WASHINGTON — United States intelligence officers and Special Operations forces in Afghanistan alerted their superiors as early as January to a suspected Russian plot to pay bounties to the Taliban to kill American troops in Afghanistan, according to officials briefed on the matter. They believed at least one U.S. troop death was the result of the bounties, two of the officials said.

The crucial information that led the spies and commandos to focus on the bounties included the recovery of a large amount of American cash from a raid on a Taliban outpost that prompted suspicions. Interrogations of captured militants and criminals played a central role in making the intelligence community confident in its assessment that the Russians had offered and paid bounties in 2019, another official has said.

Armed with this information, military and intelligence officials have been reviewing American and other coalition combat casualties over the past 18 months to determine whether any were victims of the plot. Four Americans were killed in combat in early 2020, but the Taliban have not attacked American positions since a February agreement to end the long-running war in Afghanistan.

The details added to the picture of the classified intelligence assessment, which The New York Times reported Friday has been under discussion inside the Trump administration since at least March, and emerged as the White House confronted a growing chorus of criticism on Sunday over its apparent failure to authorize a response to Russia.

Read more:

https://www.nytimes.com/2020/06/28/us/politics/russian-bounties-warnings-trump.html

If you believe in the fairies at the bottom of the — yours or your neighbour's — garden, you can say this story is true. It's as true as Saddam has weapons of mass destruction, has been the instigator of 9/11, has sent anthrax letters to people in the USA and was purchasing aluminium pipes in Africa to manufacture centrifuges to make nuclear weapons... All false. We know this. 

Yes, I know, interrogations of captured militants and criminals are very conclusive that the cash came from Russia... Yes, many Iraqi defectors said that Saddam had weapons of mass derision... or whatever dangerous. I am sure the 'captured" militants and the criminals had a good laugh: hey look! Here are the receipts signed by Putin himself!

I supposed they all told the same story... The cash came from Russia on camel-back via Pakistan... and where did the cash come from: RUSSIA!... It's also written on the paper bags...  Россия, Россия, Россия, Россия, easy.

Meanwhile Trump would have to know that this is a lot of poppycock designed to make sure he is shown to be a Putin puppet... Another nail in his political coffin.

And yes, there could be too much cash to be the local bank savings... But actually TRUMP KNOWS THAT THE CASH CAME TO THE TALIBAN AS A PAYMENT FOR A GOOD CROP OF POPPIES... Or wheat... unless it was a down-payment to the Taliban to stop killing US soldiers according to the incoming agreement... Remember when the US paid several billion dollars and gave weapons to the mujahideen (the Taliban) when they were fighting the Soviets in the 1980s... This could be leftovers from these times, because the Ruskies gave up eventually and some clever bod decided to save it for a rainy day... But the banknotes could be too new or fake... We need more details, please, including the serial numbers... Easy to trace then.

And what would the Taliban do with so much cash? I know, buy a few private jets (around US$9 million each), more guns and Toyotas or a few pigs, sorry I meant GOATS,  as a dowry payment to marry the chief's daughter...

Unless Putin is too clever for us, leaving traces of his misdeeds — traces that say "this way to Ru... I mean Россия".... "come and get me!"...

And where did this CLASSIFIED information come from?...

From The New Yorker in 2016...

Two weeks ago—when the election of Donald Trump was still, to many people, an almost comedic idea—Charles Taylor, the Canadian philosopher, visited the Social Science Research Council, in Brooklyn, to talk about the fate of democracy with some graduate students. He had just won the Berggruen Prize, which is awarded, along with a million dollars, to a philosopher “whose ideas are intellectually profound but also able to inform practical and public life.” Taylor’s books tell the story of how some sources of value (love, art, individuality) have grown in relevance, while others (God, king, tradition) have declined. When we met, Taylor’s newest work was a lecture called “Some Crises of Democracy.” Citizens in Western democracies, he argued, used to find personal fulfillment in political participation; now, they were coming to feel that the democratic process was a lot of sound and fury, signifying nothing, and that democratic politicians were con artists. Their desperation and cynicism seemed capable of turning these beliefs into self-fulfilling prophecies.

Taylor, who is eighty-five, is tall and handsome, with athletic shoulders and a thinker’s high, domed forehead. He radiates kindliness and thoughtful equanimity. Leaning back in his chair, he spoke softly, pausing frequently to cough—he had a cold—or to chuckle, in self-deprecation, at his own philosophical eloquence. (A typical laugh line: “How people understand democracy is different from epoch to epoch—that’s what the term ‘social imaginary’ is meant to capture!") Economists, psychologists, political theorists, and some philosophers share a view of personhood: they think of people as “rational actors” who make decisions by “maximizing utility”—in other words, by looking out for themselves. Taylor, by contrast, understands human behavior in terms of the search for meaning. His work has been to make a farcically vague concept—“the meaning of life”—historical and concrete. In more than a dozen books, including “Sources of the Self,” from 1989, and the monumental “A Secular Age,” from 2007, he has explored the secret histories of our individual, religious, and political ideals, and mapped the inner tensions that cause those ideals to blossom or to break apart.

