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#71
Jul 7 2020 04:19pm
Quote (fuzzy159 @ Jul 7 2020 05:33pm)
That's the thing. None of you care about the troops. You don't even mention them. You care that it has a very slim chance of hurting Trump.


Sure. I hope the intel is true that Russia is putting bounties on American and coalition troops, and that Trump either didn't know about it because he doesn't read his PDB, or did know, and didn't respond in any way. Because... why?

The reality is that it won't hurt Trump. Trump's defenders create alternative narratives anytime he does something bad(look at Russiagate, Ukraine, etc). So this pushes his supporters further away from reality, it forces Republican politicians to move that way as well, and there's zero political consequences.

There's no motive for me to wish this were true, because if it is true, there's no positive outcomes. It's all bad.

This post was edited by IceMage on Jul 7 2020 04:34pm
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#72
Jul 8 2020 08:25am
https://www.cnn.com/2020/07/07/politics/us-russia-afghanistan-bounty-intelligence/index.html

Quote
(CNN)The top US general overseeing operations in the Middle East and Afghanistan said Tuesday that the intelligence concerning Russian operatives offering bounties to Taliban-linked militants was "very worrisome" but that the information wasn't solid enough to hold up in a court of law.

Gen. Frank McKenzie, the commander of US Central Command, also told a small group of reporters while traveling to the region that he was not convinced that the Russian bounty program was directly responsible for the deaths of US personnel.

"The intelligence wasn't proved to me. It was proved enough to worry me. It wasn't proved enough that I'd take it to a court of law. That's often true in battlefield intelligence," McKenzie said, according to a transcript provided by the Defense Department.

...

McKenzie said Tuesday, "I'm very familiar with this material, and I'm a theater commander and I've had an opportunity to look at it. I found it very worrisome."

"I just didn't find that there was a causative link there. It worried me, and we take extreme force protection measures all the time in Afghanistan," McKenzie said.

"You see a lot of indicators. Many of them are troubling; many of them you act on. But in this case, there just wasn't enough there. I sent the intelligence guys back to continue to dig on it. And I believe they're continuing to dig right now," he added.


An important data point on this issue.
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#73
Jul 8 2020 08:46am
Quote (IceMage @ Jul 8 2020 10:25am)
https://www.cnn.com/2020/07/07/politics/us-russia-afghanistan-bounty-intelligence/index.html



An important data point on this issue.


Worrisome because if true it's a big deal. The meat of of all of that is that it wasn't proved. It's irresponsible to do things based on unconfirmed rumors. Imagine if we decided to retaliate only to find out it wasn't true? Now we are the aggressors and the Russians would be justified in firing back.

NYT reporting unconfirmed Intel of this magnitude is dangerous and irresponsible.
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#74
Jul 8 2020 08:50am
Quote (ofthevoid @ Jul 8 2020 09:46am)
Worrisome because if true it's a big deal. The meat of of all of that is that it wasn't proved. It's irresponsible to do things based on unconfirmed rumors. Imagine if we decided to retaliate only to find out it wasn't true? Now we are the aggressors and the Russians would be justified in firing back.

NYT reporting unconfirmed Intel of this magnitude is dangerous and irresponsible.


doesnt this logic imply that Trump would be dumb enough to follow media reports rather than military intel from his own regime? wait, nvm, that logic checks out.
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#75
Jul 8 2020 08:55am
Quote (ofthevoid @ 8 Jul 2020 16:46)
Worrisome because if true it's a big deal. The meat of of all of that is that it wasn't proved. It's irresponsible to do things based on unconfirmed rumors. Imagine if we decided to retaliate only to find out it wasn't true? Now we are the aggressors and the Russians would be justified in firing back.

NYT reporting unconfirmed Intel of this magnitude is dangerous and irresponsible.


free press and speech - except it exposes the incompetence, corruption, and treason by my cult leader - then it's "dangerous and irresponsible".
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#76
Jul 8 2020 08:57am
Quote (ofthevoid @ Jul 8 2020 10:46am)
Worrisome because if true it's a big deal. The meat of of all of that is that it wasn't proved. It's irresponsible to do things based on unconfirmed rumors. Imagine if we decided to retaliate only to find out it wasn't true? Now we are the aggressors and the Russians would be justified in firing back.

NYT reporting unconfirmed Intel of this magnitude is dangerous and irresponsible.


