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Episode 225 - Coup-ties: Aaron Maté & Branko Marcetic on the Fallout from The Joe Cirincione Interview (Patreon)

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2022-11-07 02:56:19
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Content

Grayzone journalist & Useful Idiots co-host Aaron Maté joins Jacobin staff writer & author of Yesterday's Man Branko Marcetic to discuss the fallout from last week's Joe Cirincione interview and answer tough questions about when and if the United States should intervene in a humanitarian crisis, whether what is happening in Ukraine constitutes genocide, whether Russia's possession of nuclear weapons means the American left is always for "appeasement," and whether the term "appeasement" is a useful one.

Subscribe to Bad Faith on YouTube to access our full video library. Find Bad Faith on Twitter (@badfaithpod) and Instagram (@badfaithpod).

Produced by Armand Aviram.

Theme by Nick Thorburn (@nickfromislands)

Comments

Anonymous

Great stuff, that Cicirione guy ended the convo very civil but what stood out was his reflexive disgust at the mention of gzone/Mate etc. Big red flags all around when someone dismisses journalists because they don't tow the state dept line.

Anonymous

So refreshing to hear actual sane perspectives on this

Anonymous
>>95120167

“Reflexive” Nah, they’ve had years to destroy their own reputations. And let’s be honest, Brie brought this guy on, again, and has almost zero skepticism about his claims. This is pure cope on her part.

Jonathan Kadmon

It was everything I thought it would be and then some! Anybody who doesn't listen to this is missing out. Even though I didn't get the title pun until you explained it. but now that I know I love it! Anyway Dynamite combination. Dealt well with literally every topic I could have thought of that was worth discussing and drilling down on in this context with two real scholars on the subject. I love both of their work.

Jonathan Kadmon

This is a fine example of a phenomenon that was mentioned in the episode which you would have known had you listened to it. Maybe try doing that.

Methew

Booooo

Anonymous

Utter nonsense. Aaron Mate is a war crimes and war lies exposer. And that's exactly what's made him a pariah among non-leftis journalists who push NATO propaganda on Russiagate, Ukraine, and Syria

Anonymous

And there's absolutely no proof of Russai kidnapping children and the only brutality has come from Ukraine's Azov Nazis. Stop drinking the NATO/CIA koolaid

Nicholas Kiersey

Rejoined just to listen to this. Aaron Mate is a breath of fresh air. Liberals have gone full McCarthyist. Hope Krystal Ball checks this out, too, as she’s had a pretty weak sauce stance on Ukraine since this war started, engaging in a lot of Putin personalization. Look, whatever Matt Duss might say, global geopolitical dynamics are never reducible to individual psychology.

Anonymous
>>95120167

Tom, you think Aaron has destroyed his own reputation? You think Brie's bringing Aaron back is "coping?" We're you actually talking about PRO War Joe?

Anonymous

You sound exactly like those pushing war with Iraq...BOTH of them. Remember babies being dumped from incubators? Lie. Remember WMDs? Lie. Btw, why all this passion for Ukraine, but why arent PRO Endless War advocates, like yourself, demanding help for the starving Afghan children? The starvation that the USA is responsible for. What about having a War to end Poverty in the USA? Will never happen since War Profiteers can't make bank of it. Btw, why are you in favor of arming Nazis? Do you believe there's such a thing as "tactical nukes?" Why do you care so much for people in a country most Americans have NO IDEA where it is? Have you heard of Flint? They STILL - after 8 YEARS - can't drink their water. Those children are right here in Michigan. But, Ukrainian WHITE babies are more important to you. Got it.

Lydia Maria Child

Liar. Prove it. Just more shallow attacks on people who question your stupid empire and its disastrous wars. Zero substance to your claims. You're literally siding with ISIS and whining that they and your CIA psychos couldn't topple Assad. Idiot. Like you actually care about human rights...

