We’re now getting mass media reports that yet another country the US government doesn’t like has been trying to kill American troops in Afghanistan, with the accusation this time being leveled at China. This brings the total number of governments against which this exact accusation has been made to three: China, Iran, and Russia.

“The U.S. has evidence that the PRC [People’s Republic of China] attempted to finance attacks on American servicemen by Afghan non-state actors by offering financial incentives or ‘bounties’,” reads a new “scoop” from Axios, quoting anonymous officials who refused to name their sources.

“The Trump administration is declassifying as-yet uncorroborated intelligence, recently briefed to President Trump, that indicates China offered to pay non-state actors in Afghanistan to attack American soldiers, two senior administration officials tell Axios,” the evidence-free report claims.

The Axios report is already being circulated into public consciousness by mass media outlets like CNN. It is co-authored by Bethany Allen-Ebrahimian, whose career lately has been focused on churning out extremely aggressive narrative management about China for a liberal audience, including a ridiculous hit piece on The Grayzone and its coverage of Xinjiang which failed to list a single piece of false or inaccurate reporting by that outlet. This eagerness to help manipulate public perception of America’s number one geopolitical rival has seen Allen-Ebrahimian rewarded with plenty of attention from “sources” who provide her with endless career-amplifying “scoops”.

A few months ago, it was Iran we were being told is trying to use proxies to kill US troops in Afghanistan.

“US intelligence agencies assessed that Iran offered bounties to Taliban fighters for targeting American and coalition troops in Afghanistan, identifying payments linked to at least six attacks carried out by the militant group just last year alone, including a suicide bombing at a US air base in December,” CNN reported in August without any evidence.

Before that it was Russia this same accusation was being leveled at, with mainstream news media shamelessly regurgitating claims by anonymous intelligence operatives and then citing each other to falsely claim they’d “confirmed” one another’s reporting back in June. The story was sent so insanely viral by mass media narrative managers eager to pressure Trump on Russia during an election year that when the top US military commander in Afghanistan said in September that no solid evidence had turned up for this claim it was completely ignored, and to this day the liberal commentariat still babble about “Russian bounties” as though they’re an actual thing that happened.

Three imperialism-targeted nations, same exact accusation. Pretty soon they’ll be telling us that bounties are being paid on US troops in Afghanistan by China, Russia, Iran, Venezuela, North Korea, Syria, Cuba, Hezbollah, WikiLeaks, Jimmy Dore, and the entire staff of World Socialist Website.

The “Bountygate” narrative was one of the most brazen psyops we’ve seen rammed straight from the US intelligence community into public consciousness with no lube in recent years, and it was so successful that they’re just spraying it all over the place to see if they can replicate its effects on other targeted governments.

It is not a coincidence that the information landscape is so confusing and bizarre right now. Our psyches are being hammered with more and more aggression by mass-scale psyops designed to manufacture support for increasing aggressions against the governments which have resisted absorption into the US-centralized empire, because as China rises and the US declines we’re moving toward a multipolar world.

A movement toward a multipolar world should not be a frightening prospect–it’s been the norm throughout the entirety of human civilization minus the last three decades–but after the fall of the Soviet Union the drivers of the US power alliance decided that US global hegemony must be preserved at all cost. Drastic measures will be undertaken to try and retain hegemony, and propaganda campaigns is being rolled out with increasing urgency to grease the wheels for those measures.

Meanwhile we’ve got nuclear-armed nations brandishing armageddon weapons at each other with increasing urgency and unpredictability because a few imperialists decided the entire planet should be governed from Washington DC. This, to put it gently, is an unsustainable situation.

_____________________

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70 responses to “America Keeps Claiming Governments It Hates Are Paying Bounties On US Troops In Afghanistan”

  1. I bet some corporate journo leech will copy and paste this bit after a couple of snips, quoting you as its source: “bounties are being paid on US troops in Afghanistan by Jimmy Dore”.

    1. I am making over $9k a month working part time. I stored being attentive to different human beings inform me how much money they are able to make on line so I decided to lok into it. AMs well, it turned into all actual and has completely modified my life.

