TRIGGERnometry - September 13, 2021


＂Afghan Withdrawal Will Inspire Terrorism＂ - Colonel Richard Kemp


Episode Stats

Length

1 hour and 4 minutes

Words per Minute

179.99376

Word Count

11,546

Sentence Count

485

Misogynist Sentences

5

Hate Speech Sentences

48


Summary

Summaries generated with gmurro/bart-large-finetuned-filtered-spotify-podcast-summ .

Retired British Army Colonel Richard Kemp talks about his 20 years of service in Afghanistan and why he believes the US should have stayed in there longer. He also talks about the consequences of the decision to leave Afghanistan and what he thinks of the President's decision to withdraw all American troops.

Transcript

Transcript generated with Whisper (turbo).
Misogyny classifications generated with MilaNLProc/bert-base-uncased-ear-misogyny .
Hate speech classifications generated with facebook/roberta-hate-speech-dynabench-r4-target .
00:00:00.000 President Biden says, the war is now over, I have ended the war in Afghanistan.
00:00:04.720 No, he hasn't. He's pulled the American troops out.
00:00:07.380 He's betrayed those troops that fought there for 20 years.
00:00:11.260 He's betrayed his own countrymen, who are now at greater threat from terrorism than before 9-11.
00:00:16.980 And he's betrayed the people of Afghanistan.
00:00:24.660 Hello and welcome to Trigonometry.
00:00:27.460 I'm Francis Foster.
00:00:28.540 I'm Constantine Kishin.
00:00:29.840 And this is a show for you if you want honest conversations with fascinating people.
00:00:35.580 We are so pleased to say that our brilliant guest today is a retired British Army officer who served in Afghanistan, Colonel Richard Kemp.
00:00:42.440 Welcome to Trigonometry.
00:00:43.400 It's my pleasure to be with you. Thank you for having me.
00:00:45.180 It's a great pleasure to have you on the show. We're so delighted you could join us today.
00:00:48.880 We wanted, obviously, to talk about Afghanistan, but before we get into that, tell everybody a little bit about your personal story, your history, how are you, where you are, what has been your journey through life.
00:00:59.240 And obviously, please do touch on your experiences in Afghanistan as well.
00:01:03.060 I went to, I was born in Essex.
00:01:05.880 I went to school in a town called Colchester,
00:01:08.440 which Francis just admitted to me that he also went to university.
00:01:12.060 So it's a small world.
00:01:14.280 I never really grew up.
00:01:16.960 And all the time at school, I love playing soldiers.
00:01:20.000 And I just wanted to be a soldier.
00:01:21.420 So I left school one day, joined the army the next.
00:01:24.060 I was atrocious.
00:01:24.860 I was the worst pupil at my school.
00:01:26.760 It was called Colchester or grammar school.
00:01:28.220 fantastic school and still is today but I was the biggest failure they ever had so it was for me it
00:01:35.620 was either prison or the army so I went into the army and I stayed there for 30 years I couldn't
00:01:43.080 really get used to it so I left after 30 years and I went into a bit of a time as a corporate
00:01:51.000 security director in London. And after that, in around about 2012, I became self-employed and I
00:01:58.640 now write. I do commentary on security, defence, etc. And I do some consultancy work and a bit of
00:02:07.600 public speaking. And we met precisely because you were doing TV. We were back in the green room and
00:02:12.780 we had a little chat and I was just so impressed with how unfiltered and direct you are about
00:02:18.520 the situation that was being discussed at the time,
00:02:21.000 which was Afghanistan.
00:02:22.160 I think the dust is settling a little bit now
00:02:24.100 and we can have a more measured conversation about it.
00:02:26.740 But give us your overall thoughts on, you know,
00:02:30.300 it's been 20 years.
00:02:31.340 Were we right to go in?
00:02:32.600 Did we do things right when we were there?
00:02:34.680 Were we right to leave?
00:02:36.560 What was your impression of the things that have happened?
00:02:39.320 I think we were absolutely right to go in.
00:02:40.960 We had no choice other than to go into Afghanistan in 2003,
00:02:45.220 or beg your pardon, in 2001, 2002.
