fighting and knew each other very well.”[1]
-Ali Shariati in “Yah, Brother! This is How it Was.”
If I state the entire globe is now fully immersed in a grand anthropogenic fitna, I am not overstating. But there is silver lining and glad tidings: “They plot clever plots and God plots clever plots. Indeed, God is the Best Plotter.”[2]
More than a year ago, I submitted an article titled Calculated Assumptions and Prevention of “Scientifically Shattered” Societies to the Saker. In that article, I explained why initially assuming SARS-CoV-2 (CoV for short) as a bioweapon by decision-making bodies in the Islamic Republic of Iran was a prudent and necessary assumption. I also argued that a bioweapon need not be very lethal. It only needs to have enough destructive power to “scientifically shatter” public health, economic, and social infrastructures of the targeted nations. The Saker kindly posted that article with a note seasoned with clear warnings (see here).
Now, I would like to discuss how the Islamic Republic of Iran has solidly maintained the bioweapon assumption about CoV and broadened the scope to include additional components. Specifically, I would like to demonstrate: 1) How the view of bioweapon in Iran has evolved and expanded to include not only the CoV itself as a bioweapon but also medicines and vaccines that are linked to it. 2) How socio-political, economic, and public health complexities have necessitated the Iranians at various levels and organizations to adopt and implement a nuanced, multi-pronged, and complex approach in choosing the battles in which they engage within a rather complex global hybrid bio-media war.
1) Islamic Republic of Iran’s View on CoV, Drugs, and Vaccines as Bioweapons
Allow me to begin this section with a quote from Ayatullah Khamenei. It is extracted from a speech delivered last year on the occasion of 19th of Dey, to commemorate the Qom uprising against the Shah. The quote provides an overall framework for our discussion. He stated:
“Import of vaccines from [the US] America and Britain is forbidden. I have said this to the officials as well. Now, I am saying it in public. If [the US] Americans were able to produce vaccines, this disgraceful corona scandal would not have happened in their own country. A few days ago, in a span of 24 hours, they had 4,000 deaths. These people, if they knew how to make vaccines, if their Pfizer could have produced vaccines, why would they want to give it to us? Let them use it themselves so that they do not get so many excess deaths. The same goes for Britain.
There is absolutely no trusting them because they might send medicines to make the virus more widespread or more lasting. Or, they may even send some people under the cover of physicians/healers to find out the effects of this virus that it is said to have been partly engineered especially for Iran. This is how they compile and complete their information. Therefore, the [US] Americans’ words are unacceptable.”[3]
These words ring true to most Iranians. They are the words of a leader whose people have been the victims of nerve gas, mustard gas, cyanide, HIV-contaminated bloods, and an assortment of other nonconventional weapons courtesy of human-rights-loving countries such as the US, Britain, France, Germany, Holland, Spain, and Italy, and others like India, Egypt, Brazil, Luxembourg, Singapore, and China, the countries which provided these weapons and means of delivering them to Saddam. These statements are also the words of a nation that is surrounded by more than 25 level 4 and level 3 US biological weapons labs in its neighboring countries.
These concerns are legitimate and deep worries are appropriate for sure. However, do they go beyond reasonable assumptions based on patterns of behavior by a sworn enemy to show something more is going on? I would like to explore just that and show how most Iranians have come to believe they have been specifically targeted by CoV and its prophylactics. Regardless of whatever spillover effects or independent attacks may have occurred elsewhere, there are unusual events that require great attention and rigorous investigation.
On multiple occasions during the past couple of years, Ayatullah Khamenei has publicly conveyed similar pointed concerns which are often meant to serve as warnings, reminders, and emphasis to the public without causing too much panic. On another occasion, for example, he said:
“These [the US & Britain] are not trustworthy. I truly do not trust them. I have doubts. Sometimes they want to test these vaccines on other nations to see if it is effective or not. Therefore, no vaccines should be obtained from [the US] America and England. Of course, I do not trust France either because of what they did with those [HIV] contaminated bloods. Surely, if they want to obtain vaccines from other places that could be trusted, it should not be a problem.”[4]
Those who closely follow Ayatullah Khamenei’s speeches know he never speaks based on hunches, random guesses, and empty rhetoric. On issues the general public must be made aware and warned without creating public panic and chaos but evidence and details cannot be publicized, that is exactly how he, the Leader, speaks. Those inside and outside of Iran who are in tune with his guidance know his style and would know what to do.
