Afghanistan - Bounties - Silly Talk
- Russia Secretly Offered Afghan Militants Bounties to Kill U.S. Troops, Intelligence Says - New York Times. June 26 2020
- US intelligence indicates Iran paid bounties to Taliban for targeting American troops in Afghanistan - CNN, August 17 2020
- Scoop: Trump administration declassifies unconfirmed intel on Chinese bounties - Axios, December 30 2020
- No US Combat Deaths in Afghanistan Over Past Year - Antiwar, February 8 2021
Posted by b on February 11, 2021 at 9:40 UTC | Permalink
The next thing you know, The New York Times, CNN and Axios will uncover news that, as President, Donald Trump paid Taliban and Afghan militants to take out US troops - 'cuz as The Don says, US troops are "losers".
It surely has never occurred to the Western MSM that the Afghans and the Taliban don't target US or other Coalition troops because, as the Iranians found when considering who to take out as revenge for the assassination of General Qassem Soleimani, no-one they find quite matches the status and dignity of Soleimani or of those Afghans and Taliban martyrs who died in skirmishes against the Westerners.
Posted by: Jen | Feb 11 2021 10:06 utc | 2
I like the old Billmon style of headline stories that contradict themselves. very illuminating imho.
however, there are still some troublemakers there who probably don't want to get off the gravy train. hard to say who was behind the blasts in Kabul.
you can be sure if any chatter comes out about leaving there will be a buttload more of these
Posted by: dan of steele | Feb 11 2021 10:40 utc | 3
Anybody seen any life signs of Ayatollah Mike recently?
IIRC he is rumored to have been last seen in Afghanistan about a year ago.
Posted by: Lurk | Feb 11 2021 11:10 utc | 4
GDP per capita in Afghanistan ranks 169th out of 186 countries. Most folks take home fewer than two hundred dollars a month.
How could this reality possibly jibe with the marketing quotas demanded by our 24 hour news cycle?
It couldn't. Thus, the silly talk.
After 40 years of resistance, the fiercely independent Afghan warrior is understandably weary.
Posted by: john | Feb 11 2021 11:29 utc | 5
"My Taliban is rich".
To rephrase the old "My tailor is rich" of Louis de Funès? Although I think the real origin is earlier.
Posted by: Stonebird | Feb 11 2021 11:59 utc | 6
And whatever they say anybody else is doing, you can bet the farm that they are doing it even more.
Posted by: Bemildred | Feb 11 2021 12:05 utc | 7
That just proofs what we all already knew: Taliban are not motivated by worldly gains. [sarcasm]
Posted by: m | Feb 11 2021 12:24 utc | 8
One of my favorite MoA commentators is karlof1, but I disagree with him/her who characterizes the AngloZionist Empire as "outlaw".
Again, and again, and again the Empire shows itself to be psychopathic in its every word and deed - "outlaws" are models of honor, civility and moral standards by comparison.
Posted by: simplicius | Feb 11 2021 12:44 utc | 9
"outlaws" are models of honor, civility and moral standards by comparison
Posted by: simplicius | Feb 11 2021 12:44 utc | 9
"To live outside the law, you must be honest, I know you always say that you agree"
-- B. Dylan ("Absolutely Sweet Marie" I believe)
There is some truth in that, when you are working without a net you cannot afford any illusions.
Posted by: Bemildred | Feb 11 2021 12:54 utc | 10
When is the Russian Novichok going to turn up in Afghanistan?
Posted by: Edward | Feb 11 2021 13:03 utc | 11
... declassified unconfirmed intel... (Where is EPA? CDC?)
As we know, grass and similar plant matter is hard to digest, so many types of animals digest twice. Rabbits eat their once digested green feces and then excrete black feces. But humans, with their complex societies, can do so much more!
First, intelligence "collects" "information", digests it once, and shits into the mouths of journalists. Journalists digest it, and shits into the mouths of a wide audience. Of those, most absorb it with mild negative symptoms. But sum literally thrive on it and create complex networks in which feces are consumed and secreted, often with elaborate rituals, panels, dinners and what not.