00:02:48.520 when we went in there i mentioned 2003 because that was when i was there for the first time
00:02:52.820 but we were right to do it we you know we just had the biggest terrorist attack in the history
00:02:58.020 of the world in which more britons were killed than had been killed in any other terrorist attack
00:03:02.740 anywhere um there were more casualties sustained on 9-11 than had been sustained um in in pearl
00:03:11.060 harbor when the japanese sacked america that led to the second world war and a nuclear bombing of
00:03:15.120 japan so um you know it wasn't a small event it was something that had to be avenged and had to
00:03:21.240 be the repeat of which had to be prevented so we needed to go in i think you could certainly
00:03:25.900 question and i do what happened after that after we got rid of the taliban and al-qaeda
00:03:30.240 out of afghanistan and whether it was necessary to stay there 20 years but given that we had done
00:03:36.020 that i think it was a real disaster to leave when we did um for very many reasons but i think we
00:03:41.900 left at too short notice. We left without the conditions being set or any restrictions being
00:03:47.880 placed on the Taliban. And we left without giving the chance to the Afghan government and the Afghan
00:03:54.340 security forces to prepare for a totally new situation that they were now facing. And we did
00:04:00.440 so at the height of the Taliban fighting season when they were in their most active period. So
00:04:05.640 that explains, I think, to a very large extent why it all went wrong. And the consequences, we haven't
00:04:10.300 even begin to understand yet. And you say we haven't begun to understand the consequences.
00:04:15.880 What do you think those consequences are going to be? Well, for one, probably the biggest thing,
00:04:21.240 and I apologise for not focusing on the horror that's about to engulf Afghanistan, but in
00:04:28.280 strategic terms, the biggest thing is a complete undermining of US and Western reputations around
00:04:36.040 the world, which will have consequences. We and the US and NATO now are seen as being fair with
00:04:43.480 a friend. When the tough gets hard, we get the hell out of it. And who's going to rely on us
00:04:48.560 then? Which countries that we're hoping to entice away from China and Russia into the democratic
00:04:53.960 sphere? Which of those is going to be with us? They're not. They're going to look more to Russia
00:04:58.600 and China. Massive strategic consequences. China and Russia are going to do their best to push
00:05:05.460 the envelope now knowing that you know where's where's the danger is america going to strike
00:05:10.520 back now probably not that's what their calculation will be but then in in you know other consequences
00:05:15.760 we are we're about to face the biggest terrorist threat i think probably bigger than before 9-11
00:05:20.280 with um you know the taliban the new taliban government announced a few days ago is old guard
00:05:27.040 hard line many of them on wanted lists around the world including un sanctions list these these are
00:05:33.460 not kind of people who as they said are going to be looking for equal opportunities and give you
00:05:39.680 know human rights and stuff they're not these are hardline killers murders torturers and rapists
00:05:44.080 and they're running that country and into that country is going to flood jihadists from all
00:05:48.880 around the world so that that's a massive terrorist problem for us and that that's even
00:05:53.240 before we begin to talk about what's going to face men women and children in afghanistan
00:05:58.640 Colonel, look, there's going to be people who go, look, we were in there 20 years,
00:06:03.080 you know, tens of thousands of people died. He spent almost $2 trillion. What more could we want?
00:06:09.440 What more could we do? Well, I think we could understand the situation a bit better than we
00:06:14.180 did. And we didn't really understand it. I don't think we really got to grips with it. We didn't
00:06:17.680 understand, for example, that most Afghans don't have a kind of allegiance to Afghanistan as a
00:06:23.380 country. You know, they are tribal people. Their loyalty is to their tribe, it's to their ethnic