Anonymous

Tom, I used to think the same thing. I understand where you're coming from. Then I decided to listen to and read what he had to say, consider his evidence, and I completely changed my mind. He tells hard truths that we don't want to believe. I have immense respect for him now despite thinking he was some kind of "Assad shill" when I first encountered him.

Anonymous
>>95123669

Lmao. Don’t even go on about “scholars” on the subject. Mate literally admits to not researching the kidnapped children but then reflexively goes on to deny it. This dude will run defense for almost any depot as long as they’re oppositional to US foreign policy and goons like you will accuse anyone who doesn’t uncritically swallow their BS of being imperialists. Psycho stuff really.

Anonymous

Excellent and thoughtful conversation with rich historical context.

Jonathan Kadmon
>>95123669

@tom emilio His reaction was precisely my reaction. If you listen to it then surely you heard the part about the con Hill and Knowlton pulled with Naira and the Kuwaiti incubator babies. If I had a nickel for every one of those kinds of claims I've heard that turned out to be misleading or outright false I could retire. CIA whistleblowers like John Stockwell admitted to making up stories like that about Cubans in Angola in the '70s. At this point the default should be to disbelieve it until proven beyond a reasonable doubt. That boy has cried wolf too many times.

...

Here's where we are on the topic of Ukraine. The pro proxy war people see that they're in a weak position, rhetorically, in justifying this war (to US voters, to 'the Left,' to Tulsi supporters, etc). Their way of dealing with this is NOT to carefully consider, and respectfully respond to, opposing viewpoints. Instead, they've become even more hyperbolic and ham-fisted in their arguments than they were before. Perceiving their own position as weak, they become strident and shrill, doubling down as if their self-righteousness and passion is going to make up for the weakness of their intellectual positions. People who disagree are 'Putin's puppets,' Aaron Mate is a 'war crimes denier,' everyone who disagrees with them are 'appeasers.' These accusations themselves are presented as self-evident, beyond criticism, beyond questioning. (By the way, as Mate and Marcetic said in the interview, everything they say in their writings is evidenced through links and cites to other, very mainstream, sources. You might disagree with Mate, but it's simply not true to suggest he's just making things up.) But the funny thing is, no matter how outraged and indignant the pro proxy war folks get about someone questioning the war, they aren't able to see that their indignant huffing and puffing hurts rather than helps their position. You might be able to deal with a PR crisis in the short term by portraying Aaron Mate as some kind of monster, but in the long run, you're hurting your case for the war and showing us your ass.

...

Great episode. I might have to listen to the Callin ep at a later date, but I wanted to put this out there... I've read a few 'what's going on in voters' minds' type pieces about the midterms and the various strategists' ideas about why a 'Red Wave' may happen, including one in The New Yorker, and it's surprising to me that the corporate media seems to keep Ukraine out of the conversation. Is anyone else noticing this? I myself will no longer support the Democratic party due to its role in the proxy war, and I told my Dem congresswoman as much. Yet I don't see the war in Ukraine, the risk of US policy and the enormous amount of money involved, being mentioned as a factor in voters' decisions.

