Everyone in the great state of Washington votes by mail. Thank God our state capitol Olympia did away with the caucus system. Ditto for Colorado, Hawaii, Oregon, & Utah. California allows everyone to vote by mail but also allows those who prefer to go to a polling place to vote. No need to apply for a mail-in ballot, all registered voters get one. No need to prove your inability to travel to the poll. No need to prove you are out of state.
There are checks in place to prevent fraud. Sure, Junior can fraudulently vote for his senile parents. But incidents like that are onesey-twoseys. Large scale fraud is easy to spot via statistics, or by suspicious journalists or political analysts of any party. Public election officials can easily prove or disprove fraud by checkin signatures.
There is a system in place to insure secrecy & privacy of your vote. It increases voter turnout. It provides a legitimate backup record for recounts. It lowers the expense to states and counties for holding elections. What is not to like?
Reportedly two thirds of the country would prefer to vote by mail.
I'm in Colorado and, as you note, we've had voting by mail for a long time. It's not perfect, but I think our state does a pretty good job. A couple of anecdotes:
ReplyDelete- I'm the legal guardian for my sister who has dementia and is institutionalized. I get her ballot every election and shred it. I could definitely try to vote for her - something that would be flatly impossible to do in-person. But...
- For the primary earlier this year my wife had to go out of town suddenly because of the death of her father. She forgot to mail her ballot. Here in Colorado the outside of the envelope must have the voter's signature after it is sealed. So I did it for her with her permission. I thought I did a passable job of copying my wife's signature and assumed they wouldn't look too close. WRONG. Shortly after the primary my wife gets a letter in the mail informing her she has to verify that she sent in her ballot because of a signature mismatch. Failure to do so would mean the vote won't be counted. This requires signing an affidavit and providing a copy of one's legal ID.
Now, I could still do that for my sister and probably get away with (I have her ID and I know all her personal info and the verification doesn't require showing up in-person).
But I think that would be very difficult to do at-scale, so I think the system is relatively secure.
When I lived in Florida, which has a large number of part-time residents, it's pretty common knowledge that some number of people vote twice - once in their home state and then absentee in Florida. I haven't followed this closely, but I think states compare voter regisration lists now to help prevent that.
Anyway, Colorado planned the change to mail voting well in advance, developed proceedures, and has tweaked those along the 8+ years since implementation. So today the system runs well and people are used to it and know what to expect.
I think a state that has little-to-no experience with mailed ballots will be hard-pressed to develop and implement a system that will work nearly as well as Colorado's in the next four months. And that's the concern I have. Yes, voting-by-mail systems are pretty secure when they are well implemented. I just have very little confidence that the states without much history, experience or resources to support a widespread vote-by-mail program will be able to successfully implement one by November. A half-assed, incomplete, or mismanaged system could cause a lot of problems - not necessarily due to potential fraud, but for the same reasons that many things tend to fail when there is insufficient planning, experience, and resources along with a short timeline.
Same with Oregon; we vote by mail and the system has worked for decades.
ReplyDeletePlus, frankly, the whole "vote fraud" macguffin is...well, a macguffin. Every investigation of "vote fraud" has shown little or none, and certainly nothing systematic enough to change the results of 99.99% of every election from the federal general elections on down to the soil and water conservation districts.
This has become a GOP talking point largely because, given the general unpopularity of the GOP's positions - you want to strip 40-odd million people of their medical coverage in the middle of s lethal pandemic? Seriously? WTF, people? - and their aging white base the GOP is better off restricting the franchise rather than enlarging it. Anything that makes it easier for MORE people to vote is unlikely to advantage the "conservative" party, and so their reflexive antipathy to any sort of move in that direction.
And speaking of Pootie...
ReplyDeleteThe whole "bounties for GIs" story (https://www.forbes.com/sites/mattperez/2020/06/26/report-russia-offered-bounties-for-taliban-militants-to-kill-us-soldiers-and-other-allies/) seems insanely weird. There's a "GOP-takes-away-people's-insurance-in-the-middle-of-a-pandemic" level of WTF right there.
I mean...killing individual GIs seems the uttermost in pointless stupidity. Putin's objective seems to be and always has been the resurgence of Russia into the old Soviet Union only with him as tsar. Anything that encourages Great Power meddling around the old Soviet borders seems counterproductive to that end.