      That is what I do….-!~!~!~!…. Home Profit System

  2. Naturally, not a shred of evidence for this accusation is ever offered. To the contrary, the whole world knows that al Qaeda, originally introduced as the Mujihadeen when founded, trained, armed and funded by Zbig Brznzxskxi during the Carter administration, was fully intended to inflict as many casualties as possible on the Soviet army which was propping up the socialist Nagi Bulla government.
    ~
    The American government gloated about it and both the American print media and broadcast media covered its terrorist operations in great detail. The American public was made intimately familiar for the first time with “stinger missiles” and other cutting edge ordnance to bring down Russki helicopters wholesale by Dan Rather and other American journalists traipsing around the Hindu Kush in turbans and bedsheets. I remember how these purveyors of “truth” for the sake of “justice” and “democracy” went so far as to publish in Time Magazine and similar venues their interviews with Russian captives being led around on leashes by their captors until the spirit moved these fanatical proto-ISIS head choppers to murder their charges, after an appropriate session of torture, because they were Christian infidels and deserving of no less.
    ~
    Always the tone of such reports was that this might be dirty work, but it was necessary to inflict damage on our Soviet adversaries. According to the Mike Morrels of their day, any murderous actions against Russians were justified because “communism,” “cold war” and “domino theory.” If Washington’s present day accusations are true, that’s the kind of evidence I want to see on video tape and the nightly news. I want names, dates, photographs and sworn testimony. A simple smart phone could collect reams of hard evidence. Otherwise, there is NO reason to believe any of it. Yet it is NEVER forthcoming.
    ~
    Accepting bullshit on faith is dangerous enough when the dispenser of said excrement is a religious movement, I’ll be damned if I’ll give it any evidence-free credence when it emanates from proven liars like the American government.

  3. :Unipolarism is going down the drain, Hello multipolarism And a Happy New Year!!! China rising.

  4. Usually when Washington makes an accusation against a country, that is what the U.S. is doing. That has certainly been true in Syria, where the U.S. has spent billions arming Al Qaeda to kill Syrians. The silver lining in all this is that the propaganda is so crude.

  5. Why did I initially confuse that checklist of foreign “bad guys” as an incomplete listing for those having submitted bribes, kickbacks, payoffs, and charitable donations, etc. to prominent US political figures? Does this mean I should add the word “bounties”?
    History test, where do empires go to die? Then again, Iran, designated as the world’s chief exporter of terror, actually got from “Obama” an airplane full of cash, certainly none of which would ever be spent on exporting terror or creating bigger things that go boom. Was that also some kind of “bounty” and if so was it paid for services rendered or in advance? I’m more interested, however, in a list of such political figures, their family members, bag men and “foundations” known to have received numerous forms of graft from these presumably hostile forces. This was previously termed “treason” in the national sense but can that term even exist for globalists serving in the New World Order? The lawyers can argue about that indefinitely while all sovereign nations crumble, but we’re just one big happy family now, right? Great Satan indeed. Happy New Year!

    1. According to the Wall Street Journal, the cash Obama sent was due to Iran.

      “The money represented the first installment of a $1.7 billion settlement the Obama administration reached with Iran to resolve a decades-old dispute over a failed arms deal signed just before the 1979 fall of Iran’s last monarch, Shah Mohammad Reza Pahlavi.
      https://www.wsj.com/articles/u-s-sent-cash-to-iran-as-americans-were-freed-1470181874

      And $1.7 billion pales into insignificance beside the vast sums the USA pours into its terror campaigns and things that go boom.

    2. The cash Iran got in the nuclear deal was already theirs but had beenfrozen in foreign bank accounts for many years.

      “The nuclear agreement included China, France, Germany, Russia, the United Kingdom, the United States and the European Union, so Obama didn’t carry out any part of it on his own. The deal did lift some sanctions, which lifted a freeze on Iran’s assets that were held largely in foreign, not U.S., banks. And, to be clear, the money that was unfrozen belonged to Iran. It had only been made inaccessible by sanctions aimed at crippling the country’s nuclear program.”

