Talk:Russian bounty program

WP:NOTNEWS, anyone?

This is an absurd Wiki article, and reads like a WaPo or NYT blog—it's entirely comprised of alleged leaked information from perhaps no more than two people described as "US officials". The article should be deleted until there's actual evidence of this supposed "program"—or even the supposed "intelligence reports" about it. A few points:

• The existence of "intelligence reports" that purportedly confirm the existence of the alleged "program" have not been corroborated by a single named source.
• No actual documents' have been published that purport to confirm such a "program" existed—or even that US agencies believed it did.
• Every single official who has gone on the record and would presumably know about this has either contradicted or outright denied the vast bulk of supposed "information" about the "program" in this article. For example: Bolton just gave an interview in which the first thing he did was to question the accuracy of the reportage and whether such a "program" exists, then repeatedly refused to confirm he briefed Trump. But the news reports cited in this article continue to claim that Bolton briefed Trump—based on an interview with an "unnamed official".

An encyclopedia article shouldn't be based entirely on half-baked "breaking stories". The article should be deleted—we haven't the slightest idea now of whether these reports are worthy of inclusion—but if it's going to remain, the title should reflect what the cited news reports are actually about. I propose: "Unnamed sources' claims of intelligence reports about alleged Russian bounty program". Elle Kpyros (talk) 20:16, 30 June 2020 (UTC)

We rely on reliable sources, not confirmation from named sources, especially when they have no interest in confirming a damaging story. WP:NOTNEWS does not mean "don't create an article based on news reports", it says to be mindful of the WP:LASTING impact. There is plenty of evidence that supports this story (here's a source that isn't in the article yet), and it's highly relevant. If you want to see this deleted, I welcome you to take it to AfD, where I can assure you it will be kept. If you want to rename the article, you can propose that too, but that proposal will never fly. – Muboshgu (talk) 22:54, 30 June 2020 (UTC)

Challenging certain text as undue weight

I have removed two parts of the article as undue weight.

1. Text cited to the website of a media criticism group called Fairness & Accuracy in Reporting (FAIR), by an author named Alan MacLeod. I don't see any reason why this FAIR opinion article merits inclusion in this encyclopedia article. MacLeod and this group have no apparent expertise in Russia-U.S. relations, the Afghan War, Central Asian affairs, intelligence analysis, or anything relevant. MacLeod also apparently writes for two fringe websites that have been formally deprecated as unreliable, including The Grayzone and MintPressNews.
2. A sidebar contain a Trump tweet. This pull quote/sidebar is the only one in the article, and it gives undue and redundant prominence to Trump's own claims (which are already repeated in text).

--Neutrality^talk 22:08, 5 July 2020 (UTC)

Alan MacLead is a member of the Glasgow University Media Group. He obtained a Ph. D in sociology from the University of Glasgow in 2017 with the thesis Bad news from Venezuela. His first book was Bad News from Venezuela:Twenty years of fake news and misreporting. He also wrote the book Propaganda in the Information Age which updates the propaganda model. Both books were published by the academic publisher Routledge. He specialises in media theory and analysis.

I hope editors will see how media analysis is relevant to the stories that have been circulating about an alleged Russian bounty program.

Fairness and Accuracy in Reporting (FAIR) is a media analysis group whose “statements should be attributed and generally treated as opinions”. The text being discussed was attributed both to FAIR and to Alan MacLeod.

Burrobert (talk) 23:28, 5 July 2020 (UTC)

So, (1) a primary source with no indication of any external coverage; (2) no direct subject-matter expertise; and (3) an obscure commentator that is also borderline WP:FRINGE at the very least. Lots of people have opinions. Very few need to be memorialized in an encyclopedia article. Neutrality^talk 03:08, 6 July 2020 (UTC)

• Primary sources “are original materials that are close to an event, and are often accounts written by people who are directly involved. They offer an insider's view of an event, a period of history, a work of art, a political decision, and so on”. I don’t see the connection.
• “no direct subject-matter expertise”: only if you ignore his subject matter expertise.
• “an obscure commentator that is also borderline WP:FRINGE at the very least”: this is the “sticks and stones” argument. We aren’t in the schoolyard.
• “Lots of people have opinions. Very few need to be memorialised in an encyclopaedia article”. Let’s give a more professional name then if that helps - what about “assessment”?

Burrobert (talk) 06:53, 6 July 2020 (UTC)

still uncorroborated

According to the NBC article published in September 2020,

“ the commander of troops in the region says a detailed review of all available intelligence has not been able to corroborate the existence of such a program.

