Putin Paid Militants to Kill US Troops

[BradleyPNW + 282]

19 minutes ago, Ward Smith said:

Why keep embarrassing yourself like this? 

I never said what you claim I did. My quote is right there for everyone to read. That you're too far gone to think isn't a good look. Hillary blames does not equate to Hillary launched an investigation. Only a moron, or you apparently could come to that conclusion. 

Here's something for your attention span just as short as your miniscule pecker. Happened one year ago almost and that article is in a liberal website. If I'd posted from the conservative sites you wouldn't click on it. But I know you can't resist taking a peek at that little thing. You lose, again

Once again, you are all discombobulated. Let me help you focus. 

Fact 1: Russia interfered in the 2016 election.
Fact 2: Donald fully cooperated with Russia's interference. 

Remember this photo I shared just a short time ago? It's the one from Helsinki where Donald discounted US intelligence services in favor of Putin's "extremely strong and powerful" denial. So weird how Donald included sexual overtones in his language as he submitted to Putin, but whatev, to each his own. Anyway, that is an example of Donald fully cooperating with Russia's interference in the 2016 US election. 

 

[footeab@yahoo.com + 2,190]

Knew you were utterly delusional, but this latest blatant thread of lies takes the cake. 

[Eyes Wide Open + 3,555]

And now we know the entire headline news was once again a predetermined unsubstantiated hit piece..Fake News is out of control

 

[Yoshiro Kamamura + 274]

On 6/27/2020 at 6:12 PM, Tomasz said:

Firstly source of this is “US Intelligence officials” which have been discredited during whole #Russiagate thing

Secondly this is reported by NYT which has also lost its credibility with string of crazy stories on #russia threat (eg Rus hacked US power grid)

Any other crediible sources?

Your dumb president himself, that is practically begging Putin, Xi and Kim to be accepted to the club of the "Big Crooks"? We have all seen what he has done at the summit in Helsinky.  10 unsupervised minutes for the Dumbster can mean a serious security threat for the US nation. 

BTW the only "problem" of those so called "discredited" US intelligence officials was that they were still serving the interests of the nation, and not the interest of the oversized ego of Donald Trump. That eventually becomes the dilemma for everyone in the administration - either you are willing to nod to imbecilic drivel like ("We can cure people if we put disinfectant and light inside them"), or they offer their honest opinion like Faucci and become target of a vengeful backlash. 

[Ward Smith + 6,615]

10 hours ago, footeab@yahoo.com said:

Knew you were utterly delusional, but this latest blatant thread of lies takes the cake. 

I'll say this for him, he doesn't mind humiliation given that he's demonstrably wrong so often but keeps coming back for more. I'm sure he's convinced if he throws enough mud, some is bound to stick to something. 

Things slow in Portlandia there @BradleyPNW? Antifa(ct) stopped hiring? No protests to join? Maybe you can get on the wumao train and collect 5 cents a post? Soros is always hiring, he doesn't want the best and brightest, in fact dumb and dumber so you're eminently qualified! 

[BradleyPNW + 282]

21 minutes ago, Ward Smith said:

I'll say this for him, he doesn't mind humiliation given that he's demonstrably wrong so often but keeps coming back for more. I'm sure he's convinced if he throws enough mud, some is bound to stick to something. 

Things slow in Portlandia there @BradleyPNW? Antifa(ct) stopped hiring? No protests to join? Maybe you can get on the wumao train and collect 5 cents a post? Soros is always hiring, he doesn't want the best and brightest, in fact dumb and dumber so you're eminently qualified! 

For someone with a super-jenius IQ it certainly is a lot of work to keep you on track. Again,

Fact 1: Russia interfered in the 2016 election. 
Fact 2: Donald fully cooperated with Russia's interference. 

Not only did Donald burn US intelligence services down at Putin's behest in Helsinki but he gifted Putin with invites to the G-7 after Putin placed bounties on the heads of American soldiers. Antifa, Hillary, Soros, or wherever else your high IQ wonders off to does not change the facts or alter Donald's pattern of inveterate submission to Putin.

