Russia Offered Afghan Militants Bounties for Killing U.S. Soldiers: NYT

[savorytiger 182]

1 minute ago, DKW 86 said:

Btw, Welcome to the FacePalm Club! I am sure you as an Independent thinker are about to get 1-2 facepalms today. Dont take it personal. Its just some folks saying that you arent following the party line....and...OMG! You are thinking for yourself. 

Nah, while I try to be an independent thinker, my views tend to be left-leaning, so I don't get the normal emoji's thrown at me 🙃. 

[DKW 86 7,419]

8 minutes ago, savorytiger said:

Nah, while I try to be an independent thinker, my views tend to be left-leaning, so I don't get the normal emoji's thrown at me 🙃. 

But, if you dont 100% Buy Into the Party Line, The Talking Points, then you will of course be accused of being a Trumpster, etc...All the while you lean Left, but dont 100% buy the Party Line. It is a strange but funny as hell paradigm. 

Welcome to my world...

You cant make this stuff up...LMAO!!!!!

[savorytiger 182]

1 minute ago, DKW 86 said:

But, if you dont 100% Buy Into the Party Line, The Talking Points, then you will of course be accused of being a Trumpster, etc...All the while you lean Left, but dont 100% buy the Party Line. It is a strange but funny as hell paradigm. 

Welcome to my world...

You cant make this stuff up...LMAO!!!!!

So...from my view, you seem to have a very weird conglomerate of views, and you believe very strongly in them. For example, it's super rare for someone to really hate Trump as a person and to completely deny any form of Russian interference (feel free to correct me if I'm wrong there). I'm not passing any judgement on you or anyone for their beliefs. It's just a little confusing. I think those who call you a Trumpster either only see your anti dem establishment posts, or think you're trolling and aren't being truthful in all of your views.

Also I'm kind of confused at where this post came from because I am pretty much with the party line on this issue (maybe 80-20 that it happened?). I'm fine with adjusting my views later on it if more information comes out, but, so far, it only seems like Trump, Russia, and the Taliban are denying it. Trump is doing his usual Deny Everything -> Deny Some -> Blame the Whistleblowers routine. I'd rather have concrete information, but it's a high security issue so we may not get anything (maybe the bank transactions can be verified?). 

[aubiefifty 16,754]

he just means you might be called out a trump supporter like him. he does not care for trump and states so all the time but if he calls out something he sees as unfair toward he will call it out. he was saying welcome to the club in y humble opinion. and i cannot believe i answered for him.

[savorytiger 182]

4 minutes ago, aubiefifty said:

he just means you might be called out a trump supporter like him. he does not care for trump and states so all the time but if he calls out something he sees as unfair toward he will call it out. he was saying welcome to the club in y humble opinion. and i cannot believe i answered for him.

Yeah, I've seen DKW come out very strongly against Trump. Just wanted to give him my (admittedly still biased) views on why people still occasionally call him a Trumpster. 

Also I'd guess I'll be called a communist/socialist before being called a Trump supporter lol.

[SaltyTiger 7,782]

11 hours ago, homersapien said:

WTF are you trying to say?

I think you know exactly what I was saying.

[DKW 86 7,419]

20 hours ago, savorytiger said:

So...from my view, you seem to have a very weird conglomerate of views, and you believe very strongly in them. For example, it's super rare for someone to really hate Trump as a person and to completely deny any form of Russian interference (feel free to correct me if I'm wrong there). I'm not passing any judgement on you or anyone for their beliefs. It's just a little confusing. I think those who call you a Trumpster either only see your anti dem establishment posts, or think you're trolling and aren't being truthful in all of your views.

Also I'm kind of confused at where this post came from because I am pretty much with the party line on this issue (maybe 80-20 that it happened?). I'm fine with adjusting my views later on it if more information comes out, but, so far, it only seems like Trump, Russia, and the Taliban are denying it. Trump is doing his usual Deny Everything -> Deny Some -> Blame the Whistleblowers routine. I'd rather have concrete information, but it's a high security issue so we may not get anything (maybe the bank transactions can be verified?). 