Experts explain that combining panels with food intake -- snacks, refreshments, lunches etc -- allows to mix info-feces with "un-informative foods", thus allowing to create vast amount of info-feces. More cost effective than editing genes of bacteria and cultivating them I vats.
Posted by: Piotr Berman | Feb 11 2021 13:49 utc | 12
When is the Russian Novichok going to turn up in Afghanistan?
Posted by: Edward | Feb 11 2021 13:03 utc | 11
Novichock is a boutique weapon, formulated to match delicate physique of denizens of Wiltshire or people who hobnob with rich and fashionable. Lower grade folks are subjected to products otherwise used for bathroom cleaning or removing weeds.
Posted by: Piotr Berman | Feb 11 2021 13:55 utc | 13
As a watcher for decadence, the "let them eat cake" style lack of touch with reality (deliberate) is an excellent sign of later stage decadence.
The question is then whether Hudson is right: that significant parts of the rest of the world are actively working to remove the exorbitant dollar privilege - and the attendant military monstrosity that it enables.
And if so, when.
Posted by: c1ue | Feb 11 2021 14:40 utc | 14
I recently debated this topic with a family member that currently still somehow believes western media. I brought up several points:
1. The fact the reports are unconfirmed gossip gleefully repeated by western media with ZERO journalistic due diligence is evidence enough to discount reports.
2. When have any freedom fighters defending their homeland from extremely violent and brutal foreign invaders ever needed monetary incentives to avenge their dead women and children?
3. Why would Russia need to pay bounties to Afghans if Moscow wanted dead US soldiers? Russian forces have all the targets they need right there in Syria and Ukraine and are more than capable of collecting as many American scalps as desired themselves.
4. I don't believe one word of the western media but for the sake of argument, assume it is true. So what? The US issues bounties all the time against enemies so why the outrage of someone else does it.
Posted by: Mar man | Feb 11 2021 15:04 utc | 15
By Eric ZUESSE
An article by the Moon of Alabama (MoA) blogger, on February 5th, decimated the credibility of two American newspapers in just that one shot. It was aptly headlined “New York Times Editors Lie, Obfuscate Facts, To Reinforce Their False Russia Narrative”. The following commentary will presume the reader has already read it, because this is a commentary upon his commentary, which was a brilliant (though I shall also note, imperfect) analysis. So, that article should be read first, because the following builds upon it.
His central point — documented by links to sources that are vastly more credible than either of those U.S. ‘news’papers is — pertains to the vicious distortions in the U.S.-and-allied ‘news’-media concerning Alexei Nalvany, a Russian politician who back in 2012 got caught by Russia’s equivalent of America’s FBI having Navalny’s top aide try to persuade a person he thought to be an MI6 (UK’s CIA) agent that MI6 should annually donate tens of millions of dollars to Navalny’s organization because doing this would provide billions of dollars of benefit to UK corporations if Navalny would then succeed and become Russia’s leader. How much reporting about that videoed conversation is there in ‘news’-media such as the New York Times and Washington Post? None. Is that because American audiences wouldn’t be interested in seeing and hearing that conversation between a Russian politician’s right-hand man and a person he thought represented MI6? (After all, Navalny is all over America’s ‘news’-media these days.) Or is it instead because America’s major ‘news’-media are still propagandists for the U.S. Government, against what it — that Government by America’s billionaires — designates to be America’s ‘enemies’?
Are the New York Times and Washington Post Fraudulent?
Posted by: Bemildred | Feb 11 2021 16:38 utc | 16
@ Piotr Berman | Feb 11 2021 13:49 utc | 12
What you are describing is the Human Centipede, very nasty!
Posted by: Just Me | Feb 11 2021 17:07 utc | 17
Oh, an obvious flaw on the part of the American MSM - where is the article about the DPRK offered bounties to militants who received a personal order from Kim Jong-un to destroy the American troops?
I am disappointed.
When is the Russian Novichok going to turn up in Afghanistan?
Posted by: Edward | Feb 11 2021 13:03 utc | 11
Indeed the US accusations of others using Novichok cannot be more suspect.