Quote
"The intelligence wasn't proved to me. It was proved enough to worry me. It wasn't proved enough that I'd take it to a court of law. That's often true in battlefield intelligence," McKenzie said, according to a transcript provided by the Defense Department.


Intelligence often times is not "proven", which is why agencies assign a level of confidence to intel reports they produce. It's not inconsistent for this commander to say that it wasn't proven enough to be actionable, but still had enough merit to tell Brits and NATO, and put it in the PDB. Catherine Herridge(who has sources generally trying to spin a happy story for the administration) says the intel was discussed at the NSC, something the Times had in it's initial article.

Also possible the CIA had more confidence in it than the military.

This post was edited by IceMage on Jul 8 2020 09:00am
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#77
Jul 8 2020 09:00am
Quote (IceMage @ Jul 8 2020 10:57am)
Intelligence is rarely "proven", which is why agencies assign a level of confidence to intel reports they produce. It's not inconsistent for this commander to say that it wasn't proven enough to be actionable, but still had enough merit to tell Brits and NATO, and put it in the PDB.

Also possible the CIA had more confidence in it than the military.


This isn't something that happened 2 days ago and the spooks had no time to gather intel. By now, if true, the CIA would have a mount of evidence to confirm it. These reports were there as of February yet in July it's still not proven? That's some incredibly weak intel if you can't link the chain after many months.

Again, not proven. Taking it to court means it's not reliable enough to action. But here we are we have the same hawks beating the war drums just like after WW2 based on rumors. Some things never change.

This post was edited by ofthevoid on Jul 8 2020 09:02am
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#78
Jul 8 2020 09:03am
Quote (ofthevoid @ Jul 8 2020 11:00am)
This isn't something that happened 2 days ago and the spooks had no time to gather intel. By now, if true, the CIA would have a mount of evidence to confirm it. These reports were there as of February yet in July it's still not proven? That's some incredibly weak intel if you can't link the chain after many months.

Again, not proven.


This presupposes that America's intelligence agencies have some omniscient ability to determine what happens in the world. They don't. They work with the information they can get.

Again, "not proven" doesn't mean the intelligence didn't have merit.

Quote (ofthevoid @ Jul 8 2020 11:00am)
Taking it to court means it's not reliable enough to action.


That's absurd of course. America takes action all the time with incomplete information... stuff that wouldn't hold up in court. The case for Bin Laden being at that compound was a 50/50 proposition according to people in the room, and Obama took action anyway.

This post was edited by IceMage on Jul 8 2020 09:05am
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#79
Jul 8 2020 09:16am
Quote (ofthevoid @ Jul 8 2020 10:00am)
This isn't something that happened 2 days ago and the spooks had no time to gather intel. By now, if true, the CIA would have a mount of evidence to confirm it. These reports were there as of February yet in July it's still not proven? That's some incredibly weak intel if you can't link the chain after many months.

Again, not proven. Taking it to court means it's not reliable enough to action. But here we are we have the same hawks beating the war drums just like after WW2 based on rumors. Some things never change.


but in 1944 "do something the germans cant do this with impunity" meant "plan an invasion of 1 million men with boots on the ground and a 50 gal. drum of blood paid per foot of progress"

in 2020 "do something the russians cant do this with impunity" means "maybe sanctions, at least call them out, economic warfare, maybe launch a missile at an empty base"

war drums are affected by shrinkflation as much as iced honey buns. seriously iced honey buns are like bite sized.

This post was edited by thesnipa on Jul 8 2020 09:17am
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#80
Jul 8 2020 10:22am
Quote (thesnipa @ Jul 8 2020 11:16am)
but in 1944 "do something the germans cant do this with impunity" meant "plan an invasion of 1 million men with boots on the ground and a 50 gal. drum of blood paid per foot of progress"

in 2020 "do something the russians cant do this with impunity" means "maybe sanctions, at least call them out, economic warfare, maybe launch a missile at an empty base"

war drums are affected by shrinkflation as much as iced honey buns. seriously iced honey buns are like bite sized.



I meant to type 2001, on my phone and busy. You can’t do something when literally every official that has been asked about it says the evidence isn’t corroborated, we can’t take it to court, etc. Its wmds all over again. You’d think we’d learn by now but here we are again wanting something to happen on rumors, ones that haven’t been proven at least half a year now.

Icemage it’s like you have selective reading. Your own sources keep saying things like we can’t take it to court meaning it’s not actionable yet you only selectively pick out words ignoring the meat of what they’re saying.

This post was edited by ofthevoid on Jul 8 2020 10:23am
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