{"id":659049,"date":"2021-08-18T17:50:25","date_gmt":"2021-08-18T21:50:25","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/?p=659049"},"modified":"2021-08-18T17:50:28","modified_gmt":"2021-08-18T21:50:28","slug":"fact-check-is-the-only-mcdonalds-in-afghanistan-being-staffed-by-us-marines","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/fact-check-is-the-only-mcdonalds-in-afghanistan-being-staffed-by-us-marines\/","title":{"rendered":"FACT CHECK: Is The Only McDonald\u2019s In Afghanistan Being Staffed By US Marines?"},"content":{"rendered":"<aside class=\"mashsb-container mashsb-main mashsb-stretched\"><div class=\"mashsb-box\"><div class=\"mashsb-count mash-medium\" style=\"&quot;\"><div class=\"counts mashsbcount\">26<\/div><span class=\"mashsb-sharetext\">SHARES<\/span><\/div><div class=\"mashsb-buttons\"><a class=\"mashicon-facebook mash-medium mash-nomargin mashsb-noshadow\" href=\"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/sharer.php?u=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.conservativenewsdaily.net%2Fbreaking-news%2Ffact-check-is-the-only-mcdonalds-in-afghanistan-being-staffed-by-us-marines%2F\" target=\"_top\" rel=\"nofollow\"><span class=\"icon\"><\/span><span class=\"text\">Facebook<\/span><\/a><a class=\"mashicon-twitter mash-medium mash-nomargin mashsb-noshadow\" href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/intent\/tweet?text=&amp;url=https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/?p=659049&amp;via=ConservNewsDly\" target=\"_top\" rel=\"nofollow\"><span class=\"icon\"><\/span><span class=\"text\">Twitter<\/span><\/a><a class=\"mashicon-subscribe mash-medium mash-nomargin mashsb-noshadow\" href=\"#\" target=\"_top\" rel=\"nofollow\"><span class=\"icon\"><\/span><span class=\"text\">Subscribe<\/span><\/a><div class=\"onoffswitch2 mash-medium mashsb-noshadow\" style=\"display:none\"><\/div><\/div>\n            <\/div>\n                <div style=\"clear:both\"><\/div><\/aside>\n            <!-- Share buttons by mashshare.net - Version: 4.0.47--><div><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/08\/McDonalds-1-scaled-e1628697668552.jpg\" class=\"ff-og-image-inserted\" \/><\/div>\n<p>An image&nbsp;<a href=\"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/james.cooper.9674\/posts\/10227633487001975\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\" data-saferedirecturl=\"https:\/\/www.google.com\/url?q=https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/james.cooper.9674\/posts\/10227633487001975&amp;source=gmail&amp;ust=1629311490228000&amp;usg=AFQjCNEd0PzqFGtAepwOTwJXYaccX-j4iw\">shared on Facebook<\/a> claims U.S. Marines are staffing the only McDonald\u2019s restaurant in Afghanistan until all Americans have been evacuated.<\/p>\n<p><span><strong>Verdict: False<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n<p>The tweet has been fabricated. There is no evidence Marines are staffing a McDonald\u2019s in Kabul.<\/p>\n<p><span><strong>Fact Check:<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n<p>The U.S. has been working to evacuate thousands of American citizens, Afghan allies and others from Kabul after the country\u2019s government collapsed, <a href=\"https:\/\/archive.is\/46dNe\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Reuters<\/a> reported. The capital city fell to the Taliban on Aug. 15, after the group had already seized control of nearly the entire county&nbsp;in the wake of the U.S.\u2019s decision to withdraw troops, according to <a href=\"https:\/\/www.cnbc.com\/2021\/08\/15\/taliban-fighters-enter-afghanistan-capital-kabul-.html\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">CNBC<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p>Amid the U.S.\u2019s race to evacuate people from Afghanistan, a tweet that appears to have been sent by ABC Investigations reporter <a href=\"https:\/\/www.abc.net.au\/news\/dylan-welch\/5572520\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Dylan Welch<\/a> was shared widely online as a screen grab. The <a href=\"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/james.cooper.9674\/posts\/10227633487001975\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">purported tweet<\/a> alleges, \u201cInternal DOD documents that have been seen by ABC suggest that Kabul Mcdonalds (the only Mcdonalds in Afghanistan), mostly serving American diplomats at Kabul airport, is temporarily staffed by American marines and will remain open until the last American leaves. #Kabul #Afghanistan.