[Finfinder]

Judging from Trump's reaction I would lead toward believing this story. He is in full mumble mode. We are not hearing a word of denial from the republican senators. So, no doubt, this is true.

Yea the the media loves there useful idiots just another propaganda story du jour. Yet Trump supporters intelligence is supposedly in question, Well that terms out to be pure projection.

[Drlee]

Again, your bias against Russia is showing, it's as obvious as rain. Everyone I've ever known in Russia, and every television news show i've seen there, tells me they are heartbroken at the stupidity and insanity of an America that has decided that Russia is an enemy of the United States, 25 years after Communism's collapse and that of the Soviet Union.

You are laying it on a bit thick here @annatar1914

And Afghanistan? America will eventually have to leave, no resource there except Opium, and our American Elites never really gave a damn about the people of Afghanistan to begin with. If we truly cared, we'd leave, for the Afghan people to work out their own destiny.

Well as you know it was never about exploiting the riches of Afghanistan. Not for the US nor for Russia. It is all about leaving a free base for terrorist organization and training that can be spread to the rest of the world. But some day we will get out. I would not look forward to it. Not for the people of Afghanistan or for the rest of us.

[annatar1914]

You are laying it on a bit thick here @annatar1914

Not really. You should have been there a while back when an old lady, who had lived during the Great Patriotic War, cried and asked me why America has seemed to become Fascist and wanted to kill her and her family once more. The pain and bewilderment is real.

Well as you know it was never about exploiting the riches of Afghanistan. Not for the US nor for Russia. It is all about leaving a free base for terrorist organization and training that can be spread to the rest of the world. But some day we will get out. I would not look forward to it. Not for the people of Afghanistan or for the rest of us.

Afghanistan is what it is, but I'm glad that you see that the Soviet Union went in for basically the same reasons we did.

Meanwhile, the Pentagon is pretty much saying the story is bullshit;

https://www.breitbart.com/politics/2020 ... ghanistan/

[jimjam]

In fairness to Trump, the intelligence agencies put the information where Trump would never see it: the president’s daily intelligence brief.

Let’s see Trump’s tax returns and see if he has any current loans from banks in Russia. This might illuminate his reluctance to take on Mr. Putin.

[Drlee]

SEAN D. NAYLOR AND MICHAEL ISIKOFF
Jun 30th 2020 5:58PM
As early as 2016, U.S. intelligence officials were receiving credible reports that the Russian government was funding the Taliban and supplying them with “thousands” of weapons for its war against U.S. and coalition soldiers in Afghanistan, current and former U.S. intelligence sources tell Yahoo News.

The intelligence hardened over time, and, by 2018, senior U.S. military commanders were briefing senior officials back in Washington that the Russians were encouraging Taliban fighters to kill U.S. service members.

Senior U.S. generals first publicly discussed Russian support to the Taliban in 2017. Those earlier reports have taken on new relevance in the wake of a New York Times story — since confirmed by several other news outlets — that U.S. intelligence officials believe that by last year Russian military intelligence was actually offering bounties for the killing of American troops and that U.S. troops may have died as a result.

“It all fits a clear pattern,” said one U.S. official who has been briefed repeatedly about Russian meddling in Afghanistan. “First we started hearing of increased contacts between the Taliban and the Russians. Later on these contacts led to arms supplies and financial assistance from the Russians to the Taliban. … Our military in Kabul in 2018 was seeing credible reports of Russians encouraging the Taliban to target U.S. troops. So it is not a big step to see that they were also paying a ‘bounty’ to Taliban commanders to make that happen.”

A former senior U.S. military intelligence officer said that even in light of the increasingly menacing Russian behavior in recent years, the new reports of bounties were somewhat surprising, given that the Taliban historically has not needed an additional incentive to target U.S. forces. “If you provide quality sniper weapons, you don’t have to put a bounty on someone,” said the former official. “They’re going to do what they’re going to do.”

The disclosure of intelligence indicating that Russia may have been offering bounties for the killing of Americans has caused an uproar on Capitol Hill, with even senior Republicans demanding answers from the White House about what top officials, including the president, knew and when they knew it.

