In this episode, we're joined by Dave DeCamp, the News Editor at Anti-War News and host of the show's flagship show, "The War Room," to talk about the ongoing conflict between Ukraine and Russia in Ukraine, and how the U.S. and NATO are using it as an opportunity for profit, and to distract us from the ongoing humanitarian crisis in Ukraine. We're also joined by Russell Frieden, the founder and editor-in-chief of The War Room, to discuss why the conflict is so bloody, and why we should all be paying attention to the human toll from it. We'll cover everything you need to know about the conflict, including the facts behind the fighting, the motivations behind it, and what we can do to stop it from escalating further. We'll also talk about how the conflict has been funded by the United States, NATO, and the oil and gas companies, and look at how they're using the conflict as a business opportunity to profit off of it, including Lockheed Martin's recent $10 billion investment in a new plant on the border with Russia. And, of course, we'll talk about what's going on with the Ukraine conflict and why it's so bloody and bloody and how we should be doing more to help Ukraine. . Thank you so much for supporting us, you're making a difference, wherever you are listening to this podcast. and wherever you're listening to it. You're making an impact, and you're spreading the word about it everywhere you go. We can't wait to see what you do! - we're spreading it everywhere. - And we're celebrating the word and we're doing it, everywhere you can do it! - Thank you, everywhere we go! -- Thank you for listening, and we'll see you! Matt, Matt, Russell, and your support is so important, everywhere, everywhere else we get a chance to spread the word of this podcast and everywhere we listen to it and everywhere else. -- Matt, thank you, and thank you for being a little bit more than just that you do it, you can see it, right here, everywhere they can help us spread it everywhere, we get it, it's a good day, and everywhere they do it. Thank you. Matt and Russell, Matt and I really appreciate it, Matt is grateful for all the love and we appreciate you, wherever they can reach you, more than appreciated.
00:00:03.000It's so important that you follow us and support us now because the government tried to shut down our means for making a living in an extraordinary move.
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00:01:11.000Mate, one of the things that you've been reporting on is this sort of curious story that in spite of propaganda there's been little shift in territorial control in Ukraine.
00:01:21.000There's been incredible loss of life and it seems incredible opportunity for profit.
00:01:25.000So what are these new revelations about there being very little in the way of territorial shift reveal?
00:01:31.000Yeah, so Ukraine launched its big counter offensive back in June.
00:01:35.000And, you know, there's been a lot of kind of media report with a bit of a slant trying to portray that Ukraine is gaining territory and that they are, you know, that they do have a chance of winning this thing.
00:01:47.000And they have been gaining some very, you know, incremental areas.
00:01:50.000But a recent report from The New York Times that looked over at all the territory that's changed hands.
00:01:55.000This year in 2023, it showed that Russia has actually gained more territory this year.
00:02:01.000But overall, it's a very small amount of territory.
00:02:04.000Only 500 square miles has changed hands.
00:02:07.000Russia gained about 300 and the Ukrainian side about 183.
00:02:13.000So those small little areas, I mean, if you look at the map, it really shows, you know, the front lines have barely changed.
00:02:19.000And in that time, you know, hundreds of thousands of people have likely been killed.
00:02:24.000We don't know the casualties for sure on either side because it's kind of a strange thing that we don't know how many people are actually being killed because both sides are hiding their casualty figures.
00:02:35.000But it's pretty clear, and from people that I trust, they believe hundreds of thousands of Ukrainians have been killed this year alone.
00:02:42.000And lots of Russians are being killed as well.
00:03:41.000And now, months later, that the lines have barely moved and so many people are dead, they're determined to keep this thing going.
00:03:49.000That's what's really, you know, they just want an open-ended conflict.
00:03:52.000They want to turn Ukraine into this huge NATO bulwark on Russia's border.
00:03:59.000Even in his recent address to the UN, Biden said that Russia and Russia alone can end this war.
00:04:06.000Russia solitarily and solely are the cause of this war.
