Russia Secretly Offered Afghan Militants Bounties to Kill U.S. Troops - Trump has known for months

[🐒Gods of Prosperity🔱🐲💸]

If it turns out to be 100% correct and Trump learned but didn't do anything about it, would this be grounds for charges of treason? I actually think so.

Kinda ironic he recently accused Obama of treason for "spying on Trump Tower". Needless to say: Without any proof.

No, it's not treason to not respond to something.  Presidents need some leeway to choose not to act when either intelligence is inconclusive or any available response is likely to make things worse (ex. in the middle of delicate negotiations).

I'm sure you'd say the same thing if this happened under Obama or Hillary's watch.

If I did, would you agree with me or not?

I'll ask again:  Do you think that Presidents should have to worry about being impeached if they are too hesitant to do things that might start a war?

You constantly argue in bad faith so I'm not going to take your bait. If you want to derail the thread find someone else to troll.

You are the one who responded to a point I made about why the definition of treason should be limited with an ad hominem based on an accusation of hypocrisy which you cannot backup by pointing to a single thing I have actually said.  I am not the one derailing the thread.

If you are too incurious to engage with my arguments, you could have chosen not to respond at all.

Your disingenuous question was the equivalent of have you stopped beating your wife. Let's face facts. This was not a decision either hide the information or go to war. If you have any doubt of this, please note the post above where Trump does his usual screaming Jag of claiming it's all a media hoax, the New York Times bad, etc etc etc.

Your question would be an illogical insistence on two outcomes when there are many other possibilities, even if we had an upright oh, responsible, non self-absorbed functional adult in the White House who wasn't financially and personally beholden to Putin worse than the most Marxist College professors one could find. The fact that we actually do have such an individual who also Revels in fundamental dishonesty literally at the turn of a clock hour hand, Rangers your question nothing better than abject knee-jerk defense of a defenseless Act.

If Landslide Lyndon has anything more to add, I'll yield the balance of my time to the gentleman from Greece.

All those words and you didn't come within a mile of addressed my very simple question. Let me rephrase it :

If it established as a legal principle that Presidents can be impeached for not acting on information, what is the implication of that for the likelihood we stumble into an unnecessary war sometime in, say, the next 20 years ?

Do you really not see the incentive this would create?

[Badger]

The Times article repeatedly cites unnamed “American intelligence officials.” The Washington Post and The Wall Street Journal articles “confirming” the original Times story merely restate the allegations of the anonymous officials, along with caveats like “if true” or “if confirmed.”

Furthermore, the unnamed intelligence sources who spoke with the Times say that their assessment is based “on interrogations of captured Afghan militants and criminals.”

That’s a red flag, said John Kiriakou, a former analyst and case officer for the CIA who led the team that captured senior al-Qaeda member Abu Zubaydah in Pakistan in 2002.

“When you capture a prisoner, and you’re interrogating him, the prisoner is going to tell you what he thinks you want to hear,” he said in an interview with The American Conservative. “There’s no evidence here, there’s no proof.”

. . . . .
“These kinds of deals with the Russian intelligence agency are baseless—our target killings and assassinations were ongoing in years before, and we did it on our own resources,” Zabihullah Mujahid, a spokesman for the Taliban, told The New York Times. “That changed after our deal with the Americans, and their lives are secure and we don’t attack them.”

https://www.theamericanconservative.com/articles/three-glaring-problems-with-the-nyt-russian-taliban-bounty-story/

This whole story just does not add up.

Wow, what a sh**ty article. I'm not saying that because I fundamentally disagree with this, but because it's based on sh**ty reporting and assumptions. I mean really really bad.

Number one. Resources are on Artemis or from capture Taliban sources. Well of freaking course they're Anonymous defense sources. As I pointed out in another thread, anonymity is the golden rule for anyone whistleblowing on an incumbent Administration. This goes x 1,000 for one that is literally obsessed with personal loyalty - - personal, not National - - as the Trump organization. Someone would have to be mad and ready to be retired and inundated with death threats for they in their family 2 publicly reveal themselves short of a subpoena.

And capture Taliban sources? How stupid is this author? Does she really think that one capture Taliban Soldier mentioned this because they thought it would help them and the CIA ran with that? Does she not realize that these reports are what's vented through Maney Maney captured individuals? So unless you trying to claim, as it certainly seems to be, some bizarre world where either the Taliban all got together as a group and said oh, hey guys, remember, if we're captured, make sure to tell them that the Russians are paying us bounties. Or for some other reason the deep State military intelligence cabal has it out for our glorious leader and are pressuring all these captured Taliban to say that there are Bounty so that they can then report to the New York Times and spring it on Trump!