Novichok was produced first by the USSR at the Chemical Research Institute in Nukus, Uzbekistan, which was "cleaned up" (and the Novichok and production equipment of course imported) by the US after a 1999 agreement, then produced by several NATO member states, so for 30 years it has been more western than Russian, and never exclusively Russian. Nukus is just across the river from Turkmenistan and straight down the M39 (600 miles) to Afghanistan. No doubt it was exported to many places from 1993 to 1999, and the US probably has as much or more of it than any other nation. It is also similar to many other nerve agents. So Novichok accusations by the US are highly suspect. Rather like a bar owner accusing the inventor of alcohol for causing drunken driving.
Posted by: Sam F | Feb 11 2021 17:21 utc | 19
Canada's military magazine, Esprit de Corps, addressed this topic in July -- Article with the headline, You don't need to pay Afghan extremists a bounty to kill foreign occupiers
Posted by: Quasi Retired anonym | Feb 11 2021 17:32 utc | 20
change the word from bountie to bootie... it would be more interesting.. nice to see the intel agencies have such consistent compliance in the usual news outlets...
Posted by: james | Feb 11 2021 17:49 utc | 21
Something tells me we'll be waiting the entire 4 yrs. of the Biden/Harris admin. for a coherent change in the U$ foreign policies around the globe. Our multi-national corporations are far to greedy to let that happen.
Until that scenario changes, the U$ business empire will continue to occupy and "business rape" other nations.
Posted by: vetinLA | Feb 11 2021 18:45 utc | 22
Posted by: Piotr Berman | Feb 11 2021 13:49 utc | 12
Your description of the intelligence/journalist complex reminds me of the film "The Human Centipede".
Posted by: One Too Many | Feb 11 2021 19:46 utc | 24
Agree with simplicius that the US Empire spectacle is psychopathic but also within contains method to its madness.
Biden has gone beyond Trump in appointing ziocons to control US foreign policy in the interests of a foreign entity while turning much of domestic law enforcement policy over to those driven by fear and hate animal spirits. The latter will mask the former from the people while the US marches into greater failure.
Posted by: AriusArmenian | Feb 11 2021 20:01 utc | 25
@ Lurk #4
I have been wondering the same myself for over a year now. The media blackout on the "Ayatollah" Michael D'Andrea story is fascinating. The plane of the head of CIA anti-Iran ops is shot down over Ghazni, Afghanistan, on Jan 27, 2020, and aside from a few articles in Feb. and March claiming the IRGC has a "credibility issue" (suggesting perhaps that Ayatollah Mike is either spending some quality time with his family, or leading the anti-Iran ops from a secret bunker...still?) I haven't seen or heard a word about D'Andrea. I'm guessing they didn't find his body or enough DNA in the wreckage to determine whether or not he died on the scene, so perhaps the spooks themselves don't know what secret bunker he has been operating from (or is being operated on in, if you will).
Posted by: HD | Feb 11 2021 20:40 utc | 26
When the roads through Pakistan became unsecure, and Obama got problems supplying his 100.000 (or was it 150.000?) troops in Afghanistan with their needs - perhaps 300.000 boxes of Coca Cola daily and stuff like that - Putin helped out by allowing transport by rail through Russia. It can not have made much impression on the Americans, because a little later Obama placed Russia in the same category as the Ebola virus and IS terrorists (in a U.N. speech) and generally went berserk with sanctions.
BTW, I wonder sometimes if perhaps the Americans were annoyed by receiving help from Moscow, afraid that some would make certain comparisons. (hint: Stinger missils).
Officially Putin did not want extremists to take over Afghanistan, same as now , but he probably also wanted to show how seriously he took the talk back then about "partnership". That he must have sacrified some of his popularity by Veterans/in the military is reasonable to think. (All in vain!).
Times have changed, but Putin not much, I think. Cooperation rather than confrontation seems to be what he prefers, if there only is a tad rationality present on the other side. Who else would have managed to establish decent/working relations - besides Syria- whith Israel, Turkey, Iran, Saudi Arabia etc at the same time?!
When it comes to American lives, he may have saved some by sending badly needed medical equipment to New York last year...