Read more:

https://www.newyorker.com/culture/persons-of-interest/how-to-restore-your-faith-in-democracy

Read also: never leave this cup empty of wine... in an amusement park for philosophers…

Yes we have abandoned the divine-kings con artists and replaced them with idiotic con artists... It could be seen as an improvement though...

US President Donald Trump described the COVID-19 coronavirus as the 'Kung Flu' during his first public campaign event in months, in Tulsa, Oklahoma, on 20 June, doubling down on the use of the term at an Arizona rally for youth last week.

Former US President Barack Obama condemned President Donald Trump's use of the term "kung flu", The New York Times reported.

During an invite-only fundraiser held last week for former Vice President Joe Biden's presidential campaign, Obama rejected Trump's use of the term at recent rallies in Oklahoma and Arizona.

Trump administration officials last week defended the current US president's use of the term, claiming that it was not intended to promote anti-Asian sentiment, but instead was meant to highlight the origin of the deadly virus, believed to be in the city of Wuhan, China.

Conway previously called the comment "highly offensive" and demanded to know for the identity of the journalist who used the phrase.

"That’s highly offensive, so you should tell us all who it is," Conway told a reporter in March.

Last week, reports emerged that the term 'Kung Flu' was coined during the Obama administration, and was used at two federally-run Veterans Affairs hospitals in official materials.

Read more:

https://sputniknews.com/us/202006291079752200-obama-reportedly-slams-trump-for-using-kung-flu-amid-speculation-term-was-coined-during-his-tenure/

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...

I’ve got a list of bookmarks as long as a CVS receipt declaring threats to the republic and democracy and the arrival of dictatorship. When I turn on cable news, the end of America as we know it—the literal end, as in North Korean-style lives for everyone—is a regular feature alongside weather and sports (back when we had sports). I’ve tried to make a career out of debunking that fear mongering. But now I’m scared too.

Joe Biden has announced his own fears. Biden (who despite appearances is the Democratic candidate for president) said he is “absolutely convinced” the military may have to remove President Trump from the White House if he refuses to leave after losing November’s election. Joe warned, “This president is going to try to steal this election…. It’s my greatest concern.” Asked whether he’d thought about what would happen if he wins but Trump decides not to leave, Biden responded: “Yes I have.” After mentioning the high-ranking former military officers who spoke out about Trump’s response to Black Lives Matter protests, he went on: “I’m absolutely convinced they will escort him from the White House.”

Biden has been saying this for months.

It’s one thing when goofy Michael Moore, Donny Deutsch, or Bill Maher muses about this for clicks, or an op-ed worries Trump will unleash a diversionary war in some Strangelovian bid to stay in office. Nearly everyone on Autonomous Free Twitter knows the voting will be rigged. Some knucklehead wrote a book about it based on a fan fiction reading of the 12th Amendment. Democrats have also voiced “concerns” that Trump might use the coronavirus crisis to delay or delegitimize the election.

But this is Joe Biden saying Trump will attempt some sort of unconstitutional coup. Joe Biden, who was vice president twice. Joe Biden, Lion of the Senate, and for several centuries the gray representative of the credit card industry. Joe Biden, who is not stupid, naive, or dramatic. Joe Biden, who is, however, just a pawn in the game. They’re setting it up, aren’t they?

The New York Times, as is its role, has already fired several signal flares. They characterized Trump as a cornered despot, capable of anything to avoid losing. In another article, the Times announced, “Trump Sows Doubt on Voting. It Keeps Some People Up at Night,” which quotes a Georgetown University law professor saying that “reactions have gone from, ‘Don’t be silly, that won’t happen,’ to an increasing sense of, ‘You know, that could happen.’” 

read more:

https://www.theamericanconservative.com/articles/what-if-trump-wont-leav...

In some ways, Trump might be happy to be out of this place and leave the others carry on with the traditional muck...

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The media firestorm over alleged Russian intelligence collusion with Afghan militants to kill US troops has the hallmarks of a psy-ops orchestrated by America’s Deep State.

The real bounty hunters in this high-risk game are not Russian operatives allegedly directing militant assassins. Rather, it is domestic political enemies of Donald Trump directing US media outlets to hobble his presidency or chances of re-election.

Since his shock election back in 2016, the political establishment and their favored Democrat surrogates along with media affiliates have been unrelenting in trying to crash Trump’s presidency.

