Trump Knew About Russian Bounty for US Soldiers and Did Nothing (Video)

One month ago, Donald Trump hoodwinked American soldiers again when he forced National Guardsmen and women to forfeit education and retirement benefits one day before the soldiers were to be eligible to receive them.

But what if Trump learned a foreign government was issuing bounties for dead America soldiers?

Would he finally defend the men and women in uniform he has repeatedly sold out, shortchanged, and lied to over these past three and half years?

Ask no more, because that scenario is real, and the answer is no.

As the New York Times first reported Friday, a Russian military intelligence unit offered Taliban-linked militants bounties for killing foreign soldiers in Afghanistan, including Americans.

As reported:

“The intelligence finding was briefed to Trump, and the White House’s National Security Council discussed the problem at an interagency meeting in late March.”

It goes on to explain:

“Twenty Americans were killed in combat in Afghanistan in 2019, but it was not clear which killings were under suspicion. An operation to incentivize the killing of American and other NATO troops would be a significant and provocative escalation of what American and Afghan officials have said is Russian support for the Taliban. It would be the first time the Russian spy unit was known to have orchestrated attacks on Western troops.”

Trump was then offered several possible retaliatory measures, from a diplomatic reprimand to new sanctions.

So what has Trump done?

He’s urging Russia be re-admitted to the cancelled G7 summit.

He also agreed to move 25,000 US solders from Germany to Poland.

This comes amid an initial peace deal between the United States and the Taliban calling for full withdrawal of US forces within a year.

Trump’s history of endangering the American military is just part of his failed legacy as this country’s 45th president.

In January, he  bragged about accepting $1 billion from Saudi Arabia and South Korea in exchange for American military protection.

This kicked off a flood of vitriol over a situation in which high-bidding countries could potentially use American soldiers as mercenaries regardless of those nations’ ideologies.

Some questioned Saudi Arabia‘s worthiness due to the Saudi link to the murder and dismemberment of Washington Post journalist Jamal Khashoggi in the Saudi consulate in Istanbul, Turkey in 2018.

Some pointed 15 of 19 of the September 11, 2001 hijackers were Saudis.

Others inquired about where the Saudi $1 billion even is.

David Fahrenthold Jonathan O’Connell reported in The Washington Post on December 5, 2018, lobbyists representing the Saudi Arabian government reserved 500 rooms at Trump’s D.C. hotel within a month of the 2016 presidential election, for which they paid more than $270,000.

But the rooms weren’t for them.

They were for six groups of U.S. military veterans sent to Washington to lobby against a law the Saudis opposed.

Some–perhaps all–of those veterans had no idea that was the case.

In January 2016, Trump reveled in the controversy he created over a feud with Fox News that motivated him to skip a planned Iowa debate and alternatively hold a charity for veterans.

That event raised $2.8 million dollars.

However, according to documents filed with a recent lawsuit ordering the president pay two million dollars to settle a claim he used his theoretically eleemosynary now-defunct Donald J. Trump Foundation as a savings account for personal and political interests, no veterans ever received a penny of it.

It went instead toward the Trump campaign.

If there was still any doubt Donald Trump resides permanently in Vladimir Putin’s pocket, this is further evidence.

Image credit: forum.woodenboat.com

Ted Millar is writer and teacher. His work has been featured in myriad literary journals, including Better Than Starbucks, The Broke Bohemian, Straight Forward Poetry, Caesura, Circle Show, Cactus Heart, Third Wednesday, and The Voices Project. He is also a contributor to The Left Place blog on Substack, and Medium.