I would like to insert a side note and say that I am well aware a lot of information escapes the Western media due to their excellent policies on freedom of press, people, and parleys, but I find it rather curious that on the global scene and after a period of relative hush in the Western media, articles are now appearing in some mainstream circles in the West again that bring the bioweapon question to the fore and nudge it to gain more traction. It would be interesting to question and analyze the pattern and timing of these questions and the motives behind them.
Back to Iran. There is an agency in Iran called Sazmane Padafande Ghairs Amel, the Agency for Passive Defense. It was initially set up as a center within the armed forces in 1980s during Iraq-Iran war to deal with nonconventional attacks using biological and chemical agents after Saddam had used them on the Iranians. The center was later expanded to include other bio weapons (against crops and livestock), radioactive, environmental, cyber, economic, and more. It is now a full-blown agency. One of the responsibilities of the agency is to conduct non-armed operations to strengthen deterrence capabilities and reduce the nation’s vulnerabilities in case of above-mentioned unconventional threats and attacks, and to mitigate the outcomes should such attacks occur. Naturally, surveillance is a non-stop and ongoing responsibility of this agency.
The agency greatly intensified its activities several months prior to the first observed and verified corona cases and deaths in Qom on Bahman 30th 1398 [Feb. 19, 2020]. In fact, the agency had intensified its activities even before China officially announced their outbreak. About two weeks after the first hospitalizations and deaths in Qom, Sardar Jalali, the head of the Padafande Ghair Amel Agency explained, in an interview conducted by Fars News Agency, how they had been operating under an “alert” status since they had received reports of initial outbreaks in China and had sent written warnings to various organs including the Ministry of Interior. He further stated in the interview specific lab studies were required to determine if the virus was a biological weapon or not. Below is an excerpt of some key points he raised in his interview:
“Based on analytic, strategic, and intelligence indications and evidence, the source of spread of corona links back to the enemy. Technical proof of that, however, requires lab reviews and comparisons between the initial genome recorded for the virus and the results from studies of the new genomes in terms of the types of deliberate changes made on the virus.”
“But we must also pay strict attention that the foreign-supported media are trying to induce public panic and portray a non-functional public health system in order to make people feel helpless and beleaguered. Playing political games, playing with statistics, and false additions and subtractions, falsely placing religion in opposition to people’s health, and more are a few examples of operations in psychological war front in the enemy’s media that must be attended to by the people and media activists.”[5]
Gradually, additional findings were made public. They added to suspicions: The virus strain in Qom was different from the one in Wuhan, China.[6] So, the spread could not have occurred by travelers, Chinese scholars in Qom seminaries, or pilgrims. Besides, had that been the case, we should have also seen cases in Mashhad the city which similarly has travelers, scholars, and pilgrims from China. In addition, all airports and official border crossings were on high alert and were applying quarantine rules to anyone whom they suspected to be a carrier.
There was another interesting finding as well. In one of their early reports to the parliament, the Ministry of Health informed the National Security and Foreign Policy Commission of Majlis that several confirmed corona cases had been identified in Gilan, one of Iran’s northern provinces but that the strain of virus there was different from that of Qom and even different from that of Wuhan.[7] The probability the virus (regardless of it being natural or engineered) could evolve into three different strains at such rapid rate in normal populations is nil. In Hollywood perhaps. But not in the real world. So, the null hypothesis of no relationship between each two of these three virus strains would stand with high confidence.
On the political front, other events were occurring. On Esfand 12, 1398 [March 2, 2020], Mahmoud Ahmadinejad sent two letters, one to the Secretary-General of the United Nations, António Guterres, and another to World Health Organization’s Director-General, Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus. In parts of the letter to Secretary General Guterres, he stated:
“Today it has become evident to everyone that the likes of mutated and smart corona virus 2019 that are engineered products of laboratories, or more appropriately they should be labeled arsenals for biological wars belonging to some global domineering powers, are far more inhumane, destructive, and terrorizing than other inhumane weapons like nuclear, chemical, and HARP.”