Trump, who is, in effect, Putin's stooge - either because he's being flattered and bribed with Russian money and Russian aid, or because he's being suborned by some sort of kompromat - seems more than happy to remove US influence from this region. It gains him nothing financially or in public plaudits, which appear to be the only real motivation for Trumpen"policy"; he doesn't care for anything that doesn't bring in either sold cash or applause for his Greatness. Killing GIs won't motivate him to take revenge, and killing GIs won't make him more eager to get the GIs out of harm's way - his indifference to the Americans dying of The Plague make it clear that OTHER people dying doesn't make a picoshit of difference to him.
So...what? Revenge for that Syria Russian-merc slaughter? Really? You'd think the GRU would be more professional than that.
I'm not saying this didn't happen...just that it seems very weird that it did,
Andy -
ReplyDeleteI fill out my wife's ballot but only for her choices. But she signs.
You are right about Florida. Back in the 2000 election I worked with someone who openly bragged that he voted for GWB twice - both here and also in FL (where he formerly resided). I suspected it was bullshit and alcohol talking so did not report it. Looking back on it now, I should have.
Trump himself appears to have committed vote fraud; in 2018 he submitted an absentee ballot in Florida after 1) declaring "the White House" as his primary residence, and 2) the state had forced him to declare that he would not reside at Mar-a-lago.
DeleteNow it appears the Federal Election Commission (FEC) will no longer have a quorum starting three July when Caroline Hunter, one of the members, leaves.
ReplyDeleteThe FEC will have no enforcement power without a four-person quorum: "...it will not be able to initiate audits, engage in rulemaking, vote on enforcement matters or even issue an advisory opinion or hold meetings. "
And worse is the Moron's nomination, Allen Dickerson, for replacement on the FEC. Dickerson is tighter than a chigger with the Kochs, Kellyanne Conway. David Bossie and other known Moron enablers and malefactors.
Trump is a crook. That's all you need to really know; he was a mobbed-up crook when he was in "business" in casinos and NYC real estate. His famous "gut" is always looking for some sort of criminal advantage.
DeleteThe real bastards here are the Congressional GOP caucuses. They are NOT crooks - at least, they shouldn't be - and have no real reason to give the sonofabitch a pass on his crookedness. They do, and they are, and it's because he won them an election and he's letting them slam Federalist stooges into federal judgeships as fast as possible, where they will work hard to prevent any rollback of the New Gilded Age.
To steal an election or elections for the highest possible motives is dishonorable. But to steal it to funnel cash to the plutocracy and gut environmental regulations and steal medical care from poor people?
That may be the most despicable thing I can imagine.
FDChief -
ReplyDeleteRe bounties-for-GIs, the Moron was briefed on it months ago. So he knew of it during his address at West Point two weeks ago. Good thing the student body did not know of it. If they had the cadets protesting against him would have put on a far more interesting challenge than the one depicted in the link below:
https://pbs.twimg.com/media/EbiMyzjXgAAuRQA?format=jpg&name=900x900
I note he is a combat veteran and with the jump wings perhaps a former member of your old unit. Where can I buy a tee-shirt like that?
Sad to tell you that's a photoshop. Saw it right after the Trumpapalooza at Hell on the Hudson and got a chuckle but even then it seemed too pat and it was.
DeleteI have no real doubt that the reaction from this president is all part of either his owing or being blackmailed by Putin. What bugs me is how pointless it seems FOR Putin. He's one cynical sonofabitch, and I don't see his doing anything like this unless it gets him some sort of geopolitical advantage, and I don't see that here. Paying the muj for picking off individual GIs? WTF?
Plus it doesn't seem to have really worked; we've already promised to grab a hat, and between that and the Plague keeping the joes inside the wire we haven't lost anyone there since February.
All seems very weird.
Too bad its a phony, I had my hopes up. But I want one of those tee-shirts anyway.
DeleteHere's Cole being baffled by the whole "bounties on GIs" story, too: https://www.juancole.com/2020/06/afghanistan-russians-targeted.html
ReplyDelete"...if the GRU did want US troops killed by criminals and terrorists, it was to get American officials’ backs up and change their minds about leaving the country precipitously.
The problem is that not enough troops were killed to produce that or any other reaction. Most Americans barely know we are fighting a war in Afghanistan.
Some have suggested that the move was just a petty lower-level GRU tit-for-tat for the US killing of Russian mercenaries in Syria. But then why not target US troops in Syria, who are small in number and quite vulnerable? Seems like a long way to go around, and not a good way to send a message.
So I have to say that the entire scenario is baffling. The most plausible thing in the story is that Trump would have been told that the Russians had harmed US troops, and that Trump should have ignored it and gone on pursuing his creepy friendship with Vladimir Putin."