Second concern. What's to be gained from it? The theory is Trump has said a whole bunch of times he wants to leave Afghanistan, so why bother doing this? Well, Trump has said a lot of things in lost interest the moment something shiny or that caught his attention on Twitter steals his attention. This isn't a temporary phenomenon either. Remember his big push for paid maternity leave as Ivanka Lobby him to support? Yeah, neither does he. Like anything else he pushes it last for maybe one news cycle till something else catches his fancy. Over three and a half years as president and little material effort to withdraw from Afghanistan has resulted. Additional American casualties might induce that, especially when literally the only thing Trump gives a s*** about is his re-election. I mean, this is not rocket science lady. The Russians want us out of Afghanistan and more American troops getting shot will help do that.

Third, why is this coming out now? This clown actually argues that if these people had come out with the reports during the impeachment process, history may have changed. LOL LOL! As if this would have moved even Mark house key or Collins from being concerned to slightly miffed! What a completely fact devoid perception of the world one has to have to write that sentence. A better question, which she doesn't even posed, would be that if this was supposedly ammunition being held for just the right moment, then why wasn't it released during the height of the Mueller investigation and Russia gate? Really is such a giant  media conspiracy, then why are they releasing it  4 months before the election rather than in late October? She goes on with her entire premise being that the mean old liberal media are out to get Trump, not because they have little amounts of truthful material to work with about what a dumpster fire his administration is in every respect, but because the only way they can ding such a fine and Super President is to make s*** up.

I mean, hell, I was able to come up with this off the top of my head after reading her article once. What a complete piece of s*** article and what a Rube one must be to even half buy it.

[Badger]

If it turns out to be 100% correct and Trump learned but didn't do anything about it, would this be grounds for charges of treason? I actually think so.

Kinda ironic he recently accused Obama of treason for "spying on Trump Tower". Needless to say: Without any proof.

No, it's not treason to not respond to something.  Presidents need some leeway to choose not to act when either intelligence is inconclusive or any available response is likely to make things worse (ex. in the middle of delicate negotiations).

I'm sure you'd say the same thing if this happened under Obama or Hillary's watch.

If I did, would you agree with me or not?

I'll ask again:  Do you think that Presidents should have to worry about being impeached if they are too hesitant to do things that might start a war?

You constantly argue in bad faith so I'm not going to take your bait. If you want to derail the thread find someone else to troll.

You are the one who responded to a point I made about why the definition of treason should be limited with an ad hominem based on an accusation of hypocrisy which you cannot backup by pointing to a single thing I have actually said.  I am not the one derailing the thread.

If you are too incurious to engage with my arguments, you could have chosen not to respond at all.

Your disingenuous question was the equivalent of have you stopped beating your wife. Let's face facts. This was not a decision either hide the information or go to war. If you have any doubt of this, please note the post above where Trump does his usual screaming Jag of claiming it's all a media hoax, the New York Times bad, etc etc etc.

Your question would be an illogical insistence on two outcomes when there are many other possibilities, even if we had an upright oh, responsible, non self-absorbed functional adult in the White House who wasn't financially and personally beholden to Putin worse than the most Marxist College professors one could find. The fact that we actually do have such an individual who also Revels in fundamental dishonesty literally at the turn of a clock hour hand, Rangers your question nothing better than abject knee-jerk defense of a defenseless Act.

If Landslide Lyndon has anything more to add, I'll yield the balance of my time to the gentleman from Greece.

All those words and you didn't come within a mile of addressed my very simple question. Let me rephrase it :

If it established as a legal principle that Presidents can be impeached for not acting on information, what is the implication of that for the likelihood we stumble into an unnecessary war sometime in, say, the next 20 years ?

Do you really not see the incentive this would create?

And you have yet to answer the question about your question. Are you seriously, genuinely, portraying this action by Trump and his administration as in any manner shape or form designed to calm tensions and avoid taking steps towards armed conflict with Russia?

I'll gladly answer your question. If a future president with deep sketchy personal and financial ties to an unfriendly government refuses to take measured but deliberate action against said government when it offers bounties on American troops to a guerrilla Force against whom we are actively engaged, then yes, of COURSE they deserve impeached toot sweet.

I know you're trying your best to defend Trump here under the guise of Deep Thoughts^TM, but that's truly as far as this analogy runs for purposes of precedent. So no, no one can seriously believe in good faith that excoriating such misconduct is going to push future presidents towards an unnecessary War. Especially if any of those future presidents, regardless of party or foreign policy views, can at least meet the once prerequisite standard of being a functioning adult.

