190623 Polemic – Interaction of People, Health, Environment, Information and War

1. Environment, 2. Health, 3. Operations in Hot Zones, 3.1. Venezuela, 3.2. Congo, 3.3. Pakistan, 4. Mephysis, 5. Viral Misinformation. Previous week 190616-Polemic.

Other topics: HIV, Housing maintenance, Sharing medical information with police, Ebola, USNS Comfort, Displaced populations, Attacks on medical facilities, War on ebola 2014, BioCyber attacks, Table top exercises, Bio attacks, Smallpox, Black Swan (never happen), Mass shootings, Poe’s law, Bolton, The Onion

-1. Environment: Report on Effects of a Changing Climate to the Department of Defense. Environmental HealtSmallpox, It will never happen, Mass shootings, Poe’s law, Bolton, The Onionh Risk Assessment Division.

            -A. War on ____ (drugs, crime, Ebola 2014  -2- -3- -4- -5- -6-, -3.2↓) is a terminology to convey that total commitment is needed to win, that there will be casualties. Unfortunately it may also be the wrong way to frame response to biocalamities such as disease outbreaks. War All the Time. Climate Reporters Weigh Coverage Quantity Against Quality. Winning a war entails killing the enemy and destroying the means (infrastructure) for the enemy to fight. What happens when to Rules of Engagement (ROE) when the enemy uses human shields, by infecting people. Destroying a Quote's History in Order to Save It.

-2. Health: U.S. Military Landlord Filed False Maintenance Logs, Earning Bonuses, while endangering military personnel and their families. Hong Kong Hospitals Accused of Leaking Protestors' Patient Data to Cops -2-, in other words, health data of individuals has now been used as a weapon. This may be the tipping point where the field of medicine can no longer claim to be neutral. VA Employees Say Agency Is Actively Retaliating Against Whistleblowers.

-3. Operations in Hot Zones:

            -3.1. Pence: U.S. Navy Hospital Ship to Help Displaced Venezuelans, Hospital Ships T-AH. <ADDED 190623-181209-4>.

            -3.2. Bunia: Resistance Against the Ebola Response Teams Is Coming In, like North Kivu Neighbour. Mai Mai Militia Threatened by Ebola Virus Disease in the Outskirts of Beni. Inside the Battle to Save Congo from the Ebola Crisis, between January and May this year, there were 130 attacks on healthcare facilities. <ADDED 190623-180513-1.1>. 190623-Vaccine-3. -5.3↓. Meet the Ebola Workers Battling a Virus in a War Zone^$. -1A↑. Regional Overview of Violence and Protest – Africa 11 June 2019. Northeast Congo Insecurity Hampers Response to Measles Outbreak. -5.1A, 5.3↓.

            -A. Watch to see if Ebola spreads in Uganda, and if so it resistance to medical help is part of the spread. There will be a spread of panic in other countries that could overwhelm the medical system with walking worried.

            -3.3. Continuation of 190526-Polemic-3.3. Hundreds of Children in Pakistan Have Been Infected with HIV. Used Needles Could Be to Blame^$. UN Launches Emergency Response to Contain Pakistan HIV Epidemic. With The United States and Pakistan: Frenemies on the Brink -2-, the CIA Organised Fake Vaccination Drive to Get Osama Bin Laden's Family DNA that fuels the resistance to polio vaccination in Pakistan, and HIV is a US/ UN bioweapon, United Nations Guilty of Infecting the World with the Biological Weapon AIDS, -5.1A↓, Pakistan is more likely to become a hot spot that may eventually have a hot war. -5.3↓.

-4. Mephysis: Russia Believes Terrorists Want to Steal Nuclear and Biological Weapons. Cyber-Biosecurity Risk Perceptions in the Biotech Sector. A Spreading Plague: Lessons and Recommendations for Responding to a Deliberate Biological Event, Tabletop Exercise for Senior Global Leaders on International Response to Deliberate Biological Events.