 

[Tomasz + 1,608]

The NYT today informs that the bounties for the life of an American soldier costed about  $ 100,000.

From information I know from 90s it costed about $ 100 in Chechnya to plan a bomb against Russians.

About $ 20 was a cost of shelling at patrol in Tajikistan

I would summarize this are a  little different rates and the region is more or less the same. Maybe 20 years later but nothing funtamentally changed economically in this region. 

Does anyone conscious believe that in one of the poorest countries in the world you have to pay the Taliban fundamentalists full  $ 100,000 because they instead they didnt think about murdering Americans fighting them for almost 20 years?

[Eyes Wide Open + 3,555]

11 minutes ago, Tomasz said:

The NYT today informs that the bounties for the life of an American soldier costed about  $ 100,000.

From information I know from 90s it costed about $ 100 in Chechnya to plan a bomb against Russians.

About $ 20 was a cost of shelling at patrol in Tajikistan

I would summarize this are a  little different rates and the region is more or less the same. Maybe 20 years later but nothing funtamentally changed economically in this region. 

Does anyone conscious believe that in one of the poorest countries in the world you have to pay the Taliban fundamentalists full  $ 100,000 because they instead they didnt think about murdering Americans fighting them for almost 20 years?

Do not bring fundamentals to a political hit piece it may cause confusion which leads to crocodile tears for the few ..They do bring a certain Gravitas to the entire affair however..

Edited July 3, 2020 by Eyes Wide Open

[Ward Smith + 6,615]

5 minutes ago, Tomasz said:

The NYT today informs that the bounties for the life of an American soldier costed about  $ 100,000.

From information I know from 90s it costed about $ 100 in Chechnya to plan a bomb against Russians.

About $ 20 was a cost of shelling at patrol in Tajikistan

I would summarize this are a  little different rates and the region is more or less the same. Maybe 20 years later but nothing funtamentally changed economically in this region. 

Does anyone conscious believe that in one of the poorest countries in the world you have to pay the Taliban fundamentalists full  $ 100,000 because they instead they didnt think about murdering Americans fighting them for almost 20 years?

@BradleyPNW believes it! He's either that stoopid or he believes we are to listen to his claptrap. He's also a firm believer in the adage that a lie repeated 1000 times is somehow the truth. His antifa(ct) masters taught him that, and we know who they learned it from. 

He'll keep repeating lies until RFD cows come home, then some more just for good measure. He doesn't care how stoopid it makes him look, there's not much lower he can go in everyone's opinion of him. 

[BradleyPNW + 282]

1 hour ago, Ward Smith said:

@BradleyPNW believes it! He's either that stoopid or he believes we are to listen to his claptrap. He's also a firm believer in the adage that a lie repeated 1000 times is somehow the truth. His antifa(ct) masters taught him that, and we know who they learned it from. 

He'll keep repeating lies until RFD cows come home, then some more just for good measure. He doesn't care how stoopid it makes him look, there's not much lower he can go in everyone's opinion of him. 

When the Wile E Coyote of geniuses calls you stupid. 



 

[BradleyPNW + 282]

2 hours ago, Tomasz said:

The NYT today informs that the bounties for the life of an American soldier costed about  $ 100,000.

From information I know from 90s it costed about $ 100 in Chechnya to plan a bomb against Russians.

About $ 20 was a cost of shelling at patrol in Tajikistan

I would summarize this are a  little different rates and the region is more or less the same. Maybe 20 years later but nothing funtamentally changed economically in this region. 

Does anyone conscious believe that in one of the poorest countries in the world you have to pay the Taliban fundamentalists full  $ 100,000 because they instead they didnt think about murdering Americans fighting them for almost 20 years?

You guys keep recycling the same techniques, "Does anyone believe..."

Putin offered big money because American troops are hard targets as Russia knows:
 

Quote

"They beat our asses like we were little pieces of shit...but our fucking government will go in reverse now, and nobody will respond or anything and nobody will punish anyone for this. My guys just called me, they are sitting there drinking, many are MIA, it's a total fuckup, another humiliation.... Nobody gives a fuck about us." 

https://www.newsweek.com/total-f-russian-mercenaries-syria-lament-us-strike-killed-dozens-818073

Attacking US troops requires a coordinated force with painful losses. Putin had to motivate the attacks. 