[Absentee Voting Ghost of Ruin]

Trump Gives Putin a Pass on Bounties So He Can Target Leakers Instead

In the days since The New York Times broke the news on U.S. intelligence examining claims of Russian bounties being offered to kill American military personnel in Afghanistan, President Donald Trump has turned his ire not at the Russian government, but instead on two of his favorite enemies: the news media and their confidential sources.

According to two people familiar with the matter, the president in recent days has privately expressed—“rather loudly,” in the words of one of the sources—his desire for a leak investigation into how that story ended up in the Times, and his wish for the leaker or leakers to face a heavy prison sentence.

As always,

[🐒Gods of Prosperity🔱🐲💸]

If it turns out to be 100% correct and Trump learned but didn't do anything about it, would this be grounds for charges of treason? I actually think so.

Kinda ironic he recently accused Obama of treason for "spying on Trump Tower". Needless to say: Without any proof.

No, it's not treason to not respond to something.  Presidents need some leeway to choose not to act when either intelligence is inconclusive or any available response is likely to make things worse (ex. in the middle of delicate negotiations).

I'm sure you'd say the same thing if this happened under Obama or Hillary's watch.

If I did, would you agree with me or not?

I'll ask again:  Do you think that Presidents should have to worry about being impeached if they are too hesitant to do things that might start a war?

You constantly argue in bad faith so I'm not going to take your bait. If you want to derail the thread find someone else to troll.

You are the one who responded to a point I made about why the definition of treason should be limited with an ad hominem based on an accusation of hypocrisy which you cannot backup by pointing to a single thing I have actually said.  I am not the one derailing the thread.

If you are too incurious to engage with my arguments, you could have chosen not to respond at all.

Your disingenuous question was the equivalent of have you stopped beating your wife. Let's face facts. This was not a decision either hide the information or go to war. If you have any doubt of this, please note the post above where Trump does his usual screaming Jag of claiming it's all a media hoax, the New York Times bad, etc etc etc.

Your question would be an illogical insistence on two outcomes when there are many other possibilities, even if we had an upright oh, responsible, non self-absorbed functional adult in the White House who wasn't financially and personally beholden to Putin worse than the most Marxist College professors one could find. The fact that we actually do have such an individual who also Revels in fundamental dishonesty literally at the turn of a clock hour hand, Rangers your question nothing better than abject knee-jerk defense of a defenseless Act.

If Landslide Lyndon has anything more to add, I'll yield the balance of my time to the gentleman from Greece.

All those words and you didn't come within a mile of addressed my very simple question. Let me rephrase it :

If it established as a legal principle that Presidents can be impeached for not acting on information, what is the implication of that for the likelihood we stumble into an unnecessary war sometime in, say, the next 20 years ?

Do you really not see the incentive this would create?

And you have yet to answer the question about your question. Are you seriously, genuinely, portraying this action by Trump and his administration as in any manner shape or form designed to calm tensions and avoid taking steps towards armed conflict with Russia?

I'll gladly answer your question. If a future president with deep sketchy personal and financial ties to an unfriendly government refuses to take measured but deliberate action against said government when it offers bounties on American troops to a guerrilla Force against whom we are actively engaged, then yes, of COURSE they deserve impeached toot sweet.

I know you're trying your best to defend Trump here under the guise of Deep Thoughts^TM, but that's truly as far as this analogy runs for purposes of precedent. So no, no one can seriously believe in good faith that excoriating such misconduct is going to push future presidents towards an unnecessary War. Especially if any of those future presidents, regardless of party or foreign policy views, can at least meet the once prerequisite standard of being a functioning adult.

A number of Presidents, including the current one, have engaged in activity that are unauthorized uses of force under US law and war crimes under international law.  None of them have been impeached for that.  And yet you want to impeach a President for not doing something.  I just find it incredible to think that precedent if carried out wouldn't add immensely to the bias in our society that says "DO SOMETHING!" whether or not there is something to be done that would actually help more than it would hurt.   My view is that small acts of retaliation have the potential to snowball into full scale conflict, and often the risk is too great (The Americans shows KGB and FBI agents dealing with this question).

As to the precise nature of Trump's response or lack of response was and why, I don't think we know.

[NOVA Green]

Meanwhile, just a few hours ago on the NYT (I have a paid online subscription so no paywall worries)...

By Mujib Mashal, Eric Schmitt, Najim Rahim and Rukmini Callimachi
July 1, 2020

KABUL, Afghanistan — He was a lowly drug smuggler, neighbors and relatives say, then ventured into contracting, seeking a slice of the billions of dollars the U.S.-led coalition was funneling into construction projects in Afghanistan.