      One of many sources available: https://www.factcheck.org/2019/03/obama-didnt-give-iran-150-billion-in-cash/

      1. So, the leadership of the whole world is just fine with funding a nuclear bomb for the Persians? It is comforting to know we’re all great buddies now (well, at least among oligarchs) and that Iran has totally dropped its long held ambitions towards developing the bomb as opposed to dropping the bomb. Cash could have that effect on people who actually get to handle it, but strangely enough I don’t recall the US Congress weighing in on making that a cash drop. Is cash the usual method by which such large amounts of funds are transferred? Well, the fact that it’s harder to track where it actually goes might explain much. As to the stated amount, it’s rather piddling compared with actual US foreign aid. But Cool! See, life is wonderful all across the new world order brotherhood of plutocratic billionaire oligarchs. To digress, Isn’t Pluto just another name for the ruler of Hades? Perhaps it should be called the Great Pluto (cracy) instead of the Great Satan? A rose by any other name would still smell as sweet.

        1. I’m not happy with any country having nuclear weapons, but Iran currently has none, Israel a few hundred, and the USA several thousand. I find this reality far more worrying and dangerous than a hypothetical possibility.

  6. A woman I worked with had a son who was an air force captain. He was stationed in florida. He spent his days flying a remote control drone in afghanistan, shooting missles and other armament at the enemy. How he determined who was the enemy from a console in florida I am not sure. I slept better knowing he was keeping me safe since that remote region is such a serious threat to my safety.

  7. Not trained in military stragedy.
    But I think that when you shot at people,
    they may be inclined to shoot back. In anger even.

    Where it not considered bad form, there may be collection cups for funding at many an office cooler.

    Clearly our military does not really care about being the target of sarcasm.
    There are people behind it get rich and famous.

    Take Nicky Haley.
    Please.

    Until there are repercussions, it will continue.
    The mocking does work against this mindless meatgrinder.

    1. When the Russians were in afghanistan we armed freedom fighters to stop the russian aggression. When we invade afghanistan, the russians are arming the taliban to kill us and stop democracy.

      1. The CIA started arming the Mujahaddin before the USSR went into Afghanistan. According to many reports, they did this with the intention of drawing the USSR in.

        1. The CIA gave – like, in as a gift – hundreds of Stinger missiles to the Mujaheddin so that they could use them to shoot down Russian helicopters and low flyers.

          https://slate.com/news-and-politics/2001/10/stingers-stingers-who-s-got-the-stingers.html

          Eventually, the CIA got around to doing the math and figured out that This Many Missiles minus This Many Downed Aircraft still left over 700 missiles unaccounted for, and America’s generosity might start to show up in unexpected places. Just about the time (1993), coincidentally, that Muslim extremists shot down a Georgian airliner with what was widely believed to have been a Stinger. So the CIA launched a buyback program, to purchase the missiles they had already given the Mujaheddin for nothing; you can do some amazing things when you can just print more money when you need it. Anyway, they offered about double the price per missile for missiles they had given away, and managed to get back about 300. Leaving about 400 unaccounted for. Oops.

      2. Stop democracy? You are delusional.

  8. The more I hear about bounties on enemy troops, the more I’m convinced that the US military budget is a huge waste. Our cost-plus military expenditures in Afghanistan total over $50 billion every year; but with bounties, i.e. performance-based contracts of $1 million per verified enemy combatant, we could not only kill ten thousand per annum for 20 percent of current cost, but save the lives of American soldiers, subsidize Afghanistan’s homeland defense network, and boost their domestic economy as well. Further, a penalty clause docking the contractors hefty sums for civilian casualties (paid to the victims’ families) and destruction of public infrastructure would go a long way toward building and maintaining the global empire according to sound business principles.

    1. And a classified appendix to the effect that the $1 million per head delivered clause shall be deemed void should the contractor in any way whatsoever or wherever impinge on or impede the narcotics industry.

