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MSNBC Conspiracy Theory: Travel Ban Caused Deaths of U.S. Troops in Niger
Newsbusters.org ^ | October 20, 2017 | Kyle Drennen

Posted on 10/20/2017 3:24:50 PM PDT by Kaslin

On her primetime show Thursday night, MSNBC anchor Rachel Maddow peddled an unsubstantiated conspiracy theory that somehow the Trump administration’s travel ban led to the deaths of four U.S. special forces soldiers in Niger. The accusation was then repeated on Friday by fellow MSNBC host Andrea Mitchell despite a complete lack of evidence.

“September 24th of this year, which was three and a half weeks ago, the Trump administration announced it’s new Muslim ban....they added in North Korea, they added in Venezuela, and they added in Chad,” Maddow declared early in the 9 p.m. ET hour Thursday night. Connecting the supposed dots, she noted moments later: “On Friday of last week, the government of Chad announced that they had completed the withdrawal of all Chadian troops from their neighboring country, Niger, where for years they have been fighting ISIS-linked Islamic militants...”

 

MSNBC Conspiracy Theory: Travel Ban Caused Deaths of U.S. Troops in Niger

MSNBC Conspiracy Theory: Travel Ban Caused Deaths of U.S. Troops in Niger

On Friday, fellow liberal traveler Andrea Mitchell seized on her good friend Rachel’s phony scoop: “...there are unanswered questions about the operation in Niger over the lack of air cover, whether an unrelated decision opposed by the State Department and Pentagon to extend the travel ban to include Chad led to with withdrawal of crack troops from Chad, critical allies in Niger.”

Turning to NBC News National Security Reporter Courtney Kube minutes later, Mitchell wondered: “What can you tell us about what they were doing there and whether they were exposed by the withdrawal of Chadian troops just a day or so before?”

Kube cast serious doubt on the conspiratorial notion:

You know, you mentioned Chad. I know that’s an idea that’s sort of been floating around now. Rachel Maddow spoke about it extensively last night. And you know, we don’t know if that played anything into it. I will say, what we do know about the Chadian military’s mission there was they were focused largely on Boco Haram. And right now it seems that the attack that was carried out on the U.S. was more – was more likely this ISIS affiliate.

However, perhaps feeling pressure not to contradict the two MSNBC personalities, Kobe offered:

But you know, you were right to point out that it all came around the same time. Was there any kind of a shift in power? Did it – you know, the withdrawal of these hundreds of Chadian troops have any kind of – open up any kind of space, give any new freedom of movement? And those are all questions that we don’t know.

Kobe’s initial skepticism was completely on point. Shortly after Maddow’s show Thursday night, Colby College political science professor, Africa expert, and Washington Post contributor Laura Seay took to Twitter to declare: “Deeply disappointed by @maddow’s massively irresponsible conspiracy-mongering on Niger tonight.”

“There is no evidence that the withdrawal of Chadian forces from Niger due to Trump’s travel ban has anything to do w/the Niger tragedy,” Seay added a short time later. She explained in another tweet: “Chadian forces that withdrew from Niger were stationed in Diffa, a region of Niger that has suffered greatly at the hands of Boko Haram.”

That squares with Kobe’s reporting that “the Chadian military’s mission there was they were focused largely on Boco Haram.” In other words, Maddow’s assertion that forces from Chad were combating ISIS terrorists in Niger was false.

In its desperation to blame Trump for the deaths of U.S. troops, MSNBC got the most basic facts wrong.  

Maddow’s biased rambling was brought to viewers by Bank of America, Alka-Seltzer, and TD Ameritrade.

Here are excerpts of the October 19 segment:

9:12 PM ET

(...)

RACHEL MADDOW: September 24th of this year, which was three and a half weeks ago, the Trump administration announced it’s new Muslim ban, which they would prefer you don’t call a Muslim ban anymore. During the campaign, candidate Trump had proclaimed he would enforce a total and complete ban on Muslims entering the United States. That morphed into the Muslim ban he announced as soon as he was inaugurated, which went precisely nowhere in the courts. It’s gone through several different iterations since then, all of which have also gone nowhere in the courts.

But on September 24th, they announced a new ban that included a new list of countries from which people would not be allowed to come to this country. And I mean, they’ve been – it’s random, right? So we don’t know how this happens, but they dropped Iraq, okay? They dropped Sudan, but then they added in North Korea, they added in Venezuela, and they added in Chad.

(...)

9:15 PM ET

MADDOW: On Friday of last week, the government of Chad announced that they had completed the withdrawal of all Chadian troops from their neighboring country, Niger, where for years they have been fighting ISIS-linked Islamic militants as the most battle-hardened most effective military in the region fighting Islamic militancy.

The Reuters bureau in the region reported that already, immediately upon the withdrawal of those Chadian troops, Boko Haram attacks and other Islamic militant started to tick up in Niger. Residents immediately started to leave their villages and move out of whatever region they lived in for their own safety, because those Chadian troops withdrew from Niger.

Chad announced that their troops were all out this past Friday, but they also announced that the removal of those troops was the culmination of a two-week process. So it took the two weeks to get all those troops out of there, the process was done by Friday. Which means they started withdrawing their troops from Niger the last week in September. If we’re going to be literal as to what they announced about the two-week period. That means they pulled their troops out starting Friday, September 29. Which would be the Friday after the Trump administration made this baffling decision to insult and harm our closest military ally in that region and the leader of the regional fight against ISIS and Boko Haram in that part of the world.

(...)

9:17 PM ET

MADDOW: And those Chadian troops pulling out immediately had an effect of emboldening and enabling ISIS attacks. And those troops started pulling out, best as we can tell, last week of September, September 29th, right after the Trump administration inexplicably did what they did. Those troops from Chad got pulled out the 29th. Right after that, that’s when four U.S. Army soldiers got attacked by a large contingent of ISIS fighters in Niger, and four of them killed, within days of the start of the Chadian soldiers being withdrawn. So no wonder the President doesn’t want to talk about it, right?

