The document is a blunt declaration that departs from Washington’s usual hypocritical public stance that these countries are constantly engaging in “disinformation, misinformation and propaganda” that must be countered with objective facts and independent, real news from reliable Western sources.
Rather, he said, the U.S. military will need to use “disinformation, misinformation and propaganda” to gain an advantage against such adversaries.
“With the proper authorities, joint forces can weaponize information to manipulate an adversary’s perception of reality by influencing and disrupting the social systems and technological interconnections that underpin modern societies,” the report states.
“Disinformation, misinformation and propaganda can set in motion a chain of events within an adversary’s society that can gradually weaken domestic cohesion, erode public trust in its government and institutions, and weaken its international standing.”
Reuters broke the shocking news over the weekend with the headline “Defense Department launches covert anti-vaccine campaign to undermine China amid pandemic.” “At the peak of the COVID-19 pandemic, the U.S. military launched a covert campaign to counter what it perceived as growing Chinese influence in the Philippines, a country hit particularly hard by the deadly virus,” Reuters reported. At least 300 accounts were identified on X (formerly Twitter) as part of the Defense Department’s disinformation campaign. General Dynamics IT was identified as the military’s main contractor in charge of the campaign.
As a “psychological operation,” it was targeted at China but was carried out primarily in the Philippines and beyond, with the real victims being ordinary Filipinos and, to a lesser extent, Chinese.
This was at a time when Western countries were refusing to share their more advanced mRNA vaccines with countries in the Global South, as opposed to the more conventionally made Chinese vaccines, which had been approved by the World Health Organization (WHO).
The report states:[By June 2021,] The Philippines has one of the worst vaccination rates in Southeast Asia. Only 2.1 million of the country’s 114 million people have been fully vaccinated, far short of the government’s target of 70 million. COVID-19 cases have topped 1.3 million, and about 24,000 Filipinos have died from the virus. The challenge of vaccinating the population has contributed to the worst death rate in the region.
“Why did we do that when people were dying? We were desperate,” Dr Nina Castillo Caladan, who served as an adviser to the WHO and the Philippine government during the pandemic, told Reuters, adding that the US propaganda campaign was “like rubbing salt into the wound”.
Not only do many in China distrust the government, but vaccine skepticism was already widespread in China after French drugmaker Sanofi acknowledged in 2017 that its dengue vaccine, Dengvaxia, could make the disease worse after an outbreak.
According to Reuters, ” [the US military] The aim was to sow doubts about the safety and effectiveness of vaccines and other life-saving aid being supplied by China. Through fake internet accounts posing as Filipinos, the military’s propaganda campaign morphed into an anti-vaccination campaign. Social media posts slammed the quality of face masks, test kits and the Chinese Sinovac vaccine, the first vaccine to be made available in the Philippines.
If you think this is a one-time thing, think again: In February, it was announced that General Dynamics IT had won a five-year, $493 million contract to “provide technical and mission support services to U.S. Special Operations Command.”
Presumably, it will also involve further psychological operations.