    2. Can anyone even begin to imagine what repurposing (rather than deconstructing) the MIC could mean? As in changing the task from protecting American Empire and killing people to protecting people and all other living things, an EIC instead of an MIC, with “environment” substituted for “military.” Crazy idea, you say, to try to tame this monster? Yes, surely so, but perhaps less crazy than thinking we can, at this point, get rid of it. Is not the military, albeit in a perverse way, socialist to the core? And doesn’t this open up possibilities?

      1. Groundhog Day yet again. Of course I have to deliver my lines in the script.
         
        Newton, if people want what you have just described (and I have painfully detailed so many times in the past), they are actually going to have to vote for candidates who have publicly declared, time and time and time again for decades, that they will do their very best to bring those seemingly logical, doable changes into being.
         
        Unfortunately, as the latest election once again proved, 153 million people voted for More Of The Same (and do not fucking tell me that they didn’t!)
         
        The tens of millions of people who are directly or indirectly employed or, even more importantly, invested in the MIC are simply NOT going to vote for any candidate for public office who might possibly cause them to lose their jobs or reduce the value of their portfolios, or the value of their homes in Arlington, Virgina, etc. etc., literally all over the country. They don’t give a shit how many innocent people around the world their MIC is killing 24/7. That was the political reality in the US during the US’s genocide in SE Asia. That is the political reality in the US today. The vast majority of the US citizenry went over to the Dark Side long ago.
         
        Because the rest of the world is not going to put up with US gangsterism and terrorism for much longer, change will be forced upon the US citizenry by irresistible outside political or military forces. US citizens will no longer be able to vote for More Of The Same (with any hope of getting it, anyway). Then all of the direct and indirect jobs and investments in the now-impotent, useless MIC will go bye bye; and the $ value of just about everything in the US will skyrocket into the hyperinflation of the toilet-paper USD. And there will then be some very interesting, shall we say, “back-and-forth” among the citizenry about just exactly who is going to produce what for whom in order to literally survive the next winter. Too bad it will have to come to that. But, hey………..

        1. Is that a more youthful and hirsute Donald Trump masquerading as Brian Jones?

  9. Roundball Shaman Avatar
    Roundball Shaman

    “We’re now getting mass media reports that yet another country the US government doesn’t like has been trying to kill American troops…”
    .
    ‘Empire’ never commits atrocities. Empire never does wrong. Empire is always the aggrieved party. Empire always fights for “good”. Empire is always right. Empire always has the true narrative. With Empire, “You’ve either with us or you’re against us”.
    .
    The problem for us normal people of the World is that there are two megapowers who both want to be the Top Dog Empire. Neither will publicly admit this, but this is the true engine behind most all World affairs today. Do two mad dogs ever learn to live peacefully together, or do they one day have it out in the back alley with great noise and fury and get it over with?
    .
    In this New Year, may The Almighty grant us normal people the ability and blessing to live our lives in peace and free from all the Mad Dogs.

  10. There, there, dear. Here’s a blanket. Drink your Ovaltine.

    1. Reply to THOM MADDEN

  11. STOP THE COVID-19 QUAXINES IMMEDIATELY!!! WILD COVID-19 HAS NOW BEEN PROVEN IN-VIVO TO ABOLISH GLOBAL INFLUENZA AND WITH IT THE NEED FOR THE SUPER DEADLY, MAIMING ATROCITY FLU-JAB… Abolish Face Masks & Lockdowns and All Humanity Comingulate To Your Heart’s Content this Wondrous EVE Of THE GREAT AWAKENING!

  12. George Kennan spelled it out just a few short years before the end of the Soviet Union:
     
    “Were the Soviet Union to sink tomorrow under the waters of the ocean, the American military-industrial establishment would have to go on, substantially unchanged, until some other adversary could be invented. Anything else would be an unacceptable shock to the American economy.”
     
    All of these unsupported allegations by the US “intelligence” (talk about a misnomer!) community are part of their perpetual effort to maintain “enemies” in the minds of the Bewildered Herd. Luckily, the false flags so far are rather mundane (unless you believe that 9/11 was a false flag). If Omaha gets nuked and Russia is instantly blamed, make sure you’ve got a well-sealing garage door and a full tank of gas.

