The Russian Bounty Story Is Pretty Stupid If You Think About It (You Won't)

If for one brief moment you were to question what you have been told by anonymous agents who offer no evidence, you might find some holes in the narrative provided to you by the media. Indulge me for a moment while I point out a few.

The story: Russia offered bounties to Taliban fighters to kill U.S. troops

If Russia had wanted the Taliban to kill U.S. troops, it would have given them what they required, not what they already had in abundance. A question for you all: does anybody wish to argue that the Taliban requires motivation to kill U.S. troops? Isn’t that why we hate them in the first place, because they hate us? Weren’t we told they hate us for our freedom?

If they hated us and wanted to kill us prior to 9/11, do you think their hatred has abated since then? Do you think thousands of drone strikes and a 19-year war on their own soil are not motivation enough? Do you not think Trump dropping MOAB (Mother Of All Bombs) on the Taliban might not motivate them more than anything the Russians could do? And do you think Putin talked Trump into doing that?

No, Taliban soldiers don’t need frequent killer cards stamped by Putin, or any other kind of motivator. Ask any Taliban fighter, and he’d likely tell you that if you want to help them kill U.S. and allied soldiers, give them weapons and let them do what they do best.

Think about it: if you wanted someone dead, and you knew some psycho who also wanted that person dead, would you pay that person, or would you simply leave a weapon handy for that person and let nature take it’s course? If you pay him to do the job, you just might be implicated for your part in the crime. But provide access to a weapon, and you have plausible denial.

That’s what the U.S. does all the time. Look at how much advanced weaponry we’re selling to Ukraine. We didn’t even hide it, we proudly celebrated it. One of the central arguments the Democrats had against President Trump at his impeachment trial is that he temporarily suspended arms shipments to Ukraine that were to (allegedly) be used to protect them from Russia. Hell, we’re the largest exporter of military equipment in the world. We even supply weapons to people we’re supposed to be against.

If Russia wanted the Taliban to kill U.S. troops, they would arm them, not try to motivate them. This is so obvious I would be shocked if anyone bothered to argue with me.

Why, then would our intelligence agencies say Russia was offering bounties to kill U.S. troops if they could provide no evidence? I can’t say for sure, but it wouldn’t surprise me too greatly to learn that Russia WAS supplying arms to our enemies. Hell, if WE are supplying arms not only to Russia’s enemies but our own as well, it would be kind of weird if Russia wasn’t selling a little something something to The Taliban. Russia is, after all, the world’s second largest arms supplier. Behind the U.S.

So why a pronouncement that Russia is offering bounties? Shock value. It’s pretty clear. Accusing—or even, God forbid, providing evidence—that Russia sold weapons to our enemies would make them no more guilty than our government is. And it makes them look less stupid, because they aren’t selling arms to ISIS. Offering bounties, on the other hand, while making no sense, would make them appear especially evil.

That does sound pretty, evil, doesn’t it? Yeah, it does. It also sounds undeniably stupid. And while you might make the case that Putin’s Russia is evil, you cannot convince me that Putin is stupid. But if anyone wants to try, be my guest.

You could make some convoluted explanation that that’s how evil people do things: they just don’t care how they are perceived. They laugh in the face of international opinion, spitting in the rest of the world's eye and defying them to stop them. 

That’s not a realistic argument. Hitler was as evil as they come but even he was pretty thoughtful about how he presented himself to the world. Nobody really knew the true horrors of his death camps until they were liberated. Generally, people only act this way in narratives concocted by intelligence agencies, narratives that are used as propaganda to promote their nation’s agendas.

The same picture was painted of Saddam Hussein in the buildup to the Iraq War. Saddam was undeniably evil. But he was not stupid. He wasn’t the guy portrayed to us by our government. He did everything possible to avoid the U.S.’s intent to overthrow him. Evil dictators are pretty smart when it comes to self-preservation.

Same thing with President Assad in Syria. Again, not a nice guy, but not bath-salts-eat-the-face-off-a-guy-while-the-police-are-watching kind of crazy. Which is what he would have had to have been to use chemical weapons on his own people at the very moment when victory seemed most assured. I heard the desperate attempts to explain why Assad would do this in the Washington Post and The New York Times, and they boiled down to the idea that he did it out of sheer evil intent. Again, this works in comic books and propaganda, but in real life, not so much.

The idea that Putin paid bounties to Taliban fighters to kill U.S. soldiers has no precedent I’m aware of in history, though there are countless instances of such stories being used for propaganda purposes by our own and other governments that are intent on aggression against other nations. This alone strongly suggests which way we should lean in judging the veracity of the narrative. The fact that no evidence is provided to back such claims, and the fact that they are accepted so readily by so many, is ample evidence of the power propaganda techniques have always had.

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