00:06:29.900 group, it's to their local area. That's where the loyalty lies, not to some concept called
00:06:35.080 Afghanistan. Those people who joined the army in Afghanistan mostly did so for the money. They
00:06:40.280 didn't join it because they wanted to defend Afghanistan. They did defend Afghanistan very
00:06:44.540 bravely for many years. 50,000 were killed over a seven-year period fighting for Afghanistan.
00:06:49.740 that is two-thirds the size of the current British army killed in seven years a massive thing but
00:06:57.380 that what they weren't fighting for for for Afghanistan they were fighting for the money
00:07:01.820 and the same really applies to the government the you know the peripheral elements of the
00:07:06.020 government in the regions of Afghanistan in the provinces didn't have loyalty to Kabul
00:07:10.960 their loyalty was really to their region to themselves and so when the kind of final guarantor
00:07:17.800 that they would survive under this Kabul regime,
00:07:22.100 very, very corrupt and incompetent regime,
00:07:24.500 that they would survive in that regime.
00:07:26.300 The final guarantor was the United States of America.
00:07:29.000 When that pulled out, the whole edifice collapsed.
00:07:31.700 And we didn't really understand that when we were there.
00:07:34.080 Colonel, as a military man, and I'm not,
00:07:36.520 but I'm interested in history and military history,
00:07:38.360 can you explain to people,
00:07:40.700 and I know some of what you're about to say,
00:07:42.840 but I think it's important,
00:07:44.280 How is it possible that we've trained up a huge army in Afghanistan,
00:07:49.740 given them, I mean, the Taliban now have more gunship helicopters
00:07:53.380 than the UK, apparently, right?
00:07:55.300 We've given all these weapons, all the training, all the support,
00:07:58.240 and I understand your point, these people were fighting for money
00:08:00.860 and then the guarantor disappeared.
00:08:02.420 But if we've trained up a huge army, given them modern weapons,
00:08:06.200 gunships, you know, whatever else, APCs, whatever else they got,
00:08:10.420 how is it possible that they folded like this?
00:08:12.780 and actually mostly without fighting as well.
00:08:15.700 Yeah, there was very little fighting during this latest phase of the war.
00:08:19.940 There was lots of buying off of different governors,
00:08:23.160 different military commanders, etc.
00:08:26.960 But there wasn't much fighting.
00:08:29.160 And in war, the single most important factor is morale.
00:08:34.700 Napoleon, and I really hate to quote a Frenchman,
00:08:37.560 but I'm hoping not to trigger any Frenchman out of it,
00:08:40.760 But Napoleon said, in war, the moral is to the physical as three is to one.
00:08:46.100 In other words, morale is three times as important as all other factors.
00:08:50.300 Now, the morale was a rug with a US flag on it
00:08:55.120 that the Americans whipped out from under their feet,
00:08:57.580 therefore taking away their confidence, their reason to stay fighting.
00:09:04.600 And the morale collapsed.
00:09:06.460 And then the army collapsed.
00:09:08.440 And some of them went over to the Taliban.
00:09:10.760 Some of them ran off to the Panjshir Valley and attempted to put up resistance there,
00:09:15.700 which sadly looks like it's been, for the moment at least, crushed.
00:09:19.700 And some went back to their villages.
00:09:22.040 But I go back to this factor about pay as well.
00:09:25.200 A lot of them hadn't been paid for a long, long time.
00:09:28.340 And if you're there, if you're fighting maybe under the command of somebody
00:09:34.380 who doesn't even speak the same language as you from a different part of Afghanistan,
00:09:38.140 and you know that the people that are supposed to be paying you
00:09:40.500 put the money in their pocket instead and your ration, you're on half rations because
00:09:45.540 your commander is selling the other half of the rations. Now that doesn't, you know, those things
00:09:50.220 don't create a good level of morale in the first place before this carpet of morale is ripped out
00:09:56.000 from under your feet. So that makes perfect sense. So let me ask you the obvious question then. If
