14 SEPTEMBER 2021
By Andrew Korybko
American officials should investigate what’s really going on with this infowar outlet, even if they do so discretely considering how sensitive this provocation is.
The EU is generally regarded as subservient to America’s grand strategic interests, but one of its infowar outlets just surprisingly implied a conspiracy about US policy towards the Taliban by hinting that it might be influenced by a Russian “conspiracy narrative”, as incredulous as this innuendo sounds. “EU vs. Disinfo”, the self-described “flagship project of the European External Action Service’s East Stratcom Task Force” (the EEAS being the self-described “EU’s diplomatic service”) that functions as one of the bloc’s top infowar instruments against Russia, already had its claim about last summer’s Belarus-Wagner provocation debunked by CNN just last week.
It’s now further worsening its already fraught credibility through its recent article about “9/11 And Russia’s Descend From Dialogue To Feeding Conspiracy Narratives”. The unnamed writer began their piece by informing readers that “A closer look at how disinformation found its way into Russian state-owned and pro-Kremlin media illustrate the instrumentalisation of conspiracy theories.” The portion of pertinence to this analysis is that article’s final section titled “2021: The Next Phase – Down With US, Moderate Taliban” where the anonymous author pushes forth what can objectively be described as a genuine conspiracy theory.
They very strongly implied that the description of “the Taliban as moderate, sensible and pragmatic” is part of the earlier speculated “instrumentalisation of conspiracy theories” by the Kremlin, yet this innuendo directly contradicts the US’ policy towards that group. This very strongly suggests that one of Russia’s alleged “conspiracy narratives” is successfully influencing America’s stance towards the Taliban. After all, US officials including President Joe Biden, Chair of the Joint Chiefs Of Staff Mark Milley, and Secretary of State Antony Blinken have publicly articulated policies which imply that the group is “moderate, sensible and pragmatic”.
The American leader explained on 26 August after ISIS-K‘s Kabul Airport terrorist attack that his country was cooperating with the Taliban during the ongoing withdrawal from the country at that time not because they trust one another but due to the group’s “self-interest”. This is the very definition of pragmatism, especially since he acknowledged going as far as having his government give the names of fleeing Americans and others to Taliban members in order to help them pass through the group’s checkpoints en route to the airport. Quite obviously, the Commander in Chief regards the Taliban as “moderate, sensible and pragmatic”.
His top military leader is no different. General Milley said on 1 September that “It’s possible” that the Pentagon might cooperate with the Taliban against ISIS-K. It’s difficult to imagine that he’d ever publicly countenance doing this if he didn’t share President Biden’s implied assessment of the group as “moderate, sensible and pragmatic”. Secretary of State Blinken, meanwhile, confirmed on 3 September that “We continue to maintain channels of communication with the Taliban, on issues that are important.” The only reason why he’d do such a thing is if he also regards the Taliban as “moderate, sensible and pragmatic” enough to talk with the US.
There have been no credible claims that any of these three leading officials have been exposed to so-called Russian “conspiracy narratives” or “disinformation”, let alone are operating under their influence, yet that’s what “EU vs. Disinfo” wants those in its audience who are aware of the US’ policy towards the Taliban to think. There’s no other sensible reason why they’d describe any assessment of the Taliban as “moderate, sensible and pragmatic” as allegedly being the result of Russian “conspiracy narratives” and “disinformation” unless their taxpayer-funded writers were simply unaware of US policy and thus just made a major narrative blunder.
The EEAS should be publicly challenged to account for this infowar product which arguably implies the genuinely false narrative that was exposed in this analysis. American officials should also investigate what’s really going on with this infowar outlet, even if they do so discretely considering how sensitive this provocation is. It’s either a clever attack against their country’s political, military, and diplomatic leaderships by a supposed ally or an example of gross professional incompetence which should result in the writer and their supervisor being held accountable for insinuating that US policy as supposedly being influenced by Russia.
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