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Russians offered Taliban bounties to kill US troops: Military official

President doesn't care about USA Troops being slaughtered.

@Ucfmikes and @UCFKnight85 care more about how it got leaked.
Some people care more about the Wall Street Journal than actual facts

The Defense Department said late Monday that there is “no corroborating evidence” to support the explosive New York Times report last week that said the Russian military offered bountiesto Taliban-linked militants to kill U.S. troops in Afghanistan.

The report sent shock waves through Washington and prompted President Trump to outright deny knowing anything about the intel cited in the report.

“To date, DOD has no corroborating evidence to validate the recent allegations found in open-source reports. Regardless, we always take the safety and security of our forces in Afghanistan—and around the world—most seriously and therefore continuously adopt measures to prevent harm from potential threats,” Jonathan Hoffman, the chief Pentagon spokesman, said in a statement.

The New York Times, citing unnamed officials, reported Friday that it is believed that some “Islamist militants” or “criminal elements” collected payouts. The report pointed out that 20 Americans were killed there in 2019. It was not clear if any of those deaths were the result of a bounty.


Robert O’Brien, the national security adviser, said in a statement that since the allegations in the report were not verified by the intelligence community, Trump has not been briefed on the matter.

“Nevertheless, the administration, including the National Security Council staff, have been preparing should the situation warrant action,” he said. He said that Trump’s top priority is the security of Americans and the safety of the men and women who serve in the military.

Rep. Michael McCaul, the ranking member of the House Foreign Affairs Committee, and Rep. Adam Kinzinger were in the briefing led by Director of National Intelligence John Ratcliffe, White House chief of staff Mark Meadows and national security adviser Robert O'Brien. McCaul and Kinzinger said in a statement that lawmakers were told "there is an ongoing review to determine the accuracy of these reports."

"If the intelligence review process verifies the reports, we strongly encourage the Administration to take swift and serious action to hold the Putin regime accountable," they said.

The White House has maintained that neither Trump nor Vice President Mike Pence was briefed on such 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,” press secretary Kayleigh McEnany said in a statement.

A White House official told Fox News on Monday that Trump has now been briefed on the issue. It’s unclear exactly when this briefing took place, but the official says it took place sometime “after the NY Times reported on unverified intelligence.”

The statement is at odds with the White House, which insisted that Trump has still not been briefed.

Thomas Joscelyn, a senior fellow at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies, a think tank, told the Wall Street Journal that “Moscow’s willingness to embrace the Taliban openly and publically dates back several years” and he would not be surprised if there is truth to the report.
 
They also care more about a football player kneeling for a song than they do about bounties being put on the heads of our troops.
Yawn. The forgotten poster

No..., actually I don’t care about kneeling. It has to be the most useless, lazy, worthless form of protesting in the history of mankind

The NFL can kiss their ratings goodbye
 
Yawn. The forgotten poster

No..., actually I don’t care about kneeling. It has to be the most useless, lazy, worthless form of protesting in the history of mankind

The NFL can kiss their ratings goodbye

There are degenerate white supremacists in this thread making these a shine claims. They’re losers.
 
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Trump is easily far more concerned with the NYT reporting on this story about bounties than he is with Russia actually putting those bounties on our service members. So of course the resident inbred crowd, utterly incapable of thinking for themselves, are parrot this talking point.
 
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Trump was notified of bounties in writing and now the WH says Trump didnt know because it wasn't read out loud to him.

So basically Trump is too dumb to be kept informed of major global political developments. To afraid to sanction Russia. Wants to invite Russia back to the geopolitical table at the same time he should be learning that Russia is paying bounties on American heads.

But dont kneel for the flag or you dont support the troops.
 
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But dont kneel for the flag or you dont support the troops.
Isn't that the most bizarre take ever??!?

Trump race-baits his minions into believing that respectfully kneeling for the anthem as a peaceful expression of protest is somehow 'unpatriotic' yet our Draft-Dodger-in-Chief doesn't give a shit about Russian bounties on our troops because if he did, it might piss off his puppet master.

Glad 'Real Americans' have their priorities straight.*
 
Isn't that the most bizarre take ever??!?

