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.”

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