  13. Isn’t the whole idea in a shooting war to kill enemy soldiers? I am not understanding how giving the soldiers a bonus for killing the enemy would lead to anything out of the ordinary.

    Unless, of course, the rules of civilized warfare dictate that soldiers may not be rewarded with the filthy lucre for superior prowess killing enemy soldiers – but only with medals, ribbons and promotions – so as not to debase the honor of making the other poor s.o.b. die for his country or cause.

    1. You are behind the times. The rules of war are very clear. US lives are sacred, and that includes its soldiers. “Some friendly health advice to Iran: If one American is killed, I will hold Iran responsible” could have come from any number of recent US warlords if the country name is jiggled to suit the guerre du jour.

  14. Ho hum, just some more bounty claptrap. Is anyone even paying attention anymore?

    1. Not really, which might be the whole point, mission accomplished, population knows and loses interest. Eurasia, no, Eastasia, or is it the other one, attacked so war it must be. Not even the propagandists can keep up with who’s supposed to have done what to whom, but something bad must be going on or we wouldn’t keep hearing about it, could have sworn it was Iraq though, or was it North Korea, so “USA! USA!! USA!” and “Bomb bomb bomb, bomb bomb’em all.” And back to the all important issue of whether Warlord Biden or Trump bombs’em best.

    2. No.

      Hey Caitlin, what’s with this darn captcha thing? I’ve identified 432 fire hydrants, 630 buses, 211 crosswalks and 1,134 traffic lights to post this message. ??? 🙁

      Beside that, my computer complained that there are 12 cross-site trackers and 2 device recognition attempts. Bad scene for such wonderful content and commenters.

  15. Happy New Year
    by ABBA
    .
    Sometimes I see
    How the brave new world arrives
    And I see how it thrives
    In the ashes of our lives
    Oh yes, man is a fool
    And he thinks he’ll be okay
    Dragging on, feet of clay
    Never knowing he’s astray
    Keeps on going anyway
    .
    Happy new year
    Happy new year
    May we all have a vision now and then
    Of a world where every neighbour is a friend
    Happy new year
    Happy new year
    May we all have our hopes, our will to try
    If we don’t we might as well lay down and die
    You and I
    .
    Abba — Happy New Year

    1. Cheers. (I love ABBA.)

  16. As with Iraq: Who are the true relentless aggressors? Who are relentlessly being portrayed as the aggressors? Who are the sitting ducks? Who has actually declared war? Who are, in reality, acting in defense?
    Unlike Iraq: Of the targets, who has nuclear weapons and can strike should a certain line be crossed? And, should there eventually be one billion casualties, who cares?

    1. .”..from Africa.” Oh, no. You mean “the Dark Continent”? Guess we couldn’t expect British intelligence to narrow it down to any one, two, or three of the fifty-four countries there. George W. would be the first to tell you they all look alike anyway, right?

  17. Did anyone ever mention how much they were charging per head. Just wonder what a US citizen life is worth nowadays. Probably not much.

  18. https://www.johndayblog.com/2020/12/still-swimming-in-covid.html
    We are now into the “second wave” of COVID.
    In (sunny) Texas hospitalized cases have just exceeded their previous mid July peak.
    There is controversy about the term “second wave”. It may mean different things to different people.
    Why would there be an interruption in the spread of contagious illness through a population?
    There are masks and social distancing, which make it somewhat harder for virus to jump from host to host.
    There are also host-resistance factors.
    Being susceptible to a bad outcome, if infected, is different from being more or less susceptible to initial infection.
    We have repeatedly been shown that adequate levels of vitamin-D in a person reduce risk of infection when exposed (nasopharyngeal innate-immunity is supported.) and we have repeatedly seen that the lowest vitamin-D levels are closely correlated with worst hospital outcomes.
    Giving high-dose vitamin-D in a Spanish study was a very effective treatment intervention for hospitalized patients.
    https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7456194/
    Vitamin-D levels mostly come from sunshine entering the skin surface and creating active vitamin D. Darker skin , weaker sun, and less skin exposure to the sun all decrease vitamin-D levels. Vitamin-D builds and falls slowly in the body, over months, so the peak levels lag peak sun by about 3 months. Also, people may avoid August sun, and go back out in September. The curves will be different in Hawaii and New York.
    It is clear that dark skinned people in northern climes get hit the hardest, but that dark skinned people in Africa are faring tremendously better.
    I have not seen a published comparison of vitamin-D levels by population, area and season, but they can be reasoned out.
    Do support your local immune system this winter, please! Vitamin-D 5000 units per day is a good dose for adults, and can be doubled for the first month or 2 to get blood levels up into the mid normal range.