But he really began to show off his wealth in recent years, after establishing a base in Russia, though how he earned those riches remained mysterious. On his regular trips home to northern Afghanistan, he drove the latest model cars, protected by bodyguards, and his house was recently upgraded to a four-story villa.

Now Rahmatullah Azizi stands as a central piece of a puzzle rocking Washington, named in American intelligence reports and confirmed by Afghan officials as a key middleman who for years handed out money from a Russian military intelligence unit to reward Taliban-linked fighters for targeting American troops in Afghanistan, according to American and Afghan officials.

As security agencies connected the dots of the bounty scheme and narrowed in on him, they carried out sweeping raids to arrest dozens of his relatives and associates about six months ago, but discovered that Mr. Azizi had sneaked out of Afghanistan and was likely back in Russia. What they did find in one of his homes, in Kabul, was about half a million dollars in cash.

https://www.nytimes.com/2020/07/01/world/asia/afghan-russia-bounty-middleman.html

[NOVA Green]

Then we also see this...

American and Afghan officials have maintained for years that Russia was running clandestine operations to undermine the U.S. mission in Afghanistan and aid the Taliban.

But U.S. officials only recently concluded that a Russian spy agency was paying bounties for killing coalition troops, including Americans, which the Kremlin and the Taliban have denied.

According to officials briefed on the matter, U.S. intelligence officials believe the program is run by Unit 29155, an arm of the Russian military intelligence agency known as the G.R.U. that has carried out assassinations and other operations overseas.

That a conduit for the payments would be someone like Mr. Azizi — tied to the American reconstruction effort, enmeshed in the regional netherworld, but not prominent enough to attract outside attention — speaks to the depth of Russia’s reach into the increasingly complicated Afghan battlefield, exploiting a nexus of crime and terror to strike blows with years of deniability.

https://www.nytimes.com/2020/07/01/world/asia/afghan-russia-bounty-middleman.html

[🐒Gods of Prosperity🔱🐲💸]

House panel votes to constrain Afghan drawdown, ask for assessment on 'incentives' to attack US troops

The House Armed Services Committee voted Wednesday to put roadblocks on President Trump’s ability to withdraw from Afghanistan, including requiring an assessment on whether any country has offered incentives for the Taliban to attack U.S. and coalition troops.

The National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA) amendment, from Rep. Jason Crow (D-Colo.), would require several certifications before the U.S. military can further draw down in Afghanistan.

So they want our troops to stay until we find out if they really have a bounty on their heads?   Why?   Seems passive aggressive.

[Landslide Lyndon]

If Landslide Lyndon has anything more to add, I'll yield the balance of my time to the gentleman from Greece.

There is no need to add anything. Shua is the worst kind of hack: the one who, as you said, tries to disguise his hackery as thoughtful political analysis.

[Absentee Voting Ghost of Ruin]

Trump: U.S. intelligence doubted Russia urged Taliban to kill U.S. troops

The four U.S. and European government sources, who are familiar with intelligence reporting, said that in recent weeks the United States had acquired fresh reporting backing up the allegations that Russia had encouraged Taliban-affiliated militants to kill U.S. and allied soldiers in Afghanistan.

The sources, who spoke on condition of anonymity, said the latest information caused U.S. government experts to discount the National Security Agency’s questioning of the allegations.

A sixth person familiar with the matter said the CIA was sufficiently confident of the intelligence to include it in May in its daily flagship publication, the CIA World Intelligence Review, known informally as “The Wire.”

I wonder if this, combined with Trump's reflexive support for Russia, is what prompted the leaks about Russia's bounty program. If the intelligence community got new, solid evidence confirming Russian involvement, and the President still rejected any response, I can understand why people would be furious and quite rightly see him as a threat to national security.

[🐒Gods of Prosperity🔱🐲💸]

If Landslide Lyndon has anything more to add, I'll yield the balance of my time to the gentleman from Greece.

There is no need to add anything. Shua is the worst kind of hack: the one who, as you said, tries to disguise his hackery as thoughtful political analysis.

I guess that means you aren't that hackish after all.  No one would ever mistake your posts for  attempts to appear thoughtful.

[Landslide Lyndon]

If Landslide Lyndon has anything more to add, I'll yield the balance of my time to the gentleman from Greece.

There is no need to add anything. Shua is the worst kind of hack: the one who, as you said, tries to disguise his hackery as thoughtful political analysis.

I guess that means you aren't that hackish after all.  No one would ever mistake your posts for  attempts to appear thoughtful.

I am who I am. Never pretended to be something else.

[🐒Gods of Prosperity🔱🐲💸]

If Landslide Lyndon has anything more to add, I'll yield the balance of my time to the gentleman from Greece.