Sifl

Mate's attempted defense of Russia's actions in Ukraine is so amazingly contorted and altogether completely unnecessary to be anti-war. Being anti-war means being against all wars, not just US interventions. When you are anti-war, but have to justify your position on partisan grounds, you completely lose the point of being anit-war (i.e. war is wrong no matter who is doing it or the reasons for the fighting). Mate claims that US intervention in Ukraine is wrong not because war in and of itself is wrong, but because Ukraine is the bad guy, not Russia. This is completely unnecessary in order to be against war in Ukraine. But following the arguments Mate makes leads you to a very bizarre position on the war. During the Iraq invasion, the left correctly noted that it was a violation of international law for the US to invade a sovereign nation because only self defense justified such military action. And, as Chomsky correctly note, self defense was only justified when there were actually troops on the border amassing for a imminent attack. The left rightfully lambasted the W Bush notion of "preemptive war" as a form of self defense. But Mate excuses Russia's invasion of Crimea on the grounds that basically it polls well in Crimea. And the same argument is made about Donbass. Thus, under Mate's version of international law, you can freely invade a sovereign nation or intervene in their internal affairs if it polls well. Even worse, Mate claims that Russia has some sort of legitimate historical claims to parts of Ukraine and seemingly with no self awareness at all turns around and starts talking about Israel's annexation of Golan. And finally, the left needs to stop playing the McCarthy card. We get shouted down all the time because we go against those who are in power. But that does not make us victims. It empowers us. The reason so many people were upset and hurling vitriol at Brie was because she pinned a short segment with Cirincione where she is visibly annoyed when Cirincione makes the humanitarian case for supporting Ukraine by reciting Russia's crimes. A true anti-war leftist would agree that what Russia is doing is horrible and call for war crimes prosecution while at the same time making the case that the only answer to the conflict is peace. You do not have to minimize the crimes of Russia to be able to make that point. And for the Ukrainians who saw Brie's pinned tweet, it came across as dismissive of their suffering at the hands of the Russians. If you are expecting polite and diplomatic replies after going there, you must be new to twitter.

Anonymous
>>95123669

Well…I disagree lol and I’m familiar with the incubator story, I’ve heard many people talk about it, in lectures from Parenti to Hitchens to Chomsky etc. I’m gonna delete my comments because they’re a bit too antagonistic and I don’t like turning debates toxic. But I appreciate the response.

Cameron Plath
>>95142478

Ummm multiple times in this episode I heard both guests calling it an illegal invasion by Russia, that Russia is committing war crimes in a war. I wasn’t hearing a defense of Russia. I was hearing criticism of US foreign policy. I see plenty of criticism of Russia literally everywhere in media, that perspective is well known I’d say. These episodes are an attempt at a more balanced perspective of how this entire conflict came about, including the Russian invasion/annexation of Crimea in 2014 being a response to a soft coup/paramilitary led uprising against a democratically elected president who chose an economic deal with Russia instead of the West. It wasn’t a random invasion bc Putin felt like it. You can be anti-war AND anti-US/West meddling/funding/intervention via agencies like NED etc. that LEADS to the brake out of war. I’d say you actually HAVE to be against both if you call yourself anti-war and don’t want to be contradictory. In order to be fully anti-war you have to be against the actions that make the conditions for war as well. You can’t just sit by and be fine with the US making the conditions for war, and then 100% blame the other party who is on the receiving end of the global hegemon’s pressure/instigations, for eventually reacting. Whether or not the self defense of national security is justified or not, there is some % of culpability by the US for provoking a reaction. To be clear, I DO NOT support Russia’s decision to invade, and I also see an alternate world out there where they never would’ve invaded in the first place bc a lack of US instigation wouldn’t have made it feel in anyway cornered. People need to stop responding to literally any criticism of US foreign policy as de facto support or defense of the other party involved. We don’t exist in a fucking Marvel movie. Do you denounce US’s invasion of Iraq? If your answer is yes, do you think it’s fair or intelligent of me to respond: “why are you defending Saddam Hussein” or is your criticism of the US invasion not coming from a place of support for Hussein ????

Anonymous
>>95140695

I think it's been discussed a bit, and the trickling of stories filtering out about diplomacy are an indication they need to at least pretend they don't want another forever proxy war.

Anonymous
>>95142478

I think the Iraq war analogy falls apart when put in its actual context. Opposition to the imperialist INVASION of Iraq ≠ opposition to supporting Ukraine in its defense against an imperialist INVASION. The consistent position here is Sifl’s. It’s a consistent opposition to imperialist bullies invading smaller countries.