00:04:11.000And as you point out, even to talk of peace is regarded as a kind of militaristic heresy.
00:04:22.000I wonder what you think the significance is of Lockheed Martin, for example, announcing profit opportunities for up to $10 billion and what the likely motivations of this war are if we're not seeing significant territorial shift and the counteroffensive didn't succeed.
00:04:41.000What does this tell us about the motivations?
00:04:44.000Well, yeah, there's certainly a profit motive here.
00:04:47.000I mean, the US and the UK actually recently, according to a report from the Telegraph, the British are apparently out of weapons to send to Ukraine.
00:04:57.000But by dumping all of these weapons in there, you know, this gives the arms makers like Lockheed Martin, like Raytheon, you know, they're replenishing all these stockpiles.
00:05:06.000You have all the Eastern European countries, especially Poland,
00:05:10.000really increasing their military budget.
00:05:15.000And sometimes, they're very candid about it.
00:05:19.000If you remember Alexei Reznikov, who was Zelensky's defense minister, who was recently fired,
00:05:26.000he said, I invite all the Western defense contractors to test their weapons in Ukraine.
00:05:32.000You know, he opened his country as a testing ground for weapons.
00:05:36.000There's recently a report in the Wall Street Journal that said Ukraine is one giant arms fair.
00:05:42.000And it was talking about how specifically Lockheed Martin, you know, when it comes to the weapons makers in the US and the UK, the heavy hitters is always Lockheed Martin and Raytheon.
00:05:51.000Of course, there's others, BAE Systems and Northrop Grumman.
00:05:55.000But Lockheed Martin and Raytheon, or they call them RTX now, they're really making money.
00:06:00.000And the HIMARS rocket systems that the U.S.
00:06:03.000has given Ukraine, they're in hot demand now.
00:06:26.000And who's running this thing is Biden's defense secretary, Lloyd Austin, who came from the board of Raytheon.
00:06:33.000Literally his job before running the Pentagon was at Raytheon.
00:06:35.000So it's very obvious that this is a big part of this whole thing is the money to be made on these weapons and it's complete corruption and cronyism.
00:06:44.000I'm astonished to see that sort of the nostalgia craze for the 80s and 90s has reached actual militarism that it's like sort of speak and spell and Simon Says war weaponry from Tomy and MB Games like the kind of nostalgia craze that you see in our sort of love of serials like Lucky Charms has extended to Bazookas.
00:07:07.000What a terrifying and extraordinary situation.
00:07:09.000When you said that the Ukraine is like an arms fair I was reminded of the a Spanish civil wars potential function as a kind of trial
00:07:19.000for the subsequent global war i.e. in particular that the fascists were supported by
00:07:27.000Nazi weaponry particularly from the air and stuff. Seems to me that these kind of practices
00:07:37.000The idea that military technology is piloted in potentially lesser conflicts prior to is staggering to consider given that Russia are one of the combatant nations.
00:07:50.000Even bigger conflicts, even involving China potentially when you talk about what's going on with Taiwan and perhaps we'll touch on that in a minute.
00:07:57.000But for a moment, This is intended in no way to disparage the people of Ukraine whose suffering should be paramount in all of our thoughts and in particular with our advocacy for and even demands for peace.
00:08:10.000But Ukraine is understood to be a pretty corrupt country when it comes to politics, which country isn't?
00:08:17.000So, when the United States acknowledge that they're aware of corruption in Ukraine, why are they so willing to afford a corrupt government the potential for corruption on this scale?
00:08:33.000Yeah, I mean, it's a big question because Ukraine was always notorious for its corruption, you know, in the years leading up to Russia's invasion when they used to ask Biden, you know, when is Ukraine going to be brought into NATO?
00:08:44.000And he said, well, like they got to work on corruption, which is something to hear coming from Biden, considering after the coup in 2014 that his son Hunter got a job on the state on the board of a Ukrainian natural gas company.
