NATO’s lockdown “live exercise” and Europe’s COVID-19 Task Force
Did Trump "order" the global COVID military response?
For this post don’t miss ‘new’ 2020 video and transcript content from the Pentagon and NATO archives, plus a recap at-a-glance of DoD’s framework for ‘international response’ to Chem-Bio-Rad-Nuclear (CBRN) incidents.
The “invisible enemy” and NATO’s COVID-19 Europe Task Force
On 18 March 2020 - the same day President Trump “gave the order” for the Department of Homeland Security to lead the national coronavirus response - the Commander-in-Chief drew a direct comparison between World War II and lockdowns.
Warming to his theme, Trump continued…
(20 sec)
And now it's our time. We must sacrifice together because we are all in this together. And we'll come through together.
It's the invisible enemy - that's always the toughest enemy - the invisible enemy. But we are going to defeat the invisible enemy. I think we're gonna do it even faster than we thought. And it will be a complete victory. It'll be a total victory.
President Trump - 18 March 2020
During the same press conference Trump emphasized that the vaccine - which had been in development since the sequence was shared in mid January - would be the central pillar of this “complete victory”.
And yet two weeks earlier a top US Army infectious disease expert had insisted during a Pentagon media event that this particular adversary was “a low risk infection… even in the absence of a vaccine".
On April 3rd 2020, NATO’s front line COVID-19 Europe Task Force was formed as part of the highly coordinated lockdown ‘fight’ against ‘the invisible enemy’.
This was consistent with the reference to “NATO obligations” and the COVID response by a Dutch parliamentarian in late 2024 - and the framework for “International Chem-Bio-Rad-Nuclear Response” according to US joint military doctrine.
The performative ‘pandemic’
At the intersection of the roles played by the military and media and medicine, an elaborate propaganda-based operation underpinned the initial phase of the lockstep manufactured COVID crisis, from temperature checks at border crossings to the construction of pop-up field hospitals.
To set the scene for the series of unfolding events in the transatlantic context as presented to the public in early 2020 is a screen shot (below) of General Tod Wolters, former Commander of US European Command and NATO Supreme Allied Commander Europe, at a Senate Armed Services Committee hearing on February 25th.
During the hearing, General Wolters answered questions about “the coronavirus impact in the European theater”.
Two weeks later, on 11 March 2020, the WHO declared a ‘pandemic’.
And in the U.S the following week…
On 16 March 2020 - three days after declaring a National Emergency - President Trump announced the commencement of “15 Days to Slow the Spread” across America.
On 18 March 2020, President Trump “gave the order” that put FEMA (Department of Homeland Security) in charge of the domestic “medical war”, replacing HHS as the Lead Federal Agency.
On 20 March 2020, then-Secretary of State Mike Pompeo stated on-the-record at the daily White House coronavirus press conference: “We're in a live exercise here to get this right.”
Also on 20 March 2020 - according to the Department of Defense website - General Wolters remarked in a press briefing via teleconference:
As many of you know, U.S. European Command, together with all of our NATO allies and partners, is combating the coronavirus with extreme intensity. This is serious, serious business, and for months we have embraced precautionary measures to safeguard the health not only of our personnel, but also of our communities and the mission.
In keeping with our allies and partners, we continue to take the necessary steps to reduce the further spread of the virus.
General Tod Wolters, Commander, U.S. European Command - 20 March 2020
On the same day (per the US DoD website) NATO Secretary General, Jens Stoltenberg, issued a media release referring to the “unprecedented crisis” in Europe in a 90 second video that included images of masked soldiers manning checkpoints and hazmat teams disinfecting alleyways.
(Screen shot)
Reminder: A deliberate campaign of terror was directed at the aged care workforce to drive the narrative of PPE-scarcity and the need for military support to civil authorities, with deadly consequences…
On April 3rd 2020, the Supreme Headquarters Allied Powers Europe (SHAPE) COVID-19 Task Force was created.
From Voice of America:
NATO's top military officer said Friday [April 3rd, 2020] that the 30-member alliance would use its unique ability to respond to crises to fight the deadly coronavirus pandemic sweeping across the globe.
Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg on Thursday tasked Wolters with boosting the alliance's response to COVID-19.
Wolters has appointed his vice chief of staff of Allied Command Operations, French Army officer Lieutenant General Olivier Rittimann, as head of the task force to combat the coronavirus.
3 April 2020 - voanews.com
This development was reported at the NATO news website and - “ICYMI” - on the NATO twitter account, with video clips featuring General Wolters and Lieutenant General Rittimann… and the military transport of pallets of PPE “to those most in need” across Europe.
(75 sec clip below - and/or NATO link for full 2.5 min video with transcript)
I have designated Lieutenant General Olivier Rittmann as the Commander, Supreme Headquarters Allied Powers Europe COVID-19 Task Force.
General Rittimann will continue leading our relentless efforts to defeat this invisible virus, coordinate current and near term fixes, and better prepare and posture our militaries for future pandemics.
General Tod Wolters, Commander, U.S. European Command - 7 April 2020
NATO “changed its core mission in order to respond to the pandemic”
In a news media article in The Telegraph on 19 April 2020, Lt Gen Rittimann was quoted as saying in an interview on Sky News (UK) that NATO had changed its mission to defend against the pandemic because "NATO isn’t a disaster relief organisation”.
In reality, the ‘disaster relief’ was outpaced by disaster: the ‘NATO mission’ was part of the theater that was deployed to justify historically unprecedented business shutdowns (and permanent transfer of wealth), school closures (and unrecoverable setbacks to education), visitor lockouts (and unattended loved ones in care homes & hospitals) etc etc - as seen in other parts of the world during lockdowns - ostensibly as part of the ‘emergency response’ to ‘slow-the-spread’ until ‘life-saving vaccines’ arrived.
The ‘pandemic’ policy coup… and the CBRN PsyWar
Reminder - from previous posts on the US DoD Joint Publication on Chemical Biological Radiological Nuclear (CBRN) Response…
(1) US DoD multinational standardization agreements for CBRN Response involving NATO specify that…
… The aim of these agreements is to provide guidelines to commanders about operational issues. Participating nations agree that NATO armed forces will adopt the standards outlined in each agreement.
(2) DoD was added as a “Lead Federal Agency” for International CBRN Response to a “biological incident” (or similar event) in the updated September 2016 edition of Joint Publication 3-41.
Red boxes in the diagram below denote the change from 2012 to 2016, with the addition of Department of Defense as Lead Federal Agency (vs Department of State only) for International CBRN Response:
A question that remains unanswered is:
In the “war against the virus”, did President Trump in effect “order” the COVID response by America’s allies and partners, with the Department of Defense as “Lead Federal Agency” for foreign nations?
So-called ‘CBRN Response’ is the 21st century military industrial complex in action, whereby a public-private defense-and-security apparatus wages a ‘whole-of-society’ war against the citizenry - rehearsed at multiple ‘pandemic’ tabletop exercises since Dark Winter in June 2001, and rolled out in real life in 2020.
The DoD-led international COVID “live exercise” in response to a contrived ‘CBRN crisis’ was essential to the propaganda and policy operation that had the end goal of total tyranny disguised as ‘public health’.
To be continued.
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