“It is expected from Your Excellency in the position of secretary general of the United Nations:
1) To vigorously condemn this anti-human action of the global criminals who have imposed a biologic war on nations with the aim of domination and you must not allow the agents of these crimes to realize their political and economic goals through cover ups and gain immunity from criminal justice investigation by the United Nations.
2) With special sensitivity, to identify and deal decisively with those who globally produce and use biological weapons. Indifference and lack of serious counter measures against them will lead to a destruction of relations among countries and nations and will critically threaten all nations’ existence.
3) To formulate and submit to the United Nations’ general assembly a reform plan to strengthen the convention in manufacturing and use of biological weapons with the aim of forbidding any research, development, and establishment of laboratories to manufacture, store, and use biological weapons at any level.”[8]
Mahmoud Ahmadinejad holds an official position in the Expediency Council (Shoraye Tashkhis Maslahat Nezam). However, he signed the letters to UN and WHO officials not as the member of that council but as ex-president of the Islamic Republic of Iran. At any rate, in his letter to the Director General of WHO he wrote (I quote):
“It is possible that weaknesses and shortcomings by officials in various countries in performing their duties to protect the health of their public greatly impact the spread of the disease and exact irreparable damages but that is up to the nations to judge. However, we must not allow the owners of labs that produce and spread this virus and t those who impose biologic wars on nations to be absolved of their culpabilities.”
“Today, the Iranian nation, despite selfless, diligent, and tireless work by the medial establishments and personnel who are fighting this aggressive and wild phenomenon, are suffering grave damages and incurring heavy costs. But we must anticipate and predict greater number of mortalities and heavy economic costs related to other nations in the near future. Therefore, it is of utmost importance and it is expected of Your Excellency and your organization to put the protection of human society at the forefront of your critical tasks. You must: 1) Provide immediate equipment, medical, and treatment assistance to the affected countries, especially the weaker nations, to prevent the spread; 2) Immediately identify the source, the production labs, and the spreading agents of this virus and other entities that support biological ward and expose them to the global society.”
“It is evident that public, transparent, and impartial information about the agents of these crimes against humanity play critically important role in control and use of this weapon against humanity. I have no doubt that with a mobilization of all nations and governments, the human society would isolate the perpetrators of these crimes and would cleanse the humanity of thoughts of aggression and oppression.”[8]
While I commend Mr. Ahamadinejad for his efforts, I think he must study the role the UN and WHO have historically played and are currently playing as vectors and catalysts for the very powers and interests he is asking them to hold accountable. They are the water-carriers for the Empire and its corrupt investors.
In a follow-up interview during a special news report conducted with Sardar Jalali, the head of Padafande Ghair Amel Agency (introduced above) on Esfand 20, 1398 [March 10, 2020], he provided an update and made additional information public:
“From the beginning to the end of Bahman [My note: about one month before the 1st case in Qom], we gave four commands to every single one of the provinces so that they conduct the operations commensurate with specific existing conditions. A mandate was issued by the head of armed forces every governor in every province was appointed as the commander of the bio base and the head of the revolutionary guard for each province as his vice commander.”
“At that time, around 5th to 10th of the month of Bahman, we sent special teams to the airports to monitor passengers to and from foreign destinations to verify and control the situation. We prepared and sent the reports to the Defense Ministry and put an order to produce thermometers.”