Anonymous
>>95142478

Ukraine and the US are the "bad guys" here as US and NATO promised to stop spreading at Germany and proceeded to spread way past it, the US backed the bloody Maidan coup in 2014 where 50 ethnic Russians were burnt alive, and Ukraine shelled the Donbas for 8 years and terrorized its citizens with their Nazis

Anonymous
>>95142478

And Russia didn't invade Crimea; they annexed it with the will of the Crimean people, just like much of the Donbas wants out of Ukraine and independence or wants to be part of Russia. And his mentions of Kosovo and Golan were perfect examples of how the US itself accepts annexations...they're annexing part of Syria now And since so many are being McCarthyite, progressives are hardly "playing the McCarthy card". It's a legitimate criticism as Cirincione himself made a McCarthyite smear of Max Blumenthal. And Cirincione gave no evidence of his Russian war crime claims and neither have the Russia haters. Bucha itself was never proven to be Russia's fault; Scott Ritter makes a good case for it being Ukraine. What's noticeable is how they and you make no mention of Ukraine's war crimes in the past 8 years and in this war...including assassinating Dugina and blowing up the Kerch bridge and killing those civilians

Anonymous
>>95142478

Tom, the actual imperialist bullies were US and NATO who spread all the way to Ukraine after promising Russia to not go past Germany. They are also the bullies who backed a violent coup in another country, helping to overthrow its democratically-elected president. The bullies have also been Ukraine who, after letting Nazis burn 50 ethnic Russians alive in Crimea, shelled the Donbas for 8 years, breaking the Minsk accords. Being murderous bullies in your own country isn't Ok either, and since the did it right at Russia's border, killing ethnic Russians, you can't expect Russia--who agreed to the Minsk accords--to not get involved

Michelle B

A really compelling episode! I'm excited for the Callin, and particularly this question You framed around Texas wanting to go solo... Because that is really not the situation. Because America backed an extremist right-wing coup of a democratic government back in 2014, which caused these regions to want to separate. We need to look at the Odessa trade hall massacres, the outlawing of left-wing parties by these groups and the banning of unions to see the contours of this fight. So the real question would be - if we were to create a more accurate allegory - if January 6th was an actual coup where Trump supporters and right-wing extremists took over the government of America at gunpoint and installed a new government without an election that represented neo-Nazis and extremist right wing forces (as opposed to just a riot of people who believed to the election was stolen) How would we feel about the west coast deciding that they did not want to be represented by that government? Especially if it was cutting minimum wage and destroying labor protections and fueling racist, bigotry and encouraging attacks on people who did not support its agenda. What would we do if we didn't recognize that government and thereby armed right wingers started murdering 14,000 liberal people on the west coast... And let's say, since it's the Trump regime and they have their fun rhetoric about Mexico that they were also targeting people of Mexican heritage in a particularly aggressive way in their rhetoric and outlawing having Spanish translations in West Coast cities or resources provided to them. Or Spanish language education. (Of course, in Ukraine these regions had a significant majority of Russian speakers and like 600+ schools that taught in Russian and the US and Mexico were not one country till 1991 so it would not really be comparable. But it can give us a point of empathy maybe) And if we wanted to lean into the American propaganda around Russiagate - witches of course nonsense - but let's pretend Russia was doing what America was doing as this could occurred and sending billions of dollars of weapons to our right-wing extremists to empower them as they attacked the west coast in the name of reconsolidating the US - How might we view that involvement? Because I would say whoever is funding the right wing extremists, giving them weapons and supporting their coup is actually the aggressor in this situation. To me it would be pretty clear that they (In this instance the US) are the bad guy. And personally I would feel pretty confident in saying I know what side I would be on. I would also say that of course America could argue that losing the west coast is a huge strategic and economic disadvantage that might not be tolerated... But if I, as an American citizen living under the terms of a government that was no longer democratic and was installed through a coup, wanted to separate from this government that didn't represent my beliefs or interests I would sure hope that the world would step in with an objective referendum to allow a vote to occur. I would want to separate. I would think it was tragic. But I think this idea that somehow keeping a country's borders intact is the priority after a coup is it really not a humanitarian perspective at all. I would argue that whoever is arming that coup government and encouraging them to attack the other citizens is pretty evil. It's clear that they are just serving their own interests both in terms of financial benefits and resources. I can definitely see why America likes this narrative and supports it after overthrowing the government to privateize the country's resources... But I don't think as leftists we can make any argument for this.