    Jeremy in the UK sent this:
    Hospital Crisis Results From Lack of At-Home Treatment for COVID-19
    https://covexit.com/hospital-crisis-results-from-lack-of-at-home-treatment-for-covid-19/

    ​Here is an August interview with Professor Thomas Borody, regarding ivermectin, zinc, doxycycline treatment for COVID-19, which is curative.
    Professor Borody developed the cure for peptic ulcer disease, caused by H. pylori infection. People stopped dying of bleeding ulcers, but adoption was slow, since ordinary generic medicines could be used. There was no fortune to be made.
    ​https://covexit.com/we-know-its-curable-its-easier-than-treating-the-flu-professor-thomas-borody/

    Ziverdo costs $2 in India. It’s zinc, ivermectin and doxycycline at fixed doses. People seem to have a very hard time getting it to Europe or the US when seeking to order it online.
    https://covexit.com/did-you-hear-about-the-ziverdo-therapy-for-covid-19/

      1. Comorbidity 2024 Avatar
        Comorbidity 2024

        @KHATIKA

        A happy new year and 3 questions.

        1) Is Caitlin silent about the issue in your link because public health in the West has many females in charge?

        2) Why is Caitlin’s critique accurate yet having no effect in the real world?

        3) Would Australia’s indiginous people consider Caitlin and her people a pandemic?

  19. China, Russia and Iran are neighbors to Afghanistan. China , Russia and Iran are why US troops are in Afghanistan. China, Russia and Iran are under ongoing hybrid-warfare from US/CIA interests in Afghanistan shoving heroin across their borders to addict their people and extract wealth, and pay local “freedom fighters” in those countries.
    Good business.
    Freedom rocks.
    AMERICA, F**K YEAH!

  20. The real bountygate was in Colombia during the administrations of Bush II and Obama where the United States, without much resistance, convinced the government of former president Alvaro Uribe to offer his troops bounties for killing insurgents, which was turned into a murder for profit program targeting innocent civilians, killed, dressed as guerillas, and turned in for payment (falsos positivos).

    1. How did they show proof of the kill. Ears, scalps, fingers? No one ever provides those details.

      1. Entire bodies, often shown to their families, taken to the morgue, and disappeared from there, I think.

        1. Almost like bounty hunters in the wild west. Some things never change.

  21. The good news is that the Psychopaths In Charge are doing their damnedest to commit suicide. The bad news is they are insane, and perfectly willing to take the rest of us with them. Having abandoned any and all belief in anything any state or state owned media tells me, it becomes ever more difficult to understand why in the world anyone else would believe them, ever. A minimum of critical thought dispels any illusion that we are ever told the truth by either. There is ALWAYS an agenda, and it never has anything to do with our welfare. It has to do with using power to create profit, and reinvesting that profit into more power, ad infinitum. It appears that this is a worldwide operation that can only result in the enslavement of the 99.9%, which is well on its way to realization. This is the pandemic we face, not some pesky virus. It has infected all but a few nations, who likely will not be able hold out much longer. The bank cartel insists otherwise.

    1. Perceptive observations, but what if the “pesky virus” winds up doing to global neoliberalism what another one did to those invading Martians in the story about the war of the worlds, especially if massive civil protest/disobedience help the virus do its deconstruction? One can’t even entertain this possibility, of course, if one sees the pandemic as a plutocratic plot from the outset. IMHO, this is where far too many on the left are squandering an unexpected and unprecedented opportunity to bring down the bastards and bring in a better world.

