Middle East
Pentagon Spokesman says ‘We have Americans that get stranded in countries all the time’
By Jenny Goldsberry
Pentagon spokesperson John Kirby downplayed the circumstances of Americans stranded in Afghanistan in a press conference Monday. He admitted that Americans “get stranded in countries all the time.” His comments dispute what the White House declared since people began evacuating Afghanistan.
A week ago, White House Press Secretary Jen Psaki denied that Americans were stranded in the country in a press conference. “First of all, I think it’s irresponsible to say Americans are stranded,” Psaki said. “They are not.”
Instead, Psaki insisted that their communication strategy is helping get Americans out. “We are committed to bringing Americans, who want to come home, home,” Psaki said. “We are in touch with them via phone, via text, via e-mail, via any way that we can possibly reach Americans to get them home if they want to return home.”
Yet an American mother who claimed to be stranded herself said that there have been instances of miscommunication. “For four days, three, four days, we didn’t hear anything from anywhere,” she said. “And then they’re saying to go to the airport, but we’re not being clear guidance. They are saying one thing, and then the next thing, they come and say something else, so you really exactly don’t know what to do. There is a lot of miscommunication going on. You know, your emails are getting ignored.”
Then, photos of abandoned dogs at the Hamid Karzai International Airport made the rounds on Twitter. Some claimed they were military K-9 units. However Kirby also put those rumors to rest.
“To correct erroneous reports, the U.S. Military did not leave any dogs in cages at Hamid Karzai International Airport, including the reported military working dogs,” Kirby tweeted Tuesday. “Photos circulating online were animals under the care of the Kabul Small Animal Rescue, not dogs under our care.” Why their carriers were seemingly photographed at an airport is still a mystery.
As of Monday, the U.S. military evacuated over 123,000 people.
You can follow Jenny Goldsberry on Twitter @jennyjournalism.
Former and current Facebook and Instagram employees are shedding light onto the “fact checkers” that are censoring vital content such as protests against Iran. “According to a report by BBC Persian, these employees admitted that at all levels of the company, the Iran regime’s influence has infiltrated, leaving biased and pro-regime content monitors to restrict, censor or delete posts about the current protests in Iran” reports The Foreign Desk.
Similar to censorship at the companies in the United States and elsewhere, the behavior is its own political movement. “The actions by these Iranian employees to remove images of the demonstrations in Iran and associated hashtags helps reinforce the Islamic Republic’s argument that the protests are not so widespread.”
According to one of the former employees who had his identity hidden for security purposes, told the BBC Persian in an interview from Germany, that the workers travel back and forth between Europe and Iran. “About 90 percent” of the decision making on censorship is done by these “fact checkers.”
“These are individuals who single-handedly take posts down. According to the source, employees are not allowed to have their personal cellular devices with them at their workstations, so these individuals go to the break room to report a post from their personal phones and then come back to their workstations and address the ‘complaint’ they just created.”
Instagram removed the below post from the @FarashgardFdn becase people chanted “down with Khamenei”.
This action gives us the impression they are censoring Iranian protesters. This is unacceptable @instagram. Restore the post! pic.twitter.com/gsc0M8UaCE
— Iranian Americans for Liberty (@LibertyIranian) May 16, 2022
The Foreign Desk adds:
In 2019 TELUS International became the third-party company contracted with Instagram and Facebook to become their fact checkers and address complaints from users reporting posts for violent, hateful, or threatening material.
A second source, a former TELUS employee, said approximately 400-500 Iranians work at the company in Germany, a country that is known to have diplomatic and bilateral relations with the Islamic Republic.
The Islamic Republic has learned from the Green Revolution of 2009 to infiltrate Western social media outlets and their parent companies to control the narrative and prevent the international community from siding with anti-regime demonstrators.
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