Propaganda: Russia secretly offered Afghan militants bounties to kill U.S. troops, intelligence says

[lei.talk]

let us not neglect to consider political obstructionism:

[JamesBond007]

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.

https://www.chicagotribune.com/natio...qu4-story.html

I am currently reading this book and it explains how this narrative is completely false drummed up fiction by the increasingly incompetent American elites or deep state :

The United States is undergoing a profound and radical transformation, all features of which point to the fact of its departure at an accelerated rate from its largely self-proclaimed status as a global hegemon. The United States has lost ground in every single category that defines the power and status of a nation in relation to its rivals.

This book delves into the reasons for a catastrophic decline of the American nation, addressing a range of factors from the economic (especially energy), to cultural, technological and military factors. America’s deindustrialized economy is now deeply affected by what can only be described as a massacre of her small and middle-size businesses and the implosion of the US commercial aerospace industry. America’s only driver of real growth, the shale oil industry, is facing realities which may make the Great Depression pale in comparison.

Disintegration also seeks answers to the precipitous moral and professional decline of the always mediocre qualities of the American elites, from the corridors of political power to those of the military and business, now spiraling out of control.

More alarmingly, the trend also points to the possibility of the actual physical disintegration of the United States as a unified entity—whether the divisions are ethnic or ideological.

The most profound fault line is cultural—between the Coastal self-proclaimed elites backed by the secular, liberal media and deep state, who promote the most radical ideologies as it concerns gender and race, and the working class majority whom the former polemicize as deplorables, Christian fundamentalists, white supremacists, and climate and science denialists.

Investigating these factors sheds light on America’s future which holds very little promise for the country which had once proclaimed itself to be a shining city on the hill. The American collapse is not just coming, we are presently experiencing it.

How can we deal with a catastrophe which is unfolding before our very eyes?

Disintegration lays out some possibilities.

Review
“Martyanov shows that America’s disintegration is irreversible because the ruling elites are an organic part of the calamitous sources of dysfunction that have destroyed the country.”

https://www.amazon.com/Disintegratio...0297784&sr=8-1

[Humanophage]

Unsurprisingly, turned out to be more fake news.

https://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-56775660

Afghanistan war: US spies doubt reports of Russian 'bounties' for troops

The White House has acknowledged there was little evidence that Russia had offered Taliban militants bounties to kill US soldiers in Afghanistan.

A spokeswoman for President Joe Biden said the claim had "low to moderate confidence" from US spy chiefs.

Russia has denied paying the bounties. In last year's US election, Mr Biden heavily criticised Donald Trump for not confronting Russia over the claim.

It comes amid new sanctions on Russia and US plans to leave Afghanistan.

The intelligence assessment was first reported last June by the New York Times, and was cited by Mr Biden on the 2020 presidential campaign trail to accuse then-President Trump of not standing up to Russia.

Mr Trump at the time called it "fake news" and a "fake issue". He later tweeted that he was not briefed on the subject because US intelligence agents had not deemed it credible.

At a White House news briefing on Thursday, Press Secretary Jen Psaki told reporters the intelligence community had determined it had "low to moderate confidence" in the claims.

She said this was due to the fact that the information was said to have come from interrogations of Afghan detainees.

"It's challenging to gather this intelligence and this data," she said.

"While there is low-to-moderate assessment in these reports, we felt it was important for our intelligence community to look into it."

When it emerged last year, the news caused a political furore in the US Congress. Mr Biden repeatedly used the report to criticise Mr Trump's leadership.

"His entire presidency has been a gift to Putin, but this is beyond the pale," Mr Biden said of his Republican opponent shortly after the news broke.

"It's a betrayal of the most sacred duty we bear as a nation to protect and equip our troops when we send them into harm's way. It's a betrayal of every single American family with a loved one serving in Afghanistan or anywhere overseas."

Mr Biden brought it up again during his speech to accept his party's nomination at the National Democratic Convention and in his first conversation as president with Russian President Vladimir Putin.

A cautionary tale

In the heat of last year's presidential campaign, reports of Russian bounties being paid for killing US troops in Afghanistan quickly became a new line of attack against Donald Trump.

Democrats cited the reports - based on anonymous information provided by US intelligence sources - as yet further evidence that the then-president was soft on Russia, willing to turn a blind eye to Vladimir Putin's transgressions even at the cost of American blood.

Joe Biden brought it up during one of the presidential debates. Barack Obama mentioned it in a campaign speech, accusing Trump of being "missing in action" as commander-in-chief.

It turns out the "evidence" behind those reports is thin - "low to moderate confidence," in intelligence-speak. And this week the Biden administration indicated it isn't willing to use it as the basis for further sanctions against the Russian government. All Putin got from Biden on the matter this year was a warning.

The original coverage of the bounties story included acknowledgment of nuance and uncertainty. Much of that was lost in the white-hot crucible of US politics, however.

These latest revelations should provide a cautionary tale: take anonymous reports, even when they come from official sources, with a healthy dose of salt.

Hilariously, they'll probably use their acknowledging the falsity of those claims as proof that they are doing 'responsible journalism' and retracting their claims. Quietly... half a year later...

Why do the neocons like to trump up such stupidity when Russia is doing plenty of actual malign stuff like jailing the opposition is unclear.

[Loki]

Of course it was fake news, I've seen it from the start. It's just your average lies and propaganda that we've gotten used to. But the most surprising and shocking of all is that some people actually believed it!

[Loki]

These "intelligence officials" who are pushing these lies are disgusting traitors and should be jailed.

[Humanophage]

Of course it was fake news, I've seen it from the start. It's just your average lies and propaganda that we've gotten used to. But the most surprising and shocking of all is that some people actually believed it!

I think it was part of the same drooling 'military' thrust as this: https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/...suckers-report

Has this special taint of unhinged propaganda a la Iraq WMD.

[Loki]

I think it was part of the same drooling 'military' thrust as this: https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/...suckers-report

Has this special taint of unhinged propaganda a la Iraq WMD.

It's really sad what has become of the US. They've really gone backwards as far as trustworthiness is concerned, and many other essential qualities of a civilized country. I believe it's on the verge of a bloody civil war or revolution.