[Ward Smith + 6,615]

1 minute ago, BradleyPNW said:

You guys keep recycling the same techniques, "Does anyone believe..."

Putin offered big money because American troops are hard targets as Russia knows:
 

Attacking US troops requires a coordinated force with painful losses. Putin had to motivate the attacks. 

Keep showing your unending ignorance. By your genius there were never any deaths in Afghanistan, because "Attacking US troops requires a coordinated force with painful losses". Do I need to post a cartoon without words so it doesn't exceed your microscopic intellect? Why do you keep posting here, you're just digging deeper and deeper into that hole. Word of advice, there's no sunlight down there. 

[BradleyPNW + 282]

5 minutes ago, Ward Smith said:

Keep showing your unending ignorance. By your genius there were never any deaths in Afghanistan, because "Attacking US troops requires a coordinated force with painful losses". Do I need to post a cartoon without words so it doesn't exceed your microscopic intellect? Why do you keep posting here, you're just digging deeper and deeper into that hole. Word of advice, there's no sunlight down there. 

We're almost to the part of the story where you talk about your thousands of internet forum reputation points. 

 

[Tomasz + 1,608]

The actual explanation for this news is as mentioned 

America has entered over 20 years of conflict with the Taliban that cannot be won.

 

Afghanistan is an ideal country for partisans. From what you can read in memories, for example, communication between one mountain ridge and the other - a distance of a few kilometers. From the memories of the American commander - there is no means of communication except a satellite telephone.

As I say in Afghanistan, no one will win against the Taliban because it is an ideal country for partisans. In my opinion, even better than Vietnam, which was also good for this purpose, though for other reasons.

The British did not won in XIX century  the USSR lost in XX century and America will not win for obvious reasons in XXI century  unless it drops nuclear weapons on the Taliban.

Trump wants to end this senseless war, but the secret services called deep state in my  opinion put obstacles to him because war is a great business and additionally Afghanistan is the largest heroin producer who has several times increased production after 2001.

If anyone remembers the scandal with the CIA's cooperation with drug gangs in South America in 80s and 90s, lets think about it.

 

An example of other American propaganda, for a bonus - I am not sure that in this way Belarusian oppositionists working with the American RFERL in the style of Mr. Franak Viacorka will actually convince ordinary Belarusians to their point to overthrov Lukashenko. 

It's hard to think of something more historically revisionist than the statement of "Soviet occupation was not much better than the Nazi's one" when talking about the modern history of Belarus.

Because  Belarus lost a quarter of its population under Nazism .

That’s why they celebrate victory day each year even this year. 

A perfect tweet for launching pro-Lukashenka media even in a nation with not very well-developed nationalism like Belarusians.

 

 

Quote

 

 

Franak Viačorka

 

@franakviacorka

 

The Soviet victory in WWII is presented by official propaganda as the biggest achievement in Belarus history which is not entirely true. For Belarus, the Soviet occupation was not much better than the Nazi's one.

 

 

8:35 PM · Jul 3, 2020·Twitter Web App

 

 

Edited July 5, 2020 by Tomasz

[Dan Warnick + 6,100]

Afghanistan is a base country for U.S. forces to train and get some experience under rather difficult conditions, while being right next door to the screaming ayatollahs, lest they forget they are in the crosshairs should they get too far out of line.

And to this absolute bullshit that Putin put a bounty on any U.S. soldier: he commands many, many, crack snipers that could sneak in and take out just about any soldier at any time, so no, I don't believe this crap for a second.

[Tomasz + 1,608]

By Ben Aris in Berlin July 7, 2020

https://www.intellinews.com/us-intelligence-memo-admits-there-is-no-evidence-of-russian-payment-of-bounties-to-afghans-for-killing-us-soldiers-186990/?source=russia

Quote

 

The New York Times reported on June 3 that a CIA memo admits that intelligence agencies have “no evidence” that payments made by the Russian foreign military intelligence GRU to Afghan fighters were bounties for killing US soldiers in Afghanistan.