"It just has not been proved to a level of certainty that satisfies me," Gen. Frank McKenzie, commander of the U.S. Central Command, told NBC News. McKenzie oversees U.S. troops in Afghanistan. The U.S. continues to hunt for new information on the matter, he said.

"We continue to look for that evidence," the general said. "I just haven't seen it yet. But … it's not a closed issue."

”

Unless this investigation has produced new findings since then, I think this should be mentioned more prominently in the article compared to information published in June. If no new evidence appears, I believe that the article should be renamed to something like Alleged Russian bounty program, just as we have Alleged Saudi role in September 11 attacks, which is quite similar:

“ 'The panel's findings 'did not discover' any role by 'senior, high-level' Saudi government officials, said officials familiar with the report,[citation needed] but the "commission’s narrow wording", according to critics, suggests the possibility that "less senior officials or parts of the Saudi government could have played a role" ”

Alaexis_¿question? 10:20, 1 November 2020 (UTC)

Please do not continue the discussion here as I opened a request for move below. Alaexis_¿question? 15:54, 4 November 2020 (UTC)

Requested move 4 November 2020

The following is a closed discussion of a requested move. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on the talk page. Editors desiring to contest the closing decision should consider a move review after discussing it on the closer's talk page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

The result of the move request was: not moved. (non-admin closure)  Bait30  ^{Talk 2 me pls?} 23:16, 12 November 2020 (UTC)

---

Russian bounty program → Alleged Russian bounty program – According to an NBC article published in September 2020,

“ the commander of troops in the region says a detailed review of all available intelligence has not been able to corroborate the existence of such a program.

"It just has not been proved to a level of certainty that satisfies me," Gen. Frank McKenzie, commander of the U.S. Central Command, told NBC News. McKenzie oversees U.S. troops in Afghanistan. The U.S. continues to hunt for new information on the matter, he said.

"We continue to look for that evidence," the general said. "I just haven't seen it yet. But … it's not a closed issue."

”

I haven't found any reports about the results of this investigation published since then. In fact there are very few articles mentioning it recently as it has gradually faded from the news, only being briefly revived when it was discussed during the presidential debates.

This is a descriptive name and the naming NPOV policy says that some article titles are descriptive, rather than being a name ... descriptive titles should be worded neutrally. I believe that in the absence of conclusive proof the wording should be made more neutral.

The most similar case I could find was Alleged Saudi role in September 11 attacks. Here also no involvement has been confirmed by courts or by government sources, but some people believe that it happened. I think that similarly to this article, the word alleged would make the title more neutral.

If you don't agree with the renaming, I would be grateful if you could provide sources - ideally newer than the NBC article I linked. Also, please indicate if you would support renaming in 1, 2 or 5 years from now if no new findings are published. Alaexis_¿question? 15:48, 4 November 2020 (UTC)

• Oppose. Not necessary. The article itself can describe the level of ambiguity or certainty. (And, FYI, the CIA assessment is that the program did exist.) Neutrality^talk 17:37, 4 November 2020 (UTC)

Well, this is from July, so that refers to the original CIA report ("C.I.A. analysts placed medium confidence in that assessment") rather than to the results of the subsequent investigation. Alaexis_¿question? 17:56, 4 November 2020 (UTC)

There has been no reported subsequent CIA assessment that I have seen. Neutrality^talk 18:39, 4 November 2020 (UTC)

• Oppose per WP:CONCISE the extent to which it takes place is discussed in greater detail in article. blindlynx (talk) 18:22, 9 November 2020 (UTC)
• Oppose. The proposed title is actually more POV. It suggests that the allegations are false. The current title makes no such claim either way, any more than the title of our article on Superman suggests that he is a real person. Andrewa (talk) 21:41, 11 November 2020 (UTC)

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The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

Alleged Iranian and Chinese bounties

Maybe a better solution would be to change the scope of the article, considering that there are no separate articles about the alleged Iranian and Chinese payments. In case of China I think that the sources seem to indicate that the allegations are less credible, however in case of Iran they seem to have the same level of certainty as the Russian ones (U.S. intelligence reports with no official corroboration). Alaexis_¿question? 21:23, 16 March 2021 (UTC)

I think the separate subsection at the end of the article covers this material adequately. Neutrality^talk 16:37, 18 March 2021 (UTC)

