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March 29, 2024

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Despite what has been leading in the news, the Wuhan China Virus, and the violent actions of radical extremists, Antifa and BLM, across America’s cities, you can once again hear the sounds of Russia, Russia, Russia. Thanks to the trustworthy and strident journalists and reporters at the New York Times, we are NOW reading about the latest flurry of fake news about how Russian intelligence officers paid the Taliban in Afghanistan to kill American forces. All in yet another attempt to preempt the Trump Justice Department’s findings into the true origins of Russiagate. Why? All to target President Trump once again in yet another attempt to throw him off balance going into the November Election.
Last Friday, we saw the latest effort of the New York Times (NYT) offering a featured story based on, but of course “anonymous intelligence officials” requesting inconspicuousness that the Russians were paying bounties to have U.S. troops killed in Afghanistan claiming that President Trump refused to do anything about it. As of now, the relentless whirlwind of the mainstream media reporting that has ensued providing further proof, if such were needed, that the erstwhile “paper of record” has succumbed to be the leader of fake news.
Unfortunately, over the weekend, the NYT dubious and unconfirmed allegations, as always, i.e., “made-up” topped headlines across all media that will likely remain indelible in the minds of credulous Americans. Continuing on their false narrative, the NYT added specific charges to the general indictment of President Trump by falsely making the claim that “… the Trump administration has continued to treat Russia favorably.”
Far worse was the desperation used by the NYT to try to make the story plausible by not only lying about the claim based on so-called anonymous sources who refused to be identified regarding the report⏤but it’s a big lie that Russia was paying for the Taliban to kill U.S. Troops. Likewise, the total lie that, those overtures took place claiming by using the comment; “…when the administration knew that Russia had actively targeted American soldiers…” And going further with the false claim that, “… this bad news apparently prompted worried intelligence officials to give up their hope that the administration would respond to the crisis, and instead to leak the story to two major newspapers.”
The President’s statement is that he was not briefed on the cockamamie tale about bounties for killing, and that it was total bullshit from the NYT. The President tweeted: “Intel just reported to me that they did not find this info credible, and therefore did not report it to me or the VP. …”  As a result, for those of us that are distrustful of the NYT — with good reason — on such questionable and ridiculous issues⏤the bounty story had already fallen like a ton of bricks of its own weight. 
The biggest clue concerning the vulnerability of the NYT story is contained in the one sentence it provided about sourcing — “The intelligence assessment is said to be based at least in part on interrogations of captured Afghan militants and criminals.” I can tell you, as a career intelligence officer that that sentence contains almost everything one needs to know about the intelligence in question, including the fact that the source of the information is most likely the Afghan government as reported through U.S. intelligence channels, more specifically, the CIA. Further, as I will note next about the issue of credibility⏤regardless of how qualified the source actually is, there will always be misinformation, disinformation, or just plain complete and utter lies by the media when it comes to spinning stories.
It’s important to understand how Human Intelligence (HUMINT) collection works. Interrogators record and must deal with the information their sources and informants provide. The credibility of the sources can only be based on what the sources say, claims is truthful, based on what the sources know, what the sources perceives is correct or is putting out as a form of deception, or a deliberate lie. The source’s intentions and motivation to provide credible information is not finite, nor is the interrogators ability to getting the desired answers needed to validate intelligence information. Hence, HUMINT like all intelligence is not necessarily exact, precise, or truthful⏤it is raw, unanalyzed. In some cases, it is actionable depending on immediate life and death situations, but maybe a damned if you do or damned if you don’t gamble. It is important to realize in the intelligence world, sources over time are categorized by both interrogators and intelligence analysts based on their credibility to provide accurate intelligence information. As a result, raw intelligence, like all information is not necessarily accurate, precise, or even truthful⏤therefore, it must be assessed and validated. There are numerous and extensive underlying factors. Many times, HUMINT, like all intelligence information (Communications, Electronic, Imagery, Photograph, Open Source) is compared to and combined with other intelligence sources and methods to determine, validate, and measure credibility and reliability.
Similarly, at the same time, Moscow referred to NYT story as nonsense … an unsophisticated plant,” and from Russia’s perspective the allegations make little sense; Moscow will see them for what they are⏤attempts to show that Trump is too “accommodating” to Russia. In reviewing other reporting on the NYT story, even a Taliban spokesman called the story “baseless,” adding with apparent pride that “we” have done “target killings” (of Americans) for years “on our own resources.” Realize, that is but just one part of the legitimacy statements put forth by the Taliban. We may never know the full story or who even has it. I can assure you, our intelligence professionals have reviewed every aspect of this from the region, from Afghanistan to Russia and throughout multiple intelligence disciplines to determine both the reliability and credibility, as well as to placement of the “specific report” referenced by the NYT.
With that, it must also be understood that Russia is no friend of the Taliban.  At the same time, it has been clear for a number of years that the U.S. would have to eventually pull our forces out of Afghanistan, certainly under President Trump. As I previously noted, as was the case with the Viet Cong, the Taliban needs no bounty inducements or enticements from abroad to fight and kill Americans in Afghanistan, certainly not by way of a “bounty” from Russia. After all, in all seriousness, what point would they see in doing what the NYT and others in the left-wing mainstream media are breathlessly accusing them of doing?
Remember, and most forget this the mainstream media is left with one peg to hang their hat on…that being the misnomered “Intelligence Community” Assessment of January 6, 2017, which claimed that President Putin himself ordered the hacking of the Democrat National Committee computer network. That “assessment” done by “hand-picked analysts” (loyal to Brennan and Clapper) were actually only from CIA, FBI and NSA (not all 17 intelligence agencies of the “intelligence community”) as was put forth by the Democrats and the mainstream media. Also note that claim is being given extremely close scrutiny by U. S. Attorney John Durham, appointed by the Attorney General Barr to investigate Russia Collusion origins.