00:09:05.000And when this thing first started, when Russia first invaded and they started pouring these billions of dollars in weapons into Ukraine, and it's not just weapons, they also give them what they call direct budgetary aid, which is money, billions of dollars that they give to the government to pay Government salaries to pay for government services.
00:09:25.000They're actually subsidizing small businesses as well.
00:09:28.000There was a recent report on 60 Minutes, and they talked to a lady who ran a knitwear company.
00:09:33.000She was showing off her sweaters that were subsidized by the American taxpayer.
00:09:38.000So there's all sorts of other ways that they're spending in this notoriously corrupt country.
00:09:44.000And they kind of downplayed that for a while in the beginning of this war, and the media went along with it, but it kind of became impossible to keep hiding this.
00:09:53.000Recently, Zelensky sacked six of deputy defense ministers.
00:09:56.000That's all the deputy defense ministers.
00:09:58.000He fired them over these Reports that they were, you know, buying things at inflated prices and then obviously the implication there is that they were skimming off the top.
00:10:09.000So if all six of them just, they just got fired in September and this war has been going on for a year and a half, you know, how much have they been skimming this whole time?
00:10:18.000And, you know, just the fact that they are doing this with all this corruption, I think it goes to show that they're just determined to keep this proxy war Going, it doesn't really matter.
00:10:29.000And there was recently a leaked document, strategy document from the State Department.
00:10:36.000And it was kind of their long term plans for Ukraine.
00:10:38.000And it was all about how they got to root out corruption, how corruption is this huge problem.
00:10:43.000So they are much more concerned about it than they're letting on.
00:10:46.000And it said that they're willing to maybe leverage some of the economic aid, but not the military aid.
00:11:20.000Yeah, so it's really kind of interesting what's going on here.
00:11:23.000So Biden wants another $24 billion to spend on this war, and it has the majority of support in Congress still.
00:11:30.000But over in the House, there is a decent amount of Republicans who are opposed.
00:11:35.000They don't want to give more money to Ukraine.
00:11:38.000And because of that, Kevin McCarthy was forced to strip Ukraine aid from this short-term funding bill that they just passed to keep the government funded.
00:11:47.000And Matt Gaetz, who is a Republican from Florida who launched the effort against McCarthy, he's been very good on Ukraine.
00:11:57.000And he launched the effort to oust McCarthy after accusing him of making a secret deal to bring the Ukraine to the floor for a vote.
00:12:05.000So now there's going to be a new house speaker election that's expected to be next week.
00:12:09.000And in that time, they can't do any legislative action or at least From what I understand, a lot of this stuff is very confusing and there's a lot of procedural stuff they can do.
00:12:50.000They're second in line to the presidency.
00:12:51.000If the, you know, behind the vice president, if something happens to the president, if the president dies or something.
00:12:57.000So having a house speaker that's opposed to this proxy war would be very significant.
00:13:02.000Now, Biden gave a speech the other day and at the end he said something, well, he didn't give a speech, he was talking to some reporters, but at the end he said something like, you know, there's other ways we could get the money, but I'm not going to talk about that right now.
00:13:13.000So unfortunately there probably is other ways that they could keep this thing going.
00:13:18.000I wonder if you ever have time to inquire why reporting that is this specific and oppositional isn't found within the legacy media.
00:13:30.000What do you think is the importance of independent media when it comes to proposing counter-narratives?
00:13:36.000How dangerous do you think it is to present these kind of stories?
00:13:41.000I know people in our sphere that say that this is the subject that will get you cancelled, this is the subject that will get you shut down.
00:14:26.000Yeah, so what's interesting is that the truth is out there.
00:14:32.000The truth, you know, you can read between the lines of the mainstream media.
00:14:36.000You know, it's what they're saying is factual, but not truthful necessarily.
00:14:41.000And a lot of times, and you know, what a big part of my job is, is reading these reports from the New York Times, the Washington Post, the Times over in London, and You know, a lot of times buried in those reports are the kernels of truth, like the fact that they didn't think the counteroffensive would succeed.