I can detest Trump and still defend his right to a fair hearing. That is all I have said. Trump is a symptom of the problem. There is a huge swath of Middle America that are correctly reading that they do not matter one bit to the DNC and RNC Elite. We just dont. Trump was an FU Candidate to the Elites and that was what elected him. Taibbi and many others see that now. Trump is in way over his head. He is almost completely incompetent. He used a huge amount of racial animosity etc to get elected, but i fear that what angered the Anti-Trump mob the most is just that their side didnt win. They feel entitled to Power, they have been there so long. When the supposed shoo-in HRC ran the worst campaign in history and lost, it sent them into a crazy place where they sit back and throw everything they can hallucinate against the wall. (See the multiple psychiatrists that have offered opinions on Trump when they have never had 5 minutes with him.)

As for the Bounty thing, this is just about as silly as the rest. Do I believe that the Militants are being rewarded for killing our people? Sure, No Problem. That was happening under Saddam back in 2000. I have no problem seeing it now. Does it mean bupkis now? Maybe, to some pollyannas that arent paying attention? Bad guys do bad things. As was said in the video, what do you want the response to be? 
More sanctions? There really isnt much room there nor much effect.
More militarization? Any military response would be against the promises of DJT and we all know any escalation is going to get Trump called a war-mongerer. Trump the Not-Completely Stupid, has figured out that he is going to be damned if he does,. or damned if he doesnt. 

We are in an election, and as hated as Trump is, he is done for. I and many more just see this as piling on now. But we had two years of RUSSIANS!!! and got just this side of nothing. IMPEACHMENT!!! The WSJ just had an OPED where they just say that Schiff knew from day one there was nothing there from reading his notes in the Impeachment hearings. 

WSJ: "Americans expect that politicians will lie, but sometimes the examples are so brazen that they deserve special notice. Newly released Congressional testimony shows that Adam Schiff spread falsehoods shamelessly about Russia and Donald Trump for three years even as his own committee gathered contrary evidence.The House Intelligence Committee last week released 57 transcripts of interviews it conducted in its investigation into Russia’s meddling in the 2016 election. The committee probe started in January 2017 under then-Chair..."

And-- I got a facepalm in under 7 minutes. A new record i think !!!

 

[homersapien 11,362]

13 hours ago, SaltyTiger said:

I think you know exactly what I was saying.

It's all a hoax?

[homersapien 11,362]

"Pelosi has been part of intelligence briefings as a member of the Gang of Eight and before that on the House Intelligence Committee for decades. She was, therefore, well-equipped to call out Trump’s latest excuse for not having acted on intelligence or been (orally) briefed: "You got the con. The White House put on a con that if you don’t have 100 percent consensus on intelligence, it shouldn’t rise to a certain level,” she told reporters. That, however, is just poppycock. She correctly pointed out that if you needed to have 100 percent certainty before alerting the president to a threat to the troops, you would never look into anything.

She is right, of course. We have seen a familiar pattern of deflection and misdirection on this scandal. First, Trump was not “briefed.” (Well, he was briefed through the PDB.) But it was a hoax. (Then why was it in the PDB?) The upshot is that Trump, to this day, has taken no action in defense of our troops. At a time when the Kremlin was placing bounties on the heads of our servicemen and women, he was calling for Russia to be let into the Group of Seven.

Pelosi reiterated her observation that “all roads lead to Russia” and then did what Trump has not — called for a muscular response to Russian aggression. “When Congress in a bipartisan way passed sanctions on Russia, the administration told us to take out the sanctions on the GRU — the intelligence, as well as the defense, sectors of Russia,” she recollected. “Those should definitely still be there. They were there in a bipartisan way. It’s just administration wanted them out. I don’t know why. So we should have those in there."

Frankly, no one outside the Trump cult could reasonably believe the president’s advisers and the president himself were intent on prioritizing the defense of U.S. troops. Trump has made perfectly clear that he wants a chummy relationship with Russian dictator Vladimir Putin. Is it any wonder that his advisers slipped intelligence of the bounties into the PDB (which they surely know Trump does not read) and that no actions were taken? The Kremlin — not to mention the rest of the world — knows a foe of the United States can target our troops without adverse consequence. If that is not dereliction of duty for the commander in chief, I don’t know what is.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2020/07/03/pelosi-calls-out-con/

 

Putin is going to really miss Trump.