Sifl
>>95142478

Aside from being a blind recitation of every Grayzone view on Ukraine (and even the Grayzone folks have backed off the claim that Ukraine soldiers carried out the massacre in Bucha), these are not at all anti-war arguments. These are pro-war arguments in favor of pulling all support for Ukraine so Russia can overrun the country and have its way with Ukraine. If international law means anything, Russia's invasion is not in any way justified by any of the pre-war events in Ukraine, even the Grayzone's extremely pro-Russia (and demonstrably false) version of those events. You cannot be anti-war and at the same time claim that one side of the war is solely to blame and got what was coming to them.

Anonymous
>>95142478

Sorry, but the only thing blind here was your blind refutation of the truths the Grayzone and I told without countering any of them with evidence. And now you cite the Grayzone for evidednce....too funny. Sorry, but the best analysis of Bucha has been Scott Ritters and he well showed Ukraine and their Nazi militias likely did it. And the only pro-war arguments are yours wanting to help Ukraine wage war on the Donbas who want to join Russia. International law defends that as the creation of Kosovo shows. You cannot be anti-war and support Ukraines continuing war on the Donbas

Anonymous
>>95142478

In this interview Mate neither defended Russia's actions nor did he say Russia is the bad guy. Your biases are putting words in your head. Russia was wrong to invade Ukraine its war crimes are wrong, and Putin is a horrible leader, but that does not mean that Russia does not have very serious grievances that must resolved. No where have I ever heard him (I don't listen to him or read him all the time, so maybe you can actually quote it) say that the Russian invasion was justified. That's not the same thing as saying the grievances against Russia were not being addressed was the REASON for the invasion. It was a large part of the reason. Doesn't make it right (and Mate has never said it was right) but we must understand the reasons, just as we must understand the reasons that Ukraine waged war against the Russian population of Donbas.

Anonymous
>>95142478

The invasion was justified. America had already backed one bloody coup and overthrown an elected leader; NATO was spreading to their doorstep after promising not to, and Ukraine and their Nazis broke the Minsk Accords and continued to shell the Donbass and terrorize them

Will

I live for the long ones

Anonymous
>>95142478

“The invasion was justified” Well I guess we’re mask off now. Pro invasion, pro war crime, pro fascism…

Anonymous
>>95142478

Jesus fucking christ...you guys, its not that complicated. Russia = bad guy U.S. = bad guy War = bad Can we fucking move on now, please?

Anonymous
>>95142478

I mean the US was a “bad guy” back in the 1940’s as well but I don’t know anybody who would dispute the moral imperative to help stop imperial Japan and Nazi Germany.

