For seven and a half years, I served as director of the State Department office that leads Leahy vetting of foreign security units. I have seen how even and fair application of the Leahy law is key to U.S. foreign policy and credibility abroad. But when it comes to Israel â the story so far is about a lack of application.
U.S. State Department spokespersons assert that the department complies with the Leahy law via âongoing processes,â and that treatment of Israel under the Leahy law is the same as for any other country.
Pentagon ran secret anti-vax campaign to undermine China during pandemic The U.S. military launched a clandestine program amid the COVID crisis to discredit Chinaâs Sinovac inoculation â payback for Beijingâs efforts to blame Washington for the pandemic. One target: the Filipino public. Health experts say the gambit was indefensible and put innocent lives at risk.
To implement the anti-vax campaign, the Defense Department overrode strong objections from top U.S. diplomats in Southeast Asia at the time, Reuters found. Sources involved in its planning and execution say the Pentagon, which ran the program through the militaryâs psychological operations center in Tampa, Florida, disregarded the collateral impact that such propaganda may have on innocent Filipinos.
âWe werenât looking at this from a public health perspective,â said a senior military officer involved in the program. âWe were looking at how we could drag China through the mud.â
We have about 50 percent of the worldâs wealth, but only 6.3 percent of
its population. In this situation, we cannot fail to be the object of envy
and resentment. Our real task in the coming period is to devise a pattern
of relationships, which will permit us to maintain this position of disparity. To do so, we will have to dispense with all sentimentality and day-dreaming; and our attention will have to be concentrated everywhere on
our immediate national objectives. We should cease to talk about vague
and unreal objectives such as human rights, the raising of the living standards, and democratization. The day is not far off when we are going to
have to deal in straight power concepts. The less we are then hampered
by idealistic slogans, the better.