Trump race-baits his minions into believing that respectfully kneeling for the anthem as a peaceful expression of protest is somehow 'unpatriotic' yet our Draft-Dodger-in-Chief doesn't give a shit about Russian bounties on our troops because if he did, it might piss off his puppet master.

Glad 'Real Americans' have their priorities straight.*
Maga Trash Guide to Trump Doing Something Awful:

If it can be twisted, twist it.
If it can be manipulated, manipulate it.
If it can be downplayed, downplay it.
If it can't, ignore it.

This one should be enough for some people to give up on Donald but they'll just ignore it.
 
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Trump was notified of bounties in writing and now the WH says Trump didnt know because it wasn't read out loud to him.

So basically Trump is too dumb to be kept informed of major global political developments. To afraid to sanction Russia. Wants to invite Russia back to the geopolitical table at the same time he should be learning that Russia is paying bounties on American heads.

But dont kneel for the flag or you dont support the troops.

This is how it usually goes when stuff like this comes out on Donald:

1. This is a flat-out lie, he never knew, fake news. This works for a few days and gives his base something with which to argue. Then the narrative turns to:
2. The people above him knew, never told him, it wasn't on his radar. His base then has a new direction to go. Finally:
3. It was on his desk, he had to read it, he didn't--it's a complete 180 from #1 where it was a flat-out lie. This has happened countless times over the course of the past 3+ years.

Rinse. Repeat. Recycle.
 
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WSJ:

The National Security Agency strongly dissented from other intelligence agencies’ assessment that Russia paid bounties for the killing of U.S. soldiers in Afghanistan, according to people familiar with the matter.


The disclosure of the dissent by the NSA, which specializes in electronic eavesdropping, comes as the White House has played down the revelations, saying that the information wasn’t verified and that intelligence officials didn’t agree on it.

Because of that, President Trump was never personally briefed on the threat, the White House said, although the information was included in written intelligence materials prepared for Mr. Trump and has been known for several months, some lawmakers said after briefings this week at the White House.

It couldn’t be learned why the NSA differed from others—including the Central Intelligence Agency—about the strength of the intelligence. The differences weren’t over the central assessment that operatives with Russia’s GRU intelligence agency paid bounties to the insurgent Taliban movement to kill Americans, some of the people said.
 
WSJ:

The National Security Agency strongly dissented from other intelligence agencies’ assessment that Russia paid bounties for the killing of U.S. soldiers in Afghanistan, according to people familiar with the matter.


The disclosure of the dissent by the NSA, which specializes in electronic eavesdropping, comes as the White House has played down the revelations, saying that the information wasn’t verified and that intelligence officials didn’t agree on it.

Because of that, President Trump was never personally briefed on the threat, the White House said, although the information was included in written intelligence materials prepared for Mr. Trump and has been known for several months, some lawmakers said after briefings this week at the White House.

It couldn’t be learned why the NSA differed from others—including the Central Intelligence Agency—about the strength of the intelligence. The differences weren’t over the central assessment that operatives with Russia’s GRU intelligence agency paid bounties to the insurgent Taliban movement to kill Americans, some of the people said.
Did you read your own quote or did you just get a little boner for the first section so fast that you had to hurry over here and post it?

Ill help you out:
The differences weren’t over the central assessment that operatives with Russia’s GRU intelligence agency paid bounties to the insurgent Taliban movement to kill Americans
 
The "they didnt disagree that russia offered the Taliban bounties to kill americans" matters most.

It was in writing and trump didnt bother to read it.

He demanded Russia be readmitted to the G7.

Fine. Let's mutually agree the G7 stuff was a mistake; then what? What punitive measure are you guys looking for amongst all of this hyperventilating? Aside from starting an armed conflict with Russia, I'm failing to see what could have been done to appease the screaming masses.
 
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This is how it usually goes when stuff like this comes out on Donald:

1. This is a flat-out lie, he never knew, fake news. This works for a few days and gives his base something with which to argue. Then the narrative turns to:
2. The people above him knew, never told him, it wasn't on his radar. His base then has a new direction to go. Finally:
3. It was on his desk, he had to read it, he didn't--it's a complete 180 from #1 where it was a flat-out lie. This has happened countless times over the course of the past 3+ years.

