• PrinceWith999Enemies@lemmy.world
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    10 months ago

    You have no idea what you’re talking about.

    Did you miss what happened in the US starting in 2020? A major political party convinced a massive swath of the American population to refuse to take any actions to avoid the spread of a disease. This is a highly educated, highly connected, wealthy population in a (sort of) democracy, and you had incidents of violence and murder occurring over a weaponized and mythologized version of reality pushed by religious extremists and the far right. Now picture a community in Pakistan that does not have that education, the level of political and religious freedom, or that access to information. We saw the same dynamic play out in West Africa during the 2014 Ebola outbreak.

    Except in this case, the CIA was actively involved. Imagine 2022 if it turned out that Biden’s vaccination program turned out to be run by Chinese Ministry for State Security and they were using the program as a way of gathering intelligence on Americans. As it was you had armed militias and paramilitary groups seizing statehouses and plotting kidnappings and political murders.

    So maybe you would be that one brave soul in a deep red Alabama town who wears their mask despite being assaulted, getting spit on, and having their family threatened. It’s statistically unlikely, but maybe you’re just the type of person who would walk down the street in the same town dressed head to heels in drag knowing you’re going to get beat up, if you’re lucky. It just means that your brain - your physical brain - is wired up differently. Congratulations - maybe go join Doctors Without Borders or something.

    The CIA and other American intelligence agencies have been long barred from participating in aid programs to prevent this very thing. They wouldn’t even allow agency people to retire and join government aid agencies without a significant waiting period. It’s the same reason it was considered very outside of bounds for intelligence officers to pose as members of the press. It puts lives in danger. The US has dispatched foreign medical aid using uniformed military assets, but it is done openly. A naval ship will pull up with medical equipment, field hospitals will be set up, and so on.

    Anything else gets people killed - both the aid workers and the community whose distrust forces them to reject the aid.