Baffles me, too.
@FDChief: "...unless it gets him some sort of geopolitical advantage."
ReplyDeleteIn my not so humble opinion there is a major geopolitical advantage to Russia if the US/Taliban peace negotiations fail.
And where was the geopolitical advantage in poisoning Skripal and his daughter? Those were messages to Ivan Sixpack and the Russian people as a whole. Ditto with Litvinenko, Berezovsky, Perepilichny, and perhaps with ten others including UK nationals Gareth Williams, Dr Matthew Puncher, and Scot Young.
And a message to the world that Russian revenge is sweet. Hence the connection to the Battle of Khasham in northeastern Syria. And a connection back to the 1980s and Ronnie Raygun's arming and supporting of jihadis in Afghanistan.
And many Russians, undoubtedly including Putin, still have a red ass about the Hollywood portrayal of D-Day and the defeat of the Nazis by boys from Kansas and never mentioning the Red Army. And never mentioning the resistance of the starving Russian people in Leningrad and other Soviet Hero Cities.
Of course they want to fuck up any deals we try to make with the Talibs.
But the Russians are freaky paranoid about the muj - they remember Chechnya, even if the rest of the world doesn't. The LAST thing I can see them wanting is a resurgent Taliban spreading takfiri jihadism across the islamic former Soviet Republics...
DeleteSo, again, other than a nasty little revenge, I don't get it. This just doesn't seem to get them anywhere. It certainly didn't get any sort of response from Trump; he could give a shit unless it helps him win votes, and Afghanistan is so far off the US public's radar right now and has been for years...
This was posted by commenter Leith over at SST.
ReplyDelete"Three years ago General John Nicholson, Commander of US and NATO forces in Afghanistan, testified before the Senate about Russian support to the Talibs.
"Two years ago in an interview with BBC he repeated the charge that the Russians were supporting and arming the Taliban. He quoted stories written in Taliban media sources about support from the Russians. He also cited captured Russian-made night vision goggles, medium and heavy machine guns as well as small arms. He says that although the Russians and Talibs are not natural allies, they use the narrative of ISIS fighters in Afghanistan as justification for legitimizing support."
Along with some links:
https://thehill.com/policy/defense/318741-top-commander-russia-legitimizing-taliban-to-undermine-us-nato
https://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-43500299
FDChief -
ReplyDeleteYes the Russians are a bit touchy about Chechnya, Dagestan, and Ingushetia. But they seem to have tamed those hotspots with a combo of iron-boot & divide-and-conquer & subsidies-to-imams. For now anyway.
Regardless of that they have been involved in their own peace negotiations to reconcile the Taliban and the Afghan Government. Those negotiations are completely separate from the Obama and Trump efforts. If they can sink the US/Taliban/AfghanGov deal then it opens up for them the chance to be the peacemaker and build up their reputation in the world. And it may also buy them some good will as 'Friends of Islam' with their own 14- to 16-million Muslim citizens. A few links below on Russky/Talib meetings as examples. There were more.
https://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-46155189
https://www.nytimes.com/2019/02/04/world/asia/afghanistan-taliban-russia-talks-russia.html
https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2019/05/taliban-progress-afghan-talks-moscow-190530072213758.html
https://www.reuters.com/article/us-afghanistan-taliban-idUSKCN1VZ034
Kinda like they did and continue to do with Syria Peace Talks that they sponsor in Astana and Sochi. Completely separate from US and UN peace efforts in Vienna and Geneva, except to occasionally thwart or hamper the UN talks.
I don't really know what to make of this report. It does smell fishy to me, but it's hard to evaluate.
ReplyDeleteThat's one of the problems with intel leaks - leakers are usually selective and leak to achieve specific domestic political ends. Also, the further I get from working in the community (been out 4 years now), the harder it becomes to be able to read between the lines of these news reports.
Andy -
ReplyDeleteI fail to see or smell the fishiness that both you and FDChief seem to smell. And I understand it was multiple leaks, including from Special Forces troops and not just by some Wash DC briefer or analyst. And the Moron's reaction says it all. He claims the whole thing is a hoax, and yet the NSC has been discussing possible responses for months.
And the pattern fits with previous actions by the Russian security services, both current and their predecessors. It fits with former CENTCOM, General Votel, who has claimed that Russia is sending weapons to the Taliban. Ditto for claims by former Resolute Support CG, General Nicholson.