Rinse. Repeat. Recycle.

Wish I could like this twice.

You could write a script from the way this plays out Everytime.
 
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Fine. Let's mutually agree the G7 stuff was a mistake; then what? What punitive measure are you guys looking for amongst all of this hyperventilating? Aside from starting an armed conflict with Russia, I'm failing to see what could have been done to appease the screaming masses.
Jesus Christ, Trump throws our military in Afghanistan under the bus in hopes of getting Russia back in the G8 and you ask what's the big deal??!?

You'd think even partisan hacks like 85 could figure out why 'the screaming masses' are pissed off with our Commander-in-Chief.
 
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Fine. Let's mutually agree the G7 stuff was a mistake; then what? What punitive measure are you guys looking for amongst all of this hyperventilating? Aside from starting an armed conflict with Russia, I'm failing to see what could have been done to appease the screaming masses.

We should have killed, oh I dont know, maybe 215 Russians in a barrage of artillery and air superiority.
 
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Jesus Christ, Trump throws our military in Afghanistan under the bus in hopes of getting Russia back in the G8 and you ask what's the big deal??!?

You'd think even partisan hacks like 85 could figure out why 'the screaming masses' are pissed off with our Commander-in-Chief.

That’s not what I said you disingenuous steaming pile of shit
 
Has this been confirmed by the Pentagon/White House or are we going to continue to believe our media that this is factual?
 
https://www.nytimes.com/2020/07/01/...y-middleman.html?referringSource=articleShare

KABUL, Afghanistan — He was a lowly drug smuggler, neighbors and relatives say, then ventured into contracting, seeking a slice of the billions of dollars the U.S.-led coalition was funneling into construction projects in Afghanistan.

But he really began to show off his wealth in recent years, after establishing a base in Russia, though how he earned those riches remained mysterious. On his regular trips home to northern Afghanistan, he drove the latest model cars, protected by bodyguards, and his house was recently upgraded to a four-story villa.

Now Rahmatullah Azizi stands as a central piece of a puzzle rocking Washington, named in American intelligence reports and confirmed by Afghan officials as a key middleman who for years handed out money from a Russian military intelligence unit to reward Taliban-linked fighters for targeting American troops in Afghanistan, according to American and Afghan officials.

As security agencies connected the dots of the bounty scheme and narrowed in on him, they carried out sweeping raids to arrest dozens of his relatives and associates about six months ago, but discovered that Mr. Azizi had sneaked out of Afghanistan and was likely back in Russia. What they did find in one of his homes, in Kabul, was about half a million dollars in cash.

American and Afghan officials for years have maintained that Russia was running clandestine operations to undermine the U.S. mission in Afghanistan and aid the Taliban.

But they only recently concluded a Russian spy agency was paying bounties for killing coalition troops, including Americans, which the Kremlin and the Taliban have denied.

According to officials briefed on the matter, U.S. intelligence officials believe the program is run by Unit 29155, an arm of the Russian military intelligence agency known as the G.R.U. that has carried out assassinations and other operations overseas.

That a conduit for the payments would be someone like Mr. Azizi — tied to the American reconstruction effort, enmeshed in the regional netherworld, but not prominent enough to attract outside attention — speaks to the depth of Russia’s reach into the increasingly complicated Afghan battlefield, exploiting a nexus of crime and terror to strike blows with years of deniability.

The public revelation last week of that conclusion has touched off a political firestorm in Washington. White House officials said at first that President Trump was never briefed on the matter, but it emerged that the intelligence assessment was included in a written briefing to the president in late February, if not earlier.

As Democratic and Republican officials have expressed alarm at the news, and the administration’s lack of action in response, the White House has insisted that the information was uncertain.

Details of Mr. Azizi’s role in the bounty scheme were confirmed through a dozen interviews that included U.S. and Afghan officials aware of the intelligence and the raids that led to it; his neighbors and friends; and business associates of the middle men arrested on suspicion of involvement. All spoke on condition of anonymity to avoid retaliation.

