Author: Aaron Maté

From The Grayzone:

Glenn Greenwald on the decline of left media in the Russiagate era, where bastions of dissent have gone from challenging the national security state to promoting it.

Glenn Greenwald discusses how Trump and Russiagate has changed progressive media for the worse. Greenwald has recently been frozen out by the progressive news broadcast Democracy Now! after being a longtime, regular guest.

As it shuts out longtime guests like Greenwald, DN! recently gave a warm reception to a former George W. Bush aide who praised, without challenge, Bush’s “compassionate conservatism.” Greenwald also discusses leaving The Intercept after it tried to censor his reporting on the Hunter Biden laptop affair, all while parroting evidence-free, anonymous intelligence claims that the story was “Russian disinformation.”

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From The Grayzone:

On the same day that the claim of “Russian bounties” in Afghanistan collapsed, another US intelligence-sourced, evidence-free claim was treated as vindication for conspiracy theories about Trump-Russia collusion.

Glenn Greenwald and Aaron Maté discuss the predictable demise of the “Russian bounties”; the Biden administration’s new evidence-free assertion that Paul Manafort associate Konstantin Kilimnik passed Trump campaign polling data to Russia; and why major US media outlets continue to parrot Russiagate disinformation no matter how many times the “bombshells” turn into duds.

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From The Grayzone:

As Vice-President, Joe Biden pledged that all US troops would be out of Afghanistan by 2014. Seven years later, is President Biden’s new withdrawal pledge any different? Scott Horton, editorial director of Antiwar.com and author of Enough Already, discusses how the US has previously extended the war in Afghanistan and how it might continue it in new forms.

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From The Grayzone:

Speaking to the United Nations Security Council, Aaron Maté of The Grayzone takes apart the OPCW’s excuses for refusing to address the organization’s Syria cover-up scandal.

OPCW inspectors found no evidence to support allegations of a Syrian government chemical weapons attack in the city of Douma in April 2018. But their findings were suppressed, and the team was sidelined.

The OPCW leadership now claims that “most of the analytical work took place” in the “last six months” of the Douma investigation, when the original team was out of the picture. Comparing the OPCW’s own published reports, Maté shows why that is demonstrably false.

The bulk of the work was in fact carried out by the original team in the first weeks of the probe, and the “analytical work” conducted after their censorship is minor in scale and riddled with deceptions and unsupported conclusions.

Maté also addresses a new claim by OPCW Director General Fernando Arias that “I don’t know why” the OPCW’s final Douma report “was contested.” This is another demonstrably false claim, as Arias’ own prior statements show.

Maté also asks the US and UK ambassadors if they will support a new proposal from distinguished signatories — including five former OPCW officials — to let the OPCW’s own Scientific Advisory Board assess the claims of the dissenting inspectors. The US and UK Ambassadors left the meeting — it is unclear when — and so did not respond.

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From Pushback with Aaron Maté at The Grayzone:

On the 10-year anniversary of the Syrian war, former US Ambassador to Syria Robert Ford speaks to Aaron Maté about the roots of the conflict, the US role, and why he now supports the withdrawal of US forces.

Guest: Robert Ford, retired US diplomat who served as US Ambassador to Syria from 2011 to 2014.

[There is some inaudible audio in the first half of the interview. Press the “CC” icon on the video to turn on closed captioning. Full transcript is here.

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From Pushback with Aaron Maté at The Grayzone:

Five former officials from the Organisation for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons have joined a group of prominent signatories to urge the OPCW to address the controversy surrounding its investigation of an alleged chemical weapons attack in Douma, Syria in April 2018.

Leaks from inside the OPCW show that key scientific findings that cast doubt on claims of Syrian government guilt were censored, and that the original investigators were removed from the probe. Since the cover-up became public, the OPCW has shunned accountability and publicly attacked the two whistleblowers who challenged it from inside.

The “Statement of Concern” is signed by five former OPCW officials, including the organization’s founding leader, José Bustani, and others including Noam Chomsky, Daniel Ellsberg, Col. Lawrence Wilkerson, Tulsi Gabbard, John Pilger, Lord West of Spithead, as well two former senior UN officials, Denis Halliday and Hans von Sponeck.

“The issue at hand threatens to severely damage the reputation and credibility of the OPCW and undermine its vital role in the pursuit of international peace and security,” the statement says. “It is simply not tenable for a scientific organization such as the OPCW to refuse to respond openly to the criticisms and concerns of its own scientists whilst being associated with attempts to discredit and smear those scientists.”

Pushback host Aaron Maté details the letter and airs clips of his and Tulsi Gabbard’s recent “Tucker Carlson Tonight” appearance discussing the OPCW controversy.

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