• JoeByeThen [he/him, they/them]@hexbear.net
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    14 days ago

    Lmao. The reasoning is ChIna used social media to urge investigation of Fort Detrick, so the US military ran an Anti-Vaxx campaign in a 3rd party country. Pretty standard US response tbh. amerikkka-clap

    Also, if they’re claiming China is behind the Fort Detrick lab leak theory, that bumps up its legitimacy in my eyes.

    • JoeByeThen [he/him, they/them]@hexbear.net
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      14 days ago

      Also, also, I read some of that DOJ complaint and they also claim that China tried to sow discourse by posting about George Floyd and American hypocrisy. Which is pretty wild how even according to the US, US enemies are always like “and this bad thing the US is doing is bad and you should do something about that” while the US is like “we will provide arms and training for death squads for capitalism.”

      Really drives the point home, imo.

    • CthulhusIntern [he/him]@hexbear.net
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      14 days ago

      I was skeptical about the Fort Detrick lab leak theory for a while, but when Biden stopped pushing the Wuhan lab leak theory the second China said “sure, you can investigate the Wuhan lab if we can investigate Fort Detrick”, that made me a lot more suspicious

  • Roonerino [comrade/them, doe/deer]@hexbear.net
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    14 days ago

    “We’re stooping lower than the Chinese and we should not be doing that,” said a former senior State Department official for the region who fought against the military operation.

    Goddamn. Just zero irony or self awareness.

      • Diuretic_Materialism [he/him]@hexbear.net
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        14 days ago

        Counterpoint: I actually think a lot of these ghouls are 100% self aware, know their the bad guys but just love all the power and treats they get. I suspect they literally cackle like Lord Freeza in the privacy of their own homes while loudly announcing their cynical Machiavellian plans to nobody.

    • DragonBallZinn [he/him]@hexbear.net
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      14 days ago

      “What are we, a bunch of Asians?!” is the most bipartisan phrase in Amerika.

      maybe-later-honey says it in response to whenever they need to accept the fact that yes, Amerika did do a bad thing.

      frothingfash says it in response to you suggesting the simplest, most objectively good policy like high speed rail or walkable cities.

    • MeowZedong
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      13 days ago

      Truly funny how this article is dripping in sinophobia, but still comes off making the US look like it overreacted to relatively minor acts that they claim China made.

      They put so much effort into demonizing China, but the US is the star devil of their article.

  • pinguinu [any]
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    14 days ago

    to counter what it perceived as China’s growing influence in the Philippines, a nation hit especially hard by the deadly virus.

    Damn, I wonder why.

    Pentagon used a combination of fake social media accounts on multiple platforms to spread fear of China’s vaccines among Muslims at a time when the virus was killing tens of thousands of people each day. A key part of the strategy: amplify the disputed contention that, because vaccines sometimes contain pork gelatin, China’s shots could be considered forbidden under Islamic law.

    No comment.

    The military program started under former President Donald Trump and continued months into Joe Biden’s presidency

    Of course it’s bipartisan!

    The U.S. military is prohibited from targeting Americans with propaganda, and Reuters found no evidence the Pentagon’s influence operation did so.

    Sure, Reuters.

    Only 2.1 million of its 114 million citizens were fully vaccinated – far short of the government’s target of 70 million. By the time Duterte spoke, COVID cases exceeded 1.3 million, and almost 24,000 Filipinos had died from the virus. The difficulty in vaccinating the population contributed to the worst death rate in the region.

    No comment.

    Reporters also reviewed Facebook, X and Instagram posts, technical data and documents about a set of fake social media accounts used by the U.S. military. Some were active for more than five years.

    But the smol bean companies were doing their best!

    Central Asian countries such as Turkmenistan represented an influence battleground between the United States and China, which arrived earlier than America did with vaccines for the pandemic-plagued country.

    Is that the fucking takeaway here? That the US couldn’t sell their fucking vaccines to Global South countries?

    “It was terrible,” said a senior administration official describing the reaction after learning of the campaign’s pig-related posts. “I was shocked. The administration was pro-vaccine and our concern was this could affect vaccine hesitancy, especially in developing countries.”

    fucking liberals

    By spring 2021, the National Security Council ordered the military to stop all anti-vaccine messaging. “We were told we needed to be pro-vaccine, pro all vaccines,” said a former senior military officer who helped oversee the program. Even so, Reuters found some anti-vax posts that continued through April and other deceptive COVID-related messaging that extended into that summer.

    Disgusting fucking pigs couldn’t care less about being pro or against the virus itself.

    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.

    Glad to know they’ll keep contributing to the death counts for millions of dollars

  • FnordPrefect [comrade/them, he/him]@hexbear.net
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    14 days ago

    The Pentagon’s audit concluded that the military’s primary contractor handling the campaign, General Dynamics IT, had employed sloppy tradecraft, taking inadequate steps to hide the origin of the fake accounts, said a person with direct knowledge of the review.

    biden-point “We’re not mad you did it, we’re mad you got caught!”

    • SacredExcrement [any, comrade/them]@hexbear.net
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      14 days ago

      Man I wonder what kind of political messaging would be getting spread by American military contractors that were given carte blanche to do whatever the fuck they wanted in service to an operation literally designed to kill innocent people to spite their socialist geopolitical rival

      hitler particles detector also, why does this keep beeping