Thread by @neil_abrams

Dumb or dishonest?

For Putin apologists trying to deflect onto other parties Russia’s obvious culpability for the war, these are the only two options the evidentiary record permits.

Aaron Maté isn’t dumb. That leaves us with dishonest.

How @aaronjmate is full of shit: A 🧵

@aaronjmate Since Russia’s February invasion, Maté’s animating purpose has been to shift the blame for the war onto others. Among the devices he draws upon in this pursuit are the Minsk accords. “If only Ukraine had abided by Minsk,” he claims, “this whole situation could have been avoided.”

@aaronjmate For the past week or so, Maté and I have been going back and forth about Minsk. It all began with this thread I wrote.

https://twitter.com/neil_abrams/status/1583459564950724608?s=20&t=FROWAoh02f-OIAT8cs1izA

@aaronjmate For those who don’t want to read all that, here’s a brief summary of what the Minsk agreements are and how they came into being.

@aaronjmate The thread above is one of several I’ve written over the past few months debunking Maté’s Ukraine nonsense. You can find a compilation here:

https://twitter.com/neil_abrams/status/1589796593003540481?s=20&t=EfsUZaOkJbCDFm3JsRFTbA

@aaronjmate For the most part, Maté’s ignored me. Only after I started making fun of him for that did he finally respond. It was the thread above, on Minsk, which he chose to reply to, thus commencing our recent exchange.

https://twitter.com/aaronjmate/status/1588531128578646016?s=20&t=LVmaJh3bDum-KGIu-jSSkA

@aaronjmate Now, considering how often Maté invokes the Minsk accords as a prop for his Russia apologiae, one would think he’d have an elemental grasp of the basics facts.

But if one thought so, one would be mistaken.

@aaronjmate Look, my point here is not to harp on Maté’s astonishing ignorance of the Russia-Ukraine conflict. Nor is it to suggest that his breathtaking ineptitude should disqualify him from even talking about the subject. For I am not one to kick a man when he’s down, no sir I am not.

@aaronjmate That’s why I won’t direct my dignified readers to my last thread in which I embarrassed Maté with a screenshot of the Russian ambassador’s signature on the Minsk II agreement after he wrongly insisted that Russia wasn’t a signatory.

https://twitter.com/neil_abrams/status/1589726993003970560?s=20&t=4gToERk0ZJwQd4_xIkVA6Q

@aaronjmate And if you came here just to gawk at Maté for compounding that first humiliating error with another, only for me to publicly shame him yet again, I afraid I cannot provide a direct link to it. I’m a bigger man than to indulge such crude predilections.

https://twitter.com/neil_abrams/status/1589727146649751552?s=20&t=4gToERk0ZJwQd4_xIkVA6Q

@aaronjmate My mother would hardly approve if her son persistently mocked the comical disconnect between the massive volume of Maté’s commentary on the Russo-Ukrainian war and his embarrassing unfamiliarity with its rudimentary details. She didn’t raise me that way.

@aaronjmate What I intend to demonstrate here is not the staggering deficiencies in Maté’s factual understanding of the war but rather the basic dishonesty that informs his entire Ukraine shtick, as illustrated by his position on the Minsk accords.

@aaronjmate My own position on Minsk has remained unchanged from the start: First, tankies like Maté are wrong to suggest that the blame for Minsk’s failure rests solely with Ukraine. Rather, both Ukraine and Russia share responsibility.

https://twitter.com/neil_abrams/status/1583464988165177345?s=20&t=4gToERk0ZJwQd4_xIkVA6Q

@aaronjmate Second, even if Ukraine were solely to blame, it is under no moral obligation to comply. The only reason Minsk exists in the first place is that Russia, by invading Ukraine in 2014, broke its own past pledges to respect Ukraine’s territorial sovereignty.

https://twitter.com/neil_abrams/status/1583466451934978053?s=20&t=vxJaEV8zZOKSJ8y69h-Iow

@aaronjmate Simple enough, right? Not if you’ve staked your credibility on a fable about Minsk that’s factually baseless and morally bankrupt. Not if your only hope for emerging from this quagmire is by manufacturing a strawman. Not if, in other words, you’re Aaron Maté.

@aaronjmate Can you distinguish between the following statements?

1) Ukraine isn’t the only side to blame for Minsk’s failure.

2) Ukraine isn’t to blame for Minsk’s failure.

I say there’s a difference; Maté pretends otherwise. It is this—very stupid—point of contention that divides us.

@aaronjmate Behold the rank dishonesty in the following exchanges.

First three screenshots: Maté blaming Ukraine for Minsk’s failure while not so much as intimating that any party besides Ukraine might share some of the blame.

Fourth screenshot: Maté denying he ever said such a thing.

@aaronjmate Me on Oct. 21st: Ukraine didn’t want to implement Minsk.

Me on Nov. 7th: Ukraine didn’t want to implement Minsk.

Me on Nov. 13th: Ukraine didn’t want to implement Minsk.

Maté on Nov. 13th: Well, I’ll be! Neil finally admits that Ukraine didn’t want to implement Minsk!

@aaronjmate Me, 10/21: Maté is wrong; Ukraine isn’t the only side to blame for Minsk’s failure.

Maté, 11/4: Neil claims Ukraine isn’t to blame for Minsk’s failure!

Maté, 11/7 & 11/13: Neil finally concedes that Ukraine shares some of the blame—but only after *I* pointed it out to him!

@aaronjmate Me on Nov. 7th: That Ukraine shares any blame at all for Minsk’s failure is irrelevant from a moral standpoint.

Maté, a few minutes later: Well then answer THIS: by what percentages would you apportion blame to opposing sides? Checkmate, NATO shill!

@aaronjmate So there you have it: The moronic crux of my exchanges on the Minsk accords with a totally intellectually honest Aaron Maté.

If you managed to get through all that without shooting yourself in the head, I salute you. If not, well, I understand.

@aaronjmate Again, Maté isn’t dumb. He knows exactly what he’s doing. He’s adopted a position that’s morally indefensible: That the West should compel Ukraine to negotiate a peace agreement against its will. And since he knows it’s indefensible, his only option is to deny and deflect.

@aaronjmate You see, if Russia shares responsibility for Minsk’s failure, that would mean it’s not a reliable negotiating partner. And if Russia’s not a reliable negotiating partner, then it would be unreasonable to do as Maté proposes and push Ukraine to negotiate an agreement.

@aaronjmate But let us not lose sight of the bigger picture. Maté’s whole point is to shift the moral stigma for the war away from Russia and onto Ukraine, and he’ll pull anything out of his ass, however baseless, to do so. One day it’s atrocity-denial; the next, Minsk.

@aaronjmate In the past, Maté could rely on grains of truth to support his narratives. Russiagate featured lots of atrocious reporting. Douma had the whistleblowers. But Ukraine-Russia lacks such ambiguity, and so any attempt to insert it must inevitably rest on layer upon layer of stupid.

@aaronjmate Aaron Maté has found his calling: Apologizing for dictators and imperialists and deflecting on their behalf. Why does he do it? Fuck if I know. But *that* he does so is perfectly obvious, and anything he says must be interpreted through this lens.

/End