The memo goes on to admit that it has “circumstantial evidence” of payments made to fighters, but they are fringe groups fighting in Afghanistan and not official representatives of the Taliban.

A NYT story entitled “New Administration Memo Seeks to Foster Doubts About Suspected Russian Bounties” published on July 3 and buried on page 19 of the paper, reported on a memo that said that the “CIA and the National Counterterrorism Centre had assessed with medium confidence – meaning creditably sources and plausible, but falling short of near certainty – that a unit of the Russian military service, known as the GRU, offered the bounties,” according to two of the officials briefed on its contents, the paper reported.

The memo reportedly lays out the latest assessment by US intelligence on what is known about the bounty story that caused a storm of comment following its publication and sparked a political scandal after revelations that Trump was “not briefed” on the bounty killings and had “failed to act.”

The memo goes on to say that US intelligence had reports of GRU members meeting with leaders of “a Taliban-linked criminal network” and that “money was transferred from a GRU account to the network.”

“After lower-level members of that network were captured, they told interrogators that the Russians were paying bounties to encourage the killings of coalition troops, including Americans.”

However, intelligence officials interviewed by the NYT stressed that "the government lacks direct evidence of what the criminal network leaders and GRU officials said at face-to-face meetings, so it cannot say with any greater certainty that Russia specifically offered bounties in return for killings of Western soldiers,” the paper wrote.

Moreover, even this damning testimony from the detainees was called into question by the memo, as the intelligence sources said the National Security Agency "did not have surveillance that confirmed what the captured detainees told interrogators about bounties,” according to the NYT interlocutors.

The agency did intercept data of financial transactions that provide circumstantial support for the detainee’s account, "but the agency does not have explicit evidence that the money was bounty payments,” the NYT piece concluded in the last paragraph of the story.

Despite the fact that the memo in question and the report expressly conclude that the agency had no evidence that money was paid as bounties, that admission was consigned to the very end of the piece. The lead of the article claimed the exact opposite, albeit couched in speculative terms.

“A memo produced in recent days by the office of the nation’s top intelligence official acknowledged that the CIA and top counterterrorism officials have assessed that Russia appears to have offered bounties to kill American and coalition troops in Afghanistan, but emphasised uncertainties and gaps in evidence, according to three officials,” the article began.

The headline of the article can also be questioned, as it suggests that the memo “seeks to foster doubts”, when all the memo says, as reported by the NYT, is actually foster doubts about the veracity of the earlier bounty payment reports by concluding explicitly that the agency has no concrete evidence for the payments whatsoever. The lack of evidence is not “gaps,” as the NYT wrote, but “total absence of evidence” in what has been a high-profile and politically incendiary report.

Follow up failure

Russia watchers have been sceptical about the bounty hunters report from the start, which was based on a single set of anonymous quotes from intelligence agents, but offered no concrete evidence whatsoever.

While no one disputes that GRU agencies are operating in Afghanistan, or that it is more than likely they are offering money to fighters, it is the specificity of the payments for “bounties” that raises questions. While it remains possible that bounty payments were made by GRU officers, there are several other, more plausible explanations.

In the absence of any evidence of payments as bounty – which the CIA has now admitted it does not have – those concerns seem to be borne out.

“What to make of the current claims that Russia paid the Taliban bounties to kill US and allied soldiers in Afghanistan? Both Moscow and the Taliban deny it, while claims of new evidence surface. It is still hard to understand any reason for the Kremlin to take such a dangerous step, though – and a possible alternative explanation for what evidence has been presented,” respected Russia security services expert Mark Galeotti said in an opinion piece for the Moscow Times.

Briefly, Russia has its own interest in Afghanistan and is afraid of the spread of both drugs and extreme Islamic terrorism from the country into its soft underbelly, via Central Asia. The GRU are active in the country and keen to foment good relations and to bring about a peace.

“These hard-nosed Afghan warlords do not co-operate with Moscow out of altruism or good-neighbourliness. In today’s Afghanistan – just as the British and the Russians found during the “Great Game” of the nineteenth century – alliances are bought with blood, arms and cash. Certainly, the US has not shied away from such pragmatic behaviour,” Galeotti said.