U.S. intelligence reports named Mr. Azizi as a key middleman between the G.R.U. and militants linked to the Taliban who carried out the attacks. He was among those who collected the cash in Russia, which intelligence files described as multiple payments of “hundreds of thousands of dollars.” Those files were among the materials provided to Congress this week.

Through a layered and complex Hawala system — an informal way to transfer money — he delivered it to Afghanistan for the missions, the files say. The transfers were often sliced into smaller amounts that routed through several regional countries before arriving in Afghanistan, associates of the arrested businessmen said.

Afghan officials said prizes of as much as $100,000 per killed soldier were offered for American and coalition targets.


Just how the money was dispersed to militants carrying out attacks for the Taliban, and at what level the coordination occurred, remains unclear. But officials say the network had grown increasingly ambitious and was in communication with more senior levels in Taliban military ranks to discuss potential targets.

About six months ago, Afghanistan’s intelligence agency, the National Directorate of Security, raided the offices of several Hawala businessmen both in Kabul, the capital, and in Kunduz, in the north, who were believed to be associated with the bounty scheme, making more than a dozen arrests.

“The target of the operation was Rahmat, who was going back and forth to Russia for a long time and said he worked there but no one knew what he did,” said Safiullah Amiry, the deputy head of Kunduz provincial council, referring to Mr. Azizi. But by the time the raid took place, “Rahmat had fled.”

“From what I heard from security officials, the money had come from Russia through Rahmat,” he added.


Russia was initially seen as cooperating with American efforts after the U.S. invasion of Afghanistan in 2001, as its interests in defeating Al Qaeda, an international Islamist terror group, aligned with those of the United States.

But in recent years, as the two powers clashed elsewhere, the Kremlin grew wary of the prolonged United States presence and moved closer to the Taliban, hedging its bets on who would take power in a post-American Afghanistan.

The Russians also saw an opportunity for long-awaited payback for the Soviet humiliation in Afghanistan in the 1980s, when the Red Army withdrew after being unable to defeat a United States-backed insurgency.

Russia has walked a fine balance in recent years, eager to bloody the American nose, but wary of Afghanistan collapsing into a chaos that could spill over its borders. Publicly, Russia has admitted only to information-sharing with the Taliban in fighting the Islamic State in Afghanistan, a common foe.

The U.S. conclusion in 2019 that the Russians were sending bounty money to the Taliban came at a delicate time in the conflict, just as the United States was deep into negotiations with the insurgents over a deal to withdraw the remaining American troops from the country.

Some of the attacks believed to be part of the bounty scheme were carried out around the time the Trump administration was actively reaching out to Russia for cooperation on those peace talks. Zalmay Khalilzad, the U.S. special envoy leading the talks, repeatedly met with Russian officials to build consensus around the American endgame.

The Afghan battlefield is saturated with smaller terrorist groups in addition to the Taliban, who are still responsible for the majority of the violence. Criminal networks, profiteers and terror training experts also freelance their services — often to several groups at the same time.

Mr. Azizi, who neighbors and relatives said is in his 40s, thrived in that convoluted, murky environment.

A friend who has known him since his early days in Kunduz, as well as later in Russia, said he had started off with smuggling small shipments of drugs into Iran in his 20s, but that venture was not very successful. He had returned to northern Afghanistan, and somehow won contracts from the American-led coalition forces to build stretches of a couple roads in Kunduz, before making his way to Russia.

None of those interviewed who know Mr. Azizi were surprised when his associates were raided about six months ago and one of his brothers taken into custody with the half a million dollars in cash. As one of his friends put it, he had gone from “not even having a blanket” to having multiple houses, fancy cars, and security escorts.

Michael Schwirtz contributed reporting.
 
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His response certainly lacks tact, but regarding the topic: if anyone thinks this or some other form of support by the Russians hasn't been going on since we were first over there, you're playing yourself. Same goes for all the other places we fight terrorism. I mean we were helping out the rebels when they were in there back in the day. Doesn't make their actions right, but its a reality of the proxy wars of today.
I don't normally come over here and wade in the cesspool of humanity in the Water Cooler (it is often much like looking at the comments section at just about any site) but there is such a lack of sports to discuss I thought I'd peruse for a few minutes. I didn't bother reading the other 3 pages of posts.