“It is incredibly serious, and we in Congress need to see the information and the sources to judge that ourselves,” said Rep. Mac Thornberry of Texas, the ranking Republican on the House Armed Services Committee.

The White House has insisted that, contrary to the initial New York Times report on the matter, President Trump was never briefed on the intelligence assessment about the bounties, in part because the information was not as solid as some have suggested. But Thornberry said that was no excuse. “Anything with any hint of credibility that would endanger our service members, much less put a bounty on their lives, to me should have been briefed immediately to the commander in chief,” he said.

The New York Times reported Monday night that information about the Russian bounty program was included in the President’s Daily Brief, a written document that the intelligence community provides the president every day.

Senior intelligence and defense officials issued a series of statements late Monday night as the bounty story began to dominate the news cycle. CIA Director Gina Haspel’s statement did not dispute the news reports about the bounties, but expressed concern about the leak of the information. Pentagon spokesman Jonathan Hoffman said the Defense Department has found “no corroborating evidence to validate the recent allegations,” while Trump’s newly installed director of national intelligence, John Ratcliffe, criticized the leaking of the intelligence, which he said jeopardized the intelligence community’s ability “to ever find out the full story with respect to these allegations.”

The officials familiar with the earlier reporting about Russian actions say that the U.S. military uncovered evidence during the latter days of the Obama administration that the Russians were funneling small arms to the Taliban. The weapons, which included Kalashnikov SVK sniper rifles and AKM assault rifles, were “rolled up” during coalition raids on Taliban strongholds and attracted attention because they were of recent vintage, eliminating the possibility they were left over from the Soviet occupation of Afghanistan in the 1980s, the former senior military intelligence officer said.

Eventually, U.S. officials came to suspect that Russian intelligence operatives were smuggling the Russian-made weapons into Afghanistan through the Central Asian republics to the north, using “cut out” middlemen in order to conceal their role, the former military intelligence officer said.

“There’s always plausible deniability,” the former officer said. “The whole thing is to obfuscate the supply chain. That’s exactly what they’re trying to do, and that’s why it’s hard to pin down and give attribution. But it’s clearly Russian weapons.”

Equally concerning, according to the former officer, is that the weapons appeared to wind up with the Taliban’s so-called Red Unit, or Red Group, which functions as the group’s special operations force.

What remains most disturbing of all, some experts say, is that Russian President Vladimir Putin’s intelligence services would go to such provocative lengths to threaten U.S. service members.

“If Vladimir Putin is paying Taliban fighters to kill American soldiers, that represents an escalation in what I would call the rogue nature of Putin’s foreign policy over the last several years,” said Michael McFaul, who served as ambassador to Russia under President Obama, on the Yahoo News podcast “Skullduggery.” “It’s one thing to have tensions between countries based on differences; it’s another thing to go outside of the international system entirely — the rules, the norms, the procedures, the laws.”


Russia’s goal in supporting the Taliban was to keep U.S. forces off-balance and to unsettle the Taliban, former U.S. officials said. However, the decision to offer bounties to the Taliban for killing U.S. troops represents an “overplay” on the part of Putin, the former senior military intelligence officer said. “What a boneheaded move to do that and to get caught.”

By two trusted and fairly objective journalists. Isikoff was actually first to expose Clinton/Lewinski so it would be hard to call him a left-winger.

Trump is so busted. Even republican senators from Texas are calling bullshit on him.

[Politics_Observer]

@annatar1914

Afghanistan is what it is, but I'm glad that you see that the Soviet Union went in for basically the same reasons we did.

Meanwhile, the Pentagon is pretty much saying the story is bullshit;

Were you born and raised in Russia or something? Are you a citizen of Russia posing as an American citizen? You don't sound like an American to me. Are you sure you are an American citizen? I agree with @Drlee 's assessment of why WE (we as in the U.S.) went into Afghanistan. However, I don't agree with YOUR assessment as to why the Soviets went into Afghanistan. The Soviets wanted two of the following and were thus the reason for invading Afghanistan:

• A warm water port
  
• Access to the Middle East, particularly through Iran and it's oil fields

Jimmy Carter at the time was alarmed at the Soviet invasion because he feared it would proceed from Afghanistan into Iran. If that happened, Carter had stated his willingness to use our nuclear arsenal to stop any Soviet invasion of Iran. That's probably why the Soviets stayed in Afghanistan rather than proceed to invade Iran to achieve both of those objectives above.