“In this area, 60 percent of the atmosphere is created by the media. Using the media, they influence and affect people and various industries. For example, a new network like BBC produces 120 programs altogether but 80 of those programs are related to Iran. Internally, too, a negative atmosphere has formed. Of course, to become certain this is a biological war, we must gain certainty through the studies conducted on the virus in the labs.”[9]
On Esfand 21, 1998 [March 11, 2020], a report published by the Center for Research in National Defense and Strategic Studies stated that “major parts of corona virus demonstrate unique characteristics of a biological war.”[10] On Esfand 28, 1398 [March 18, 2020], a letter was written to six heads of neighbor states of Iran signed by one hundred and two (102) Iranian physicians working in the fields of infectious diseases, asthma, allergies, upper and lower respiratory infections, and virology. The six heads of states addressed in the letter were those of Afghanistan, Georgia, Iraq, Kyrgyzstan, Kazakhstan, and Pakistan. In that letter, after providing background information on the United States bioweapon research, development, manufacturing, and use, these physicians asked these heads of states to take every action to destroy the United States Military’s Level 4 labs in their respective countries and to evict the United States from their soil before they have exacted more damage to the people of the entire region.[11]
A television interview was conducted by Sardar Pour Jamshidian, the vice commander in charge of coordinating military forces of the Revolutionary Guard on Farvardin 12, 1399 [March 31, 2020]. He had been asked if this disease was indeed due to a biological war why the Europeans and the [US] Americans themselves had been so badly affected by it. He provided a simple and straightforward answer:
“For questions of this nature, I have to say only this: the [US] American officials clearly and unambiguously state they are the creators of Daesh [ISIS]. Now, they themselves and the Europeans are pestered by these terrorists.”[12]
In other words, the cowboys have this propensity to shoot from the hip and in the process, they get others and themselves into trouble. On Farvardin 17, 1399 [April 5, 2020], Sardar Jalali participated in another extensive interview and brought of call for action on four areas:
“1) Establishment of a fact-finding committee consisting of independent nations and free of influence by the US and others to independently investigate the origin and spread of the virus.
2) Inspection and investigation into the suspected labs and preparing accurate and detailed reports.
3) Establishing protocols and international review and oversight committees to monitor the United States’ 25 level 3 and level 4 labs.
4) Formation of an international campaign to close down all biological weapons research labs that are currently operating without oversight and accountability in various countries. A sense of international threat regarding these labs should become a serious global demand.”[13]
Announcements, dynamic analytic discussions, and specific activities regarding high likelihood of CoV, related drugs and vaccines to be bioweapons abundant. Equally abundant are the closure of social media accounts and censorship of any claims in that regard. Persian-language Independent, bred, fed, and raised by Britain, had the following in its report on January 9, 2021:
“Ali Khamenei, the leader of the Islamic Republic of Iran, yesterday, Friday the 19th of Dey, in a speech by name Pfizer vaccines produced by [US] America said that he does not trust the [US] America and Britain in the area of vaccine production. Not long after Ali Khamenei’s speech, the spokesperson for Iran’s Red Crescent announced that importing of 150 thousands doses of corona vaccine manufactured by Pfizer has been cancelled.”
“After the announcement by the leader of the regime ruling Iran regarding vaccines produced by the [US] America and Britain, Twitter removed his claim from all of his twitter accounts in English, Arabic, Spanish, Russian, and French. Ali Khamenei had claimed in that tweet that “if [US] America was able to produce vaccines, this corona disgrace would not have happened to it.”[14]
Okay. The English-, Arabic-, Spanish-, Russian-, and French-speaking Twitter account holders should now sleep peacefully. Twitter is awake and protecting their rights not to know. Discussions in Iran are diverse, vibrant, and in abundance. The sample I have presented should give you an overall sense about the themes on CoV, drugs, and vaccines.
2) Iran’s Choice of Battles in a Complex Bio-Media War
It is reasonable to assume that various independent socio-political nations and systems formulate (or at least should be able to formulate) their customized approaches to the question of CoV, drugs, vaccines, treatments, and various protocols based on factors that are best suitable for the health and wellbeing of their respective nations and institutions. Before I discuss the Islamic Republic of Iran as a case example in this regard, I must be transparent with my own assumptions since those assumptions greatly affect what and how I choose and discuss the evidences I present.
Personally and as a matter of professional practice, I remain open and critical of all information and evidence (old and new) about matters related to health and diseases – including CoV, vaccines, types of treatments, etc. Firstly, that is my job. Secondly, it is because science, like all other human endeavors and products, is incomplete, ever-changing (both evolving and devolving), ever-informing as well as “ever-dis-informing”, and extremely vulnerable to corruption. When there are solid evidence of corruption and unethical behavior, as it is with CoV and its vaccines, it becomes critically important to become more critical.
