Much could be said about the media news networks that have been covering the Afghanistan evacuations, with tens of thousands having been flown out of the country as it now falls to the Taliban. A US veteran has now spoken out against the media’s coverage of the withdrawal, blasting the news networks for their coverage of the deaths of US soldiers.
US veteran Marie Triplett posted a video on TikTok over the weekend, blasting the media networks for how they have used the deaths of the 13 soldiers during last week’s suicide bombing in Kabul. In her video, Triplett shares how she found the public’s anger towards the 13 American fatalities in the bombing last week and cited the number of US fatalities in the war-torn country over the last 20 years. Triplett then zeroed in on the media, describing the outlets as a “propaganda machine” and saying that they are telling the American public “to be angry.”
“My heart goes out to their families,” said Triplett. “But if you have been silent about the averaging of nine soldiers dying every month for the last 20 years, if you have never once talked about the 20,000 soldiers that have come back wounded from this war, if you don’t talk about the veteran suicide rate that is currently plaguing our veterans stateside, I hate to tell you this but you’re not the advocate for the military that you think you are.”
“Your strings are being puppeted by the propaganda machine and you are being told to be angry. I’m going to politely ask you to stop using these heroes’ deaths to prop up your political agenda. It’s disgusting,” Triplett added.
General Kenneth McKenzie announced Monday that the US has now completed its withdrawal of the military from Afghanistan, ending the almost 20-year long occupation that led to over 2,000 service members killed and 20,000 injured. Gen. McKenzie detailed that the last C-17 took off from Kabul airport at 3:29 p.m. EST, with the last manned aircraft leaving the Afghanistan airspace.
Over 100,000 Afghans and Americans have been flown out of the country as the war-torn nation is now in the hands of the insurgent group. However, more covert attempts to evacuate the rest who are looking to flee are still underway.