00:14:59.000They would have a story about something completely unrelated, related to Ukraine, and then buried in there, you see a Ukrainian official say, we don't have the weapons to do this counteroffensive.
00:15:45.000And they accuse us that the accusation that we always get is that we're on Putin's payroll or that we're, you know, working for Russia or working for China is the new big one now.
00:15:59.000You know, we're Americans who care about our country and our people and don't want our government out there, you know, causing more destruction around the world.
00:16:28.000And then when a big thing happens like the invasion, You know, continuing what we do, we get accused of being Russian stooges or whatever, just because the narrative has completely shifted.
00:17:03.000So more people are questioning and polls are showing that the opposition is growing, thankfully.
00:17:08.000It's odd, because that's such a predictable outcome, and indeed, as you said, the reporting on antiwar.com, which I recommend all of you use and follow if you want to be well informed on this issue, has been saying, well, Ukrainian war, hold on, that could be complicated.
00:17:23.000What about the infringement of NATO on former Soviet Union territories?
00:17:28.000And when you report on that stuff, when you don't comply, when you don't follow their preferred line, you're right, they do reach for extraordinary slurs, and this one that Like, you could be a Putin apologist or a Chinese stooge.
00:17:41.000I don't even know that that actually is how things work.
00:17:45.000Like, the Chinese government would, like, approach... I mean, I have no idea what they had to say.
00:17:50.000If the Chinese government or Putin, especially with what I've been through, said, listen, we're prepared to give you some support, I'd go, well, let's talk terms.
00:18:00.000You know, like, I don't think that the world works like that.
00:18:02.000I think that what's far more common is that the sort of there's a set of converging interests between legacy media and the state that are ideological but certainly financial the way that they are funded the pundits that they use it's such a sort of collaborative porous immersive and
00:18:23.000Sort of interlocked network of interests that the sort of simplistic Name-calling that you're a Putin apologist.
00:18:34.000I watched for example recently Hillary Clinton talking to Jen Psaki on something called inside with Jen Psaki and I thought well, that is what it is It is inside.
00:18:43.000It's inside the system amplifying its message and they talked about like, you know, as we know Putin meddles in elections and As we know, Putin is an authoritarian dictator, this is an
00:20:12.000The way that the narrative alters and shifts and amplifies?
00:20:15.000Yeah, I always think about Olaf Scholz, the German Chancellor.
00:20:19.000In, you know, the early days of the war, when they were trying to get Germany to send planes and tanks, he said, no, no, no, we're not doing it.
00:20:26.000I'm trying to prevent World War Three is what he would say.
00:20:54.000He suggested that the British troops that have been training Ukrainians inside the UK, maybe we should start doing that training inside Ukraine.
00:21:03.000And then Rishi Sunak came out the day after and he said, no, that's down, you know, that's down the line.
00:21:14.000The Times reported in April 2022 that British SAS soldiers were inside Ukraine training Ukrainian soldiers on anti-tank weapons outside of Kiev.
00:21:24.000A few months later, the New York Times reported that some NATO countries had special operations forces in Ukraine, and the UK was listed on there.
00:21:33.000And the US also has a handful of special operations forces.
00:21:36.000And, you know, that was revealed by the Discord leaks.
00:21:39.000They have about 14, according to this leak, this leaked Pentagon document.
00:21:43.000And the British had 50, which is a significant presence.
00:22:04.000But if the UK started sending troops openly, that would be another very big escalation.
00:22:11.000So, it's something to keep an eye out for.
00:22:13.000But it's worth pointing out that they've actually been there.
00:22:15.000Now, we don't know if they're still there, but based on these reports from these certain time periods, there were, you know, there's enough evidence that I believe it's safe to say there were British troops on the ground in Ukraine.
00:22:27.000Tucker Carlson, God love him, said that it's likely that there will be a hot war between the United States and Russia within a year.
00:22:38.000I really hope that he's wrong because, you know, that can't happen.
