Pentagon ran secret anti-vax campaign to undermine China during pandemic
Pentagon ran secret anti-vax campaign to undermine China during pandemic
First off, your formatting sucks. Just link the damn article.
Second, I can't help but notice the Biden Admin was made aware of this not long after he entered office, and then he publicly banned the practice. This happened in spring of 2021. Why is this suddenly news?
The Biden White House issued an edict in spring 2021 banning the anti-vax effort, which also disparaged vaccines produced by other rivals, and the Pentagon initiated an internal review, Reuters found.
I did link the article, it's the top level link of this whole post. Might be an app or instance issue keeping some people from seeing it I guess, so I'll add it to the body of this post when I get a chance.
Second,
and then he publicly banned the practice
[Italicization added]
That's incorrect, the public did not know about this program until Reuters reported on it here (which is why this is news). His administration privately told them to stop this specific campaign, but
After Reuters asked X about the accounts, the social media company removed the profiles, determining they were part of a coordinated bot campaign based on activity patterns and internal data.
and
Nevertheless, the Pentagon’s clandestine propaganda efforts are set to continue. In an unclassified strategy document last year, top Pentagon generals wrote that the U.S. military could undermine adversaries such as China and Russia using “disinformation spread across social media, false narratives disguised as news, and similar subversive activities [to] weaken societal trust by undermining the foundations of government.”
And in February, the contractor that worked on the anti-vax campaign – General Dynamics IT – won a $493 million contract. Its mission: to continue providing clandestine influence services for the military.
So, the accounts were still active and the posts were still visible until Reuters got involved, and the people who greenlit what should have been an obviously bad idea (anti-vaccine propaganda efforts) are continuing to work for our government.
Stopping anti-vaccine propaganda efforts was a good thing, but it was the absolute least Biden could do and wholly insufficient. These posts/accounts should have been publicly disowned and discredited, and the people responsible for them should have been prohibited from doing any further work for the US. Not doing so is a massive blow to our international credibility, which is like the last fucking thing democracy needs right now.
e; part of what I originally wrote seemed pretty irrelevant on second thought, so I deleted it to make it a bit less of a wall of text, but originally in between "Second," and ">and then he etc." was
the Biden Admin was made aware of this not long after he entered office
That's not totally clear (party nominees start getting briefed on some classified things before the election to get them up to speed), but does seem to be the case given what we know now.
[Indent added for clarity]
And in February, the contractor that worked on the anti-vax campaign – General Dynamics IT – won a $493 million contract. Its mission: to continue providing clandestine influence services for the military.
Leading to the conclusion
and the people who greenlit what should have been an obviously bad idea (anti-vaccine propaganda efforts) are continuing to work for our government.
Just to provide some context, general dynamics is a big contractor with 11k people. They're responsible for the m1 Abrams, Stryker, and multiple nuclear submarines
It's pretty misleading of this article to imply that this work is continuing by pointing to a new contract this year and saying general dynamics mission is to provide clandestine influence, like anyone that works with a certain level of data, no matter what you do with it, is considered working with "clandestine influence".
It's news because in the supposedly democratic country that was pushing anti-vaxx sentiment during a global pandemic, its citizenry are not privy to the workings of its government until some journalists receive a leak and can then begin investigating. That happened recently.
The Pentagon ran a program intended to kill untold number of innocent civilians just to hurt China and all lemmyoids can do is bicker about the effectiveness of Chinese vaccines.
The CIA thanks you for your service
Didn't we find the location of some big-time terrorists via fake vaccine campaigns prior to this?
"China's" vaccine was stolen from Canada.
It outright wasn't as effective since Canada hadnt finished working on it.
First off, you should really source what you're talking about, secondly it does seem to be entirely irrelevant to this story, but third, unlike the information DOD contractors were spreading in this story, that does appear to be a more or less accurate summary of what happened there.
Where are you getting this from, your own ass? It seems that NATOpedia mentions no such thing, and they seem to love shitting on China.
NATOpedia
About that source,
The Grayzone has downplayed or denied the Chinese government's human rights abuses against Uyghurs, published conspiracy theories about Xinjiang, Syria, and other regions, and published disinformation about Ukraine during the Russian invasion of Ukraine, which some have described as pro-Russian propaganda. Grayzone staff Blumenthal and Aaron Maté acted as briefers on behalf of the Permanent Mission of the Russian Federation to the United Nations at UN meetings organized by Russia.