Trump decries the withdrawal from Afghanistan on Biden's watch

Analyzing the article

ABC News
post hoc ergo propter hoc

Our Analysis: 1 Fallacy


So if you take a look at that period of time, the Taliban was killing our soldiers, a lot of them, with snipers. And I got involved with the Taliban because the Taliban was doing the killing. That's the fighting force within Afghanistan. They don't bother doing that because you know, they deal with the wrong people all the time. But I got involved.

And Abdul is the head of the Taliban... And I told Abdul don't do it anymore, you do it anymore you're going to have problems. And he said why do you send me a picture of my house? I said you're going to have to figure that out, Abdul. And for 18 months we had nobody killed. We did have an agreement negotiated by Mike Pompeo. It was a very good agreement. The reason it was good, it was -- we were getting out.

While Trump reasonably highlights the goal of reducing military deaths in the Doha agreement terms, his attempt to link the Ukraine invasion directly to perceptions of Biden's incompetence is an unsubstantiated oversimplification of Russia's motivations.

1. post hoc ergo propter hoc • Trump implies that Russia's invasion of Ukraine was directly caused by the perceived incompetence of the current administration.


And by the way, that's why Russia attacked Ukraine. Because they saw how incompetent she and her boss are.


This assumes a causal relationship without sufficient evidence. There are several alternative explanations for Russia's decision to invade Ukraine besides being emboldened by the U.S. withdrawal from Afghanistan: ​

  1. Long-standing territorial ambitions and desire to regain influence over former Soviet republics like Ukraine. ​
  2. Opposing Ukraine's growing ties with the West and potential NATO membership. ​
  3. Domestic political motivations for Putin to appear strong and rally Russian nationalism. ​
  4. Economic factors like securing access to resources and trade routes in eastern Ukraine. ​
  5. Taking advantage of perceived weakness in European allies' resolve to confront Russian aggression militarily. ​
  6. Miscalculation by Putin that Ukraine would fall quickly with limited repercussions from the West.


While the Afghanistan withdrawal may have played a role in Russian calculations, reducing the invasion's complex motivations solely to a reaction to that event is an oversimplification that doesn't account for Russia's broader strategic interests and grievances regarding Ukraine.

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Disclaimer

Note that there being one or more apparent fallacies in the arguments presented in this article does not mean that every argument the arguer made was fallacious, nor does it mean there are not other arguments in existence for the same or similar position that are logically valid. Also note that checking for fallacies is not the same as verification of the premises the arguer starts from, such as facts that the arguer asserts or principles that the arguer assumes as the foundation for constructing arguments. For more about this, see our 'What is Fallacy Checking?'

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