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Pentagon ran secret anti-vax campaign to undermine China during pandemic (www.reuters.com)

submitted 5 months ago by [email protected] to c/[email protected]

168 comments fedilink hide all child comments

At the height of the COVID-19 pandemic, the U.S. military launched a secret campaign to counter what it perceived as China’s growing influence in the Philippines, a nation hit especially hard by the deadly virus.

The clandestine operation has not been previously reported. It aimed to sow doubt about the safety and efficacy of vaccines and other life-saving aid that was being supplied by China, a Reuters investigation found. Through phony internet accounts meant to impersonate Filipinos, the military’s propaganda efforts morphed into an anti-vax campaign. Social media posts decried the quality of face masks, test kits and the first vaccine that would become available in the Philippines – China’s Sinovac inoculation.

Reuters identified at least 300 accounts on X, formerly Twitter, that matched descriptions shared by former U.S. military officials familiar with the Philippines operation. Almost all were created in the summer of 2020 and centered on the slogan #Chinaangvirus – Tagalog for China is the virus.

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[–] [email protected] -5 points 5 months ago (1 children)

Where is the source for this? I see zero source.

[–] [email protected] 15 points 5 months ago (1 children)

Reuters is the source, they’re fairly reputable.

[–] [email protected] 53 points 5 months ago (11 children)

Yeah and trump ran a very public anti-vax campaign in the USA.

[–] [email protected] 10 points 5 months ago

COVID was a real instant-karma moment for American foreign policy

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[–] [email protected] 6 points 5 months ago

Undermine China, pave the way for BongBong, you know. Foreign policy stuff.

[–] [email protected] 6 points 5 months ago

No doubt, we had our former 34 time convicted felon president* do that to us.

[–] [email protected] 18 points 5 months ago (2 children)

this is exactly why i use linux

[–] [email protected] 8 points 5 months ago (1 children)

I use arch btw.

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[–] [email protected] 3 points 5 months ago

Even a lame excuse is still just an excuse

[–] [email protected] 64 points 5 months ago (2 children)

It undermines the entire world including the US. Fucking morons.

[+] [email protected] -30 points 5 months ago* (last edited 5 months ago) (2 children)

This is why the US lacks credibility.

When I hear about Tienanmen Square and all the protestors killed, I want to believe the US... and not believe China... and yet, I can't be sure that anything coming from the US isn't just made up garbage. It's probably not... but I can't really know!

It's a horrible policy decision too allow things like this and creates major distrust of all US government narratives, when almost all of them could be true.

[–] [email protected] 23 points 5 months ago* (last edited 5 months ago)

I can’t be sure that anything coming from the US isn’t just made up garbage

I mean, ACAB is a safe bet in any country.

The narrative around Tianamen is that it is the consequence of a totalitarian Communist economic policy, and that our liberal free markets mean it can't ever happen here.

The reality is that it was blowback from Chinese economic liberalization. This response is exactly the same as what you'll find aimed at unionization drives around a sweatshop in the Philippines or a student protest on the Columbia college campus. Liberalism will not keep you safe from a row of tanks driving through your neighborhood or a police officer black bagging you for protesting on camera.

Tianamen was a warning to the world of what was to come. But US media transformed it into a reason to be afraid of Chinese people.

[–] [email protected] 39 points 5 months ago (1 children)

Yeah all the photos and film of Tiananmen Square are surely just propaganda right? That event was just made up by the US and definitely wasn't witnessed by and broadcasted by several different countries' news services.

The US has done some bad shit, and still does. But do not let that blind you to the crimes of other countries. There's a reason why the Chinese government censors mentions of June 1989 and the mass deaths due to famine during the great leap forward.

[–] [email protected] 0 points 5 months ago* (last edited 5 months ago) (4 children)

Yeah all the photos and film of Tiananmen Square are surely just propaganda right?

The crazy thing about Tianamen was that the Tank Driver stopped and tried to move around the protester.

It was a remarkable moment of humanity between two people who clearly did not want to be in conflict with one another.

I can't imagine a modem day officer treating any protesters the same way.

There’s a reason why the Chinese government censors mentions of June 1989 and the mass deaths due to famine during the great leap forward.

That's completely untrue.

Here is an exhaustive response from a Chinese national. Not only is it not illegal, its documented in Baidu, China's most popular social media site.

The claim that Chinese schools and leaders simply don't talk about the First Five Year Plan is entirely fictitious. On par with claiming Americans don't teach their kids about the Founding Fathers owning slaves.

It's pure Western propaganda.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 5 months ago

See also: https://archive.ph/7Tdzh [NSFL: gore]

[–] [email protected] 3 points 5 months ago* (last edited 5 months ago) (3 children)

I don't think anyone who knows about Tiananmen square thinks the tank ran over Tank Man. But the other cases? Mmm. (Nsfw) https://www.cnd.org/June4th/massacre.html

Edit: lmao, post a link of evidence and you just get downvoted. I wait for the day people just call this AI generated instead

[–] [email protected] 2 points 5 months ago

I'm getting a Site Cannot Be Reached. But I'm in the states, so maybe I'm the one being censored.

[–] [email protected] -1 points 5 months ago (1 children)

Just remember that you can't trust every anonymously sourced photo on the internet. Don't forget to try to evaluate the genuineness of what you're seeing.

For example, ask yourself if you can actual see identifiable features of Tiananmen Square in the background of these photos. (You would expect to be able to, right?)

Especially with an emotive topic like this. These photos inspire strong visceral reactions, and sometimes they're counting on that. They want you to be so overwhelmed with disgust that you don't stop to realize that some of the photos are obviously fake or mislabelled.

Like the ones that show piles of meat claiming to be the bodies of students run over by tanks. A moment's thought will make it obvious that they are fake, because people's clothes do not disappear when they are run over by tanks. But they want you to be so overwhelmed by disgust and anger that you don't think about it.

Sometimes they rely on sheer quantity, but don't mistake quantity for quality.

Anyway, I'm not going to push a side in this post. I trust that you can think for yourself.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 5 months ago (2 children)

I mean like, whether the guy who looks like paint on the road is really "squished by a tank" or not, the whole "Tiananmen didn't happen" defense sits from anywhere between "300 people, mostly soldiers died" to "nothing happened at all". I'm noticing you didn't explicitly say what happened, only what didn't, so likewise I think you've shown you actually know what went down that day.

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[–] [email protected] 30 points 5 months ago

Doesn't matter to whom they did it. This BS spreads around the world, making people hate each other. What a fucked up world we live in.

[–] [email protected] 33 points 5 months ago (1 children)

Maybe the real conspiracies were the ones the DoD made along the way lmao.

Seriously though, I still remember people clowning on sinovac as if having access to a 60% efficacy vaccine was worse than having none at all because hurrrr durrr china copy cat manufacturing.

[–] [email protected] 6 points 5 months ago

Which was about the efficacy of the Johnson and Johnson/Janssen vaccine.

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