"You are correct, Sir!", as Ed McMahon used to say. The minute the first US boot set foot (or bomb) in Afghanistan you know the Russians (and others) were funneling money, weapons, training and support into that conflict to kill American troops. Funny how news organizations, and media in general....all of them so far as I've seen, have just completely left this out of the conversation, as if it never happened. Hysteria runs the media nowadays and almost nobody wants to take the time to research and write a factual story with some meat and provide objective context when necessary. By the time you do that, someone else has already garnered those clicks (or put up their latest post) and you are thus insignificant, so poor journalism continues. It's hard to imagine that not a single person or editor within each major news company wouldn't raise there hand in a meeting and say something like, "Didn't we directly spend 100's of millions...probably in excess of a billion dollars directly funding the Mujaheddin to kill Russian troops?"

There was once a little 10 year war fought in Afghanistan called the Soviet-Afghan War. Roughly 15K Russian soldiers were killed, ~90k Afghan soldiers, and millions of Afghan's displaced (not to mention the estimated 500 thousand to 2 million civilians estimated to have been killed). A quite entertaining movie made about it is called Charlie Wilson's War (Tom Hanks, Julia Roberts and Phillip Seymour Hoffman). Hoffman's dry sarcasm about what they are doing and what is going on throughout the movie is pretty epic.

What about that other non-existent and forgotten piece of history called the Cold War. How many times did the US and Russia use third party countries to spar with each other?

This incident or whatever you want to label it should be treated just like any other. Assess and if their is a response needed, you do it. Maybe a drone strike occurred yesterday (or in the past) and we're never even going to hear about it. Every day Trump, Obama, Bush, etc... are/were being briefed on "threats", intel, and other things. You can bet they all made good calls and bad calls, but I do know if a decision is making it all the way up to the President, it means it is a tough decision nobody else was willing to make. The world of Intel and associated context is much more an art than a science.
 
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I don't normally come over here and wade in the cesspool of humanity in the Water Cooler (it is often much like looking at the comments section at just about any site) but there is such a lack of sports to discuss I thought I'd peruse for a few minutes. I didn't bother reading the other 3 pages of posts.

"You are correct, Sir!", as Ed McMahon used to say. The minute the first US boot set foot (or bomb) in Afghanistan you know the Russians (and others) were funneling money, weapons, training and support into that conflict to kill American troops. Funny how news organizations, and media in general....all of them so far as I've seen, have just completely left this out of the conversation, as if it never happened. Hysteria runs the media nowadays and almost nobody wants to take the time to research and write a factual story with some meat and provide objective context when necessary. By the time you do that, someone else has already garnered those clicks (or put up their latest post) and you are thus insignificant, so poor journalism continues. It's hard to imagine that not a single person or editor within each major news company wouldn't raise there hand in a meeting and say something like, "Didn't we directly spend 100's of millions...probably in excess of a billion dollars directly funding the Mujaheddin to kill Russian troops?"

There was once a little 10 year war fought in Afghanistan called the Soviet-Afghan War. Roughly 15K Russian soldiers were killed, ~90k Afghan soldiers, and millions of Afghan's displaced (not to mention the estimated 500 thousand to 2 million civilians estimated to have been killed). A quite entertaining movie made about it is called Charlie Wilson's War (Tom Hanks, Julia Roberts and Phillip Seymour Hoffman). Hoffman's dry sarcasm about what they are doing and what is going on throughout the movie is pretty epic.

What about that other non-existent and forgotten piece of history called the Cold War. How many times did the US and Russia use third party countries to spar with each other?

This incident or whatever you want to label it should be treated just like any other. Assess and if their is a response needed, you do it. Maybe a drone strike occurred yesterday (or in the past) and we're never even going to hear about it. Every day Trump, Obama, Bush, etc... are/were being briefed on "threats", intel, and other things. You can bet they all made good calls and bad calls, but I do know if a decision is making it all the way up to the President, it means it is a tough decision nobody else was willing to make. The world of Intel and associated context is much more an art than a science.
You think an appropriate response to this is to demand Russia be readmitted to the G7?
 
