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

[Badger]

Sometimes I think people really understate how much of an enemy Russians are. They straight up are trying to kill our troops. These aren’t our friends.

 The Russians are just repaying the favor, we did the same thing to them in Afghanistan. It's Trump's supplicant behavior towards Russia and Putin that has always been the scandal.

[Badger]

For anyone who has trouble getting through the NYT's paywall,

Report: Russia offered bounties on killing US troops

Citing officials briefed on the matter, the Times said the United States determined months ago that a Russian military intelligence unit linked to assassination attempts in Europe had offered rewards for successful attacks last year.

Islamist militants, or armed criminal elements closely associated with them, are believed to have collected some bounty money, the newspaper said.

President Donald Trump has been briefed on the intelligence finding, the Times said. It said the White House has yet to authorize any steps against Russia in response to the bounties.

That second quoted line is, yet again, something that Obama or Hillary would have been justifiably impeached for in a heartbeat. Absolutely disgusting.

How hard is it to contact Putin, or have our Secretary of State Contact their foreign minister, to deliver the clear an ambiguous message that the bounties need lifted, and if our intelligence sources don't confirm that they have been ASAP including any off-the-record offers, we will institute a similar program in the Ukraine, and otherwise power up on sanctions and other diplomatic penalties?

[Badger]

"U.S. intelligence officials"

"There is no defense of this except questioning my continued worship of trump, so it MUST be fake news!!!"

[Badger]

This coming out ~4 months ahead of an election would sink a normal incumbent President.

This won’t even be news by next week.

So painfully sad, so painfully true.

I'm pretty sure that Republicans have continually lowered their standards, not mention creating double standards, since the origination of Fox News, but Trump has accelerated to light speed the decline of their standards for a president.

[Badger]

https://twitter.com/ChrisMurphyCT/status/1277093419505143808

Ratcliffe was chosen for this position explicitly because he proved himself during the impeachment trial to be a loyal stooge to Trump. He had a close confirmation Vote where even Joe manchin voted against him because such widespread as concerns he would politicize the intelligence agency. Compare this to Dan coats who was confirmed 85 to 12.

In short, he's lying.

[Badger]

"U.S. intelligence officials"

"There is no defense of this except questioning my continued worship of trump, so it MUST be fake news!!!"

"I'll throw a barb at Sanchez for alleged Trump worship while simultaneously throwing my blind trust behind a historically bad intelligence agency with a record of sins ten miles long. Though this is obviously hypocritical, I shall continue on because I lack the personal insight to even question my own beliefs. In fact, I'm so lame that I'm going to post Sanchez's response to the irony ore mine or something like that because all I'm capable of doing is moving the goal posts."

"Brevity is the soul of wit."-- Shakespeare

[Badger]

https://twitter.com/realDonaldTrump/status/1277431695248183298

Lol he’s such a bad liar

Well, his voters are just that gullible, so it's a good match.

I mean, seriously. If he yells "Fake News" during a tweet oh, he can get most of his supporters to believe 2 + 2 doesn't equal 4.

[Badger]

https://twitter.com/JakeSherman/status/1277650842607370241

Anyone want to defend this?

" good grief this is a fundamental betrayal of anything remotely approaching bipartisanship on foreign policy, not to mention fundamentally sacrificing our nation and troops best interest so he can remain Pals or even business partners with Putin. This is extremely worrisome and no president regardless of party should ever...

Wait! Some hippies in Portland just knocked over a statue of Columbus! Antifa is running wild!! 4 MORE YEARS!! 4 MORE YEARS!!"

[Badger]

https://twitter.com/seungminkim/status/1277735392494706688

Senator Ben Sasse is officially Beyond concerned, and is now "somewhat bothered"!

[Badger]

https://twitter.com/MEPFuller/status/1277789970237992961?s=20

So wait a minute. Does this mean Trump actually has an alibi for not having seen the briefing?

[Badger]

https://twitter.com/charlie_savage/status/1278015662649114626?s=21

A smoking gun, & yet the White House keeps ignoring Russia's behavior.

He's even trying to hide the gun

[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.

[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.

[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....

[Badger]

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.

And the gold medal for deflection goes to....

[Badger]

https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/world/us-intelligence-indicates-iran-paid-bounties-to-taliban-for-targeting-american-troops-in-afghanistan/ar-BB183dCS?li=BBnbcA1

Oh, since now it's Iran maybe possibly Trump will take action on this.

In other news, that is a very weird enemy of my enemy is my friend type of Coalition between Iran and the Taliban. I mean, Prime political and military forces behind Shiite Islam and Sunni Islam working together like that is a very Cobra and Mongoose teaming up type of situation.