If the information presented about CoV, drugs, and vaccines were all true or all false, things would have been so much simpler and easier to discuss. What makes this matter extremely complicated, and a real global fitna, is the fact that true information and false information have been so skillfully and craftily interwoven and entangled that by the time one has demonstrated this mixing, one has lost the attention of a majority in the general public.
There is a sort of worrisome pattern here that could not have emerged randomly and haphazardly. The public for its part, regardless of the side any segment of the population has taken, was hurriedly ushered into isolated and controlled conditions. Under such conditions, having an affective visceral response instead of a patiently-examined-and-measured response was a foregone conclusion. So, this is another type of unconventional war that must be fought in a manner that the public is not fractured, divided, and pitted against one another for the benefit of a few corrupt entities. Doing this requires excellent leadership skills and padafande gheyre Amel.
In this section, I would like to highlight Iran’s experience with two specific areas of concern, a) Vaccines; and b) Risk Communication, as examples.
a) Vaccines.
Currently, there is valid, reliable, and disturbing evidence regarding several of the CoV et al vaccines as well as various drugs used as treatment on masses of people around the world at an alarming rate and quantity. To all these, we must add a legacy in Iran of the Western and West-supported atrocities of rather deadly kinds. Therefore, for the Iranians, you could triple and quadruple those worries.
The Leader of the Islamic Republic of Iran, Ayatullah Khamenei, and the health experts around him are very well aware of those data and findings. The data and the information that most people (including a lot of people who follow this blog) access that ring alarm bells are accessible to his health experts and advisors, too. Furthermore, the health experts that surround the leader are quite capable and astute in collecting, analyzing, and interpreting data and they very well see the worrying signs that others see and more.
So, I would like to press this point that as a nation, we must consider three things simultaneously:
1) What we know to be true or about lies and deceptions are skillfully and systematically fed to the global public about CoV and vaccines.
2) What possible covert bio-attacks we, the Iranians especially the notable personalities, might be served on the side but billed as a “global thing”.
3) The realities on the ground, an assessment of what we can realistically and safely achieve with the least amount of social and political disruptions, chaos, costs, and insecurity in the public and among the populations.
The quantity and quality of global disinformation, of powerful and well-resourced army of dis-informers who are, as we say, shamelessly “darideh,” –that is, those have no reservation in tearing apart any and all moral and ethical codes of conduct and boundaries—are beyond any single country or leader to taken on single handedly.
I have said this before (elsewhere): under current circumstances, no world leader could socially and politically keep his population intact and prevent fracturing of his nation in face of a barrage of well-coordinated and well-crafted media attacks they would suffer from within and from without should he take concrete stance to question the CoV and vaccines at this climate. It does not matter who it is: Ayatullah Khamenei or some other leader. Why? Because majority of the populations around the world live on a diet of 24/7 fear that is scheduled to mutate at regular intervals in a non-desensitizing ‘waves’ and manners through media outlets. As I said at the beginning, the public has been weaponized.
I do not know about other countries media and propaganda capacities. But I do know that the Islamic Republic of Iran has difficulty keeping a single English-language TV news channel running seamlessly on the internet. The reason is quite obvious: a lack of independent cyber infrastructure. As I said in the previous section, even simple statements in that regard get purged from the Leader’s Twitter account. In return, 199 Persian language channels and multiple social media networks work around clock to bombard the Iranian public with disinformation.
The statement of Ayatullah Khamenei made (quoted in the previous section) that was removed by Twitter was not even about questioning CoV or vaccines. It was about untrustworthiness of specific manufacturers and countries who have really nasty track records and we have concrete proof of their criminal behavior.
It might be interesting for you to know that after that speech, nearly one hundred ninety nine 24-hour Persian language TV channels, a whirlwind of poisonous social media channels spewed lies non-stop. The Iranian public’s peace of mind went on a rollercoaster ride for weeks with false dichotomies such as “health” versus “politics”, “vaccination” versus “no vaccinations”, “science” versus “ignorance”, and you name it. Thanks to Nofoozies, the infiltrators and internal mouthpieces synchronized their messages with hostile foreign media.
