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Russia Secretly Offered Afghan Militants Bounties to Kill U.S. Troops

Spies and Commandos Warned Months Ago of Russian Bounties on U.S. Troops

Spies and Commandos Warned Months Ago of Russian Bounties on U.S. Troops
The recovery of large amounts of American cash at a Taliban outpost in Afghanistan helped tip off U.S. officials. It is believed that at least one U.S. troop death was the result of the bounties.

By Eric Schmitt, Adam Goldman and Nicholas FandosJune 28, 2020

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.
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Spies and Commandos Warned Months Ago of Russian Bounties on U.S. Troops - The New York Times
 
lurchadams said:
To the right-wing, Russia stopped being our enemy when trump was elected. Why? Because they know that although it's destroying our democracy, Russia helps keep Republicans in power.

Goodbye military support of trump. Hopefully, those who've denied that trump is a threat in the past will come to their senses now.
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The recent polling data has kept the armed forces in the continental U.S. in the barracks this year.

Now we'll see what the hiatus is like from Nov. 4th to Jan. 20th.

We've still got to get to the Nov. 4th results however without any serious imposition against the voting by forces foreign and domestic.

It's very positive that Trump now recognizes the armed forces won't obey him in any of his schemes to use 'em domestically against demonstrating citizens who are protesting against him. I see clearly Trump knows the best thing for him is that the armed forces not see any need to leave their barracks at all. Still I'm looking at Barr who may try to push Trump in the fall rather than Trump pushing Barr. Barr may actually be worse than Trump in certain ways because of the single factor Barr is a lawyer who has the instincts and impulses of a wartime consigliere. Barr is truly hard core.
 
Well we have another "anonymous source" story from the NYT. The president says he wasn't briefed on it. Now I see senior intelligence officials are saying they are in the dark about this as well.

I don't know if the story is true or not. However, I do know if it is true, the bounties are not effective. Only 6 US soldiers have been killed in Afghanistan this year. If Soviet intelligence is only capable of causing that amount of harm they truly have gone down hill. In fact the number of US casualties just keep dwindling under Trump. I guess the TDS crowd will have to tell me how this is possible while the Russians are stirring up hostilities. Maybe Trump is the greatest military leader ever.

Perhaps the NYT has their wires crossed. Could it be the Russians have put bounties on black people in Chicago. If that was the case it would seem they are effective.
 
Tangmo said:
I never said the Russians have to accept that they're the bad guys.

I posted that you have to accept that the Russians are the bad guys.

And you have to accept that USA and Nato among other US defense partners are the good guys.
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I haven't been convinced that NATO were always the good guys since Bill Clinton ordered the bombing of the wrong side.

Tangmo said:
Putin considers it his job to do what he does, yes, which makes Putin the bad guy while the US and Nato allies plus other partner countries are the good guys.
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So if someone is on the same side as us that makes them a "good guy"? So when Stalin was our ally he was a "good guy" or was he just for a time being "OUR GOOD GUY" even though he was ALWAYS a really bad guy.

Was Saddam Hussein was our good guy, before he became our bad guy? Taliban good when they were killing Russians, bad when they were killing A




Tangmo said:
Boris Yeltsen never considered it "his job" as president of RF to be the bad guy to USA...
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LOL!!! Of course Yeltzen behaved himself in the post Soviet era, because the West was sending hundreds of BILLIONS of dollars to buy them off and keep them in line.


Tangmo said:
-- that's Putin's personal choice for his country that doesn't have to be but is because Putin is following his KGB instincts. You're the guy who has to accept all of this rather than say in a pious presumption and pretention both sides do it so the USA is equally evil to the RF and that we should or must accept a spanking for it.
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I NEVER said the US was equally evil, we are not. But only a very naive person would assume we always act like the good guy.
 
Dannytoro1 said:
Maxwell Taylor was squaloring for more money at a time we were swimming in WW2 war surplus. The fact was the Easy Eights and T-26 to M47's were more then up to the task of handling combat. And the fact is US Army development was awash in a rudderless direction. Few 1950's era Army weapons proved worthy of large scale deployment. The M48 being the sole exception and an incremental evolution in the T26 series. All of the early APC's were riddled with flaws and bad design. The best was a gianormous beast to large to hide. That was the way until the M113 materialized for the 1960's.