 

[homersapien 11,362]

https://www.politico.com/news/2020/07/01/russia-bounty-intel-breakdown-trump-347224

Russia bounty flap highlights intel breakdown under Trump

The dispute over the alleged payments to kill Americans is shining a harsh light on the president's consumption of intelligence.

.........But top White House officials confirmed to lawmakers this week that the Russian bounty intelligence was included in Trump’s daily written brief in late February, Capitol Hill sources say — even though it had not yet been briefed to the president orally by that point.

Presidential briefers have traditionally tailored briefings to a particular leader’s preferences — in Trump’s case, he prefers to receive the briefings orally, according to several former intelligence officials with knowledge of his style. His public schedule also reveals a haphazard schedule of in-person briefings, unlike past presidents who received them daily and usually first thing in the morning.

But that system has essentially created a two-tier briefing process: the text of the PDB itself, which Trump isn’t known to read, and what the briefer—and more importantly, the president’s senior national security aides — choose to say out loud........

 

.........Doug London, a former senior CIA officer who retired in 2019, underscored that Sanner’s job is not to redirect the president’s attention to a topic he doesn’t show interest in — particularly given Trump’s tendency to respond negatively to information in his daily intelligence briefings that presents Russia in a bad light.

Veterans of the Trump administration have described a president prone to explosions of anger when the subject of Russia arises; even former national security adviser John Bolton, not known to be shy, confesses in his new memoir that he never asked Trump for his personal assessment of Kremlin leader Vladimir Putin, “perhaps afraid of what I might hear.”

A former White House official told Politico this week that they “don’t remember a thing that involved Russia that people were comfortable discussing with the president. Even at the most senior level, at the Cabinet level, it would be like drawing sticks to see who would have to raise a Russia issue with him.”........

 

 

[homersapien 11,362]

As Russian bounty scandal unfolds, remember this: Robert Mueller found plenty of collusion

Trump's agreement to look the other way on Putin's dark deeds is nothing new — remember the Mueller report?

https://www.salon.com/2020/07/02/as-russian-bounty-scandal-unfolds-remember-this-robert-mueller-found-plenty-of-collusion/

[DKW 86 7,419]

4 hours ago, homersapien said:

As Russian bounty scandal unfolds, remember this: Robert Mueller found plenty of collusion

Trump's agreement to look the other way on Putin's dark deeds is nothing new — remember the Mueller report?

https://www.salon.com/2020/07/02/as-russian-bounty-scandal-unfolds-remember-this-robert-mueller-found-plenty-of-collusion/

Homey: Daily Proving that "Denial" is not just a river in Egypt...

[Auburnfan91 1,407]

U.S. commander: Intel still hasn't established Russia paid Taliban 'bounties' to kill U.S. troops

"It just has not been proved to a level of certainty that satisfies me," Gen. Frank McKenzie told NBC News. McKenzie oversees U.S. troops in Afghanistan.

 

Sept. 14, 2020, 9:52 AM CDT

By Courtney Kube and Ken Dilanian

 

WASHINGTON — Two months after top Pentagon officials vowed to get to the bottom of whether the Russian government bribed the Taliban to kill American service members, the commander of troops in the region says a detailed review of all available intelligence has not been able to corroborate the existence of such a program.

"It just has not been proved to a level of certainty that satisfies me," Gen. Frank McKenzie, commander of the U.S. Central Command, told NBC News. McKenzie oversees U.S. troops in Afghanistan. The U.S. continues to hunt for new information on the matter, he said.

"We continue to look for that evidence," the general said. "I just haven't seen it yet. But … it's not a closed issue."

McKenzie's comments, reflecting a consensus view among military leaders, underscores the lack of certainty around a narrative that has been accepted as fact by Democrats and other Trump critics, including presidential nominee Joe Biden, who has cited Russian bounties in attacks on President Donald Trump.

U.S. intelligence agencies have for years documented Russian financial and military support to the Taliban, but a Russian program to incentivize the killing of American service members would represent a significant escalation.

Trump said he did not raise the issue of Russian payments to the Taliban in his most recent meeting with Russian President Vladimir Putin. Critics have said he should have. Senior military officials say they don't believe the intelligence is strong enough to act on.