So, what would be the wisest, most logical, and prudent steps be for countries like the Islamic Republic of Iran and leaders like Ayatullah Khamenei to take? Should they dedicate enormous amounts of resources to counter the flood of propaganda to ward off fear and insecurity? Or, should they use the circumstances to further develop their public health and Padafande Ghayre Amel infrastructure while maintaining unity among the people and gradually de-weaponizing the public? The whole truth (not bits and pieces of it) will eventually come out. Meanwhile, however, as I said, it is about choosing one’s battle while, of course, remaining alert and vigilant.
The Islamic Republic of Iran, by Grace of God, has chosen the latter track for now. Simplistic interpretation of things could be misleading. Less than a couple of months ago, the Iranian Leader received an Iranian vaccine, “CovIran Barakat,” which uses the inactivated virus (of the varieties that has circulated in the Iran) and is completely manufactured by the Iranian scientists inside Iran.
After receiving the 1st dose, Ayatullah Khamenei said,
“From long ago, they were insisting I get vaccinated. I was not interested in using non-Iranian vaccines and told so to friends and others who were insisting. I told them I would wait until Inshallah the country’s own vaccine is produced and I would use our own vaccine. We must appreciate this national honor in the truest sense of the word. It is very important when we have the possibility to prevent or heal an illness inside the country, to do so. why not?”
“That was one reason I did not agree to get vaccinated. Besides, I told them, I would like to get vaccinated in the allotted time; that is when the vaccine is being distributed in the country and is the turn for my age group. Well, Alhamdullilah, the old folks around my age – eighty years and above—most of them now have received the vaccine. Some may have still not received it but we are receiving it around the same time. That’s why it was delayed until today.”[15]
From within those few lines, one could extract a thousand lessons. But that would be beyond the scope of this article. As far as vaccines are concerned, nudge the public in the direction they are leaning (or are being directed). Give them a choice of vaccines that has the least amount of harm and unknown or worrying long-term effects.
b) Risk Communication
Risk communication is not as straightforward and easy task anywhere in the world. But in the Islamic Republic of Iran, it is particularly complex. To illustrate this, I would like to revisit a couple of segments from two separate interviews by Sardar Jalali’s statements of which I quoted earlier:
“In this area, 60 percent of the atmosphere is created by the media. Using the media, they influence and affect people and various industries. For example, a new network like BBC produces 120 programs altogether but 80 of those programs are related to Iran. Internally, too, a negative atmosphere has formed. Of course, to become certain this is a biological war, we must gain certainty through the studies conducted on the virus in the labs.”[9]
“But we must also pay strict attention that the foreign-supported media are trying to induce public panic and portray a non-functional public health system in order to make people feel helpless and beleaguered. Playing political games, playing with statistics, and false additions and subtractions, falsely placing religion in opposition to people’s health, and more are a few examples of operations in psychological war front in the enemy’s media that must be attended to by the people and media activists.”[5]
So, how do you, for instance, communicate to a nation that it may have been the target of a biological weapon that is transmitted like a flu but they should not panic? How would you advise them to take care of their ill family members but keep their distance? What do you suggest to them when their religious and cultural beliefs obligate them to provide care to parents, grandparents, close kin, neighbors, and more but you are following protocols that are devised by entities that have no sense of religious and cultural obligations, family and kinship, and duty to one’s neighbor? How do you tell them to hold together a severely-sanctioned economy and prevent it from shattering yet they should not leave their homes?
Well, for countries and nations that have strict hierarchies and rules in place, and their populations have been mostly conditioned to follow those strict rules, you impose coercive public health measures and you order everyone to follow. For those nations, it would not be viewed as coercive but as “how things are.”
However, for a country like the Islamic Republic of Iran which has a completely different worldview, values, and belief system, such approach is neither desirable nor acceptable. For us, a participatory public health and mass mobilization approach are appropriate and effective. So, you get the Basijies involved and you help people find a balance between competing obligations in the best way that is appropriate for them despite what poison the enemies spew from their loudspeakers.
Of course, watching how the whole CoV thing turned into a global phenomenon had a calming effect on many. Whatever this was/is, at least it caused the world systems to make a public spectacle of themselves.
