Bounties on American soldiers
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https://www.nytimes.com/2020/06/26/us/politics/russia-afghanistan-bounties.html
WASHINGTON — American intelligence officials have concluded that a Russian military intelligence unit secretly offered bounties to Taliban-linked militants for killing coalition forces in Afghanistan — including targeting American troops — amid the peace talks to end the long-running war there, according to officials briefed on the matter.
The United States concluded months ago that the Russian unit, which has been linked to assassination attempts and other covert operations in Europe intended to destabilize the West or take revenge on turncoats, had covertly 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 officials said. Twenty Americans were killed in combat in Afghanistan in 2019, but it was not clear which killings were under suspicion.
The intelligence finding was briefed to President Trump, and the White House’s National Security Council discussed the problem at an interagency meeting in late March, the officials said. Officials developed a menu of potential options — starting with making a diplomatic complaint to Moscow and a demand that it stop, along with an escalating series of sanctions and other possible responses, but the White House has yet to authorize any step, the officials said..
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I could not read the NYT piece, but what I read in the Guardian makes it clear that this is all from yet more 'unnamed sources who were briefed on the situation'. Honestly it doesn't make much sense for Russia to do this, now that we have reached a deal on withdrawl. They stand to lose more than to gain. The fact that the Democrats are screaming about it further leads me to believe it might not be true.
In any event, we have a pandemic, big economic problems and rioting internally. Even if it were true I would not see it as the highest priority.
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@Mik said in Bounties on American soldiers:
I could not read the NYT piece, but what I read in the Guardian makes it clear that this is all from yet more 'unnamed sources who were briefed on the situation'. Honestly it doesn't make much sense for Russia to do this, now that we have reached a deal on withdrawl. They stand to lose more than to gain. The fact that the Democrats are screaming about it further leads me to believe it might not be true.
In any event, we have a pandemic, big economic problems and rioting internally. Even if it were true I would not see it as the highest priority.
If it’s true it’s likely tit for tat but NYT curiosity ends where their thesis breaks down.
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WH statement on this:
The United States receives thousands of intelligence reports a day, and they are subject to strict scrutiny. While the White House does not routinely comment on alleged intelligence or internal deliberations, the CIA director, national security adviser, and the chief of staff can all confirm that neither the president nor the vice president were briefed on the alleged Russian bounty intelligence.
This does not speak to the merit of the alleged intelligence but to the inaccuracy of The New York Times story erroneously suggesting that President Trump was briefed on this matter
They’re saying that Trump wasn’t briefed, but don’t call the story directly into question.
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@xenon said in Bounties on American soldiers:
WH statement on this:
The United States receives thousands of intelligence reports a day, and they are subject to strict scrutiny. While the White House does not routinely comment on alleged intelligence or internal deliberations, the CIA director, national security adviser, and the chief of staff can all confirm that neither the president nor the vice president were briefed on the alleged Russian bounty intelligence.
This does not speak to the merit of the alleged intelligence but to the inaccuracy of The New York Times story erroneously suggesting that President Trump was briefed on this matter
They’re saying that Trump wasn’t briefed, but don’t call the story directly into question.
So you don’t think that the Russians are playing tit for tat that this is intentional escalation of tensions? Where does your curiosity end? I thought you were super interested in foreign policy?
How many Russian soldiers died in Syria as a direct or indir3ct result of the Us and US money?
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@Loki said in Bounties on American soldiers:
@xenon said in Bounties on American soldiers:
WH statement on this:
The United States receives thousands of intelligence reports a day, and they are subject to strict scrutiny. While the White House does not routinely comment on alleged intelligence or internal deliberations, the CIA director, national security adviser, and the chief of staff can all confirm that neither the president nor the vice president were briefed on the alleged Russian bounty intelligence.
This does not speak to the merit of the alleged intelligence but to the inaccuracy of The New York Times story erroneously suggesting that President Trump was briefed on this matter
They’re saying that Trump wasn’t briefed, but don’t call the story directly into question.
So you don’t think that the Russians are playing tit for tat that this is intentional escalation of tensions? Where does your curiosity end? I thought you were super interested in foreign policy?
How many Russian soldiers died in Syria as a direct or indir3ct result of the Us and US money?
I don’t think I’ve offered an opinion on any of this.
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@xenon said in Bounties on American soldiers:
@Loki said in Bounties on American soldiers:
@xenon said in Bounties on American soldiers:
WH statement on this:
The United States receives thousands of intelligence reports a day, and they are subject to strict scrutiny. While the White House does not routinely comment on alleged intelligence or internal deliberations, the CIA director, national security adviser, and the chief of staff can all confirm that neither the president nor the vice president were briefed on the alleged Russian bounty intelligence.
This does not speak to the merit of the alleged intelligence but to the inaccuracy of The New York Times story erroneously suggesting that President Trump was briefed on this matter
They’re saying that Trump wasn’t briefed, but don’t call the story directly into question.
So you don’t think that the Russians are playing tit for tat that this is intentional escalation of tensions? Where does your curiosity end? I thought you were super interested in foreign policy?
How many Russian soldiers died in Syria as a direct or indir3ct result of the Us and US money?
I don’t think I’ve offered my opinion on any of this.
Just an innocent link. Haha.
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@Loki said in Bounties on American soldiers:
@xenon said in Bounties on American soldiers:
WH statement on this:
The United States receives thousands of intelligence reports a day, and they are subject to strict scrutiny. While the White House does not routinely comment on alleged intelligence or internal deliberations, the CIA director, national security adviser, and the chief of staff can all confirm that neither the president nor the vice president were briefed on the alleged Russian bounty intelligence.
This does not speak to the merit of the alleged intelligence but to the inaccuracy of The New York Times story erroneously suggesting that President Trump was briefed on this matter
They’re saying that Trump wasn’t briefed, but don’t call the story directly into question.
So you don’t think that the Russians are playing tit for tat that this is intentional escalation of tensions? Where does your curiosity end? I thought you were super interested in foreign policy?
How many Russian soldiers died in Syria as a direct or indir3ct result of the Us and US money?
In terms of my opinion on Syria. The US and Russia were both obv against ISIS - but aligned with different factions on the ground. Your point is that some of factions we backed were anti-Russian.
If that’s what we’re talking about that feels different than directly targeting Russians.
An imperfect analogy would be - any scale bombing campaign is going to invariably kill innocent people, but that’s different than targeting innocent people.
All that said - the facts on this situation are still unclear.