Not that I think Taylor was in anyway superior to the Supreme Allied Commander in any metric. Especially being he was a yes man for the hideous McNamara and Kennedy.
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Gen. Taylor knew -- as did McNamara and JFK -- that nuclear weapons do not deter conventional war.

And Taylor knew that the war you don't prepare for is the war you get, ie, Vietnam being exhibit A. Given the US was prepared to fight the Russians in Europe that's what the US did in Vietnam, ie, fight the Russians which went to the great benefit of the Vietnamese who were the enemy and to the great detriment to the US and its combatants in the theater.

Taylor was a budget hawk as this statement shows, taken from his book The Uncertain Trumpet after he quit Eisenhower and before JFK brought him back: "With the Chiefs [of Staff] out of the picture, the budget was put together in the usual way, each service producing its budget in isolation from the others...at no time to my knowledge were the three service budgets put side by side and an appraisal made of he fighting capabilities of the aggregate military forces supported by the budget. This...approach [results in] the inability to develop a budget which keeps fiscal emphasis in phase with military priorities."

That is, Taylor knew the US needed to prepare for both nuclear deterrence and conventional war, and that the latter was getting short sheeted. This cost us dearly in Vietnam which occurred during a time when few civilian leaders anticipated a conventional war anywhere yet they went ahead anyway and made one. Indeed the one thing Taylor and the JCS didn't see is that when you have a peacetime Army of 1 million that you can't afford the politicians will find ways and places to make it a wartime army that you have to fund and support fiscally.
 
hanger4 said:
And not single indictment concerning collusion.

Again, how does one collude without coordination ??
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Both those links demonstrated no end of collusion. Which would bring no charges.

Why do feel complelled to lie about this>
 
Court Jester said:
I haven't been convinced that NATO were always the good guys since Bill Clinton ordered the bombing of the wrong side.



So if someone is on the same side as us that makes them a "good guy"? So when Stalin was our ally he was a "good guy" or was he just for a time being "OUR GOOD GUY" even though he was ALWAYS a really bad guy.

Was Saddam Hussein was our good guy, before he became our bad guy? Taliban good when they were killing Russians, bad when they were killing A






LOL!!! Of course Yeltzen behaved himself in the post Soviet era, because the West was sending hundreds of BILLIONS of dollars to buy them off and keep them in line.




I NEVER said the US was equally evil, we are not. But only a very naive person would assume we always act like the good guy.
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I never said that either -- nor do I assume it always -- so your questions targeting the United States as the bad guy always are rejected.

As to Russia, it was our formal and official ally during WW II and it was one of the four formal allies that were the UK, France, USA, USSR. Everyone else was a partner, not a formal ally. Now we have Nato allies, Non-Nato allies, formal defense treaty allies such as Thailand, strategic defense partners such as India and so on. Your guy Putin is against all of this so he built your guy Trump to wreck as much of it as Trump can, with the ferocious supportive efforts of the Rowers always and everywhere.

So I have only one question at this point, and that is, when it was you fell in love with Russia and Putin, how and, of course, why. Because you spend all your time against the United States trying unsuccessfully to tell us where to get off while giving Russia a free ride all the way and paying for the borscht yourself.
 
Tanngrisnir said:
Both those links demonstrated no end of collusion. Which would bring no charges.

Why do feel complelled to lie about this>
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Again, how does one collude without coordination ??
 
lurchadams said:
Trump has already acknowledged it and is denying he was briefed on it - which is a bunch of crap. Sorry, my trump-worshiping friend, but as usual, you're on the wrong side of history.

Trump denies being briefed on intelligence that Russians tried to bribe Taliban fighters to kill US troops - CNNPolitics
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I don't give a damn what Trump says, because I've known since 1975 that he is an idiot of very low degree. You want to make this all about him, but I don't.