Can either of you elaborate to me why it smells fishy. Other than but what about Chechen jihadis? That issue is dead and buried, the radical Chechens have all had to flee to Syria. President Kadyrov made sure of that after he helped the GRU assassinate Shamil Basayev, his father's murderer, 14 years ago.
I think Andy gets the same vibe off this I do: cui bono?
Delete1) Why would the Talibs need head money? Their political purpose involves attacking the foreign occupiers to put pressure on their governments. When they got a deal that included successfully forcing the Americans to pull out (combined with the Americans retreating to their defensive posts) they slowed or stopped their attacks.
2) The GRU knows Trump is a) determined to pull U.S...well, everything...from overseas engagement that doesn't bring Trump profit, and b) actually gives zero shits about GIs other than as patriotic props. Paying the muj to kill GIs doesn't apply additional pressure on a Trump-"led" national command authority that's already determined to abandon SW Asia, and
3) It would seem to be in Russian interests to mire the U.S. in pointless whakc-a-mole muj-bashing while denying them any sort of fruitful diplomatic success. An a resurgent Taliban presents a problem - not because OF Chechnya - but because of the example of Islamic troubles that Chechnya represents and that I can't possibly imagine the Russians wanting to re-create along the former republics that fringe Afghanistan...so anything that is likely to lead to a Taliban-controlled A-stan seems unlikely to be in Russian interests.
I mean...I guess I'm not saying this couldn't or didn't happen; armies and nations do weird, pointless things that are ultimately not in their interests. And that, assuming it DID happen, it also seems in character that Trump was unwilling or unable to put the blocks to his Kremlin masters.
But the whole thing just seems really...odd. Odd in a "what possible value would be worth the risk of Great Power conflict this program presents?" sort of way.
Mike,
DeleteI spent close to a decade working the Afghanistan problem, reading every book and report and following event their closely. That experience both informs me and likely biases my views on this. I'm not saying it didn't happen, I'm just skeptical of the conclusions presented in the NYT reporting based on the evidence presented and what I know about Afghanistan, the Taliban and Russian involvement in the region.
Specifically, the facts as presented in the reporting are vague and not consistent with the high-confidence that the anonymous officials have in the assessment. That could be because the leakers are hiding high-level sources or it could be for other reasons. Notably missing is information on the logisitics of this kind of operation that would be required for a "bounty" system.
By contrast, the idea that the Russians would covertly help the Taliban through clandestine weapons transfers and other means that offer more plausible deniability, is not as far fetched as this allegation. Unlike Chief, I think the Russians would give a little bit of help to the Taliban similar to what the Iranians did at a couple different points.
But this seems like something different. Russia has a lot of tools at its disposal - why bounties? And why such poor tradecraft that would allow lower-level Taliban operatives and "criminals" (who got captured) to know about such direct Russian involvement and the scope of the operation? Russia tradecraft and OPSEC may really suck that bad, but I think a more likely explanation is that there is something else going on.
Again, I'm not saying the report isn't true - as I suggested at the ouset, I don't really have enough quality info to tell for sure. And, since I'm an intel guy, I tend to give the community the benefit of the doubt in a lot of cases. But the information that's been presented so far and the narrative it's been formed into makes me a lot more skeptical than I would normally be about a report like this.
"Why would the Talibs need head money?" 'Bounty' never should have been used by the press. Paying off insurgents has a long tradition. The Brits and the US have done it in AFG to try to get Talibs to switch sides. The Russians did it much more successfully in Chechnya. But why wouldn't Talibs take money? Their only source of income is taxing the opium farmers, which the Russkies don't like because a lot of that junk ends up near their borders in UZB, TKM, & TJK. And the money did not start flowing this year. It started before the February semi-deal that btw has not yet been consummated. That deal started falling apart less than two weeks after it was signed. And lastly the Taliban is not monolithic, there are splinter groups including some that are in it for reasons other than ideology.
ReplyDelete"The GRU knows Trump is a) determined to pull U.S...well, everything...from overseas engagement..." Sure, but paying the muj to blow up Trump's peace deal in Afghanistan will not stop the US from pulling out. We as a people are sick and tired of our longest ever war. The Russian leadership knows that. Killing the US/Afghan peace deal is the main intent. And I seem to recall that in the last part of the 80s Ronnie Raygun payed the muj to apply additional pressure on the Soviets that were already determined to abandon AFG.
"It would seem to be in Russian interests to mire the U.S. in pointless whakc-a-mole muj-bashing while denying them any sort of fruitful diplomatic success." Exactly! Parsing that into two parts: First part is true but after 19 years of pointless whack-a-mole they know we are leaving anyway. Second part, see above, that is their main intent.