(...)



TOPICS: Culture/Society; Editorial
KEYWORDS: africa; coservativesrepubs; cyperalerts; foreignpolicy

1 posted on 10/20/2017 3:24:50 PM PDT by Kaslin
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To: Kaslin

You can’t blame Maddow, Mitchell, etc. for being insane. You can, however, blame MSNBC, CNN, etc. for putting them on the air.


2 posted on 10/20/2017 3:32:39 PM PDT by facedown (Armed in the Heartland)
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To: Kaslin

With a stretch like that, old Rachel should be playing First Base on the MSNBC softball team.


3 posted on 10/20/2017 3:33:17 PM PDT by blueunicorn6 ("A crack shot and a good dancer")
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To: facedown

That’s why Hannity is kicking her in the ratings. Once you placed a sane person to compete against this loony twit, normal people ignore crazy people.


4 posted on 10/20/2017 3:36:21 PM PDT by beergarden
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To: Kaslin

Democrat updated version of ‘the video’ . . .


5 posted on 10/20/2017 3:40:46 PM PDT by Pilgrim's Progress (http://www.baptistbiblebelievers.com/BYTOPICS/tabid/335/Default.aspx D)
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To: Kaslin

I do find it interesting that some Democrat leaders still blame 9/11 on Bush and the August PDB. Many have said this (And I quote) “If Bush had banned all travel from nations that harbored terrorists, this wouldn’t have happened”. But they seem to forget that the 19 hijackers came here in 1998 and assimilated into our country and culture. There were already here and a travel ban would not have stopped the attack. I read the military unofficial report from ABC news, and it states this was a routine meeting with local leaders. They had met with them many times before. There was nothing to indicate pending trouble. Because it had become so routine, they didn’t anticipate an attack. There was a military group from Niger with them and they had stopped outside the location as they always have to mingle with the locals. Everything here was designed to show good faith, and give the locals comfort. However ISIS shattered that with terrorism( That is why we call it terrorism) and succeeded in the attack. I am guessing Rachel still thinks military troops gather on the battlefield, armed with muskets, and they fire volleys at each other and die with honor. She has no clue how this war on terrorism is fought. And she believes that when we lose a firefight, if the president is a republican he must be prosecuted and hung for treason.

What I didn’t hear from Rachel was in 2012 during the elections, a group of Taliban penetrated our base there in a suicide attack, killed several coalition troops and destroyed 8-12 US fighting jets (Harriers) in the worst loss of men and equipment in a single day in our fighting in Afghanistan. She never came up with conspiracies, didn’t question if Obama did something that caused it, or made silly accusations.


6 posted on 10/20/2017 3:41:03 PM PDT by realcleanguy
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To: Kaslin
Or it could have been House Resolution 3833 introduced by none other than Fredrick Wilson that put these men in harm's way.

LINK
7 posted on 10/20/2017 3:44:10 PM PDT by DocRock (And now is the time to fight! Peter Muhlenberg)
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To: Kaslin; facedown; blueunicorn6; beergarden; Pilgrim's Progress; realcleanguy

Wow! They can connect these unrelated and largely invisible dots, yet they can’t figure out that Hitlery sold our uranium for personal profit! The mind boggles.


8 posted on 10/20/2017 3:45:58 PM PDT by generally ( Don't be stupid. We have politicians for that.)
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To: Kaslin

Problem is there isn’t one, as they have all been stopped in the court systems.


9 posted on 10/20/2017 3:48:05 PM PDT by Robert DeLong
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To: DocRock

Fredrica not Fredrick...stupid autospell


10 posted on 10/20/2017 3:49:42 PM PDT by DocRock (And now is the time to fight! Peter Muhlenberg)
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To: Kaslin

They can rick-it they can rack-it any way they can hack-it.

While I am sorry for any and all deaths by our military it is far better than such deaths occur over THERE and not HERE.


11 posted on 10/20/2017 3:53:23 PM PDT by plain talk
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To: Kaslin

These idiots really have NO clue that we are fighting Boko Haram in Nigeria and other places do they..or the fact that Obama is the one that ordered troops to Niger in the first place


12 posted on 10/20/2017 4:14:39 PM PDT by Sarah Barracuda
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To: Kaslin

The “media” want to know everything about why we were in Niger and what happened to our troops in hopes it will result in dirt on Trump. They were crickets when it was about Benghazi.....


13 posted on 10/20/2017 4:16:01 PM PDT by jeffc (The U.S. media are our enemy)
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To: Kaslin

Clearly the travel ban caused these deaths in Niger because if not for the travel ban the killers would have been in New York.


14 posted on 10/20/2017 5:49:07 PM PDT by Brilliant
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To: facedown

Somebody stop the hammering!
MSNBC at its best.


15 posted on 10/20/2017 6:04:32 PM PDT by freefdny
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To: Kaslin

Rachie,put down the puffs ...

16 posted on 10/20/2017 7:18:13 PM PDT by VRWC For Truth ( Freep u, Schmucky)
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To: Kaslin

Yeah - those who want to kill us, saw some news that upset the Democrats (hmmmmmm) and decided to try to kill some of us.......


17 posted on 10/21/2017 3:01:52 AM PDT by trebb (Where in the the hell has my country gone?)
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To: Kaslin
...Deaths of U.S. Troops in Niger

Everyone who even KNEW we had troops in Niger; raise their hand.

18 posted on 10/21/2017 5:32:37 AM PDT by Elsie (Heck is where people, who don't believe in Gosh, think they are not going...)
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