Michael Weiss Profile picture
Sep 16, 2020 17 tweets 5 min read Read on X
[Thread.] Few comments about this NBC story, which is yielding the usual feast of reason and flow of the soul on social media. nbcnews.com/politics/natio…
The piece is centered on comments made by Gen. McKenzie, who, from what he says and how the story is framed, wants to see a straight line from GRU payments to attacks on U.S. forces in Afghanistan.
The term "bounty" was never used in the intelligence, as per @douglaslondon5 and others in the IC, although it became the media's term of art following the first NYT story.
But what was the intelligence? The NYT was a lot more specific than NBC. The money, $500K, came from GRU Unit 29155, which controlled bank accounts that transferred the funds to Taliban-linked accounts:
A lot of earlier speculation, that the intel was premised solely on what captured and interrogated Taliban fighters said, was wrong. The gravamen, which even convinced IC skeptics that the GRU was incentivizing attacks on Americans, was intercepted financial data, as per NYT:
Now why did these intercepts raise alarm bells at CIA? Because of what Unit 29155 is within the GRU. They're an assassination and sabotage squad responsible for the Skripal and Gebrev poisonings, a failed coup in Montenegro and other violent acts of destabilization in Europe:
(It would be one thing, for instance, if a Russian service was simply recruiting Taliban commanders for espionage: to garner intel on NATO movements in Afghanistan or ISIS activity or the opium export industry, etc. But Unit 29155 doesn't do that.)
Now what, based on the reporting, is in dispute among U.S. intelligence officers and the Pentagon? That Russia is paying the Taliban and has been for years? Nope.
That the GRU has been paying the Taliban? I've seen no "debunking" of the original NYT scoop suggesting that is in doubt among skeptics. That Unit 29155 is the culprit? Ditto. But there are hints and clues. E.g.:
One way to stand up the "bounty" assessment is to draw a straight line between prior attacks (particularly lethal ones) on U.S. forces in Afghanistan and the money tracked going from Unit 29155's account to the Taliban. This would constitute evidence that the program not only...
... exists but has been successful. McKenzie, it convincingly appears to be the case, is trying to do just that. Here again is his quote from the NBC story, followed immediately by another "U.S. military official familiar with the intelligence" who says:
McKenzie's "final connection" would be American corpses -- or at least documented Taliban attacks -- with Unit 29155's paw prints on them.
But herein lies the problem, which gets at the broader ambiguities in intelligence gathering and intelligence assessing. Operational intent is different from operational success or even operational action.
It may well be the case that, owing to the newness of this alleged "bounty" program (the NYT dated it as beginning in early 2020, though other outlets dated it even earlier), none of the Taliban fighters who received the money ever went out and tried to kill any U.S. soldiers.
Maybe they were rounded up or got croaked before they could, maybe they got cold feet, maybe they took the money and fucked off.
So you've got generals, who want to know whether or not to retaliate for Russian aggression, looking for copper-bottom "actionable" proof, while spies are making interpolations based on context (Unit 29155's m.o.) and available evidence (intercepts, detainee testimonies).
And all of the above assumes you're dealing with professionals who are eager to suss out the truth and share a baseline consensus on evidence but disagree over conclusions. It doesn't address how intel can be embellished or obfuscated for political purposes.