00:22:43.000And that used to be the attitude was we can't go to war with Russia with, you know, can't go to war with the Soviet Union, can't go to war with Russia.
00:23:18.000Russia has, if they want to go to war with NATO, they have the pretext to bomb a NATO base in Poland.
00:23:24.000Right now, we are relying on the restraint of this madman Vladimir Putin that they keep, you know, that's what we hear about him is that he's some sort of madman.
00:23:34.000But then they also say, oh, he's just bluffing when he's talking about nuclear weapons.
00:23:38.000So, you know, I try not to be too alarmist, but we're at the point now where if you wake up tomorrow morning and the US and Russia, NATO and Russia are at war.
00:23:51.000And, you know, I really hope that this opposition in DC and other places in Europe and Slovakia, they just elected a government that wants to end military aid to Ukraine.
00:24:03.000I hope that keeps growing because we really need to end this thing.
00:24:06.000We're at that point now where Something could spark it.
00:24:10.000You know, there's all these planes, NATO and Russian planes are always having these close encounters.
00:24:14.000There was that Ukrainian air defense missile that hit Poland last year and they said it was Russia.
00:24:22.000Again, just if we wake up and the headline is NATO at war with Russia, you know, we tried to warn you.
00:24:29.000I prefer it to some of the headlines I've seen recently.
00:24:31.000Now the reliance on Russian restraint is, it seems extraordinary that that would be sort of part of a strategy and the confusing messaging also around, the confusing messaging around, yeah, he's bluffing, he's mad, he's ill, all of this sort of almost antiquated 20th century propaganda.
00:24:53.000Seems extraordinarily misguided and while I'm listening to you I'm thinking why is this important?
00:24:58.000Of course it's important because of the potential to provoke a superpower into Armageddon which is being addressed and identified as you said by the German Chancellor even Biden himself a few years ago said you know that would be the end of the world and The very point of a cold war was because a hot war was inconceivable.
00:25:14.000A proxy war is even an acknowledgement that America's imperialist interests can be better met.
00:25:21.000And these are not the interests of the American people, of course.
00:25:23.000To clarify, of the military-industrial complex and the establishment elites that masquerade behind the veil of democracy.
00:25:36.000What I wanted to say is that the reason that it's important to continually interrogate this is because we've foreclosed on the possibility of a different world where the population of any country, yours, mine, might say, is that what I want to happen with my taxpayer dollars?
00:25:50.000If indeed, as claimed, the role of the United States is to act as emissaries and peacekeepers and referees in global conflicts that purportedly have no benefit to them, then It ought to be at the directive of the population.
00:26:08.000Certainly, for example, the concomitant Hawaiian fires demonstrated a sort of clear public opinion preference for support on domestic issues rather than foreign wars.
00:26:20.000And the idea that that kind of conversation is equated with, you know, Putin apologism or A lack of regard for the plight of Ukrainian people is reductive and simplistic and untrue because of the sheer number of conflicts around the world that America continue to inspire, fund and enact.
00:26:38.000And I suppose when I think of what we're doing, when we're dealing with someone like you who has a particular expertise and a background and history dealing with the subject that you're dealing with, I feel like it's important to acknowledge that what we're saying is we're being misinformed and lied to and there are different ways of organizing reality.
00:26:54.000It's not like there's just some Invisible trajectory that sweeps your taxpayer dollars into the sort of profitable war machine and it is something that should be discussed and in order to discuss it you have to be well informed and in order to do that you have to have a media that's not just amplifying the agenda of the powerful.
00:27:12.000Do you think it is conceivable that people could reject the ongoing support of this of this conflict and therefore demand a peaceful resolution?
00:27:24.000Yeah, like I said, you know, I think that the opposition is growing and we are in kind of this new media age, especially, you know, with this show, you know, being on Rumble being, you know, they want to shut you down, but you have your outlets that, you know, they can't control.