You think an appropriate response to this is to demand Russia be readmitted to the G7?
Not readmitted, which won't happen regardless but they probably should be invited to attend. If so much of the focus of the summit is on Russia they might as well be there to see if concessions are possible. In all honesty I doubt that Russia even cares about being a member and nobody really cares about the G7 anyway.
 
You think an appropriate response to this is to demand Russia be readmitted to the G7?
When did I ever say that? Rhetorical question....I didn't. You said that. I said I hadn't read anything past the first post I responded to, which had several pages of comments following it.

This specific incident (or whatever people want to label it) has nothing to do with the G7 or anything else. It has to do with one thing: Fighting a war on foreign soil, and when you do so officially, or by proxy, your "enemies" are going to show up and try to thwart your efforts or supply the other side with the means to inflict harm (up to and including death). We've been doing it to each other since the Cold War began. Is the general public that naive to think the Russians haven't been paying, training, and arming Afghans to kill our troops there since day 1? I hope not. Is that same public naive enough to think we haven't bombed or killed threats of this kind many, many times before? I hope not. Is the public naive enough to think we didn't spend hundreds of millions of dollars (or even surpassing a billion) to directly have the Mujaheddin fighters kill thousands of Russian troops? I hope not.

Are we now going to "Cry Wolf" and demand that we go back and ask the Intel Agencies (and the Executive Office) to release all their intel briefings for the last 60-70 years and assess the decision-making for each of those tens of thousands, hundreds of thousands (or even more) documents and decisions, then try and cherry-pick out a couple and judge each President on those specific decisions? I think not. I hope not. That's ridiculous.

Obama was pretty efficient at ordering drone-strikes to take out people (or targets), much like every other President has had to do in some fashion. I'm certain many of those decisions killed innocent people, or the wrong "enemy". I'm also certain there are too many incidents to count, where a decision to not act on Intel was made and then because of that death and destruction followed. We have processes in place to provide information on "threats", someone does or doesn't make decisions based on that info, and then after an action (or no action) a post-action assessment is performed. Is anybody going to get them right all the time? No. Are mistakes going to be made? Yes. Is the process infallible? No.
 
When did I ever say that? Rhetorical question....I didn't. You said that. I said I hadn't read anything past the first post I responded to, which had several pages of comments following it.

This specific incident (or whatever people want to label it) has nothing to do with the G7 or anything else. It has to do with one thing: Fighting a war on foreign soil, and when you do so officially, or by proxy, your "enemies" are going to show up and try to thwart your efforts or supply the other side with the means to inflict harm (up to and including death). We've been doing it to each other since the Cold War began. Is the general public that naive to think the Russians haven't been paying, training, and arming Afghans to kill our troops there since day 1? I hope not. Is that same public naive enough to think we haven't bombed or killed threats of this kind many, many times before? I hope not. Is the public naive enough to think we didn't spend hundreds of millions of dollars (or even surpassing a billion) to directly have the Mujaheddin fighters kill Russian troops? I hope not.

Are we now going to "Cry Wolf" and demand that we go back and ask the Intel Agencies (and the Executive Office) to release all their intel briefings for the last 60-70 years and assess the decision-making for each of those tens of thousands, hundreds of thousands (or even more) documents and decisions, then try and cherry-pick out a couple and judge each President on those specific decisions? I think not. I hope not. That's ridiculous.

Obama was pretty efficient at ordering drone-strikes to take out people (or targets), much like every other President has had to do in some fashion. I'm certain many of those decisions killed innocent people, or the wrong "enemy". I'm also certain there are too many incidents to count, where a decision to not act on Intel was made and then because of that death and destruction followed. We have processes in place to provide information on "threats", someone does or doesn't make decisions based on that info, and then after an action a post-action assessment is performed. Is anybody going to get them right all the time? No. Are mistakes going to be made? Yes. Is the process infallible? No.
No one is shocked that russia is our enemy except Donald who has consistently gone to bat for them on the worlds stage while every other country is left scratching their heads. The fact that this was going on as Trump made demands for Russia's inclusion in the G7 tells you he's either compromised or incompetent. No president should ever be fighting for a nation that is activly trying to kill its soldiers. Ally nations that sent their own troops to die in our wars were being demonized by Trump as a nation that tried to have our troops killed was being praised.