"...so anything that is likely to lead to a Taliban-controlled A-stan seems unlikely to be in Russian interests." They think they have found the answer. They believe they can apply their Chechen solution to AFG. Pay off the imams - isolate the radicals - play off one faction against the other. Worked for the British for hundreds of years.
"... the risk of Great Power conflict" They have deniability. And they have taken greater risks. Who would pull the trigger?
Agreed. The part of this that seemed peculiar is the notion of head money. The notion that Russian military intelligence would help bankroll the muj? THAT's totally believable. Fuck, it's almost perfect; we paid the muj to hunt them when they were Soviets back in the day...now they pay the muj - who knows, maybe even the SAME muj! - to hunt us.
DeleteThe thing about that is that I'm not sure that even if Trump hadn't been suborned by Russian blackmail (and he has been, that's fairly clear. It HAS to be blackmail, simply because the alternative, that it's Trump paying back his pals in Moscow, is untenable. Trump NEVER pays his debts; that's as constant as the pole star. So it has to be something dirty; my bet is it kleptocrat money laundering through Deutschebank that's proveable back to Donnie, i.e that he knew the money was dirty and took it anyway...) he could have done much about that. Were the Soviets able to do much of anything about Charlie Wilson's War?
Andy -
ReplyDeleteThe 'bounty' narrative IMHO is BS. Like you say the logistics of paying off for each individual GI scalp would be a nightmare. Ditto for the proof. But it seems they never paid individually. They only dropped a half a mil to either Taliban Central or more likely to some splinter group. My two cents is that it is more like give-them-a-bunch-of-cash-to-keep-them-fighting-to-nix-the-deal-with-the-Moron.
Arms and NVGs have been provided as reported by General Nicholson when he was in charge of western forces in AFG (March 2016 to September 2018) And by General Votel when he was CENTCOM, and by Rex Tillerson when he was SecState. I would bet Generals Miller and MacKenzie are saying the same thing now in classified briefings to the Pentagon and to Congress. Why would the Russians draw the line at arms shipments and not also send cash?
You have a point regarding tradecraft. But then sometimes a bit of seemingly sloppy tradecraft is a message. Deliberately letting someone know he is being followed, or leaving footprints in a room that has been searched. These are techniques sometimes used by security services worldwide not just in Russia. Or.... maybe the bad tradecraft was on the part of the Talibs and not the GRU.
Apparently there is more to this than either interrogation reporting or general intel analyses. US intel appears to have caught the actual money movements;
Delete"Though the United States has accused Russia of providing general support to the Taliban before, analysts concluded from other intelligence that the transfers were most likely part of a bounty program that detainees described during interrogations. Investigators also identified by name numerous Afghans in a network linked to the suspected Russian operation, the officials said — including, two of them added, a man believed to have served as an intermediary for distributing some of the funds and who is now thought to be in Russia. The intercepts bolstered the findings gleaned from the interrogations, helping reduce an earlier disagreement among intelligence analysts and agencies over the reliability of the detainees. The disclosures further undercut White House officials’ claim that the intelligence was too uncertain to brief President Trump. In fact, the information was provided to him in his daily written brief in late February, two officials have said."
This also seems to provide a potential way for the Trumpkins to retaliate; if they have the financials they can also put the financial and diplomatic hammer on the individuals and organizations, much as the Obamites did back in 2016 to the operatives involved in the election hacking.
But, again...Trump is compromised. He so much as looks twitchy and Putin can light the fuse and blow his orange ass right up to the point where even Lindsey Graham can't get his nose back up Donnie's backside.
Andy -
ReplyDeleteNY Times printed an article today praising Colorado's vot-by-mail system. They call it "An Election Day Success".
https://www.nytimes.com/2020/07/01/briefing/colorado-coronavirus-hong-kong-your-wednesday-briefing.html
FDChief -
ReplyDeleteThat article regarding 'money transfers' claims those transfers were caught by electronic intercept. In other words the NSA. And yet the WH is claiming the NSA disagreed with the rest of the IC. I suspect the disagreement (if any) was trivial, and had nothing to do with the actual conclusion.
Re Trump's subservience to Putin: True but I think his calling this whole thing fake news is more to protect himself rather than to protect Putin.
I didn't really pay much attention to Benito's oration at Mt. Rushmore the other day, but it sounds like it was a really juicy serving of red meat to the Base. BLM is a commie conspiracy against Good White People (probably masterminded by antifa) and we're NEVER going to surrender on our love for Treason in Defense of Slavery!