00:27:40.000And Antiwar.com is a very unique thing because, again, this website was founded in 1995 and they kind of cut their teeth opposing the NATO bombing of Kosovo.
00:27:52.000And they had sources on the ground finding out NATO was bombing civilian targets.
00:27:57.000And it was kind of the first thing of its kind online.
00:28:00.000And now, since then, because of that, they were targeted by the FBI.
00:28:06.000But now there's kind of There's so much of this now.
00:28:09.000There's a lot available that, you know, ordinary people that might not necessarily really pay attention or try to look for the truth in these, when it comes to conflicts like this, you know, they could find it a lot easier now.
00:28:26.000So, I think that's kind of, that's, you know, what I try to do and the reason why I am a news editor, why I just talk about the news all day.
00:28:36.000Is because if you just follow the news, if you just have the context of the events that have happened, again, it's all out there for us.
00:28:43.000You know, if you just follow along, you know, they they lie by omission.
00:28:48.000Of course, this is what, you know, Chomsky wrote about is that, you know, one example I always think of recently, Iran seized two oil tankers in the Persian Gulf.
00:28:58.000If back in I believe it was around April or May.
00:29:02.000And the context that was missing from that story was that a couple weeks before that, the U.S.
00:29:22.000So it's just a matter of knowing, like, it's kind of, you don't need to be super informed, just kind of be aware of what's happening.
00:29:31.000And when it comes to Ukraine, and I think it just has to be clear to more people that considering what the US has done to the Middle East and North Africa for the past 20 years, you know, how can they think that they really care about Ukrainians?
00:29:45.000How can you believe that that's what this is about?
00:29:47.000So I think it's kind of just opening more people up to that reality.
00:29:52.000Yeah, and now there seems to be an appetite to... Antony Blinken said that China want to become a dominant world power and want to become sort of a hegemonic unipolar force and replace the United States.
00:30:18.000But do you think that there is an agenda?
00:30:21.000I mean, if I imagine for a minute that it was the US that was surrounded by Chinese military bases rather than the opposite, or if China were agitating in some sort of off-coast former territory to meddle with the economic affairs as is happening with Taiwan and the
00:30:41.000semiconductors and stuff. I feel that would be regarded as extreme hostility. What do you think about this
00:30:50.000attempt to portray China as an aggressor? Is it unfair? Am I being naive, optimistic? What's
00:30:55.000going on? If you look at what US policy is right now towards China, when we're
00:31:00.000speaking militarily, they're not trying to prevent China from taking over the world.
00:31:05.000They're trying to prevent China from being the hegemon in Southeast Asia, a few hundred miles off their coast.
00:31:14.000That's what the US is focused on is Taiwan and the South China Sea.
00:31:19.000And, you know, it's very clear that China, what China has been doing in a lot of instances is a reaction to what the U.S.
00:32:29.000And now, in recent years, arms sales have increased.
00:32:32.000And this year, President Biden, for the first time, started giving Taiwan military aid, the same way he's arming Ukraine by sending weapons directly from Pentagon stockpiles.
00:32:42.000This is unprecedented in the era of US-China normalized relations.
00:32:47.000And they're doing all this in the name of deterrence.
00:32:50.000They say they need to deter China from invading Taiwan, from blockading Taiwan.
00:32:56.000But if you look at the past few years, since the US policy toward Taiwan sort of changed, which really happened in the Trump administration, they started loosening restrictions for official government contacts.
00:33:07.000That's another thing that really irks China is, you know, US and Taiwanese officials talking.
00:33:14.000In that time, as the US has increased that military and diplomatic support, we've seen a lot more Chinese military activity around Taiwan.
00:33:22.000China held their largest ever military drills around Taiwan when Nancy Pelosi went over there.
00:34:12.000is saying, if this maritime dispute over rocks and reefs turns hot, we're going to go to war.
00:34:19.000So, how is China, with respect to the U.S., not talking about its own backyard, but how is China, you know, the aggressor in this situation when the U.S.