There is no need to add anything. Shua is the worst kind of hack: the one who, as you said, tries to disguise his hackery as thoughtful political analysis.

I guess that means you aren't that hackish after all.  No one would ever mistake your posts for  attempts to appear thoughtful.

I am who I am. Never pretended to be something else.

Alright then you made your point.  "Center-left good, everyone else bad."  You can leave now if that's your only contribution to this forum.

If you have a beef with me, make a thread in forum community and bring evidence of your allegations. Otherwise leave me alone.

If someone says Trump should be put on trial for murder for picking his nose, and I say that's not the definition of murder, you claim I would say it was murder if Obama was president.  It's dumb sh**t and you need to stop.

[Yoda]

Trump Gives Putin a Pass on Bounties So He Can Target Leakers Instead

In the days since The New York Times broke the news on U.S. intelligence examining claims of Russian bounties being offered to kill American military personnel in Afghanistan, President Donald Trump has turned his ire not at the Russian government, but instead on two of his favorite enemies: the news media and their confidential sources.

According to two people familiar with the matter, the president in recent days has privately expressed—“rather loudly,” in the words of one of the sources—his desire for a leak investigation into how that story ended up in the Times, and his wish for the leaker or leakers to face a heavy prison sentence.

As always,

Again, don't the terms "leaker" and "leakers" imply an admission that this story is true?

[Absentee Voting Ghost of Ruin]

https://twitter.com/emptywheel/status/1281290319787692035

[Cashew]

I'm struggling to understand what the point of these bounties even is. What does this even acomplish? This action looks more petty than results oriented.

[Crumpets]

I'm struggling to understand what the point of these bounties even is. What does this even acomplish? This action looks more petty than results oriented.

1. Drive up the costs for the US to stay in Afghanistan and damage US prestige by making it look like we're losing yet another war to low-tech peasants/farmers.

2. Payback for the US supplying Afghans with arms against the Soviets in the 80s.

[🐒Gods of Prosperity🔱🐲💸]

I'm struggling to understand what the point of these bounties even is. What does this even acomplish? This action looks more petty than results oriented.

1. Drive up the costs for the US to stay in Afghanistan and damage US prestige by making it look like we're losing yet another war to low-tech peasants/farmers.

2. Payback for the US supplying Afghans with arms against the Soviets in the 80s.

#1 was happening anyway, has been happening for years.

[President Johnson]

I'm struggling to understand what the point of these bounties even is. What does this even acomplish? This action looks more petty than results oriented.

1. Drive up the costs for the US to stay in Afghanistan and damage US prestige by making it look like we're losing yet another war to low-tech peasants/farmers.

2. Payback for the US supplying Afghans with arms against the Soviets in the 80s.

In addition to that, to demonstrate power. That Putin can de facto do whatever he wants without paying price since there is inept president in the White House who may be in Putin's bag for one reason or another. I'm not sure the is some "master strategy" behind it. Putin is overrated as a strategist, but he's not nearly as inept as Trump.

[Absentee Voting Ghost of Ruin]

https://twitter.com/votevets/status/1281577666509000705

[🐒Gods of Prosperity🔱🐲💸]

https://twitter.com/votevets/status/1281577666509000705

Pulling our troops out of Afghanistan is the most effective thing we could be doing to protect them.  Too bad Congress is against that.

[Badger]

I'm struggling to understand what the point of these bounties even is. What does this even acomplish? This action looks more petty than results oriented.

1. Drive up the costs for the US to stay in Afghanistan and damage US prestige by making it look like we're losing yet another war to low-tech peasants/farmers.

2. Payback for the US supplying Afghans with arms against the Soviets in the 80s.

#1 was happening anyway, has been happening for years.

Well, you see if it happens even more....

[All Along The Watchtower]

Afghanistan is a lost cause and the US should have long pulled troops out, but if this is story is true, well it's in character for Trump so it's not like it's a hugely scandalous surprise.

[Absentee Voting Ghost of Ruin]

https://twitter.com/SenDuckworth/status/1282875929883283458

[NewYorkExpress]

https://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-afghanistan-russia-pompeo/pompeo-says-he-warned-lavrov-against-offering-bounties-for-us-soldiers-idUSKCN2582S0

U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo on Wednesday said he warned his Russian counterpart Sergei Lavrov that there would be “an enormous price to pay” if Moscow is offering bounties to kill U.S. soldiers or other Western troops in Afghanistan.

I think the enormous price should include either bombing major Russian cities, or an invasion via NATO countries in Eastern Europe, but obviously neither such thing will happen.