ReplyDeleteWhat makes this intriguing is that at my stage-struck daughter's request we streamed Hamilton last night (wonderfullt luminous art, REALLY sketchy history...) and the contrast couldn't be sharper between the two visions of America. Both include a huge helping of myth and fantasy, but the one is hopeful, broad, innovative, expansive, inclusive...and the other is narrow, angry, resentful, purblind, intolerant, and hateful.
We the People have a seismic-level event this November that will determine which of those myths we embrace. And I have NO confidence that We will chose the more open and inclusive one. We've been fucking stupid that way for a long, long time...
Mt Molestmore:
Deletehttps://pbs.twimg.com/media/EcFYXZ5WoAImmif?format=jpg&name=small
But, but, but ... Trump is inclusive too, isn't he? Hung out with a pornographic actress. Met lots of young women in the dressing room of Miss Teen USA. Met lots of other teenage girls introduced to him by his good friend Jeffrey. Did a sword dance with the Sauds. Rendered a salute to North Korean General No Kwang-chol. Has a wannabee Israeli for a son-in-law. And he is proud to be called Putin's bitch.
ReplyDeleteWhat did I miss?
The New Yorker piece (https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2020/07/06/why-the-mueller-investigation-failed) reminds us that while Mueller punted as he was ordered to, the FBI is STILL probably running the counterintelligence investigation of Donnie Trumpovich's little ties to the Russkies; I'm wondering if the sudden affection he developed for his pal Putin around 2015 or so was related to his GRU/FSB handler bringing him to his superior's attention as a possible GOP player, and the handler gently jerking his chain to remind ol' Tangerine Dream that the boys in Moscow had the Deutschebank receipts and would happily use them if he didn't play along..?
DeleteHe's a saucy minx, though. Swiftian, you might say.
There is some reporting that the 'Chosen-One's' Deutschbank loans were guaranteed by VTB Bank. The Russian government is the main shareholder (~60%) of VTB Bank via a subsidiary of the Ministry of Economic Development. VTB is also reported to have made major investments in silicon valley including Facebook and Twitter.
Deletehttps://forensicnews.net/2020/01/03/trump-deutsche-bank-loans-underwritten-by-russian-state-owned-bank-whistleblower-told-fbi/
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/VTB_Bank
https://www.nytimes.com/2017/11/05/world/yuri-milner-facebook-twitter-russia.html
Those loans BTW started back in the 1990s. And Mr Bonespurs put out feelers to Putin himself at least as far back as June 2013, maybe earlier; and said in an October 2013 interview that he had met Putin:
https://twitter.com/realDonaldTrump/status/347191326112112640?s=20
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PR_SoJpWzOA&feature=youtu.be&t=14m44s
The Moron's cronies have opened up an investigation into who leaked the Russkie Bounty story to the press. Supposedly they have narrowed it down to ten individuals. So you can expect that Barr & Bannon & Fox & Qanon & others will be pimping a new Obamagate angle going up to the election. But my two cents is that it was Bomb'em Bolton that leaked it to the press initially.
ReplyDeleteSo apparently Bonespurs doesn’t give a rats ass that Putin's GRU supported the Taliban so they could to kill American soldiers. He is openly outraged that we found out about his inaction.
https://www.politico.com/playbook
>>JS: If you bother to flip through the recent book by one of the most notorious war mongers and neocons in modern U.S. history, Trump’s former National Security Advisor John Bolton, you will see that a good bit of what Bolton despised about Trump were those moments when he says Trump hesitated to take Bolton’s advice to drop more bombs on more people or to ratchet up tensions with other nations.
ReplyDeleteThis moment in history places the question of U.S. militarism, and specifically the so-called “war on terror” and the original invasion of another country, Afghanistan, into an important spotlight. At every turn when Trump has indicated — however incompetently or inadvertently — that he wants to do something other than continue the war, a bi-partisan coalition rears its head in opposition. It happened when negotiations were underway with the Taliban. And it’s happening now as Trump indicates he wants to remove thousands of U.S. troops.
DJT: But again, we are the greatest fighting force in the world. We’re not a police force that’s going to stay around and police the streets and check out the red lights and traffic. It’s not what we’re supposed to be doing. Been there a long time. You know our force is down quite a bit, as you know.