Echoing comments in July by Gen. Mark Milley, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, McKenzie said that if he could establish that the Russians were offering payments to kill Americans, he would push to forcefully respond. But the intelligence is far from conclusive, he said.

"I found what they presented to me very concerning, very worrisome. I just couldn't see the final connection, so I sent my guys back and said, look, keep digging. So we have continued to dig and look because this involves potential threats to U.S. forces, it's open," he said, adding, "I just haven't seen anything that closes that gap yet."

A U.S. military official familiar with the intelligence added that after a review of the intelligence around each attack against Americans going back several years, none have been tied to any Russian incentive payments.

The suggestion of a Russian bounty program began, another source directly familiar with the matter said, with a raid by CIA paramilitary officers that captured Taliban documents describing Russian payments.

A Taliban detainee told the CIA such a program existed, the source said, although the term "bounty" was never used. Later, the CIA was able to document financial transfers between Russian military intelligence and the Taliban, and establish there had been travel by key Russian officers to Afghanistan and by relevant Taliban figures to Russia.

That intelligence was reviewed by CIA Director Gina Haspel and placed in Trump's daily intelligence briefing book earlier this year, officials have said. The source described the intelligence as compelling, but meriting further investigation. Nonetheless, current and former U.S. officials have said, many CIA officers and analysts came to believe a bounty program existed. They concluded that the Russians viewed it as a proportional response to the U.S. arming of Ukrainian units fighting Russian forces in Crimea, the source said.

Many military officials have always been more skeptical, several senior officials said, in part because they had not seen all the intelligence the CIA had gathered. Unlike counterterrorism information, intelligence gathered about sensitive Russian government activities is often closely held, sometimes distributed only in paper form to a small number of senior officials in Washington.

But after The New York Times reported on intelligence about an alleged bounty program, senior military officials have had a chance to examine all the intelligence, officials say.

Defense Secretary Mark Esper told the House Armed Services Committee in July that "All the defense intelligence agencies have been unable to corroborate that report. " But at the same hearing, Milley promised a deeper investigation.

"As of today, right now, we don't have cause and effect linkages to a Russian bounty program causing U.S. military casualties," Milley said. "However, we are still looking. We're not done. We're going to run this thing to ground."

Eight weeks later, McKenzie said, differing opinions persist about what conclusions the U.S. can draw from the information.

"People that are involved in it get very emotional about it," he said. "I can't afford to be emotional about it. I've got to step back and look at the totality of the picture."

If the Russians are trying to kill Americans in Afghanistan, he said, "I want to know, because I won't hesitate to take action if that's the case. I just haven't seen it. I just haven't seen it. There's a lot of conflicting information out there, but nothing was out there that I could grasp that connect together in a pattern that I would consider actionable."

The bounty story has played out against a backdrop of a U.S. withdrawal of forces in Afghanistan. The U.S. is in the midst of cutting the number of troops in Afghanistan roughly in half, from 8,600 to about 4,500, by election day.

McKenzie said with 4,500 troops, the U.S. will still maintain a counterterrorism capability and will continue to advise the Afghan Security Forces at a higher level. "I think Gen. [Scott] Miller has a very good plan to do that at a level of 4,500."

But asked whether he assesses the Taliban are not upholding their end of the peace agreement, McKenzie said, "Absolutely."

"The Taliban has been scrupulous about not attacking U.S. or coalition forces in Afghanistan. They have, however, continued to attack government security forces at a fairly high rate. And that's very concerning," he said.

McKenzie said he also worries that the Taliban may not take concrete steps to show that Afghanistan cannot be used as a base for al Qaeda or the Islamic State militant group in the future. "We have ample evidence that the Taliban is no friend of ISIS. I understand that. But what we need to see is that they're not going to allow al Qaeda to base there. And that is just not yet been demonstrated to my satisfaction. Perhaps it will be brought out in the days ahead. But it's going to need to be brought out demonstrated."

The Taliban have shown the ability to take on ISIS, he said, but al Qaeda is different. "I think emotionally, culturally and for a variety of reasons, it's much harder for them to do that with al Qaeda."

https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/national-security/u-s-commander-intel-still-hasn-t-established-russia-paid-n1240020

[jj3jordan 2,050]

Does anybody really think paying ruples to muslims will make them hate us more and wage a more aggressive war on the infidels?