Tim Shorrock spreads disinformation about biological warfare in Korea. That makes him a disinformant.

If you’re unfamiliar with self-described Marxist and journalist Tim Shorrock, consider yourself fortunate. But if you’re on Twitter and you’re interested in Korea, you’ve probably run across his tweets. You might even have been blocked by him. And while the world is wide enough for all sorts of kooky viewpoints (as Mao said, “Let a hundred flowers bloom,” as he pulled the cord and started his lawnmower), Shorrock was one of the first “journalists” to whom Moon Jae-in gave an interview after his inauguration as South Korea’s President. That should trouble us as much as it did when Donald Trump went on the Alex Jones Show, because Shorrock and Jones are both conspiracy theorists, and a president’s imprimatur invites conspiracy theories into the mainstream of a country’s political debate.

Claims of U.S. Biological Warfare during the Korean War: Via the Wilson Center’s Kathryn Weathersby, here’s a detailed examination of how the Chinese and Soviet governments fabricated the claims, obtained “confessions” from American prisoners of war (extracted under torture, and subsequently recanted) to buttress them, and used sympathetic front organizations such as the International Association of Democratic Lawyers to spread that disinformation—and how more recent evidence from Soviet and Chinese historical sources eventually proved that the claims were fabricated. To this day, conspiracy theorists continue to propagate that fabrication, and Tim Shorrock continues to retweet articles that perpetuate it, such as this one.

Claims of Biological Weapons Testing at Camp Humphreys. Here, Shorrock and his comrade in the struggle, Simone Chung, pass along claims by the hard-left South Korean website Voice of the People, claiming that the U.S. is testing biological agents at my former post, Camp Humphreys.

Those claims have caused panic and protest.

Shorrock attaches this document as evidence for them:

The document looks like a page from an authentic U.S. Forces Korea document, but when you actually read it, it’s about a biosurveillance exercise. The VOP, Chun, and Shorrock would have you believe “biosurveillance” is about testing biological weapons, but it isn’t. It’s about detecting, diagnosing, containing, and responding to the use of biological agents by someone else against you, and the civilian population, in order to save lives.

We’ve known for decades that Pyongyang was manufacturing biological agents—most infamously, anthrax. That’s why I endured seven anthrax shots during my tour in Korea, all seven of which made me queasy for at least half a day. (The series was actually six shots, but I got a seventh as a special prize for misplacing my yellow shot record one day.) Here’s a paper from the National Institutes of Health explaining biosurveillance. You’ll find other reputable sources online that confirm the same. Shorrock has “unearthed” evidence that U.S. forces in Korea are training for biodefense. That isn’t some sinister plot; it’s something we should all hope the armed forces are preparing for, especially in light of current events. Shorrock mischaracterizes and hypes it to disinform, to stir anger, and probably to inflate his own importance.

In times when the Kremlin, the Chinese Communist Party, and the United Front Department are eager to spread disinformation through allies on both the left and the right, tweeter beware. Consider the damage you’re doing to the pursuit of objective truth, and to your own reputation. Shorrock isn’t a journalist; he’s a propagandist and conspiracy theorist who (like David Irving, and unlike Jones) occasionally unearths a useful fact, but whose viewpoints, arguments, and conclusions are either tendentious, ahistorical, reckless, or flat-out mendacious. He is to America what Donald Trump is to Joe Scarborough—a sad, angry man who will spread any claim, no matter how spurious, to portray the object of his rage in an unfavorable light.

Also, if you ask Shorrock factual questions about his claims or sources, he’ll block you. Which is one thing Shorrock can do that Trump cant.

3 Responses

  1. CAPTAIN Stanton:
    Thank you once again for engaging in the ongoing war of words between the Free World and its enemies. I think this article reaffirms that the Korean War ended with an Armistice, not a surrender document. Hostilities can and do erupt despite the cease fire, and mostly the fight is now verbal rather than kinetic, the May 3rd incident at Chorwon notwithstanding. I particularly appreciated your reference to Mao and ” Let a hundred flowers bloom.” I perceive you are making an offhand reference to the Three Warfares doctrine that the Central MiIitary Committee of Communist China endorsed in 2003. That is a concept our North Korean adversaries fully embrace.

    I read some of the Wilson Center document on germ warfare, and it reaffirms my own opinion that the accusations were just another weapon in the arsenal of the Communist world. I am sorry to conclude that this report will be vilified and marginalized as still another attempt by the United States to cover up an alleged crime. I think it was Joseph Goebbels that once said, ” People are more inclined to believe a big lie than a small one.”

  2. Tim Shorrock often violates the most basic tents of media professionalism and stadard journalistic ethics by writing articles for THE NATION in which he mentions and promotes organizations with which he is affiliated, which list him as an advisor or member, without disclosing in such articles that he is affiliated with those groups about which he writes. That is not the mark of an honest,
    bona fide journalist.

  3. Pardon the typo in the above comment I meant to write “tenets” not “tents”.