If there's a more perfect encapsulation of how feckless and hypocritical our government is, I'd be hard pressed to find it. Just a few short years ago, the Biden administration was chomping at the bit to get people like me -- people like you -- fired from your job for refusing the COVID vaccine.
COVID was so deadly, so uniquely dangerous, that it justified the undermining and usurpation of our rights, the shutting down of businesses, the closures of schools, and the heavy hand of government mandating masks and vaccines to save us.
Anyone who questioned the vaccine, or lockdowns, was a 'grandma killer'. Churchgoers were arrested. Gym owners fined. If you said the virus came from a lab in China, you were a racist. Not buying the official government narrative on COVID put you at risk for censorship under the guise of 'misinformation.'
Remember that? Good times.
So imagine our surprise to learn that Reuters -- in a bold act of journalism -- revealed the Pentagon was actively engaged in an anti-vaccine campaign in the Philippines while at the same time it was punishing Americans who had the audacity to asks questions about the COVID vaccine.
The US DOD ran a disinfo campaign at Filipinos to disparage the Chinese vax. Objectively, they weren't the most anti-vax part of the US gov't. That was the public health establishment, which pushed mandates & censored critics, demolishing its credibility.https://t.co/NraiXK6jRa
— Jay Bhattacharya (@DrJBhattacharya) June 14, 2024
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.
As I said above, remember what the U.S. government did to American citizens in the name of COVID 'safety':
- Lockdowns: Your business was shuttered. Your wedding canceled. Your dad's funeral prohibited. Meanwhile, BLM and Antifa could protest unabated.
- Mask mandates: Those masks (that many of us knew were ineffective) were required to participate in daily life, lest you be a 'grandma killer' and 'anti-science.'
- School closures: Children are so far behind academically because the Democratic Party, in bed with the teachers' unions, kept schools closed long after it was known COVID wasn't a threat to children (who turned out not to be so resilient after all)
- Vaccine mandates: Military members were discharged for refusing the vaccine (whoops), and the Biden administration pushed to make it public policy that every employer mandate vaccines or testing for employees, and don't forget the Biden-Harris administration were actively anti-vaccine when Trump was president.
Stepping out of line with these narratives meant you could be banned from social media for the not-crime of spreading 'misinformation.'
While, simultaneously, the U.S. government itself was engaged in anti-vaccine propaganda in the Philippines. To undermine China.
But don't you dare say COVID came from a Chinese lab. That's racist. Or something.
Forget despising the media. You don't despise the government nearly enough.
This is a story that -- with a sane media -- would lead headlines from now until the election. KJP, Biden, and Harris would be hounded by reporters asking endless questions about this.
Applying the logic of the Left -- that COVID was so deadly, so dangerous it required the upheaval of daily life for years (the 'two weeks to flatten the curve' was always a lie) -- how could they justify their anti-vaccine campaign in the Philippines, which was impacted more heavily by COVID than the U.S.?
They can't.
Which means a few things:
First, the Biden administration recognizes China as a geopolitical threat (and it is, but that's a topic for another post), and one that he's too spineless to address head-on.
Second, COVID was not as big a deal as the Left claimed it was. The lockdowns, the school closures, the mask and vaccine mandates were all political theater meant to impact the 2020 election, as many people claimed all along.
Third, the U.S. was willing to let Filipinos die for the sake of their campaign against China.
I thought that if we elected Biden, we'd regain respect on the world stage. Instead, we have G7 world leaders babysitting the clearly demented president so he doesn't wander off and they say Biden's condition is 'worse than ever.' We have war in Ukraine and Israel. We left Americans to die in Afghanistan. We've insulted allies like Israel and Japan.
None of this -- none of this -- paints the U.S. government in a good light. And we wonder why some nations despise us.
The real cherry on top? No one will be held to account for this; KJP probably won't even be asked about it at her next press conference.
We get the government we deserve. And sometimes we get it good and hard.