There is no acceptable explaination except incompetence or that Trump is compromised.
 
I don't normally come over here and wade in the cesspool of humanity in the Water Cooler (it is often much like looking at the comments section at just about any site) but there is such a lack of sports to discuss I thought I'd peruse for a few minutes. I didn't bother reading the other 3 pages of posts.

"You are correct, Sir!", as Ed McMahon used to say. The minute the first US boot set foot (or bomb) in Afghanistan you know the Russians (and others) were funneling money, weapons, training and support into that conflict to kill American troops. Funny how news organizations, and media in general....all of them so far as I've seen, have just completely left this out of the conversation, as if it never happened. Hysteria runs the media nowadays and almost nobody wants to take the time to research and write a factual story with some meat and provide objective context when necessary. By the time you do that, someone else has already garnered those clicks (or put up their latest post) and you are thus insignificant, so poor journalism continues. It's hard to imagine that not a single person or editor within each major news company wouldn't raise there hand in a meeting and say something like, "Didn't we directly spend 100's of millions...probably in excess of a billion dollars directly funding the Mujaheddin to kill Russian troops?"

There was once a little 10 year war fought in Afghanistan called the Soviet-Afghan War. Roughly 15K Russian soldiers were killed, ~90k Afghan soldiers, and millions of Afghan's displaced (not to mention the estimated 500 thousand to 2 million civilians estimated to have been killed). A quite entertaining movie made about it is called Charlie Wilson's War (Tom Hanks, Julia Roberts and Phillip Seymour Hoffman). Hoffman's dry sarcasm about what they are doing and what is going on throughout the movie is pretty epic.

What about that other non-existent and forgotten piece of history called the Cold War. How many times did the US and Russia use third party countries to spar with each other?

This incident or whatever you want to label it should be treated just like any other. Assess and if their is a response needed, you do it. Maybe a drone strike occurred yesterday (or in the past) and we're never even going to hear about it. Every day Trump, Obama, Bush, etc... are/were being briefed on "threats", intel, and other things. You can bet they all made good calls and bad calls, but I do know if a decision is making it all the way up to the President, it means it is a tough decision nobody else was willing to make. The world of Intel and associated context is much more an art than a science.
The difference now is that there are people willing to leak this stuff to the press at the drop of a hat. It's time that we started enforcing our federal laws and put people in jail for the media leaks of classified information.
 
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No president should ever be fighting for a nation that is activly trying to kill its soldiers.

It's incredible that you can say this while still kissing the ass of our past President, who fought tooth and nail to provide Iran with a sweetheart deal they did not deserve, and huge sums of money they did not deserve, having already killed scores of US troops and actively plotting to do the same in the future.
 
It's incredible that you can say this while still kissing the ass of our past President, who fought tooth and nail to provide Iran with a sweetheart deal they did not deserve, and huge sums of money they did not deserve, having already killed scores of US troops and actively plotting to do the same in the future.
Its amazing that everytime you point out suposed hypocrisy of a liberal only taking one side of an issue you're blind to you yourself only taking the other side and also outing yourself as a hypocrite.
 
Imagine being so goddamn stupid you are more upset at the leaker than the POTUS not giving a shit about bounties on our troops.

You 5th Ave MAGATs are Anti american fuktards.
 
Its amazing that everytime you point out suposed hypocrisy of a liberal only taking one side of an issue you're blind to you yourself only taking the other side and also outing yourself as a hypocrite.

I've said the G7 invite is a mistake. You dig into a position and maintain it at all costs, even when your own viewpoint is directly contradicted and hypocritical.
 
I've said the G7 invite is a mistake. You dig into a position and maintain it at all costs, even when your own viewpoint is directly contradicted and hypocritical.
Na dude, you're now trying to invalidate a valid concern by relitigating an Iran deal that isnt even in the discussion. Trump is incompetent or compromised, you can pick, both are unacceptable.
 
Just a reminder that trump has done more for statues of traitors to this country than he has done for our actual troops.
 
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