Most of the reporting that followed the NYT article was simply parroting the NYT piece and produced no new sources.

The Kremlin vehemently denies the story. “Maybe I can sound a little rude, but this is 100% bullsh*t,” Russian presidential spokesman Dmitry Peskov said after the story broke.  “As far as I’m concerned, none of America’s representatives has ever raised this question against Russian representatives.”

More tellingly, the Taliban officially denied the reports, saying that to accept bounty payments would encroach on Afghanistan’s sovereignty.

"Our target killings and assassinations were ongoing in years before, and we did it on our own resources," Zabihullah Mujahid told the NYT. He added that the Taliban had stopped attacking US and NATO forces after they agreed in February to a phased troop withdrawal and to lift sanctions. In return, the Taliban said they would not allow extremist groups to operate in areas they control.

One of the few pieces that attempted a follow up to confirm the NYT was a poorly sourced report by Business Insider. The publication has no reporters on the ground and used an unidentified “trusted intermediary” who spoke to three Taliban fighters in Afghanistan, who purportedly confirmed the story.

However, the Afghani sources admitted that those that took money were not Taliban but “less-disciplined elements on the fringes of the group” and this was not official Taliban policy. Moreover, the most vocal of the three sources, a refugee who has been in Greece since 2016, admitted that he had never been offered money, but the practice was “well known” – in other words hearsay.

The unofficial nature of payments, if any, was confirmed by Business Insider in a statement from Moulani Baghdadi, a current Taliban commander from Ghazni Province, who said Russian influence inside the Taliban itself was impossible but that there were many affiliated groups that have maintained ties with Russia.

"These are criminal groups that work alongside the Mujahideen and give us a bad reputation with many people because they sell drugs and commit crimes and work with [foreigners]."

What emerges from these reports is that it seems likely that GRU has maintained a network of contacts inside the country since the time of the Soviet withdrawal from Afghanistan in 1989 and is still active in the country. Moreover, it appears to pay money and support fringe groups, but how and for what purpose is not specified. At the same time, it appears the GRU is not formally supporting or funding the Taliban itself, but none of the evidence for any conclusions is concrete or clear, least of all that the GRU offered to pay bounties for the death of US soldiers.

Observers have also speculated the story was planted in the NYT by intelligence agents for domestic political reasons. US President Donald Trump has been pushing to withdraw troops from Afghanistan, but a motion to begin the process was defeated in the first week of June.

The US has been fighting in Afghanistan for 19 years – the US longest ever war – but House democrats, working together with key pro-war GOP lawmakers, including Liz Cheney, the daughter for former hawkish Secretary of State Dick Cheney, managed to kill the proposal.

The House Armed Services Committee voted on July 1 overwhelmingly in favour of an amendment – jointly sponsored by Democratic Congressman Jason Crow of Colorado and Congresswoman Cheney of Wyoming – prohibiting the reduction in the number of US troops deployed in Afghanistan below 8,000 without a series of conditions first being met, which effectively kills off Trump’s withdrawal plans.

Amongst the conditions that the Defence Department must meet before a withdrawal is allowed is that leaving Afghanistan “will not increase the risk for the expansion of existing or formation of new terrorist safe havens inside Afghanistan” and “will not compromise or otherwise negatively affect the ongoing United States counter-terrorism mission against the Islamic State, al Qaeda and associated forces.”

 

 

As usual, a propaganda article accusing Trump and Russia on page 1 of the New York Times

And the straightening article that all these were lies and slander can be found on page 19 few days later.

Probably in small print but I never had a paper edition of this newspaper.

Edited July 8, 2020 by Tomasz

[Ward Smith + 6,615]

50 minutes ago, Tomasz said:

By Ben Aris in Berlin July 7, 2020

https://www.intellinews.com/us-intelligence-memo-admits-there-is-no-evidence-of-russian-payment-of-bounties-to-afghans-for-killing-us-soldiers-186990/?source=russia

 

As usual, a propaganda article accusing Trump and Russia on page 1 of the New York Times

And the straightening article that all these were lies and slander can be found on page 19 few days later.

