The White House is now saying that the idea of Joe Biden’s Afghanistan withdrawal being a disaster is “Russian propaganda” despite the US losing 13 soldiers, billions of dollars in military equipment, and ultimately – victory after nearly two decades of fighting against the Taliban.
Joe Biden’s sloppy and disastrous military withdrawal from Afghanistan resulted in thousands of American citizens being stranded in danger, as well as the tragic losses of 13 United States service members, billions of dollars worth of military equipment, vehicles, and weaponry – unfortunately costing the US a victory in the military effort waged for nearly 20 years against the Taliban.
The White House seemingly wants you to ignore all the loss of life, blood and treasure, images of people falling from planes to their deaths, scores of military-aged Afghani men flooding in to American communities, videos of Taliban fighters in flashy victory parades while driving US military humvees, donning US military gear, and brandishing US military weaponry.
They almost certainly would not want you to remember Biden checking his watch during the dignified transfer ceremony honoring those 13 US service members slain in Kabul, or the cries of Kathy McCollum, the mother of fallen US Marine Rylee McCollum, who tragically died while assisting the Afghanistan evacuation.
After all, Biden fulfilled his promise: The Afghanistan War came to its long-awaited end.
You, as an American or ally of the US, should be celebrating such a monumental achievement and have total confidence in the US government today because of that. If not, according to the White House, you are merely falling for “the old Russian propaganda playbook.”
REPORTER: "One of the things that you hear among Russian propaganda in Ukraine is that the United States is an unreliable ally…Has the Afghanistan withdrawal complicated diplomacy in this regard?"
PSAKI: "That sounds like the old Russian propaganda playbook." pic.twitter.com/p3EdTMJBmM
— Townhall.com (@townhallcom) January 24, 2022
During a White House press briefing, a reporter asked Press Secretary Jen Psaki if the disastrous withdrawal signaled to other nations that the US is unreliable, serving as evidence that the US cannot be relied upon for other conflicts.
“one of the things that you hear among Russian propaganda in Ukraine is that the United States is an unreliable ally that is using Ukraine as a pawn, and they point to the U.S. withdrawal from Afghanistan as evidence that the United States cannot be counted on,” the reporter said. “How does the United States respond to that? And has the Afghanistan withdrawal complicated diplomacy in this regard?”
Psaki replied, “We, the President ended a 20-year war in Afghanistan, something he had talked about consistently doing for some time as he was running for President and even before then.”
She then said that such a suggestion reeked of the Kremlin.
“So, what I would say to that is: That’s sounds like the old Russian propaganda playbook, something we’ve talked about in the past,” said Psaki.
“I’d encourage anyone to be mindful of that.”
The ostensibly tone-deaf comments from the White House came as the Pentagon announced that Biden has placed 8,500 troops on “heightened alert” shortly after it was reported that he was in the “final stages” of sending several thousands of US military troops, as well as warships and aircraft, to Eastern Europe amid mounting tensions between Russia and Ukraine.
On the subject of “Russian propaganda,” the US State Department on January 20 released what they described as Russia’s Top Five Persistent Disinformation Narratives. According to them, the collapse of the West – including the “ill-defined concepts” of “tradition, family values, and spirituality,” are also Russian “disinformation.”