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Neither the tweet nor its claim hold up under scrutiny, however. McDonald\u2019s does not list Afghanistan as <a href=\"https:\/\/corporate.mcdonalds.com\/corpmcd\/our-company\/where-we-operate.html\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">one of the countries<\/a> in which it operates. Check Your Fact looked through Welch\u2019s <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/dylanwelch\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Twitter account<\/a> and <a href=\"https:\/\/web.archive.org\/web\/20210815150917\/https:\/\/twitter.com\/dylanwelch\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">archived<\/a> <a href=\"https:\/\/web.archive.org\/web\/20210816072903\/https:\/\/twitter.com\/dylanwelch\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">screen<\/a> <a href=\"https:\/\/web.archive.org\/web\/20210816155338\/https:\/\/twitter.com\/dylanwelch\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">grabs<\/a> of his timeline on the Wayback Machine, none of which yielded matches for the tweet. The message in it consists of over 280 characters, meaning it <a href=\"https:\/\/developer.twitter.com\/en\/docs\/counting-characters\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">exceeds<\/a> Twitter\u2019s character limit.<\/p>\n<p>Welch also said on <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/dylanwelch\/status\/1427097998295588866\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Twitter<\/a> Aug. 15 that he never tweeted such a thing. <strong><a href=\"https:\/\/checkyourfact.com\/2021\/08\/17\/fact-cnn-taliban-takeover-afghanistan-violent-mostly-peaceful\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">(RELATED: Did CNN Describe The Taliban Takeover Of Afghanistan As \u2018Violent But Mostly Peaceful\u2019 In A Chyron?)<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n<blockquote class=\"twitter-tweet\" readability=\"9.1455696202532\">\n<p dir=\"ltr\" lang=\"en\">Someone has created a fake tweet pretending it\u2019s from me about US Marines and a restaurant in Kabul called Mcdonald\u2019s. I didn\u2019t write it. Please ignore it and focus instead on the plight of the millions of people in <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/hashtag\/Afghanistan?src=hash&amp;ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\">#Afghanistan<\/a> abandoned by the int\u2019l community.<\/p>\n<p>\u2014 Dylan Welch (@dylanwelch) <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/dylanwelch\/status\/1427097998295588866?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\">August 16, 2021<\/a><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n<p>\u201cSomeone has created a fake tweet pretending it\u2019s from me about US Marines and a restaurant in Kabul called McDonald\u2019s. I didn\u2019t write it,\u201d Welch tweeted. \u201cPlease ignore it and focus instead on the plight of the millions of people in #Afghanistan abandoned by the int\u2019l community.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>The photo of the restaurant in the fabricated tweet can be traced back to at least 2013, when the Spanish-language outlet ABC published <a href=\"https:\/\/www.abc.es\/internacional\/20131111\/abci-afganistan-mcdonalds-nativo-201311110906.html\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">an article<\/a> about it. In the article, the outlet <a href=\"https:\/\/www.abc.es\/internacional\/20131111\/abci-afganistan-mcdonalds-nativo-201311110906.html\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">reported<\/a> that the picture showed a Kabul restaurant designed to look like a McDonald\u2019s from the outside. The restaurant largely serves traditional Afghan cuisine, according to <a href=\"https:\/\/www.abc.es\/internacional\/20131111\/abci-afganistan-mcdonalds-nativo-201311110906.html\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">the outlet<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>An image\u00a0shared on Facebook claims U.S. Marines are staffing the only McDonald\u2019s restaurant in Afghanistan until all Americans have been evacuated.Verdict: False The tweet has been fabricated. There is no &#8230;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":2315279,"comment_status":"close","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_mo_disable_npp":"","fifu_image_url":"","fifu_image_alt":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-659049","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/659049","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=659049"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/659049\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2315279"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=659049"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=659049"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=659049"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}