Probably in small print but I never had a paper edition of this newspaper.

@BradleyPNWtime for you to get a cranial rectumectomy and eat yourself a big ole heapin helpin of humble pie. Cmon, you know you want to gobble it right down. Yum yum yummy delicious humble pie. You lose again and again. Must suck to be you. Cheers

[BradleyPNW + 282]

2 hours ago, Ward Smith said:

@BradleyPNWtime for you to get a cranial rectumectomy and eat yourself a big ole heapin helpin of humble pie. Cmon, you know you want to gobble it right down. Yum yum yummy delicious humble pie. You lose again and again. Must suck to be you. Cheers

After the story leaked Donald went golfing. For two days. No comment until Sunday night when Donald said he didn't know anything about it. Then leaks revealed he was briefed on the Russian bounties in February. Then Bolton publicly stated he knew about it a year before that when he was NSA. Then more leaks the White House was searching for the people leaking the stories. 

Donald works hard on defending himself from leakers but doesn't lift a pinky from his Diet Coke to defend US troops from Russia's bounties. And everyone around him is leaking like underage Russian hookers in Trump's Moscow suite. 
 

 

[Ward Smith + 6,615]

4 hours ago, BradleyPNW said:

After the story leaked Donald went golfing. For two days. No comment until Sunday night when Donald said he didn't know anything about it. Then leaks revealed he was briefed on the Russian bounties in February. Then Bolton publicly stated he knew about it a year before that when he was NSA. Then more leaks the White House was searching for the people leaking the stories. 

Donald works hard on defending himself from leakers but doesn't lift a pinky from his Diet Coke to defend US troops from Russia's bounties. And everyone around him is leaking like underage Russian hookers in Trump's Moscow suite. 

Do the initials ES under your name stand for Extremely Stupid? Asking for a friend. 

There is nothing real about this story. It's all hogwash. Which part of that can't make it to your medulla? Do you even have a brain? 

[BradleyPNW + 282]

13 hours ago, Ward Smith said:

Do the initials ES under your name stand for Extremely Stupid? Asking for a friend. 

There is nothing real about this story. It's all hogwash. Which part of that can't make it to your medulla? Do you even have a brain? 

Your boy is having another tantrum. Better get his binky. 

 

[Tomasz + 1,608]

 

Worth noting. I know that the real target of the attack was President Trump and Russia got backfired.

But after all these weapons of mass destruction in Iraq, moderate fighters in Syria, the chemical attack in Douma, the alleged murder of Babchenko in Kiev that resurected on the next day, I advise you not to be surprised that since no evidence has been presented in the cases of Skripal and Navalny, there are very serious doubts the more that the case of Navalny begins to fall apart because the Germans, like the British, do not present any evidence to support accusations

Simply nowadays there are not so many naive people who believe in the truth of any government's assurances simply because its highly likely as Theresa May once said..

And I don't mean that it certainly wasn't the case because I simply don't know. Only to be honest, the credibility of Western special services and governments is at least especially not so high for me to take their word for it.

Especially that in a situation in which Navalny seems not to have suffered dramatically , for a change, Russia goes to the attack and demands the full evidence of poisoning firmly.

If they were really guilty, I would simply sweep the matter under the rug as inconvenient for all parties.

By the way if someone thinks that such a development of the situation in the era of the new Cold War, even less with Russia and more with China, is a success for the West, and I congratulate him on optimism.

For example, I see photos of the Chinese exterminating the Uighurs. Only I can see also  the comments that this is fake news and anti-chinese propaganda. And I see a lot of such comments and to be honest I am not surprised at all.

 

Perhaps people are slowly forgetting about the WMD in Iraq. But unfortunately then there was also Syria where the West generally compromised itself to support Islamic fighters against a legitimate government whatever it was.

Quote

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.s intelligence that Russians offered Taliban bounty to kill Americans

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."

 

 

 

Senators call for answers about Russian bounties on US soldiers

JULY 2, 202002:22

 

 

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."

 

Edited September 15, 2020 by Tomasz