Oliver Stone: ‘Accurate to Say the U.S. Is Weaponizing’ Coronavirus
Hollywood director and radical left-wing activist Oliver Stone is pushing for the United States to ease sanctions against Iran and Venezuela during the coronavirus pandemic, arguing that the U.S. is “weaponizing the virus” against its adversaries.
At the same time, the two-time Oscar winning director praised the Communist dictatorships of China and Cuba for what he sees as their generosity during the global crisis.
Oliver Stone co-wrote an editorial for the New York Daily News with human rights attorney and peace activist Daniel Kovalik in which they make the stunning claim that the U.S. could be legally responsible for COVID-19 deaths in Iran if Washington fails to loosen sanctions. “It is accurate to say that the U.S. is weaponizing the virus against these countries,” they write.
Though Iran is facing a staggering number of coronavirus cases and deaths, the country’s supreme ruler has so far refused American assistance to fight the pandemic on the unsubstantiated belief that the virus is man-made.
Stone and Kovalik wrote that if Iran’s death toll reaches into the millions, “the U.S. government will bear a great deal of moral and legal responsibility, for it is knowingly contributing to the spread of the pandemic in Iran.”
The Born on the Fourth of July director also claimed that President Donald Trump’s hardline policy against Venezuela’s Socialist regime is causing mass suffering among the population. But the Oscar-winning filmmaker omits the fact that Venezuela was already in the throes of a catastrophic food and medical shortage under leader Nicolás Maduro’s authoritarian rule.
President Trump has been applying more pressure on the Maduro regime over its alleged connections to the drug trade. The president recently deployed Navy ships toward Venezuela as his administration strengthens its counter-narcotics operations in the Caribbean.
Last month, U.S .federal authorities charged Maduro and other top members of his administration with drug trafficking and narco terrorism.
Oliver Stone and Daniel Kovalik praised China and Cuba for sending doctors and supplies to countries around the world. They make no mention in the article of Beijing’s attempts to cover up the extent of the Wuhan pandemic and to silence Chinese physicians who tried to warn the world about the gravity of the illness.
They concluded their editorial by blaming the U.S. for its “profound lack of human decency” and “moral folly” during the pandemic.
“The current pandemic is exposing not only our government’s utter failures to protect its own citizens, but also its profound lack of human decency in dealing with other nations,” they wrote. “It is time for serious moral self-reflection upon this very unpleasant reality, and an immediate change in course before more lives are lost due to our nation’s moral folly.”
Photo: AP - Vahid Salemi