It's also much the same reason why Stalin agreed to give the West the Western half of Berlin shortly after World War II ended rather than keep it for himself. He basically didn't have much of a choice given our nuclear monopoly at the time and the close proximity of our forces. Had we not had those weapons, Stalin most certainly would have kept ALL of Berlin for himself because we would have no position to bargain with Stalin from given he had millions of Red Army troops in Berlin at the time and far outnumbered our forces. He would have simply kept all of Berlin for himself and not honored any agreement he made in regards to Berlin. This was also another reason why Stalin was motivated to get the bomb for himself.

[annatar1914]

@Politics_Observer

Were you born and raised in Russia or something? Are you a citizen of Russia posing as an American citizen? You don't sound like an American to me. Are you sure you are an American citizen?

What a loathsome personal attack, beneath contempt. You just might have invalidated any consideration I might have had for you in the past, were I not a forgiving person. I forgive you for your fanaticism, your hatred, and your ignorance, whether wilful or not. You have demonized me, dehumanized me, questioned my patriotism and my values as a citizen of the United States, and absolutely ignored anything i've said to engage you in rational conversation. For that too I forgive you. You won't be hearing from me again because I won't be the occasion of another's spiritual downfall, I won't give you the opportunity to wrong yourself when you wrong me.

But shame on you, I thought you were better than that. Maybe you are, and politics has moved you to lose some common human feeling for those who have disagreements with you.

I agree with @Drlee 's assessment of why WE (we as in the U.S.) went into Afghanistan. However, I don't agree with YOUR assessment as to why the Soviets went into Afghanistan. The Soviets wanted two of the following and were thus the reason for invading Afghanistan:

• A warm water port
  
• Access to the Middle East, particularly through Iran and it's oil fields

Jimmy Carter at the time was alarmed at the Soviet invasion because he feared it would proceed from Afghanistan into Iran. If that happened, Carter had stated his willingness to use our nuclear arsenal to stop any Soviet invasion of Iran. That's probably why the Soviets stayed in Afghanistan rather than proceed to invade Iran to achieve both of those objectives above.

Please provide any evidence to support your contention, from the Soviet side, that they had any intentions whatsoever to do what you're suggesting. A hint, you cannot, because it's not there. Afghanistan was falling apart in 1979, and the Soviets were concerned that Islamic reactionaries would take over the country and spread their beliefs into Soviet Central Asia and elsewhere.

It's also much the same reason why Stalin agreed to give the West the Western half of Berlin shortly after World War II ended rather than keep it for himself. He basically didn't have much of a choice given our nuclear monopoly at the time and the close proximity of our forces. Had we not had those weapons, Stalin most certainly would have kept ALL of Berlin for himself because we would have no position to bargain with Stalin from given he had millions of Red Army troops in Berlin at the time and far outnumbered our forces. He would have simply kept all of Berlin for himself and not honored any agreement he made in regards to Berlin. This was also another reason why Stalin was motivated to get the bomb for himself.

This has no relevance to Afghanistan or the Soviet Union in 1979. The USSR had nuclear weapons in 1979. There were no plans to go further beyond Afghanistan, which in itself was going to be difficult enough to control.

[jimjam]

It is obvious that Putin has something on Trump. Time after time, Trump has no response to Russian action. It is a common KGB/GRU tactic to target vulnerable individuals, either by discovery after research, or by setting up unwary victims, from there there is no escape from their grasp. Could it be that Russia had lured Trump with the promise of lucrative developments in Moscow, and then caught Trump with his pants down (As much as the Steele dossier has been played down from the far right, has it really ever been discredited?). Trump's only real action to date has been the bombing of an airfield the Russians used in Libya. No loss of life, nor damage or loss of aircraft, just damage to a Libyan air field that was subsequently repaired. More than likely the Russians were tipped off by the White House to get their men out of there, and planes off the airfield. Trump's failure in not going after Russia and welcoming Russia back into the G7 as its sponsor is more than just the odd Trumpian behavior. It is clear that the Russians have something on Trump, and as long as Trump is in the White House, America appears impotent.

