US omits Macron's plea for 'moral responsibility' from record of Afghanistan call

[SouthBayDem]

Source: The Guardian

The White House’s readout of a call between Joe Biden and Emmanuel Macron on the crisis in Afghanistan leaves out an impassioned plea from the French president that the US and its allies have a “moral responsibility” to evacuate Afghan allies.

The French government’s readout of the conversation was released on Friday, a day after the call took place, and indicates that Macron emphasised ensuring the safe evacuation of Afghan citizens who assisted American and European troops over the past 20 years at great risk to themselves and their families.

According to the readout, Macron described the mission to evacuate allies as a “moral responsibility” and told Biden: “We cannot abandon them.”

The Élysée said Macron “underlined the absolute need to ensure rapid and concrete coordination among allies on the ground to continue the evacuations”.

Read more: https://www.theguardian.com/world/2021/aug/20/afghanistan-macron-biden-moral-responsibility-evacuate-allies

[PortTack]

1. Okay... I don't blame the WH for omitting the comment. Many would take that as we are NOT

Doing everything humanly possible to air lift our allies out of the country when we are! These are the kinds of things fux luvs to run with.

Say again...Dems don’t have good messaging?? Sounds like they thought that one thru

[regnaD kciN]

2. It's anything but "good messaging"...

…to deliberately omit part of the call dealing with such an important matter (and one for which the administration is already taking a ton of heat), when you should be able to predict that the other party to that conversation would be releasing their own transcript, and that the subject’s omission in your own transcript will come across looking like you’re trying to censor matters to cover up something potentially embarrassing to your administration.

As I said on another thread, I can only hope that this was done by a low-level staffer (because anyone in a position of responsibility should have been able to foresee the inevitable outcome), and that said staffer will be removed from a position of public or media relations in the future.

[RockRaven]

3. This is some 1984/Stalin/theformerguy BS...

The main question is: which account accurately represents reality, the US one or the France one?

Also, someone has either made a terribly bad-looking mistake or "made a mistake" and all four quadrants of that 2x2 table are lousy.

[praxEs]

4. Mistake? Deceit? Neither and each of us is capable of ...

understanding a likely alternative.

First, Biden and Macron have trusted, relied upon, and collaborated with each other lots. They most certainly discussed Biden's imminent EO in respect to blocking completion of the undersea gas line from the Russian gas fields to Europe that would have a negative economic effect on the economy of the Ukraine and a short run economic effect on Europe. Note that a call with Merkel also occurred. There was no particular need to discuss operational matters in respect to Afghanistan now at the highest level in my opinion. The EO was delivered to congress yesterday.

In the course of the call they would have commiserated about the objective difficulties associated with the end phases of the withdrawal and recommitted to their work together on this task.

Macron was eager to show his public that he -- Macron -- felt the the same urgency and sense of moral responsibility his public and Biden did. Hence, the decision to pull that item out of all that was discussed. It also explained to the French voters why the call was made.

Finally, the Guardian reporter, unaware of the the vital EO that had not yet been released, lost his mind a little bit.

Voila!

[Raven123]

5. Nonsense. This was not a transcript.

Each country summarized and framed the conversation. The White House readout reaffirmed ongoing efforts to evacuate allies and Americans.

[cstanleytech]

6. Seeing as France could and did easily correct what was said I kind of doubt there was anything

nefarious going on here.