Why do the Taliban need to be paid ransoms to kill foreign invaders? They do not sir, no more than the VC needed to be paid ransom for killing invading foreigners.

You buy into every line of bull**** the media offers. I do not.

This is simply the latest of anti-Russian propaganda designed for simple and belligerent minds.
 
BahamaBob said:
Well we have another "anonymous source" story from the NYT. The president says he wasn't briefed on it. Now I see senior intelligence officials are saying they are in the dark about this as well.

I don't know if the story is true or not. However, I do know if it is true, the bounties are not effective. Only 6 US soldiers have been killed in Afghanistan this year. If Soviet intelligence is only capable of causing that amount of harm they truly have gone down hill. In fact the number of US casualties just keep dwindling under Trump. I guess the TDS crowd will have to tell me how this is possible while the Russians are stirring up hostilities. Maybe Trump is the greatest military leader ever.
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there is reasons we are not getting killed - Trump insisted a halt during negotiations.
The Taliban want us out of there, and we want out. But Trump said they gotta stop killing US.

The Taliban have largely laid off the killing.
Trump is going to pull out 4k this fall
That's 4k coming home from a futile mission.

Praise Trump. He knows what he's doing

BahamaBob said:
Perhaps the NYT has their wires crossed.
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It's Fake News greedily sopped up from leaky INTEL agencies.
It's another facet of deep state when they don't want you to end a war.
Military-industrial and all that
 
dave8383 said:
We don't anti-Russian propaganda any more than the VC needed anti-American propaganda.
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It appears you forgot to include the word 'need' in the first part of your post.

If we don't need to do it, why do we do it so much? Because we 'like' to do it, create illusions of Bogey Man?
 
j brown's body said:
Putin and Trump both like chaos. Without Trump, Russia's influence could be toned down quite a bit, as long as other Republicans didn't court them. Who knows anymore?
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Putin is going to do what Putin is going to do -
a POTUS isn't going to "tone him down" he acts as a Russian nationalist.
Trump does the same - there is no linkage; there is realpolitik - mutual interests
 
Thoreau72 said:
Because we 'like' to do it, create illusions of Bogey Man?
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Nonsense. Putin's the real deal.

BTW, aren't you the one who claimed COVID 19 was created by America and sent to China?
 
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dave8383 said:
Nonsense. Putin's the real deal.
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He may save humanity from itself. If he does, he will be the real deal.

Otherwise, the belligerent deceptions of NATO are well documented. Nuland's Goons were the real deal for sure.
 
Thoreau72 said:
He may save humanity from itself. If he does, he will be the real deal.

Otherwise, the belligerent deceptions of NATO are well documented. Nuland's Goons were the real deal for sure.
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Aren't you the one who claimed COVID 19 was created by America and sent to China?
 
dave8383 said:
Aren't you the one who claimed COVID 19 was created by America and sent to China?
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China, Iran, Italy and the US, yes, but what does that have to do with Russia offering bounties to Taliban?
 
Dannytoro1 said:
There is nothing to miss. One Trillion to bandaid old systems long overdue for replacement. And a new B-21 Bomber built around the worst Bomber ever to enter service, the B-2. Which saw terrible availability rates. The bulk to address our very badly outdated warheads. Not only have we peace dividend-ed our top nuclear physicists into retirement, but most of the needed metallurgists are long gone too. We had bad problems making warheads in the 1980's. It is not getting any better. Power PC processors! OMG!
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$1 Trillion is a lotta bucks. Yet while you overstate the challenges you understate the serious money and programs being put into modernization of the US nuclear arsenal.

We're talking $1 Trillion bucks which can be challenging to comprehend so let me put it this way: one trillion seconds is 32 years. Maybe knowing this you might settle for one year's worth of a trillion bucks instead eh.

$1 Trillion bucks is half of Russian GDP.

You're another one however who won't cuss out Putin for placing a bounty on the heads of American Soldiers in Afg. You insist on talking about anything but Putin's evil and Trump's ho-hum and blase' attitude on hearing of it. Your only interest is to be against the United States. Thx for posting to me on this cause now I know you and I look forward to further exchanges. And engagements.
 
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