Aaron Maté (44:28)
I think President Trump administration has made tremendous progress. There was no dialogue with Russia in Biden administration for the last three years. There was no trying to understand Russian position. There was no really solutions that could have been successful. And what President Trump team has done, they understood what the solution space may be and they achieved the first de escalation ever in the conflict, which is stopping hits on energy infrastructure between Russia and Ukraine. So we are having good discussions. Our diplomatic people are also discussing possible outcomes. But there is no question that President Trump team not only stopped World War 3 from happening, but also had already achieved sizable progress on Ukraine resolution. So he says two important things there. First of all, he says the Trump administration is doing what the Biden administration refused to do, which is talk the Biden administration wouldn't even speak to Russia while fueling a massive proxy war in Ukraine against it. But then he says the Trump administration in talking to Russia has helped avoid World War Three. And you might hear that and think, okay, he's exaggerating. He's doing that to flatter Trump. Well, guess what? There are people inside the Biden camp who thought the exact same thing as well. That's a takeaway from a new article in the New York Times called the Partnership the Secret History of the War in Ukraine. It's based on interviews with dozens of officials from the U.S. and other NATO countries that were behind the proxy war in Ukraine. And there are many revelations in there, including this talking about the Biden administration's decision to continually cross its own red lines and provide weapon systems to Ukraine that it previously had ruled out. And that includes Himars. So here the Times quotes Celeste Wallander, who was the under Biden, the Assistant Defense Secretary for International Security Affairs. And she quotes Mark Milley, General Mark Milley, the former chair of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. And she says Milley would always say, you've got a little Russian army fighting a big Russian army and they're fighting the same way and the Ukrainians will never win. But then she says, by contrast to Milley's argument, General Christopher Cavoli, who is the commander of forces in Europe, he argued that with Himars, this missile system, the Ukrainians can fight like we can, and that's how they will start to beat the Russians. So if we just give them our weapon systems, then Ukraine will be on our level, on the US's level, and then we can beat the Russians, okay? And then listen to this. At the White House, Joe Biden and his advisors weighed that argument against fears that pushing the Russians would only lead Mr. Putin to panic and widen the war. When the generals requested Himars, one official recalled, the moment felt like standing on that line, wondering, if you take a step forward, is World War three going to break out? And guess what? They took that step forward of authorizing these weapons systems to Ukraine, even though they were wondering, is this going to cause World War 3? So they took steps that they were not sure could avoid World War Three. They were willing to risk World War three just for their proxy war against Russia. And the New York Times goes on. The unthinkable had become real. The US Was now woven into the killing of Russian soldiers on sovereign Russian soil. Yes, that's right. The Biden administration took steps that made the US Part of a killing machine against Russians on Russian soil, because eventually, because the Biden administration kept crossing its own red lines. They were involved not just in attacking Russian forces on Ukrainian soil, but also Russian forces across the border inside of Russia. And here are some of the key takeaways from this piece, which the Times helpfully put together. A U.S. base in Weissbach in Germany supplied the Ukrainians with the coordinates of Russian forces on their soil. So contrary to the widespread view that this was a war between Ukraine and Russia, this actually was a war between Russia against Ukraine and the U.S. with the U.S. choosing the targets for Ukraine from Germany nearby from a US Base in Germany. So at a base in Germany, the US Was choosing which targets Ukraine would hit and then giving them to the Ukrainians, and the Ukrainians would strike them. So basically, it was the US Running the war from behind the scenes. Here's another takeaway. The Biden administration kept moving its red lines. From the first, administration officials sought to lay down a red line. America was not fighting Russia. It was helping Ukraine. Still, they worried that steps taken to accomplish that might provoke Putin to attack NATO targets or perhaps make good on his nuclear threats. Even as the administration developed an ever greater tolerance of risk to help Ukraine meet the evolving threat, many of the most potentially provocative steps were taken in secret. So, yes, we're not fighting Russia. On the other hand, we're gonna fight Russia, but just do it in secret and hope that nobody notices, including Russia, which, of course, Russia knew along that we were doing. Here's an example of the US moving its red lines. In 2002, the US Navy was authorized to share targeting information for Ukraine. Ukrainian drone strikes on warships just beyond the territorial waters of Russian annex Crimea. The CIA was allowed to support Ukrainian operations within Crimean waters. That fall, the spy agency covertly helped Ukrainian drones strike Russian warships in the port of Sevastopol. So the CIA, the New York Times now admits, of course, way after the fact, was involved in attacking Russian ships inside of Crimea, which Russia seized in 2014 after the US backed a coup in Kyiv. So now we learn after the fact just a new aspect of how dangerous this was, that the CIA was being involved in targeting Russian ships. Here's more. In January 2024, U.S. and Ukrainian military officers in Weissbaten in Germany jointly planned a campaign using coalition supplied long range missiles along with Ukrainian drones to attack about 100 Russian military targets across Crimea. The campaign, named Operation Lunar Hail, largely succeeded in forcing the Russians to pull equipment, facilities and forces in Crimea back to the Russian mainland. So, Malcolm, let me bring you in here. Now, of course, I mean, we've been saying this all along, we've covered this endlessly here on the Jimmy Dore show, as we have also at Grey Zone, that the US Was actively involved as a belligerent in this war. This idea that we were just helping the Ukrainians, giving them the equipment they needed, that was always a farce. We were running this war from behind the scenes. And now it takes a long time. But the New York Times comes out with a very long piece confirming it.