If John Durham finds it to be fraudulent⏤which he will, and if he has not already, the former heads of senior intelligence and law enforcement officials under the Obama administration will roll. That would also mean a still deeper dent in the credibility of Establishment mainstream media that are only too eager to drink the Kool-Aid and to leave plenty to drink for the rest of us.

That said, it is obvious not to expect the media to cease and desist, simply because President Trump had a good squelch for them last night — namely, the “intelligence” on the “bounties” was not deemed good enough to present to the president. As a former White House National Security Council staffer and White House Situation Room briefer, I can assure you factually that certainly based on what has been revealed so far by the NYT and the rest of Establishment mainstream media, this Russian bounty story falls exceedingly short of the threshold of intelligence that gets to the President.
Of course, I can also assure you that the mainstream media and the political-left will continue to play up the Trump Administration rejection of what the media is calling the “intelligence assessment” about Russia offering — as was noted on MSNBC on Friday, referring to it as, “bounty for the scalps of American soldiers in Afghanistan.”
The media spin has already begun: “Why does Trump continue to disrespect the assessments of the intelligence community?” There he goes again, not believing our “intelligence community; siding, rather, with Putin.”
We should not expect any let-up from the mainstream media and the embedded national security miscreant leakers who have served as their life’s blood, and as Face the Nation’s Chuck Todd, asked guest John Bolton: “Do you think that the president is afraid to make Putin mad because maybe Putin did help him win the election, and he doesn’t want to make him mad for 2020?” Not surprised?
There was also this, “This is as bad as it gets,” said House Speaker Nancy Pelosi on Sunday, adding her coined phrase memorized several months ago: “All roads lead to Putin.”  The unconscionably deceitful performance of Establishment media is as bad as it gets, though that, of course, was not what Pelosi meant. She apparently lifted a line right out of the Times about how Trump is too “accommodating” toward Russia.
One can read this most recent crap about “Russia, Russia, Russia” as a reflection of the need to pre-empt the findings likely to issue from Attorney Durham and Attorney General William Barr in the coming months — on the theory that the best defense is a pre-emptive offense. In the meantime, we can expect the Establishment mainstream media to continue to disgrace and publicly indict itself as corrupt, and a tool of the Democrat, Progressive, Socialist left.

It’s important to realize that all parties involved in spreading this malignant and maligned PSYOP (short for psychological operations) are absolutely vile, but a special disdain should be reserved for the mainstream media class who have been entrusted by the public with the essential task of creating an informed populace and holding power to account.

As an intelligence officer, I’ve always said this about the media and pundits who report on intelligence information; how much of an immoral, unethical, unscrupulous whore do you have to be to call yourself a journalist and uncritically lyingly parrot completely unsubstantiated assertions of those in the intelligence community, while protecting their anonymity? Where is your integrity and dignity? It boggles the mind.
It has consistently gotten worse over the last 30-years. It is really mind-boggling and actually absurd of how the most influential news organizations in the West, the NYT, CNN, WaPo, CBS, NBC, ABC, etc., world will uncritically and unconsciously repeat whatever they were told to say by the most powerful and depraved intelligence agencies on the planet, and then turn around and tell you without a hint of self-awareness that Russia and China are bad because they have state media. Seriously makes one wonder.
It is all a bogus and relentless lie corroborated by the Democrats and the mainstream media to keep the Russia Collusion, Russiagate, and Spygate story alive, all for the ultimate goal of taking down President Trump.

  • Col. Jim Waurishuk

    Jim Waurishuk is a retired USAF Colonel, serving nearly 30-years as a career senior intelligence and political-military affairs officer and special mission intelligence officer with expertise in strategic intelligence, international strategic studies and policy, and asymmetric warfare. He served as a special mission intelligence officer assigned to multiple Joint Special Operations units and with the CIA’s Asymmetric Warfare Task Force and international and foreign advisory positions. He served as Deputy Director for Intelligence for U.S. Central Command (USCENTCOM) during the peak years of the wars in Afghanistan, Iraq, and the Global War on Terrorism. Waurishuk is a former White House National Security Council staffer and a former Distinguished Senior Fellow with the Atlantic Council, Washington, D.C. He served as a senior advisor to the Commander U.S. Special Operations Command (USSOCOM) and served as Vice President of the Special Ops-OPSEC. Currently, he is the Chairman of the Hillsborough County (FL) Republican Executive Committee and Party and serves on the Executive Board of the Republican Party of Florida.

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