  22. Caitlin Johnstone wrote:
    > America Keeps Claiming Governments It Hates Are Paying Bounties On US Troops In Afghanistan
    .
    .
    Well, some people are just trying to avert the danger of unprofitable peace looming in the horizon…
    .
    U.S. fatalities by year in Afghanistan
    .
    2001: 7
    2002: 30
    2003: 33
    2004: 49
    2005: 93
    2006: 88
    2007: 111
    2008: 153
    2009: 310
    2010: 496
    2011: 412
    2012: 301
    2013: 120
    2014: 54
    2015: 22
    2016: 14
    2017: 17
    2018: 15
    2019: 22
    2020: 9
    .
    United States military casualties in the War in Afghanistan
    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_military_casualties_in_the_War_in_Afghanistan
    .
    .
    “These kinds of deals with the Russian intelligence agency are baseless — our target killings and assassinations were ongoing in years before, and we did it on our own resources. That changed after our deal with the Americans, and their lives are secure and we don’t attack them.”
    — Taliban spokesman Zabihullah Mujahid, June 2020
    .
    Russia denies report spy unit paid Taliban to attack NATO forces | Taliban News | Al Jazeera | Jun 27, 2020
    https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2020/6/27/russia-denies-report-spy-unit-paid-taliban-to-attack-nato-forces
    .
    .
    “Defense Secretary Mark Esper and Gen. Mark Milley, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, said Thursday that the intelligence on the Russian bounty program had not been corroborated by intelligence agencies and that they do not believe any attacks in Afghanistan that resulted in American casualties can be directly tied to it.”
    .
    Top Pentagon officials say Russian bounty program not corroborated — ABC News — Jul 10, 2020
    https://abcnews.go.com/Politics/top-pentagon-officials-russian-bounty-program-corroborated/story?id=71694167
    .
    .
    It’s of course another patently ridiculous story…
    .
    Explosive leaked phone call exposes Putin’s hand in poisonings, chemical attacks, Taliban bounties

    1. Great video! Thanks! Off it goes to ten people I know.

        1. That’s from the Moderate Rebels video channel (Max Blumenthal and Ben Norton). 😉

  23. The extremely bad thing is that there are so many United States citizens that always swallow this crap hook, line and sinker. No lie is too unbelievable to those totally blinded by their hatred of ” any others “. Their minds are cast in stone.

    1. H.L. Mencken: No one ever went broke underestimating the intelligence of the American people.

    2. To play off a saying from the 60s, what if they gave a war (propaganda party) and nobody came (to believe it)? I may be wrong, but I think this whole shtick is wearing thin. I guess we’ll soon find out.

    3. Does anyone believe it? Those in the know almost certainly don’t, and I get the impression most others shrug their shoulders and guess this Iran place, or is it China this time, all the same anyway, Russia maybe, must be pretty evil to have even contemplated paying people to kill enemy soldiers, er, the brave boys in blue, kaki lives matter, shit, you know who, but good luck to the Glorious Fatherland hunting them down and making them pay …

  24. In a sense we are paying the bounties for them…
    these yoong men ccome back here on STPD and permanent injuries. scar tissued non-tamed socially weirded out. some in body bags. any is soooo stupid.
    we always lose and cannot win. the coach should be fired! our bounties are VA and SSI.
    nice
    ugly. and we pay more to a dead grannie’s family. the blackwater slaughter cost us millions. only 17 dead Iraqis of all ages. mass murderers pardoned.
    by any standard a very very empathetic, socialist, and humanitarian gesture by King Don. his caring personality is just so charming…
    oh well the king is dying and long live the new King.
    if the dems do not win Georgia’s senate seats Kamala is going to have her work cut out. we’ll be watching the harris/Big Mac brawl for 4 years.
    yeah. our hero, pence, will be gone. penny for yer thots Mr. P.
    got any?