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More from @michaeldweiss

Jun 3
Darren Beattie, the MAGA appointee who dismantled the State Department’s counter-disinformation program, “is married to a woman whose uncle has taken several roles in Russian politics and once received a personal ‘thank you’ message from Vladimir Putin.” archive.ph/Q818ZImage
You really cannot make this up: “The funny thing is just about every Western institution would improve in quality if it were directly infiltrated and controlled by Putin,” [Beattie] wrote in September 2021.
“Beattie has deleted disparaging tweets about Marco Rubio, the US secretary of state, having previously claimed his now-boss attended ‘gay foam parties.’” Cc: @SecRubio
Read 6 tweets
May 9
Nice story in @DelfiEE on how Russia paid young "protestors" 1,000 rubles (10 euros) each to stand outside eleven embassies of EU nations in Moscow before the May 9th parade: delfi.ee/artikkel/12037…Image
Payments were likely made with mobile app transfer on-site after the event. A list of those who responded to calls in chat groups was compiled so that the police would know whom not to detain. Screenshots not in the article below but shown to me demonstrate this fee-for-service arrangement:Image
Image
Image
Despite many central streets in Moscow being closed due to preparations for May 9th, participants were able to move freely from one embassy to another. How do you like that?
Read 6 tweets
Apr 21
I've been emphasizing lately the unintended consequences of Trump's headlong embrace of Russia -- consequences not wholly undesirable for Russia. While it's wonderful for Moscow to see an American president so eager to realign with Russia's strategic interests, and so keen to denigrate and alienate American allies in that re-alignment, smarter figures in the Kremlin realize the hazards of such an embarrassment of riches. A helpful constant in this administration's rush to give Putin everything all at once is that the worst capitulationist ideas are being stress-tested in the media and in the GOP almost as soon as they're invented -- and often *before* the Trump administration has agreed on whether or not they're feasible. One of ideas these is that the U.S. will recognize Crimea as Russian territory.Image
As you might expect, this was Steve Witkoff's proposal, which is to say it was Vladimir Putin's. Dim Philby isn't so much an envoy as an unblinking relay of Putin's maximalist demands, all of which he presents to Trump as eminently reasonable, if not accomplished facts. (Recall Witkoff's lie that Russia was in full control of the Ukrainian regions it "annexed," regions Witkoff doesn't know the names of, when it is in full control of none of them.) The "Krym Nash" brain fart, I'm told, happened without any inter-agency coordination or buy-in from the principals, least of all Marco Rubio, who is at odds with Witkoff on this and on much else, regardless of the flattering tweets he is obliged to post about his scandalous colleague. Now notice this little nuance in the WSJ story cited above:Image
"Senior State Department official," indeed. You can almost hear the whirr of the backpedal in that paragraph. Giving up Crimea in a de facto or de jure capacity is a non-starter for Ukraine, as any junior State Department official can tell you. Zelensky could never sell it domestically even if he wanted to (and he doesn't) because the the political blowback would be severe and almost certainly unite opposition to both the policy and his presidency in a way that would make the resistance he experienced over the Steinmeier Formula look coy. (This might even result in a far more nationalistic and hawkish political figure to emerge as frontrunner for the Ukrainian presidency; exactly the opposite of what the Putin-Vance-Carlson triumvirate has been angling for.)
Read 7 tweets
Apr 18
America's "washing its hands" of Ukraine-Russia talks can mean several things. First and foremost, it would mean ending this Witkoff/Rubio fandango to attain (or impose) a Russia-favorable peace deal of some kind, which reportedly would include de facto ceding occupied territory to Moscow. But what else does an American walk-away entail? Some unresolved questions below:Image
1. It is a near certainty that no additional military aid packages will come from this administration once the Biden-era ones run out. But does that mean Trump will refuse to sell weapons and ammunition directly or indirectly to Ukraine? Does it mean he will actively slap end user restrictions on European countries from buying American kit for the express purpose of donating it to Ukraine? (Even Rubio alluded to Ukraine's right to bilateral agreements with other countries.)

Right now, Germany continues to supply Kyiv with Patriot missiles. Long-range air defense is one of three critical areas in security assistance where Europe cannot yet compensate for the absence of American platforms, the other two being rocket artillery and howitzer ammunition. So new European aid packages featuring U.S.-made hardware seriously matter. Does Trump's pivot to Moscow include his limiting U.S. arms exports to Europe, something that would grievously harm the American arms industry beyond the harm Trump already inflicted on it with his attacks on transatlanticism, NATO, etc.? Between 2020 and 2024, Europe overtook the Middle East as the largest region for U.S. arms exports for the first time in two decades. Now, this government is clearly not above economic own goals, but it'll nonetheless be interesting to see how it sells a new dawn with Russia -- one without a concomitant peace -- as the price worth paying for crippling the American military-industrial complex.Image
2. Does Trump lift some or most sanctions on Russia in the absence of a peace deal? He might in pursuit of rapprochement, but even here he'll find it difficult to give Putin everything he wants with the stroke of a pen. Some of the toughest sanctions, including those on Gazprom Neft and Surgutneftegas, are tied to Congressional notification/approval, thanks to Biden. Trump would also face some headwinds from Republicans on the Hill, who would not be happy with sanctions relief in exchange for nothing.

Moreover, Europe gets a vote.

SWIFT, which Moscow wanted its agricultural bank reconnected to as a precondition for a ceasefire, is based in Brussels. EU sanctions legislation is by consent. So far, there has been *no* indication the EU is considering lifting sanctions on Russia, whatever D.C. says, does or agrees to. The opposite, in fact, is the case: the EU has been discussing ways to increase sanctions on Russia in coordination with the UK: archive.ph/qsVfcImage
Read 6 tweets
Mar 26
There is zero fucking chance this was "unclassified." theatlantic.com/politics/archi…Image
"This is when the first bombs will definitely drop." Image
LOL. Image
Read 6 tweets
Mar 21
Excellent analysis by Kiel Institute. Some conclusions track with what @JimmySecUK wrote for @newlinesmag here: newlinesmag.com/argument/can-e…Image
“To replace US aid flows and keep total support at the same level: Europe needs to double its yearly support to an average level of 0.21% of GDP. This is less than half of what Denmark and the Baltics are already doing and on a level of what Poland and the Netherlands do.”
“Currently, European governments contribute about €44 billion annually to Ukraine’s defense, or roughly 0.1% of their
combined GDP, a relatively modest fiscal commitment. To replace total US aid, Europe would need to increase its annual support to approximately €82 billion per year, or 0.21% of GDP —essentially
doubling its current financial effort.
the United States allocated just 0.15% of their GDP per year to Ukraine, European states the 0.13%, and the EU institutions just below the 0.1%.”
Read 7 tweets

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