this post was submitted on 14 Jun 2024
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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] 1 points 5 months ago* (last edited 5 months ago)

Oh Beau of the Fifth Column........

Edit:

Here is his video:

https://youtu.be/uW3XoTXaIXo?si=kOJn-1KQGiCVCFLv

[–] [email protected] 81 points 5 months ago* (last edited 5 months ago) (3 children)

I don't care if they are considered our enemies; that's fucked up. Our government's grievances are of their government. Not the people. Not the culture. Not the land itself. Doing shit that harms the average person is incredibly vile.

[–] [email protected] 40 points 5 months ago

Worse, this was targeted in part against the people of the Philippines, an ally.

[–] [email protected] 45 points 5 months ago

It's fucked up when we do it, it's fucked up when Russia does it, it's fucked up when China does it. This is terrible.

[–] [email protected] 55 points 5 months ago (4 children)

As an American, I am ashamed that my country's government does acts of pure evil like this. I'm sorry rest of the world, I wish my voice was more than but a whisper while on a St Patrick's Day bar crawl in Boston.

In my honest opinion whoever proposed this, approved this, and ultimately executed this should be persecuted for something akin to shouting fire leading to a stampede and deaths.

Actions like this are exactly why we probably shouldn't have a completely opaque society.

[–] [email protected] 11 points 5 months ago (18 children)

General Jonathan Braga was promoted to Lieutenant General in August 2021, months after the new Biden administration was informed about and canceled the program.

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[–] [email protected] 13 points 5 months ago (1 children)

Nothing shocking, nothing surprising.

We here in South Africa had our turn with US psyop shitfuckery last year.

[–] [email protected] 11 points 5 months ago (1 children)

Please share! I fell out of contact with my friends there over the pandemic and heard nothing about this.

[–] [email protected] 14 points 5 months ago

A Russian ship docked in Cape Town last year carrying armaments destined for the "War On Terror - Mozambique Edition." The US embassy pretended it didn't have access to that intelligence, and accused the SA government of (supposedly) supplying Putin with weaponry. The rapidity with which these accusations was championed by white supremacist political organisations (including the second largest political party) made it all even more suspicious. We literally had people here (you can imagine which kind) calling for the US to regime change us.

The incident raised more questions than anything - but the white liberal media here in South Africa didn't bother with those... it merely seemed interested in using the entire affair to attack the ANC. It was pretty clear to people here that there was something bigger going on than merely one measly little Russian ship - and, personally, I suspect that the ANC's "sudden" concern over what is going on in Gaza is a retaliation against the US for this. They sure as hell didn't have these concerns when they allowed Israel to buy up South African corporations left, right and centre...

[–] [email protected] 13 points 5 months ago

Well that seems to have backfired.

Excuse me, I seem to have facepalmed my eyeballs into the next room. Fuck.

[–] [email protected] -4 points 5 months ago (2 children)

If you don’t feel disgusted by this enough: the Biden regime shut down the insulin price cap faster than it shut down this program.

[–] [email protected] 10 points 5 months ago (1 children)

The article says Biden shut it down in Spring 2021. Turns out your comment is completely wrong -- Biden shut down the program faster than it implemented insulin price caps.

This is why the person replying to you mocked .ml. You can't even read the damn article.

Technically, accounts were still in place afterwards and they didn't properly clean up the disrespectful mess of a program, but that isn't what you said. You said shut down the program, which demonstrably happened quickly.

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

The Biden regime stopped all trump regime executive orders on January 20th, 2021, two days before the trump regimes part d insulin price cap would have taken effect.

The stop on January 20 was called a “pause” because after 60 days to evaluate the ones it wanted to keep, the Biden regime said it would continue the good executive orders. I can’t find any indication that the insulin price cap actually went into effect until a year and a half later as part of a huge bill I can’t remember the name of.

The Biden regime shut down the insulin price cap before it shut down the cia antivax campaign.

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[–] [email protected] 9 points 5 months ago (1 children)
[–] [email protected] -4 points 5 months ago

I replied to the person with the longer comment even though they commented later, but if you like you can consider it a response to yours too.

[–] [email protected] 45 points 5 months ago (1 children)

I always wanted the US to counter China and Russian troll accounts, but not like this.

[–] [email protected] 25 points 5 months ago (1 children)
  1. The antivaxxers were complaining a conspiracy when this whole time they were the conspiracy.
  2. This whole time antivax kept getting blamed on Russian troll farms, when the troll farms were Western all along. Golden.
[–] [email protected] 37 points 5 months ago (9 children)

This whole time antivax kept getting blamed on Russian troll farms, when the troll farms were Western all along. Golden.

Just because the US was doing it, doesn't mean Russia wasn't also doing it.

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[–] [email protected] 40 points 5 months ago (2 children)

If we spent half the energy on improving our lives that we spend on fucking people over, we'd have a utopia by now. Or at least less lead in our pipes.

America is a global superpower which - apparently - spends some of its most secretive efforts on petty lashbacks to Chinese propaganda. And I'll be damned if our most secretive efforts don't also end up costing us the most taxes (relative to their effective output). I know that Twitter opens its firehouse of data to government programs to support social media analysis. I'm sure Google and Meta do as well. They are aiding these psychological campaigns.

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[–] [email protected] 11 points 5 months ago (1 children)

Goddammit Pentagon. That's not how diseases work.

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

To a man with a hammer, every problem looks like a nail.

To the military, the solution to every problem is war.

[–] [email protected] 67 points 5 months ago (1 children)

This has to be terrible news for conspiracy theorists. Our government got caught doing something shady overseas but it was encouraging other people to NOT vaccinate, which is the thing the conspiracy theorists thought our government wanted everyone to do.

I'm legitimately interested to see how/if Fox or OAN report on this. It should be entertaining.

[–] [email protected] 12 points 5 months ago (1 children)

It doesn't matter to conspiracy theorist because they can just say this is a false flag to make them look crazy. When the facts don't matter, it's easy to make any fact be further confirmation of your point.

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[–] [email protected] 41 points 5 months ago (2 children)

So basically the people claiming that vaccines are dangerous and part of a secret government scheme to control us were actually the victims of a secret government scheme to convince us that vaccines are dangerous.

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

But I thought MAGA could spot what they call "glowies" from a mile away?

[–] [email protected] 12 points 5 months ago

They are the thing they despise the most: Sheep.

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