Final Food for Thought
In the past few months, with the exception of around presidential election time, the topic most repeatedly requested of me to discuss has been CoV and vaccines. Each audience has been different from the other in terms of socio-economic background, profession, and education. Teachers, university students and professors, religious scholars in seminaries, and the general public.
Interestingly, regardless of the diverse audiences’ backgrounds, I have observed three different view clusters: Those who have positive views about vaccines (including CoV’s), those who have negative views, and those who are unsure. To keep peace and manage to finish my talk, I have had to adapt. I start with the basics and gradually build layer upon layers. Most in all three groups end up gaining a nuanced view which leads to a less divided crowd. If the public is to be pitted against the public, then passive defense dictates that we try to bridge the gap and patiently disentangle the truths from untruths.
This is where I have had to start: The first question to consider is this: are vaccines safe? The correct answer is “no.” No vaccine is ever safe. If anyone says otherwise, that means s/he does not know the science of vaccines. In fact, vaccines are used because they induce particular diseases. So, the real concern is never about the non-existing safety of vaccines but about a comparison between the harms caused by given infectious diseases should individuals be exposed to that actual disease versus short-, medium-, and long-term harms caused by their respective vaccines.
Is this in itself a bad thing? Not necessarily. Various human societies have known for millennia that weaker and “weathered” versions of some very frightening diseases could induce milder forms of that disease and they have used this experiential knowledge in traditional medicine. In the simplest form, for example, when someone had chicken pox, ordinary people would wait about a few weeks or so, get some of the dried-up blisters and rub it into the nose of their children who had not gotten small pox before. They knew this somehow would immunize their kids.
Iranians, especially those well-versed in traditional medicine, know and understand this well.
But, here is how things go astray: profitability and industrial production of vaccines have become the driving force behind both the quality and the quantity of vaccines as well as the number of diseases for which people are forcefully “educated” and “encouraged” to get vaccinated. At the global level, these industries have used apparently “international” organizations as tools and means to their own ends.
Regarding CoV vaccines, I provide the audience with information about different types of vaccines and evidence on which ones might cause the least harm, which might cause the most harm, and which ones are scientifically considered worldwide experiments. I add the trustworthiness and untrustworthiness of indigenous versus imported vaccines for the Iranians. Then, tease apart vaccines imported from hostile versus non-hostile nations. Then, I go into vaccines from non-hostile nations that sub-contract and manufacture vaccines for hostile nations and sell it to us as third parties. I then discuss the process of quality assurance and random tests (or lack thereof) for imported medicinal products.
At any rate, “…and pulling our swords against those with whom we had no animosity, even against those who were our companions, our colleagues, and our fellow humans in faith and fate,” is not constructive and it is, in fact, counterproductive. Sardar Mohammad Zahrai, the Head of the Construction Basij recently said,
“The soft dimension of passive defense is the biologic and bio-terrorism wars. Spreading of infectious diseases that the Global Domination system has leveled against the countries is of this type. Once it was HIV, anthrax, etc. They were saying, ‘we must maintain our economic edge. The Global Domination, to preserve that edge, must have a balance in human power in the form of cheap labor.’ So, they have no reservation. With these sorts of attacks with infectious diseases, they are after either killing the population of a nation or deactivate and inactivate its active people. So, from this perspective, too, in the types of diseases and attacks, in contaminating waters, in genetically manipulating agricultural crops, or in any other area, they can do this. For instance, they say, ‘We have created the vaccine.’ Then, when it is used not only does it not cure the disease, it creates additional problems.”
“The fabric of Padafand Ghire Amel [the passive defense] in the Islamic Republic system is of the resistance by people in all arenas and domains. We have specific capitals that belong and are unique to this holy system of Islamic Republic of Iran.”
I conclude this essay by a saying a few words about those whom I consider colleagues in this field of public health and health research. There is currently a worldwide war with parallel and inter-connected battles in many countries around the world especially in the West between 3 types of health experts and health research scientists: a) those experts and scientists who are observing some very disturbing data and speaking up about them and urging others to be very cautious at the cost of losing their jobs and being harassed; b) those exports and scientists who are part of and beneficiaries of the propagated view; and c) those experts and scientists who just want to mind their own business and do the best they can under the circumstances. Some among this last group state a lot of concerns in private but remain silent in public.
