Russia-Bounties

If Russia is in the news, especially if the news is about Russia and Trump, it can’t be true, apparently — if we’re to believe Mate and company. It must be yet another (unsubstantiated) plot of the Dems, the Intel community — which Trump controls — and media all over the globe. It can never, evah be factual, and the only motives we should ever question are Democrats, their donors and the non-Trump-besotted media. We shouldn’t ever question the motives of far-right Putin or the far-right Russian state. They’re angels!! They’re always perfectly innocent!! They would never think of doing anything like this!!

;>)

Me? I think it makes far more sense to keep the skepticism meter on high for everyone, including Mate, Blumenthal and company. I don’t trust them automatically, either. I’m skeptical of mainstream and Internet niche sources . . . etc. etc.

Gotta corroborate, verify, use our own common sense, see the patterns, etc. etc. IMO, the (decade’s long) pattern of Trump’s connections with, and exploitation by, Putin, are too numerous and consistent to dismiss.

wv wrote:

Is the latest ‘russia’ story in the corporate-press, based on “anonymous sources in the intelligence community” ?

It’s a story that makes Trump look bad, since (as it goes) he did not take the info seriously. Why wouldn’t someone in the administration just go “naw they made that up.”

Did Russians put bounties on Americans in Afghanistan? Sure, probably. Heck when the Soviets were there, the USA gave the Afghanis “Man-portable air-defense systems” (that’s a real thing) to take out those heavy, built like a tank helicopters of theirs (the “end of Red Dawn” type helicopters). Al Qaeda, at least partly funded by the USA, was originally formed as a group dedicated to attacking Soviets in Afghanistan.

So why wouldn’t the Russians do the budget version and just pay bounties.

A MANPADS as they’re called:

The “end of Red Dawn” Russian built-like-a-tank style attack helicopter (the Mi-24 Hind):

zn wrote:

It’s a story that makes Trump look bad, since (as it goes) he did not take the info seriously. Why wouldn’t someone in the administration just go “naw they made that up.”

Did Russians put bounties on Americans in Afghanistan? Sure, probably. Heck when the Soviets were there, the USA gave the Afghanis “Man-portable air-defense systems” (that’s a real thing) to take out those heavy, built like a tank helicopters of theirs (the “end of Red Dawn” type helicopters). Al Qaeda, at least partly funded by the USA, was originally formed as a group dedicated to attacking Soviets in Afghanistan.

So why wouldn’t the Russians do the budget version and just pay bounties.

Yep. That’s my take/question(s) too. Same thing with election interference and Trump’s collusion with Russia. Given what we know about the United States’ history of its own shenanigans along these lines, all over the globe, and far worse . . . and the fact that Putin thought Clinton tried to stop him from being reelected, why wouldn’t Russia continue playing hardball geopolitics against America?

When haven’t we gone back and forth when it comes to Spy versus Spy stuff, or (again) much worse? It actually doesn’t make any sense whatsoever to assume Russia wouldn’t respond, or initiate, or defend, or go on offense . . . At this point, who knows who started this garbage, and after more than a century, does that even really matter now?

(For what it’s worth, I think we (and the West) likely started it, as far back as 1905 at least, escalating it in 1917, backing the White Russians after that, etc. etc. But there’s plenty of blame to go around from that point on.)

I am going to ask a personal request, if I can. I typed up an answer to Waterfield’s question about what is left/progressive and the ways the 2 mainstream parties are the same. I wonder if I could get people interested in adding to that discussion. I am always wondering about how to put that and what it includes. Other perspectives would help, it’s always enlightening to hear well-informed people muse about this. It’s here: http://theramshuddle.com/topic/are-dems-and-reps-really-the-same/

wv wrote:

Well, like i say, I’m agnostic. If this case was in a court of law, where the burden of proof is ‘beyond a reasonable doubt,’ the ‘evidence’ is so thin (if i can even call it evidence at all) the case would simply be dismissed. Without question. Dismissed.

Now of course ‘we’ are not in a court of law so we can use whatever standards we want.

My ‘own’ stance is ‘agnostic’ on stuff like this. The evidence is thin, lame, hearsay. “sources unknown” quoted by anonymous ‘intelligence’ agents.
Please.

As for Mate and Blumenthal, i dont know whether they are really agnostic on this or atheists on this. I’d have to interview and them and ask them.

I’d be surprised if anyone was an ‘atheist’ on this for the reasons zn pointed out. Heck yeah, all the big corporate and nationalist gangster-states do this shit. Wouldnt surprise me at all if Putin was doing this, or Trump, or Obama any of the other gangster-states. But thats not proof.

And there are reasons and agendas why the Dem-MSM and the Dem-Faction in the “Intelligence community” push these stories. Its that agenda that annoys me.
I know thats a separate subject, blah blah. But its not separate to ‘me.’ 🙂
Its an inseparable subject for ‘me.’

w
v

Good response. One of the reasons why I see your stance as agnostic, as opposed to the one in the video?

This reporting just came out. And new details are still emerging, daily. Hourly, at times. But certain media figures immediately dismissed all of it as X. Instantly. They didn’t wait for more stuff to come out, for new facts to broaden the available picture, for any expansion of sourcing, etc. They didn’t say, “Well, I want to see more evidence before I pass judgment.” They just pounced and assumed it was all bogus because, Russiagate, or CIA tactics during the Cold War.

The latter strikes me as especially irrelevant now, because Russia today is a far-right state, with a far-right oligarch(s) in charge, ideologically more in sync with the current regime in America than at any time since the Romanovs. And while I’ve never really bought into the idea of a separate “deep state” per se, especially a separate separate deep state for the Dems, after nearly four years of Trump’s reign it’s no longer even possible. No one in American history has been more aggressive (than Trump) in purging the ranks of anyone he sees as a threat. No one has worked harder to make “the state” his own, from top to bottom. It’s not close.

Speaking of that, I think you should start a running, clearing-house sorta thread that deals with this part of your response.

And there are reasons and agendas why the Dem-MSM and the Dem-Faction in the “Intelligence community” push these stories. Its that agenda that annoys me.
I know thats a separate subject, blah blah. But its not separate to ‘me.’ 🙂
Its an inseparable subject for ‘me.