Trump may be an odious figure of dubious character. He’s a plutocrat and demagogue accused of harboring racist tendencies.

You don’t have to be a supporter or apologist for Trump to see that powerful elements of the US ruling class wanted the big-mouth billionaire ousted and the 2016 election result overturned. That’s the fundamental anti-democratic reality of the United States in action.

Under Trump, the US has descended into political and economic chaos.

The coronavirus pandemic and protests over police racial violence have magnified the deep divisions within American society.

Trump has also through his imitable, brash style alienated America’s allies around the world. The transatlantic alliance between the US and Europe has been trashed by Trump over spats about NATO military spending and commercial trade.

The US-led Western political order is splintering apart as is its domestic order. That must be extremely alarming for the US establishment to view the architecture vital for American power projection around the world becoming undone.

This alarming downward spiral in US image (always overblown but smartly prettified by previous presidents) would explain the latest renewed push by the Deep State to liquidate the Trump presidency.

The claim that Russian military intelligence was running an assassination program against US troops in Afghanistan is designed to be explosive. Moreover, it is further claimed that Trump was indifferent to the alleged information.

But this “journalism” by prominent US media outlets is a gas-lighting psychological operation. Tellingly, there is no evidence provided to substantiate the supercharged claims. It all relies on unnamed anonymous sources.

Trump denies being briefed on the alleged kill program, as reported by media. Russia has panned the bounty-hunter claims, and the Afghan Taliban dismiss them too. Furthermore, the US Director of Intelligence John Ratcliffe and the National Security Advisor Robert O’Brien have confirmed Trump’s version that he wasn’t briefed.

It seems significant, however, that the psy-ops has gained traction in a desired direction. The salacious claims of Russians colluding in the assassination of Americans and a “treacherous” President Trump have managed to divide Republican lawmakers who are now reportedly increasing their criticism of the White House.

It can also be expected that the highly emotive reported bounty-hunter scheme will undermine Trump’s support among the military ranks.

One of the flimsy pieces of “evidence” cited in US reports of alleged Russian collusion with Afghan militants was the discovery of large amounts of dollars in Taliban bases. How that find is supposed to implicate Russian operatives is a good guess. But if such lose logic can be applied, then why not speculate that the alleged dollars were sourced from US intelligence agencies who wanted fellow Americans killed in order to justify an ongoing Afghan war quagmire – a quagmire that is a two-decade boon for the Deep State and the military-industrial complex?

In effect that outcome is something the US Deep State is good at – regime change.

Read more:

https://sputniknews.com/columnists/202006301079758457-deep-state-bounty-hunters/

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A bombshell report published by The New York Times Friday alleges that Russia paid dollar bounties to the Taliban in Afghanistan to kill U.S troops. Obscured by an extremely bungled White House press response, there are at least three serious flaws with the reporting.

The article alleges that GRU, a top-secret unit of Russian military intelligence, offered the bounty in payment for every U.S. soldier killed in Afghanistan, and that at least one member of the U.S. military was alleged to have been killed in exchange for the bounties. According to the paper, U.S. intelligence concluded months ago that the Russian unit involved in the bounties was also linked to poisonings, assassination attempts and other covert operations in Europe. The Times reports that United States intelligence officers and Special Operations forces in Afghanistan came to this conclusion about Russian bounties some time in 2019.

According to the anonymous sources that spoke with the paper’s reporters, the White House and President Trump were briefed on a range of potential responses to Moscow’s provocations, including sanctions, but the White House had authorized no further action.

Immediately after the news broke Friday, the Trump administration denied the report—or rather, they denied that the President was briefed, depending on which of the frenetic, contradictory White House responses you read.

Traditionally, the President of the United States receives unconfirmed, and sometimes even raw intelligence, in the President’s Daily Brief, or PDB. Trump notoriously does not read his PDB, according to reports.

Director of National Intelligence John Ratcliffe said in a statement Saturday night that neither Trump nor Vice President Pence “were ever briefed on any intelligence alleged by the New York Times in its reporting yesterday.”

On Sunday night, Trump tweeted that not only was he not told about the alleged intelligence, but that it was not credible.“Intel just reported to me that they did not find this info credible, and therefore did not report it to me or @VP” Pence, Trump wrote Sunday night on Twitter.

Ousted National Security Advisor John Bolton said on NBC’s “Meet the Press” Sunday that Trump was probably claiming ignorance in order to justify his administration’s lack of response.

“He can disown everything if nobody ever told him about it,” said Bolton.

Bolton is one of the only sources named in the New York Times article. Currently on a book tour, Bolton has said that he witnessed foreign policy malfeasance by Trump that dwarfs the Ukraine scandal that was the subject of the House impeachment hearings. But Bolton’s credibility has been called into question since he declined to appear before the House committee.