John H

I was sorry to miss the Callin, as I have a number of thoughts about Brie's question concerning what our standard for intervention should be. First, I think part of the reason she's not getting solid answers from Leftists when posing the question is that it's really only relevant in a world where we're not actively causing many of the humanitarian crises that might warrant intervention. One of the early callers articulated the principle of first do no harm, and I think that is correct; it's really only once we've stopped doing massive harm that we can talk about intervening for good. And given how much of the harm is caused by the USA, complete non-intervention would be massively better than the status quo. Since WWII, Operation Gladio has had the explicit aim of arming Right-wing extremists to fight Leftists, everywhere from Nicaragua to Chile to Afghanistan to Lebanon to Korea to Syria to Israel to Iran to Ukraine to Africom's operations - it's clearly still in operation. I was cheering when Michelle pointed out in her call the even in everyone's favorite example of a just war, we were collaborating with the Nazis and literally provided both the genocidal model and necessary technologies to carry it out (ethnic cleansing was modeled on our extermination campaigns against Native American groups, eugenics grew out of an American project to apply agricultural selective breeding techniques to human populations, based on the scientific racist movement, and IBM provided the information technology necessary to categorize mass populations and run the death camps - implementing a genocidal eugenic campaign simply would not have been possible at that scale without USA companies). Simply ending this would greatly reduce conflict. Second, there are going to be political fights - and information/propaganda fights with them - over whatever standards we articulate. Whether it's something nebulous like "when the good outweighs the harm" or whether it more specific like "once 1,000 people of a particular minority ethnic background have been killed by government forces in a one-year period," there will be arguments over what's really happening, whether people really constitute an ethnic minority, and whether it justifies intervention. My specific standard, for example, would not only demand intervention in Ukraine ON THE SEPARATIST SIDE, AS RUSSIA HAS DONE (as Brie herself noted to one caller), but also demand military intervention IN THE USA ITSELF to stop police murders, as well as war against Israel to defend Palestinians. Any standard about jailing people that might implicate China's treatment of dissidents would also implicate the USA ten times over. My point is that Brie challenged a number of proposed standards by pointing to the difficulty of getting general buy-in or the difficult in adjudicating them, and that is correct - and it's also an unsolvable problem because of a lack of agreement about facts on the ground and category definitions even if everyone is operating in good faith, plus the buy-in problem to have the standard applied to the USA itself and countries we consider allies. I think it might be useful to separate the questions of our ideal standards from the practical matters of how we go about actually convincing people t follow them and how we verify information that informs intervention. Finally, the specific case of Ukraine illustrates all of the problems with actually following any just standard for humanitarian intervention in the USA. As noted, pretty much any standard one could propose would actually demand the military action that RUSSIA has taken. The deep irony is that humanitarian intervention, being claimed by supporters of arming Ukraine, is literally a Kremlin talking point, the thing they're accusing us of promoting by demanding peace negotiations and an end to arms shipments (I propose immediately cutting all military aid, while simultaneously shipping food, medical supplies, temporary shelters and heating fuel, and running evacuation operations with temporary or permanent refugee resettlement as desired by any particular refugee). "Denazification" isn't a lie, there has been a literal Nazi ethnic cleansing campaign waged for eight years - if anything, by a humanitarian intervention standard, Putin should be condemned for not acting more decisively in 2014 to secure Donbas and Donetsk instead of only securing Crimea to protect Russian naval interests. If actually applied in historical context, the purported standards of the anti-Putin/anti-Russian crowd literally justify the invasion, yet they accuse people pushing for a negotiated settlement (which had already been negotiated at Minsk, of which Russia waited eight years for implementation before invading, which Putin again said before invading would forestall any invasion, and which were essentially the terms of the early negotiation deals that the West scuttled) of justifying the invasion. So it's clear that even if we could articulate specific standards for intervention - I think we should! - those can still be weaponized and even DARVO'd to push for the exact opposite course of action that they should imply if applied honestly. The rhetorical point is a good one, but the only real solution to the problem of humanitarian crises and war is political. We have to convince enough people and hold enough levers of power to stop the more extremist members of our deeply, genetically tribalist species to stop murdering people they see as the Other. And it's difficult, because they're playing to instinctual tendencies while we're playing against them - I'm falling into that framing myself, right now, with "we" and "them" - and they already hold a lot of power, especially propaganda power. I propose we start by dismantling the CIA, which is responsible in large part for the propaganda efforts as well as directly involved in many of the world's violent conflicts - not to mention running the largest drug, weapon, and human trafficking operation on the planet.

Anonymous
>>95142478

Right. It is confusing. We are so used to the whole "good-guy vs. bad-guy" narrative that i don't think we really have any idea what to do with the reality which is obviously "bad-guy vs. bad-guy". The only real "good-guys" i can see are the common people: workers, farmers, artists, homemakers, children, travelers, etc. Its like brie said in one of her radars recently. This situation isnt "left vs. right"...its "top vs. bottom".

Anonymous

Probably my confirmation bias but I Love the conversations that Brianha fosters 💯💯💯🖤