Ep. 5298 – Matthew Hoh on the Dubious Russia-Afghanistan Bounty Story – 6/29/2020

Scott interviews Matthew Hoh about the recent claim that the Russian government has been paying bounties to Taliban militants to kill U.S. soldiers. The headlines have made it sound as though this is a confirmed and well-sourced story, when in reality, Hoh explains, it’s all coming from anonymous American intelligence sources without so much as an attempt at independent verification of, say, specific soldiers that this is supposed to have happened to. Moreover, says Hoh, Russia has very little to gain from such a policy, and a lot to lose. The people who would benefit from increased tensions with Russia are the war hawks in the U.S. government and the big players in the arms industry. Just like with the hundreds of other lies told by the U.S. government and sold by the media to benefit powerful military-industrial complex interests, we should be highly skeptical.

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