I personally do not believe this battle is between science and knowledge versus “un-science” and ignorance. Rather, it is about good and rigorous science versus corrupt and co-opted science, and the general public is forced to divide and fight a battle that is, by all accounts, the responsibility and obligation of the scientists to do.
References
[1] Shariati, Ali. “Yah, Brother! This is How it Was.” Speech in Husseinieh Ershad on 1350/8/18, in Electronic version (in Farsi), Page 5. ChapPakhsh Publishing, Available online at: http://Shariati.Nimeharf.Com
[2] وَمَكَرُوا وَمَكَرَ اللَّهُ ۖ وَاللَّهُ خَيْرُ الْمَاكِرِينَ — Quran, Chapter 3 (Al-Imran), Verse 54
[3] Ayatullah Khamenei, “Televised Speech on the Occasion of 19th of Dey Uprising.” Dey 19th, 1399 [Jan. 8, 2021]. Accessed online at: https://farsi.khamenei.ir/speech-content?id=47066
[4] Ayatullah Khamenei, “New Year Speech to the People of Iran.” Farvardin 3, 1399 [March 22, 2020]. Accessed online at: https://farsi.khamenei.ir/speech-content?id=45227
[5] Fars News Agency, “Sardar Jalali: Proof of corona being a biological weapon requires lab reviews.” Esfand 13th, 1398 [March 3, 2020]. Accessed online at: http://fna.ir/dfirqk
[6] Khabar Online: Analytical News Agency of Iran. “Corona Virus in Gilan and Qom Different from Wuhan’s/The Possibility of a US Biological Attack Gained Strength.” Esfand 19, 1398 [March 9, 2020] @14:32. News Code: 1362522.
[7] Tabnak Professional News Site. “Member of Parliament: Existence of two corona viruses with two different origins in the country.” Esfand 19th, 1398 [March 9, 2020] @ 15:05. News Code: 964666.
[8] Iranian Environments News Base. “Mahmoud Ahmadinejad’s letter to UN Secretary General about Corona. Second Letter Destined to WHO was written.” Esfand 12, 1398 [March 2, 2020] @ 5:15. News Code: 346262.
[9] Iranian Students News Agency (ISNA). “We do not know definitively the bioweapon status of corona.” Esfand 21, 1398 [March 11, 2020] @12:05. News Code: 98122116188.
[10] News Division for University and Leading Center for Research in National Defense and Strategic Studies, “Major parts of corona virus demonstrate unique characteristics of a biological war.” Esfand 21, 1998 [March 11, 2020], at 12:27pm. News Code: 315.
[11] Khabar Online News Site. “Letter by more than 100 physicians for the destruction of all [US] American biological weapons labs in the region.” Esfand 28, 1398 [March 18, 2020] @ 12:06. News Code: 1366487
[12] Paydari Melli, Center for Information on Padafand Ghayre Amel. “Using Modern War Tools to Combat Corona.” Farvardin 13, 1399 [April 1, 2020] @ 12:14. News Code 58031.
[13] Paydari Melli, Center for Information on Padafand Ghayre Amel. “The United States of America is the main accused in Biological Threats to the World/the Need for Establishment of a Fact-Finding Committee.” Farvardin 17, 1399 [April 5, 2020] @15:16. News Code: 58084.
[14] Independent-Persian. “Claim about possible “biologic attack” by use of foreign vaccines.” Saturday, Dey 20, 1399 or January 9, 2021 @22:15. Accessed online at: https://www.independentpersian.com/
[15] Khamenei.ir. “The Leader of the Revolution received the 1st dose of the vaccine.” Tir 4, 1400 [June 26, 2021]. Accessed online at: https://farsi.khamenei.ir/news-content?id=48155
[16] Paydari Melli, Center for Information on Padafand Ghayre Amel. “Passive Defense: the Strategy to Save Infrastructures at the Time of Crisis.” Aban 9, 1399 [October 30, 2020] @16:46. News Code: 61350.