-5. Viral Misinformation

-5.1. Trolls attacking everything, Coordinating a disinformation campaign during a pandemic, BioTerror without using a bioagent, 5.2. Iranian propaganda fuel, 5.3. Misinformation spreading Ebola

-5.1. Russian Trolls Used Twitter to Attack Liberals, Conservatives and News Media. The study finds that Russia’s Internet Research Agency – a troll farm – had a dual strategy: to sow division and weaken America’s two main political parties while also bolstering voter support for Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump. The IRA wasn’t using Twitter to circulate so called fake news, as some people have believed. It was pushing the extreme version of narratives we already created ourselves. They were trying to push both sides to extreme positions, but doing so in a way that very much also pushed for the election of Trump -1- -2- -3- -4-, -5-. You can very easily do both at the same time. In fact, doing both at the same time was an effective mechanism. 190623-7.

            -A. We Must Prepare for the Next Pandemic. The current disinformation campaign on Twitter about Ebola in Texas 190616-Vaccine-2B -3.2↑ maybe a rehearsal for much more ambitious campaigns. When the next pandemic strikes (Video), we’ll be fighting it on two fronts. The first is the disease. The second is fighting the deluge of rumors, misinformation and flat out lies – the author is incorrect that this is new, human behavior has a long history, and prehistory, of exacerbating disease. This second battle will be like the Russian disinformation campaigns during the 2016 presidential election, only with the addition of a deadly health crisis*. Pandemics are part of our future. Global travel and trade, increased population density, decreased wildlife habitats, and increased animal farming to satisfy a growing and more affluent population have made them more likely. When the next pandemic strikes, accurate information will be just as important as effective treatments. There’s every reason to expect misinformation to be rampant during a pandemic. In the early hours and days, information will be scant and rumors will abound. Most of us are not health professionals or scientists. We won’t be able to tell fact from fiction. Even worse, we’ll be scared. Our brains work differently when we are scared, and they latch on to whatever makes us feel safer – even if it’s not true. Rumors and misinformation could easily overwhelm legitimate news channels, as people share tweets, images and videos. Much of it will be well intentioned but wrong – like the misinformation spread by the anti-vaccination community today. In the 1980s the KGB ran a sophisticated disinformation campaign –  Operation Infektion (Operation Infektion: the Origins of Fake News) – to spread the rumor that H.I.V./AIDS was a result of an American biological weapon gone awry -2- -3- -4- -5-, 190512-Polemic-4, -3.3↑. It’s reasonable to assume some group or country would deliberately spread intentional lies in an attempt to increase death and chaos.

            -B. A plan such as Health System Capacity in Sydney, Australia in the Event of a Biological Attack with Smallpox would be easy to make ineffective. The plan does not consider disinformation – and medical supply distribution, laundry service infrastructure, crowd control, access control, physical attacks, and other human factors. One would not even have to have a smallpox outbreak to start trolling about why is a hospital planning for a smallpox outbreak when it is an eradicated disease: Is there a secret biolab that has it. Why have the smallpox samples not been destroyed (Expert Says US Should Agree to Destroy Smallpox Virus Stocks, Largest World Stock of Animal Killing Virus Destroyed by UK Lab). Is it a bioweapon in the NATO inventory. Did monkey pox mutate -2-. Did BigPharma say it eradicated smallpox in order to sell the vaccine in the future. Did terrorists get a sample of the live virus from a melting permafrost graves. The US has variola bioweapons – why else would the US stockpiling vaccine^$ for an eradicated disease.

            -*C. In 2010 the NORTHCOM pandemic planners proposed the possibility of combined terror attacks, along with disinformation, during a natural outbreak to increase social disruption, cause more death, overwhelm the medical infrastructure further, lower trust in government, and delay effective containment and control of the outbreak. This was deemed as very far fetched, and any case there would not be another pandemic for a long Time, Why the Race to Stop the next Flu Outbreak Starts at State Fairs and the Beach. The pandemic planning contract was terminated early in 2011. A disinformation campaign was already in progress by that time, April 2009, The H1N1 Pandemic: Political Lies and Media Disinformation Regarding the Swine Flu Outbreak.

            -D. Another illustration of a social condition that can be exploited for disinformation. Mass Shootings in America Are Spreading Like a Disease, America's Gun Violence Epidemic: Mass Shootings Getting Deadlier. FBI Warns of Foreign Actors Trying to 'Sow Discord' in the Wake of Mass Shootings.