[Patrickov]

But shame on you, I thought you were better than that. Maybe you are, and politics has moved you to lose some common human feeling for those who have disagreements with you.

It happens to everybody at least some of the time. Sometimes we just find someone who we see as wise having a stance so unacceptable to us that frustration and anger ensues.

[Doug64]

Brought to you by the same people that pushed the Russian Collusion hoax, the Obstruction of Justice hoax, the Moore and Kavanaugh witch hunts and the attempted legal lynching of Flynn.

[quetzalcoatl]

Brought to you by the same people that pushed the Russian Collusion hoax, the Obstruction of Justice hoax, the Moore and Kavanaugh witch hunts and the attempted legal lynching of Flynn.

The Bounty story, if not an outright hoax, is likely an absurd exaggeration. The US cannot spend millions to overthrow governments, and then cry foul. Not to mention the fact that we offered bounties on alleged terrorists in the ME.

[Doug64]

The Bounty story, if not an outright hoax, is likely an absurd exaggeration.

Which would be a major reason why the White House was never briefed on it, thanks to the lack of a consensus in the intelligence community. And probably places the leak in the same category as all the other leaks that turned out to be total garbage.

The US cannot spend millions to overthrow governments, and then cry foul. Not to mention the fact that we offered bounties on alleged terrorists in the ME.

Please link to any time that the US government has placed a bounty on any nation's armed forces. As for the terrorists, sure, bounties on brigands, pirates, etc., is traditional.

[quetzalcoatl]

Please link to any time that the US government has placed a bounty on any nation's armed forces. As for the terrorists, sure, bounties on brigands, pirates, etc., is traditional.

I don't buy into the legalistic distinction between uniformed troops and other fighting forces.

[Doug64]

I don't buy into the legalistic distinction between uniformed troops and other fighting forces.

You referred to terrorists. Unlawful combatants are an entirely different matter, the distinction is moral rather than legalistic.

[Politics_Observer]

@quetzalcoatl

Some of our very successful snipers ranging from the Vietnam War to the recent wars in Iraq and Afghanistan had bounties put out on them by our enemies. Carlos Hathcock and Chris Kyle had huge bounties put out on them by the enemy in both conflicts. However, that doesn't mean the bounties put out by the Russians on our soldiers shouldn't go unanswered.

[Hindsite]

It is obvious that Putin has something on Trump.

No, it is not.

[Patrickov]

It is obvious that Putin has something on Trump.

In some sense if he can manipulate such an unpredictable guy then maybe many of us deserve the despair, because Putin has high ability. And in a twisted way the Wuhan pneumonia epidemic wreaking havoc in both countries serve you guys a favour, although I cannot say it is mine.

[Doug64]

However, that doesn't mean the bounties put out by the Russians on our soldiers shouldn't go unanswered.

Assuming it actually happened, which is far from certain.

[Politics_Observer]

@Doug64

Assuming it actually happened, which is far from certain.

You would have to be pretty dumb, naive and stupid to believe it didn't happen. Putin is an evil man who hates America. No doubt. But hey, keep providing comfort to the enemy. Besides, the reports DO indicate that it happened and is NOT far from certain. It seems pretty damn obvious that Trump just doesn't give a damn about the lives of our troops or the lives of the American people for that matter given his lack of a response to COVID. That's not politics, that's just simply stating the obvious.

[Doug64]

You would have to be pretty dumb, naive and stupid to believe it didn't happen.

Which makes as much as half or more of the members of our intelligence community involved with vetting this “pretty dumb, naive and stupid,” seeing how their inability to come to a consensus on its validity is the reason why the White House was never briefed on it. Which makes the leak to the press just one more political hit job by people in our intelligence community trying to overturn the 2016 election, like the Democrats’ Russian dossier.