The fake vaccination campaign story is plausible, because of the CIA's historic practices, but it is not credible. I dug in and was surprised to see that the r

The fake vaccination campaign story is plausible, because of the CIA's historic practices, but it is not credible. I dug in and was surprised to see that the reporting does not substantiate the narrative. Read the links in that Vox article: you'll see that the story exhibits all the hallmarks of a government-sponsored disinformation campaign. The only sources in the primary reporting (the Guardian article) are from the ISI - Pakistani intelligence. [1] The New York Times' articles hint at an alternative story, which is that the ISI needed to produce something to dampen public anger over the raid that led to Osama Bin Laden's death [2]. (That's my own crude, reductive version - it's surely more complicated than that, given the uncomfortable relationship between aid agencies and the Pakistani government): > Dr. Afridi has told interrogators for the top Pakistani military intelligence agency, the ISI, that he was introduced to the C.I.A. through Save the Children, according to Pakistani officials and Western aid workers. Save the Children vigorously denies the claim, saying it has been made a scapegoat by a desperate man who, according to senior American officials, has been tortured in Pakistani custody. Further along in the same article, we're given more reason not to take this story at face value: > Dr. Afridi had a reputation for hustling as well as healing, and he faced multiple allegations of corruption and professional malpractice, according to officials, colleagues and government papers seen by The New York Times. > At his private practice, several patients claimed he performed improper operations to make extra money, prompting a local warlord named Mangal Bagh to detain him for a week in 2008 until he paid a fine of $11,100 Again, it's certainly possible that the gist of the story is correct, but from the publicly available reporting on it, we only have the word of the CIA's counterpart. [1] https://www.theguardian.com/world/2011/jul/11/cia-fake-vaccinations-osama-bin-ladens-dna https://www.theguardian.com/world/2011/jul/11/cia-fake-vacci... [2] https://www.nytimes.com/2012/05/03/world/asia/bin-laden-raid-fallout-aid-groups-in-pakistan-are-suspect.html https://www.nytimes.com/2012/05/03/world/asia/bin-laden-raid...