Posted by: Cunctator | Feb 11 2021 21:06 utc | 27
@HD | Feb 11 2021 20:40 utc | 26
Even in the remotest parts of Afghanistan, nothing disappears, not even a corpse. In fact, a corpse has little remaining value, so a modest bounty would suffice to obtain the whereabouts of the grave or even the delivery of the remains to a convenient hand-over location. So where is he?
Did the USA arrive at the crash scene to retrieve d'Andrea alive, but in a severely dented state and is he now kept alive in a more or less vegetative state? Surely they wouldn't take pride in presenting him like that.
Or did the Iranians beat them to it and is d'Andrea held for questioning in Iran? He sure would have a lot to explain to them.
If d'Andrea had been capable and available, you'd expect the USA to have publicly shown some amount of proof of that - probably with copious glee. But, nothing. The only response has been hysterical crybabying about the credibility of anyone reporting on the incident (check out the wikipedia talk page). It must have hurt them a lot.
Posted by: Lurk | Feb 11 2021 21:53 utc | 28
@Lurk 28
I would guess the dedicated and highly motivated "Philip Cross" has been quite busy with the D'Andrea Wiki edits as well! So much on that busy lad's plate.
I hadn't pondered the potential for D'Andrea to have been found by US forces or allies alive but severely wounded/vegetative, which sounds like the only plausible explanation for why he might be in an undisclosed location outside of Afghanistan or Iran.
Had he been killed and this was confirmed, I would have expected a "leak" from someone in the new admin to appear in the MSM sometime between Jan 21 and at least by Jan 28.
Hence, my hunch is that they were not able to retrieve the body, and aren't aware of the extent of his crash injuries (if any) thus 1) the level of Pompeo's vitriol and actions through his very last day, 2) the continuing mockingbird MSM blackout.
This would be the biggest compromise of CIA intelligence arguably since the William Buckley kidnapping in Lebanon. Ouch indeed.
Posted by: HD | Feb 11 2021 22:24 utc | 29
Concerning Michael D'Andrea.
I remember reading at the time the plane, a USAF Bombardier E11A that was heavily modified, "crashed" or was shot down was the CIA version of Air Force One and only the highest level intelligence officers flew on it. Michael D'Andrea had been aboard that plane many times in the past.
I believe the official reports declared only pilot and copilot were aboard. Non western media paint an entirely different picture. Reports stated there were many high ranking CIA, NSA and US Military on board and most were killed and even rumors of survivors that were captured. Michael D'Andrea was reportedly among the dead has never been seen since the crash anywhere in the world.
Pictures showed highly classified material scattered all over and much was recovered.
Unconfirmed reports state that Iran furnished the hardware to shoot down such a heavily protected target and possibly even Russian intelligence detailing exactly the persons aboard, flight plan and defensive counter measures the CIA had installed on the plane that would need to be defeated.
No idea how much of that is true, but that plane certainly crashed and Michael D'Andrea has reportedly never been seen publicly since.
Posted by: Mar man | Feb 11 2021 23:14 utc | 31
simplicius @9--
Thanks for your kudos and observation. And yes, I do have a male pronoun for all future pronoun references. I rarely explain anymore why I classify my home nation as an outlaw--it's because it breaks its own and international law on a daily basis and has since 22 October 1945. Furthermore, its chief magistrate's primary job is to enforce the laws of the land and this he's failed to do for many decades now, likely since the office was invented in 1787, which is to say the US national government's been corrupt since its inception; corruption entails lawbreaking thus outlawry. Yes, I do wish it were otherwise; but as an historian whose main goal is credibility, I must report what I find to be the facts of matters. And the fact of the matter is the USA is an Outlaw Nation, or Rogue Nation, so I label it as the former. As Chomsky has noted, there's logic to the Outlaw behavior, so it's hard to judge it as psychotic. One might also say it's perverted or immoral, but then most outlaws are both. Some portions of humanity seek to evolve beyond the primitive outlaw stage of existence, but the collective West can't see beyond its greed quest to the higher plane of existence awaiting it. It thus seems the Outlaw US Empire and its vassals are incapable of curing their deviances and must be disciplined by the rest of humanity if humanity is to evolve to the next, higher plane of existence. So I continue to name the USA the Outlaw US Empire to raise awareness of its actuality in hopes that others will also do so and thus uplift humanity.