Having a subsection seems a bit awkward - if this article is about the *Russian* bounty program then we only need to briefly reference other such allegations to give some context to the reader rather than dedicating a subsection for them. However, considering that there are no separate articles about the Iranian and Chinese payments, it would make more sense to change the article scope and describe all of them here. Obviously the more credible ones would be given more prominence per WP:UNDUE. Alaexis_¿question? 21:08, 19 March 2021 (UTC)

Bounty coatrack

This article is about the alleged Russian bounty program, the central thrust of which was that Russian intelligence units secretly offered bounties to Afghani militants for killing coalition forces. I removed from the lead a separate intelligence assessment, that Russian military intelligence worked with Afghan criminal networks which "is consistent with Russia's encouraging attacks against U.S. and coalition personnel in Afghanistan. Neutrality restored that information and expanded it a little bit. That is a classic WP:COATRACK, that if notable enough deserves it's own article. This article is about the bounties, the existence of which was never tied to any specific evidence and was recently walked back in recent days by the CIA. This article doesn't need to focus on Russian activities in Afghan criminal networks, and I see no relevance to the bounty topic. Mr Ernie (talk) 18:54, 16 April 2021 (UTC)

Yes. Neutrality added off-topic stuff. Peter Gulutzan (talk) 19:08, 16 April 2021 (UTC)

Alternatively, it may be an option to change the title of the article to something along the lines of "Russian activities in Afghanistan" or "Russian involvement with Afghani Militants." Mr Ernie (talk) 19:10, 16 April 2021 (UTC)

That's a great topic for an article. However, irrespective of the actual Russian activities in Afghanistan, the story of the bounties has become significant on its own, and it's more about the media and election campaigns in the US. Alaexis_¿question? 13:42, 18 April 2021 (UTC)

We reflect what the sources say. The same high-quality RS that discuss the bounty reports at the same time discuss Russian connections with Afghan criminals and encouraging attacks. In other words, they are related information. It should be made clear to the reader what the sources reflect: that U.S. intelligence's assessment as to the former is low-to-moderate confidence, but that as to the latter is high confidence. This is pretty basic stuff. Neutrality^talk 03:08, 19 April 2021 (UTC)

The sources say a lot of other things when discussing this. It doesn't mean that everything should be in the lede, as long as the topic of the article is what it is. These connections are mentioned in the body of the article. Alaexis_¿question? 05:22, 19 April 2021 (UTC)

As the newt has mentioned we should reflect what the sources say. These points from our sources deserve to be mentioned:

• There were reasons to doubt the story from the start. Not only did the initial stories emphasize its basis on detainee reporting, but the bounties represented a qualitative shift in recent Russian engagements with Afghan insurgents.
• There seemed to be no "causative link" to any actual U.S. deaths, in the judgment of Gen. Frank McKenzie, the senior U.S. general for the Middle East and South Asia.
• One retired diplomat suspected “someone leaked this to slow down the troop withdrawal.”
• Rarely discussed was the main reason to believe the story: the CIA actually did fund Afghan guerillas to kill Russian forces during the Soviet occupation of Afghanistan of the 1980s.

Burrobert (talk) 06:06, 19 April 2021 (UTC)

This isn't "pretty basic stuff." The entire thrust of the alleged bounty program has changed with the new intelligence assessment, and you're trying to shift it [1] to something else. If you think this article should focus on Russian connections with Afghan criminals then the name of the article, "Russian bounty program," is no longer the most appropriate. Mr Ernie (talk) 14:26, 19 April 2021 (UTC)

I agree with Neutrality's assessment. soibangla (talk) 14:34, 19 April 2021 (UTC)

Source of the information

The phrase "information and evidence of connections to criminal agents in Afghanistan and elements of the Russian government" does not mean that the Russian government was a source of information about the program. It is saying that evidence from detainees indicated a connection between criminal agents and the Russian government. The NBC article is clearer about the source of the information. It says: "Officials familiar with the matter told NBC News that the CIA based its findings on two main avenues of intelligence: Financial records seized in a raid in Afghanistan and comments by a detainee. Military officials say they have looked hard but found no other evidence to corroborate that such a program existed". Note that it says "a detainee" not "detainees. The yahoo! article says "detainee reporting" without specifying whether the number was more than one. Burrobert (talk) 14:44, 19 April 2021 (UTC)

I think there are two slightly different things going on here: "source of the information" and "reasons/sources for the confidence assessment." The sentence in our article that you're referring to deals with the latter and not the former.