-5.2. Recommend anticipating that the recent current events regarding US and Iran will be the basis for white propaganda. Disinformation and deepfakes, 190616-Polemic-5.3A, will not be necessary as this will support current narratives -2- -3- -4- -5- -6- -7- -8- -9- -10-. This is one of the uses of disinformation. No matter how absurd there will always be situations that will allow one to go back to real information to the past and present, and influence the interpretation with disinformation that is already in circulation – fire, ready, aim -2- – even if it is known to be false: Trump Full Speech: This Could Be Most Peaceful and Prosperous Century The World Has Ever Known 2016. U.S. Navy Says It Has Proof Iran Was Involved in Oil Tanker Attacks. [Cartoon]. To Contain Iran, Trump's Newest Line in the Sand Looks a Lot Like Obama’s^$. ld   HYPERLINK "https://www.bbc.com/news/world-middle-east-48711229" US Drone: Trump Says Iran Made a 'Very Bad Mistake'. Trump Stopped Strike on Iran Because It Was ‘Not Proportionate’ [Tweet, Cartoon]. Trump May Not Want War, but He May Still Get One. [Map, Meme]. Amid Tough Talk, Trump Says He Could Be Iran’s ‘Best Friend’. US Struck Iranian Computers Earlier this Week. [Cartoon]. This is all happening in a larger context of nuclear weapons and propaganda coups -2-, North Korea: Kim Receives ‘Excellent’ Letter from Trump [Cartoon].

            -A. To mention again, this is in line with antivax disinformation 190623-Vaccine-Polemic-5-2, which likewise uses fire, ready, aim. Weaponized Health Communication: Twitter Bots and Russian Trolls Amplify the Vaccine Debate, Russian Trolls Using Social Media to Spread Anti Vaccine Propaganda, That Anti Vaccination Message May Be from a Russian Bot or Troll, The Anti Vaccine Misinformation You Read on Twitter Probably (Originally) Came from Russia. Are Russian Trolls Saving Measles from Extinction. Can You Believe That the Antivax Community Is Now Labeled Russian Bots, is a good point. The Russians make some of them but it is the antivaxxers who freely circulated and created more of them them, often times for capitalistic reasons. Unfortunately biological, chemical and information weapons continue to spread after release, can become more lethal, and may eventually come back to roost, Measles Cases Jump 13 Fold in Russia in 2018, Russia: Government Expanding Vaccination for Measles Amid Outbreak in Neighboring Countries; Sad reality: Handful of WA Measles Outbreak Sites Are in Russian Speaking Communities, Russian Social Media Fuels Vaccine Anxiety as Measles Spreads in Washington State, [Meme].

            -B. Bolton Calls for Forceful Iranian Response to Continuing U.S. Aggression, Bolton Argues War with Iran Only Way to Avenge Americans Killed in Upcoming War with Iran, Chuck Schumer: The American People Deserve a President Who Can More Credibly Justify War with Iran, U.S. Claims Drone Was Minding Own Business on its Way to Church When Iran Attacked it out of Nowhere, White House Claims Iran Behind Attack on Nancy Kerrigan, Iran Threatens to Breach Nuclear Deal, White House Hires Top Hollywood Agent To Pitch Action Packed, High Concept War With Iran To American Public; Iran's News Agency Portrays Satirical Onion Story as its Own, https://rationalwiki.org/wiki/Poe's_LawrsltPoe’s Law. Iran’s Cartoonists Are Finding it Almost Too Easy to Mock Trump. Satirical Story Gets Serious Treatment Online.

-5.3. How Misinformation Is Making It Almost Impossible to Contain the Ebola Outbreak in DRC. This is part of the unintended consequences of disinformation. Losing trust in sources of information, and lower resistance to false information, directly help spread disease. If it spreads far enough it can eventually come all the way back to the origin of the disinformation chain -3.2 -3.3 -5.1A↑. | Fake News Evolved into Fake Events, and the Consequences Are Scary. [Cartoon]. In Washington Pizzeria Attack, Fake News Brought Real Guns^$, Conspiracy Theorist Alex Jones Apologizes for Promoting 'Pizzagate', Conspiracy Theories Made Alex Jones Very Rich. They May Bring Him Down^$, YouTube, Facebook, and Apple’s Ban on Alex Jones, [Cartoon]. Alex Jones Struggling to Convince Skeptical Police after Witnessing Actual Murder in Neighbor’s Backyard.