I can't imagine anything more entitled and pussified than starting a war and expecting the enemy not to fight back.
Posted by: J W | Feb 12 2021 3:33 utc | 33
About D’Andrea:
Video from the scene available last Jan ‘20 showed an aircraft on the ground with the airframe and fuselage largely intact from nose to tail and still burning, with the canopy mostly destroyed by fire. Also visible were skid marks indicating an attempt at landing or at least a very shallow glide path into the ground. The damage plainly reveals a relatively low-impact flight into terrain.
This configuration admits the possibility that the pilot-controlled operation of the aircraft was interdicted by remote technical means. Approximately two years earlier Iran had commandeered an espionage drone by remotely accessing its flight control systems and then landing it in Iran where it remained for dismantling and reverse engineering.
Isn’t it then possible that in the immediate aftermath of killing Haj Soliemanii similar means were used to force down D’Andrea’s jet. Isn’t it also possible that D’Andrea was then removed to Iran for dismantling and reverse engineering himself? Couldn’t happen to a more deserving PoS. Soleimani’s killing would have been a good reason to reveal the existence of such technical capability.
And then again, it’s a good career move for someone like D’Andrea to die publicly every so often.
Posted by: Ed | Feb 12 2021 5:17 utc | 34
@ Ed #34
I have been pondering this for months and months and never thought of the possibility of remote takeover. If the E11A is 100% fly-by-wire (?) I suppose that could be another possibility indeed. Iran snaked the RQ-170 in 2011 (time flies) so they had ~9 years to refine their technology. Whether taken over electronically and remotely piloted/landed, or hit by a MANPAD/SAM and forced to land, it also seemed to me that the plane landed intact and potentially without severe crew or passenger injury due to the large amount of fuselage still intact and burning several hours later when the daylight videos were filmed. If indeed D'Andrea was captured alive, "world of hurt" has new meaning, and "live by the sword..." contemporary illustration.
Posted by: HD | Feb 12 2021 6:19 utc | 35
Well, OK, it all makes sense: no US deaths in Afghanistan obviously means that while the Iranians, Russians and Chinese may talk big they are - as the saying goes - all short arms and deep pockets.
At least that's how I'd try to square the circle if I were a Yankee propagandist.
Posted by: Yeah, Right | Feb 12 2021 8:56 utc | 36
Posted by: Ed | Feb 12 2021 5:17 utc | 34
It would seem that the body must be somewhere, so either he got out and has disappeared or somebody got him. Since there was a considerable period before western eyes got to the site, I think they got him. Who "they" is seems still a bit open, and he could still be dead. I think I remember that Iran did bring the subject up once.
I like your argument about "fly-by-wire" takeovers, I think they can do that, and the Iranians like the Russians are tinkerers, hands-on. I thought it was a remarkable landing in the terrain.
Posted by: Bemildred | Feb 12 2021 13:48 utc | 37
Stonebird @6
As you say, the origin is earlier. Funès was only repeating a very popular French saying (in English in the original) started in 1929 by the first lesson in the first book of the Assimil language method series, written by Alphonse Chérel.
Those who dressed had tailors then.
Posted by: Piero Colombo | Feb 12 2021 16:35 utc | 38
“Officials said”
“According to officials”
“the intelligence community believes”
“who spoke on condition of anonymity”
“sources said”
“according to informed sources”
“a source familiar with the discussions”
“a knowledgeable administration official”
I appreciate that the media makes it so easy to verify their articles, but I have such trust in their veracity that it really is unecessary.
Posted by: Kevin | Feb 12 2021 23:13 utc | 39
The comments to this entry are closed.
No Us deaths in Afghanistan only squandered billions just to keep a nation on its knees.
No one even asks how we will pay for it. They only ask that question when tax payers need help.
Posted by: Carol DW | Feb 11 2021 9:58 utc | 1