NBC: says both "the CIA based its findings on two main avenues of intelligence: Financial records seized in a raid in Afghanistan and comments by a detainee." and "the reason the confidence level was 'low to moderate,' is because some of the information came from Afghan detainees, and also due to the challenging operating environment in Afghanistan."

Yahoo: "According to the officials on Thursday's call, the reporting about the alleged 'bounties' came from 'detainee reporting'–raising the specter that someone told their U.S.-aligned Afghan jailers what they thought was necessary to get out of a cage. Specifically, the official cited 'information and evidence of connections to criminal agents in Afghanistan and elements of the Russian government' as sources for the intelligence community's assessment."

There is, separately, the AP reporting from 2020 (cited elsewhere in the article) that says that interrogations of multiple people were involved: "The intelligence in 2019 and 2020 surrounding Russian bounties was derived in part from debriefings of captured Taliban militants. Officials with knowledge of the matter told the AP that Taliban operatives from opposite ends of the country and from separate tribes offered similar accounts."

So I think it's accurate to say that:

Officials said that the "low to moderate confidence" was attributable to the sources of the bounty information (Afghan detainees, financial records captured during a raid, and "information and evidence of connections to criminal agents in Afghanistan and elements of the Russian government"), which cannot be taken at face value, as well as an operating environment in Afghanistan that makes intelligence-gathering (to corroborate hypotheses) difficult.

But maybe we should re-word. There is another recent article that concludes that "A close reading of the Biden administration officials' statements would appear to indicate that the low-confidence intel came from detainees, while the moderate confidence intel likely relates to 'information and evidence of connections between criminal agents in Afghanistan and elements of the Russian government.'" I would be fine with making this distinction, if others think it should be made. Neutrality^talk 14:57, 19 April 2021 (UTC)

The sentence says "Officials said that the "low to moderate confidence" was attributable to the sources of the bounty information (Afghan detainees, financial records captured during a raid, and "information and evidence of connections to criminal agents in Afghanistan and elements of the Russian government"), which cannot be taken at face value". Readers will assume that the items in brackets after the phrase "sources of the bounty information" are the "sources of the bounty information". If this is not the intention then the sentence needs to be rewritten. Only two of the three items in the brackets are "sources of the bounty information". The third item is the content of the information, not a source. If the third item is included in the text, it needs to be repositioned in an appropriate place. Burrobert (talk) 16:18, 19 April 2021 (UTC)

What rewording would you propose? Neutrality^talk 16:41, 19 April 2021 (UTC)

Perhaps simplify the sentence to "Officials said they had "low to moderate confidence" in the bounty information because the sources of the information could not be taken at face value and the operating environment in Afghanistan made corroboration of the information difficult". Presumably we would have already described the sources being referred to so the reader would know what they are. Other points about the article are:

• The sources of information are clear from the NBC article but there is a problem with consistency of the story possibly caused by the information changing over time. At one point we say "The reports were based on interrogations of captured militants (including interrogations by the U.S. military), interrogations of captured criminals; and surveillance data ... Intercepted electronic data showed large bank transfers to a Taliban-linked account from an account controlled by the GRU". This does not entirely agree with what the NBC and Yahoo! stories say.
• Another inconsistency relates to the number of US personnel killed by the program. We say "Investigators focused on two attacks on U.S. troops, one of which was a bombing outside Bagram Airfield in April 2019 that killed Marines Robert A. Hendriks, Benjamin S. Hines, and Christopher Slutman. Officials did not describe how military targets were selected or the exact manner by which militants were paid". However the Yahoo! article says "[T]here seemed to be no “causative link” to any actual U.S. deaths".
• Why is this sentence dropped into the article with no explanation of its relevance to the topic of the article?: "Unit 29155 is a covert unit of the GRU tasked with foreign assassinations and other covert activities. The unit has been linked to the 2016 Montenegrin coup plot, the poisoning of Bulgarian arms manufacturer Emilian Gebrev, and the poisoning of Sergei and Yulia Skripal".

Burrobert (talk) 17:28, 19 April 2021 (UTC)

Background: When USA paid Mujahideen to kill Russians

If we are going back 20 years, why not go back to when USA was paying the Mujahideen to kill Russians? Keith McClary (talk) 15:46, 7 May 2021 (UTC)

More NYT stuff

They are now saying it was the same culprits what done Skripal and the Czech arms blowup! No actual evidence, of course.

https://www.nytimes.com/2021/05/07/us/politics/russian-bounties-nsc.html

Keith McClary (talk) 15:57, 7 May 2021 (UTC)