Author: Aaron Maté

From The Grayzone:

Pushback with Aaron Maté

After weeks of US claims that a Russian invasion of Ukraine was imminent, Vladimir Putin instead recognized the breakaway republics of Luhansk and Donetsk. The decision has triggered a new round of US-led sanctions while bringing attention to rebel-held areas, where, according to UN figures on the Donbas war, 80% of civilian casualties have occurred since 2018.

Professor Richard Sakwa analyzes the factors behind Putin’s move, and its likely consequences. Putin’s decision, he says, comes after Kiev refused to implement the 2015 Minsk accords, which could have ended the conflict, and a longstanding US-driven project to expand NATO to Russia’s borders.

Guest: Richard Sakwa. Professor of Russian and European politics at the University of Kent. His books include Frontline Ukraine: Crisis in the Borderlands and his latest, Deception: Russiagate and the New Cold War.

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From The Grayzone:

Pushback with Aaron Maté

The US is pouring more weapons into Ukraine amid bellicose threats against Russia and the US-backed Saudi war on Yemen continues to massacre civilians. But not everyone sees a downside: “I fully expect we’re going to see some benefit from it,” Raytheon CEO Greg Hayes said this week of these and other flashpoints.

Andrew Cockburn, Washington editor of Harper’s Magazine and author of “The Spoils of War: Power, Profit and the American War Machine,” discusses the US arms industry’s role in promoting and profiting from today’s global conflicts, from Ukraine to Yemen to Syria.

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From The Grayzone:

Pushback with Aaron Maté

The US and UK are ramping up threats to Russia over Ukraine by sending more weapons, vowing more sanctions, and lodging evidence-free claims of a Russian plot to install a pro-Kremlin leader. But comments by Germany’s navy chief that Russia “deserves respect” – leading to his resignation – underscore that not everyone is on board with Washington and London’s war fever. Scholar and author Richard Sakwa discusses the latest in the Ukraine crisis.

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From The Grayzone:

Pushback with Aaron Maté

Douglas Macgregor, a retired US Army Colonel and former Pentagon senior advisor, analyzes the US-Russia standoff in Ukraine; the aftermath of the US withdrawal from Afghanistan; Trump’s failure to act on 2016 campaign anti-interventionist rhetoric, only to surround himself with neocons; and the ongoing, overlooked US military occupation of Syria after the decade-long CIA dirty war.

“The Military Industrial Congressional Complex,” Macgregor says, “seems to be more powerful than anyone who occupies the office of the presidency.”

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From The Grayzone:

Pushback with Aaron Maté

New reports explore how the OPCW suppressed findings that undermined US-led allegations of a chemical weapons attack in Douma, Syria in April 2018. Dr. Piers Robinson and Aaron Maté discuss the latest revelations on how the OPCW censored science.

Senior OPCW officials doctored the original report; erased the conclusions of expert toxicologists who ruled out chlorine gas as the cause of death; and thwarted the key investigate area of forensic pathology, which could have helped determine how the dozens of civilian victims in Douma lost their lives. Instead of explaining the extensive suppression, OPCW Director General Fernando Arias has avoided questions; offered false excuses; and smeared the veteran scientists who challenged the cover-up from within.

Dr. Piers Robinson is Co-Director of the Organisation for Propaganda Studies, and convenor of the Working Group on Syria, Propaganda and Media. He is Working with the Berlin Group 21, led by veteran diplomats Hans von Sponeck and Jose Bustani to seek accountability for the OPCW cover-up.

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From The Grayzone:

Pushback with Aaron Maté

At the Vienna talks on restoring the Iran nuclear deal, the US and EU are accusing Iran of refusing to compromise. Mohammad Marandi, a University of Tehran professor advising the Iran delegation in Vienna, says that the compromise was the nuclear deal itself, and the problem is the US refusal to abide by its own commitments and lift the sanctions that target Iranian civilians.

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