The explanations for what exactly happened, and who was briefed, continued to shift Monday.

White House press secretary Kayleigh McEnany followed Trump’s blanket denial with a statement that the intelligence concerning Russian bounty information was “unconfirmed.” She didn’t say the intelligence wasn’t credible, like Trump had said the day before, only that there was “no consensus” and that the “veracity of the underlying allegations continue to be evaluated,” which happens to almost completely match the Sunday night statement from the White House’s National Security Council.

Instead of saying that the sources for the Russian bounty story were not credible and the story was false, or likely false, McEnany then said that Trump had “not been briefed on the matter.”

“He was not personally briefed on the matter,” she said. “That is all I can share with you today.”

It’s difficult to see how the White House thought McEnany’s statement would help, and a bungled press response like this is communications malpractice, according to sources who spoke to The American Conservative.

Let’s take a deeper dive into some of the problems with the reporting here:

1. Anonymous U.S. and Taliban sources?

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.”

“Who can forget how ‘successful’ interrogators can be in getting desired answers?” writes Ray McGovern, who served as a CIA analyst for 27 years. Under the CIA’s “enhanced interrogation techniques,” Khalid Sheik Mohammed famously made at least 31 confessions, many of which were completely false.

Kiriakou believes that the sources behind the report hold important clues on how the government viewed its credibility.

“We don’t know who the source is for this. We don’t know if they’ve been vetted, polygraphed; were they a walk-in; were they a captured prisoner?”

If the sources were suspect, as they appear to be here, then Trump would not have been briefed on this at all.

With this story, it’s important to start at the “intelligence collection,” said Kiriakou. “This information… appeared in the [CIA World Intelligence Review] Wire, which goes to hundreds of people inside the government, mostly at the State Department and the Pentagon. The most sensitive information isn’t put in the Wire; it goes only in the PDB.”

“If this was from a single source intelligence, it wouldn’t have been briefed to Trump. It’s not vetted, and it’s not important enough. If you caught a Russian who said this, for example, that would make it important enough. But some Taliban detainees saying it to an interrogator, that does not rise to the threshold.”

2. What purpose would bounties serve?

Everyone and their mother knows Trump wants to pull the troops out of Afghanistan, said Kiriakou.

“He ran on it and he has said it hundreds of times,” he said. “So why would the Russians bother putting a bounty on U.S. troops if we’re about to leave Afghanistan shortly anyway?”

That’s leaving aside Russia’s own experience with the futility of Afghanistan campaigns, learned during its grueling 9-year war there in the 1980s.

If this bounty campaign is real, it would not appear to be very effective, as only eight U.S. military members were killed in Afghanistan in 2020.The New York Times could not verify that even one U.S. military member was killed due to an alleged Russian bounty.

The Taliban denies it accepted bounties from Russian intelligence.

“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.”

The Russian Embassy in the United States called the reporting “fake news.”

While the Russians are ruthless, “it’s hard to fathom what their motivations could be” here, said Paul Pillar, an academic and 28-year veteran of the Central Intelligence Agency, in an interview with The American Conservative. “What would they be retaliating for? Some use of force in Syria recently? I don’t know. I can’t string together a particular sequence that makes sense at this time. I’m not saying that to cast doubt on reports the Russians were doing this sort of thing.”

3. Why is this story being leaked now?

According to U.S. officials quoted by the AP, top officials in the White House “were aware of classified intelligence indicating Russia was secretly offering bounties to the Taliban for the deaths of Americans” in early 2019. So why is this story just coming out now?

This story is “WMD [all over] again,” said McGovern, who in the 1980s chaired National Intelligence Estimates and prepared the President’s Daily Brief. He believes the stories seek to preempt DOJ findings on the origins of the Russiagate probe.

The NYT story serves to bolster the narrative that Trump sides with Russia, and against our intelligence community estimates and our own soldiers lives.

The stories “are likely to remain indelible in the minds of credulous Americans—which seems to have been the main objective,” writes McGovern. “There [Trump] goes again—not believing our ‘intelligence community; siding, rather, with Putin.'”

“I don’t believe this story… and I think it was leaked to embarrass the President,” said Kiriakou. “Trump is on the ropes in the polls; Biden is ahead in all the battleground states.”

If these anonymous sources had spoken up during the impeachment hearings, their statements could have changed history.

But the timing here, “kicking a man when he is down, is extremely like the Washington establishment. A leaked story like this now, embarrasses and weakens Trump,” he said. “It was obvious that Trump would blow the media response, which he did.”

The bungled media response and resulting negative press could also lead Trump to contemplate harsher steps towards Russia in order to prove that he is “tough,” which may have motivated the leakers.

It’s certainly a policy goal with which Bolton, one of the only named sources in the New York Times piece, wholeheartedly approves.

Read more:

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