  25. If this “reporting’ weren’t a complete fantasy – it would mean that the Chinese had found a way to “flip” the US’ secret proxy army, of ‘plausibly deniable’ terrorists, and turn them into double agents …

    https://www.strategic-culture.org/news/2018/09/15/is-langley-unleashing-jihad-against-china-in-xinjiang/

    Zbigniew Brzezinski’s version of the heartland theory and “Grand Chessboard” strategy – has us IN AFGHANISTAN in the first place – specifically to contain China and Russia (and eventually, perhaps even India).

    https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=t-XIeb879SY

    https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=7PQTuoCcutk

    (PDF versions available online)

    So the idea that interests of Russia or China is served, by the US remaining in the “Eurasian Balkans” – is false. The only nation whose interests are served by the US remaining there (arguably) are our own (and those of our puppet regime in Kabul). Hence these stories are designed to reverse the course of action preferred by the American people – and in some small ways advanced by Trump’s attempts at securing a truce with Taliban, and ‘drawing down’ our presence there – which would be the US leaving Afghanistan, entirely.

    1. Brzezinski’s original excuse was wanting another Vietnam war, the previous one having been such a blessing to the world and thoroughly enjoyed by all.
      ‘The day that the Soviets officially crossed the border, I wrote to President Carter, essentially: “We now have the opportunity of giving to the USSR its Vietnam war.”‘
      https://dgibbs.faculty.arizona.edu/brzezinski_interview

      1. This is absolutely correct. And that intervention – against an organic indigenous Socialist Government in Kabul – led to the rise of the Mujahedeen, Taliban, Al Qaeda and ISIS – now fighting in Afghanistan on the US side, against both the Taliban, and any potential peace and withdrawal… https://www.presstv.com/Detail/2019/04/23/594137/US-military-Afghanistan-war-Taliban-Daesh

        https://www.presstv.com/Detail/2019/06/22/599128/US-troops-Afghanistan-Kunar-Daesh-Taliban-operation

        It seems unlikely that the Chinese ir Russians are paying more than CIA or US Military, to support insurgency and terrorism.

  26. The REAL enemy wears a suit, speaks with an American accent and exhibits psychopathic behaviour

  27. Silver lining- slowly but surely the media are losing credibility with this crap.

    1. I think you’re right, but will relentless repetition be an effective substitute?

    2. Why do they want credibility? Does it boost sales? Who cares what the plebs think so long as they can’t? And if they can, there’s always the riot police and SWAT teams.

      1. Nothing like a bit of optimism to ring in the New Year. What if, WHAT IF, the Age of Aquarius, seen and felt and believed in by the young just a lifetime ago, wasn’t a mirage or a pipedream but a premonition of the present, a prophecy of something to unfold a generation later? The astronomers tell us the stars were not aligned in the 60s but are now. Can we dig it?

        1. Marilyn McCoo had a great voice.

          1. There WAS greatness–not only in talent but in vision and hope and belief in the human spirit–which infused that brief renaissance of the late 60s/early 70s, all of it intermixed, of course, with a strong dose of its opposite: hedonism and narcissism. THE story of my lifetime is how the latter overwhelmed the former, culminating in the neoliberal nightmare from which, I pray, we’re being shaken awake by a virus.

  28. There are still another 135 nations to accuse !!

    ALL those that have signed up for the BRI !

    Stopping the BRI and saving the $US is the reason behind EVERYTHING – including COVID !

    China marches on regardless – China are back to normal and along with Russia’s unstoppable hypersonic weapons that can travel at Mach 20 + and the S500 missile defence system that can stop ANYTHING incoming – well – it is only a matter of time before the ZIO/US will have to submit or be destroyed !

    https://www.rt.com/op-ed/511000-china-belt-road-europe-asia/

  29. Caitlin fails to grasp, or pretends to, these obvious truths:
    Anyone hostile to US troops occupying their nation is clearly being paid by a foreign government;
    China, Russia and Iran are the same thing, any distinction being deliberate hair-splitting for the purpose of propaganda; and
    US troops, unlike their numerous and ubiquitous enemies, receive no payment for their entirely charitable endeavours.

    1. I love the smell of satire in the morning, it smells of vitriol eh!
      I heard a U.S. militia guy say, “We gotta be ready for anything, since the Russians gone invaded Crimea an’ all” oh good grief!
      Media bullshit could go ballistic at anytime now.
      Happy new year y’all

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