JS: I found it interesting, the timing of the recent New York Times stories alleging that Russian intelligence agents were paying the Taliban to attack U.S. soldiers — the so-called “bounty” story. The leaking of this purported U.S. intelligence was, at a minimum, extremely convenient for opponents of ending the war in Afghanistan. And it’s the latest example in a pattern of stories breaking that seem to bolster the agenda of the pro-war crowd on Capitol Hill. Now, I don’t know what the truth is about these allegations, but I do know that the Taliban don’t need Russia to pay them to kill U.S. forces. They’ve been doing it on their own for 20 years. And we should always be skeptical of these kinds of leaks from unnamed national security sources in general, particularly when they come to questions of war.
But that story was indeed a boost in the arm for the bi-partisan coalition to keep that war going. Last week, Rep. Liz Cheney, the Republican Congresswoman from Wyoming and daughter of Dick Cheney, by the way, she sponsored an amendment with Democrat Jason Crow of Colorado that would prohibit the funding of a troop withdrawal from Afghanistan. Trump had said in February that he wanted a deal with the Taliban to end the war and he’d already been saying he wanted plans drawn up for a withdrawal from Afghanistan by the end of 2020.<<
Jeremy Scahill interviewing NP's opponent in this year's election festivities.
https://theintercept.com/2020/07/08/an-interview-with-nancy-pelosi-challenger-shahid-buttar-and-a-look-at-the-history-of-fascist-movements-in-the-u-s/
Basil -
ReplyDeleteScahill used to be a passable journalist. At least until he fell for President Tweety's bullshit line. That sucker never wanted to end war, only to use that line as a political tool. If Tweety wanted to bring home the troops, he could have done it regardless of any imaginary bipartisan coalition (four congress critters only) dreamed up out of Scahill's imagination. Scahill disses the Russian Bounty story as a ploy for opponents of ending the war in Afghanistan, yet he completely ignores the the claims by Secretary of State Tillerson and other diplomats plus several generals back three years ago about Russian support and weapons for the Taliban.
I will say one good thing for that Intercept article that you link to - Scahill at least recounts Tweety basking "..in his own self-declared glory after authorizing the use of the so-called Mother of All Bombs, the MOAB, in Afghanistan." By the way, Tweety authorized the Mother-of-all-Bombs drop in April 2017 a full year prior to Bolton becoming his National Security Advisor.
And also in 2017 Bolton was not in the WH when Tweety launched a massive missile strike on Shayrat Airbase in Syria. Per Wiki that strike "...was the first time the U.S. deliberately attacked Syrian government forces and marked the start of a series of direct military actions by U.S. forces against the Syrian government and its allies in May–June 2017 and February 2018. In mid-January 2018, the Trump administration indicated its intention to maintain an open-ended military presence in Syria to counter Iran's influence and oust Syrian president Bashar al-Assad."
And neither was Bolton in the WH when Tweety took out Qasem Soleimani and nine others including five Iraqis with an MQ9 Reaper drone attack.
Speaker Pelosi has spoken often and strongly about standing down in Afghanistan. She praised the tentative agreement between the United States, the Afghan government, and the Taliban for a US troop withdrawal. President Tweety is the one that blew up the negotiations with the Talibs. Scahill should be ashamed for taking the word of Gramma Pelosi's political rival that she is a warmonger.
I wouldn't pay a nickel to read Bolton's book. In the best of all worlds his royalties will be confiscated by the court, and he will go to jail for disclosing classified information, and yet the book will become a best seller widely read and believed by Homo MAGAfanaticus.
Whether or not JS has any ability or honesty concerning his life's work is something for another thread IMO. I do agree with him on the issue of bounties.
ReplyDeleteThe bigger issue is why are we still in Afghanistan after nearly 2 decades. What's the purpose, keeping the Taliban from paddling onto our shores to turn our cities and towns into exploding and burning infernos?
We seem to be doing quite well on that all by ourselves, thank you very much.
I do find it an odd juxtaposition of situations right now. Today we have on American soil, US citizens dying by the tens of thousands, quite possibly hundreds of thousands. In Afghanistan, threats of bounties by the Russians. Politicians can't leave a live camera or mike without saying keeping Americans safe.
Oooops.
And complaints of Russians diddling our social media to get Trump elected.
Maybe true, we'll have to put Putin in one of our famed black sites to find the truth about that.
As for Granny being a warmongerer, 8 solid years of Obama/Biden whose initial campaign was built partly on being against stupid wars and getting us out of Iraq and Afghanistan, with Pelosi having control of the House for a bit of time and it seems she has full control now. Still there in Afghanistan. The House controls the government money, as I recall. Fastest way to end a military campaign is to cut the money, CiC orders the troops home.
Basil -
ReplyDeleteI used to like JS.
I agree with both him and you that we should be out of AF. Plus we should be out of IQ, SY, and many other places abroad.
Bounties was perhaps a poor choice of words by the NYT or their source. However Russia is providing weapons and other support to the Talibs. They have been doing that for several years. Iran and Pakistan have been doing so also. Once we leave, the Taliban will be a near neighbor of Russia and will share a border with IR and PK. So they would all be fools not to provide support to the Taliban.
Black sites? You mean the ones established by Bush Jr? And the torture that tRump has said several times he wants to bring back?
The House does not CONTROL the budget, as I recall they only initiate it. Unfortunately for us both the House AND the Senate has to pass it. And I also remember that Republicans Hastert, Boehner, and Ryan controlled the House for close to 15 of the last 20 years. And Granma Pelosi never pulled the trigger on dropping the MOAB, or the massive missile attacks on Syria, or assassinating Soleimani. All that was from the coward in the WH so he could appear to have man-sized hands and a hairy chest to his MAGA fanatics.
Throwing a Libertarian into the pot
ReplyDeletehttps://original.antiwar.com/ronald_enzweiler/2020/07/01/who-to-believe-on-afghan-intelligence-cia-nsa-or-pentagon/
Enzweiler may be well-meaning but he has bought into Codex Trumpus. i.e. the meme that Trump wants the troops out but is not allowed to by some dark unnamed source. Like Michael Corleone wanted out: "Just When I Thought I Was Out. They Pull Me Back In." Or Dostoyevsky: “They won't let me ... I can't be ... good!”
DeleteEnzweiler's article is full of half-truths and omissions. He attributes the false reports on Curveball to the CIA. Yet it was the DIA that issued over a hundred reports on Curveball's 'Winnebagos of Death' given to them by Germany's BND. And that was amplified by Wolfowitz and Feith's OSP in the cellars of the Pentagon. The CIA argued against it except for Tenet who gave it to Bush as part of his 'slam dunk' for the war. https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-2005-apr-02-na-intel2-story.html Maybe Enzweiler forgot that? But it was less than 20 years ago.
And contrary to what Enzweiler claims the NSA did not ‘strongly disagree’ with the Russian-bounty story. They did not disagree at all. The only difference between the NSA and the CIA and the Pentagon was that the NSA said they had not intercepted communications confirming the Russian scheme. No shit Sherlock! As if the GRU is stupid enough to call their friends and say “I’ll give you $1,000 cash for every American infidel you kill?” when they know those Taliban phones, texts, and emails are monitored. And by the way the NSA did track the electronic transfer of funds to a Taliban linked account from a GRU account in a Russian state-owned bank.
In one paragraph Enzweiler puts forth a Trump appointee's statement that the Pentagon has no corroborating evidence to validate the claim. Yet he ignores several years of reports by DoD and even DoS that Russia was providing support and weaponry to the Taliban: https://www.justsecurity.org/71279/trump-pushed-cia-to-give-intelligence-to-kremlin-while-taking-no-action-against-russia-arming-taliban/ BTW it was Special Forces operators and intel officers that first surfaced the Russian connection to the Talibs, not the CIA.
I actually agree with Enzweiler’s argument about bogus HUMINT pushed by locals with a grudge or with a monetary interest. However he does not mention that Russian funding of the Talibs was substantiated by DOCEX (document exploitation) of captured Taliban papers. And also inferred by tracking of Talib officials travel to a Russian military base in Tajikistan and to Moscow.
So Enzweiler’s motives may be pure. Or not? But in either case his argument is full of holes. In my book he is an apologist for Trump. His Bagram Airbase theory as the missing piece in the ‘Deep State’s’ pushback against leaving Afghanistan is in the tinfoil-hat neighborhood.
Basil -
ReplyDeleteBelgium, a founding member of NATO, until recently participated in the NATO joint force in Afghanistan. But they recalled their troops home in May.
Today Philippe Goffin, the Belgian Minister of Defense, told the Belgian Federal Parliament that his office was aware of the Russian bounty program. He was speaking before the parliament’s Committee on National Defense, where he responded to questions from committee members. According to Goffin, he had been briefed on the matter by the General Intelligence and Security Service (SGRS), Belgium’s military intelligence organization. He said the SGRS was “aware of Russian support for the Taliban in Afghanistan” and offered evidence that “confirmed Russian interference there”.