00:10:00.680 we spent 20 years and $2 trillion attempting to deal with that, when were we ever going to get
00:10:06.740 in Afghanistan to a position where we could withdraw? Well, I'm not sure we would have done.
00:10:11.880 I think it's a situation we could have been in for a very long time. You know, 20 years is not
00:10:16.760 a long time. It certainly wasn't a long time for the Taliban. They were very patient. They held
00:10:20.700 out, they fought on, they eventually scored a major victory. For us, it is a hell of a long time
00:10:26.260 because we have very little strategic patience. But we shouldn't forget, we've been, we had, you
00:10:32.240 There was British and American forces in large numbers in Germany
00:10:35.600 until very recently.
00:10:37.260 There still are a few since the Second World War
00:10:39.780 against a potential Russian threat predominantly for many years.
00:10:44.300 There was, you know, the Americans have still got strong forces
00:10:47.160 in South Korea when the Korean War ended in the 50s.
00:10:51.200 We have troops in Cyprus now serving in Cyprus
00:10:54.560 with the United Nations and guarding our sovereign base areas.
00:10:58.380 My own regiment's there at the moment, the Royal Anglian Regiment.
00:11:01.100 They're serving in the British sovereign base area in Cyprus.
00:11:04.580 And that is following the Turkish invasion of Cyprus,
00:11:08.300 which was a long time ago, years, you know, more than 20 years ago.
00:11:12.540 And we fought for pretty much 40 years in Northern Ireland.
00:11:15.780 So, you know, this is not a long time.
00:11:18.720 I believe we needed to stay there at least for longer than we did.
00:11:23.160 It wasn't a huge commitment.
00:11:24.880 I think the end of British combat operations in Afghanistan was 2014.
00:11:28.740 and I don't think a British soldier has been killed there since then
00:11:32.240 or if they have it's just one or two
00:11:35.080 and the same with Americans, very few have been killed recently
00:11:38.220 so we're not talking about a hot conflict with lots of people dying
00:11:41.880 we're talking about being there to provide the support
00:11:46.460 that a country that is coming out of a most horrific situation needed
00:11:51.560 and no longer has
00:11:52.940 so I think we should have been ready to stay for another 20 years if need be
00:11:56.460 But don't you think the situation was ultimately made unsustainable
00:12:00.200 by the corruption, by the corruption in the Afghan army,
00:12:04.160 by the corruption in the government?
00:12:06.600 Well, this is going to trigger a few people
00:12:08.160 who are listening to this or watching this.
00:12:10.500 And that is that we needed to take a more imperial view.
00:12:16.260 I know the British Empire was terrible times and very bad.
00:12:20.900 Obviously, it also did some good around the world, quite a lot of good.
00:12:24.000 But that's not the broad view.
00:12:25.520 and I shall now be cancelled for saying this, but nevertheless.
00:12:28.400 That's what the show is about, ending your career.
00:12:32.740 But I think, well, fortunately I no longer have a career, so you're fine.
00:12:36.200 I'm just messing with you.
00:12:37.580 Look, sensible people will hear what you say in the way that you intend it.
00:12:41.520 I'm not really bothered anymore with what they think.
00:12:43.320 Good.
00:12:43.760 The reality is that the United States should have controlled the government more than it did.
00:12:50.000 When I was there in 2003, whatever the US ambassador said to President Karzai
00:12:55.180 is what President Karzai did.
00:12:57.440 He didn't argue with it.
00:12:58.700 He didn't debate it.
00:12:59.480 He just did it.
00:13:00.420 And the British ambassador, to a lesser extent,
00:13:02.440 had a similar effect.
00:13:04.040 They were running the country, basically,
00:13:05.740 with orders from Washington and London.
00:13:08.380 But then they decided that the government needed autonomy.
00:13:12.960 And understandable, in our terms, that's understandable.
00:13:16.020 But the result of that autonomy
00:13:17.260 was the collapse we've seen today.
00:13:18.980 Eventually, you know, massive corruption.
00:13:21.240 Many of the leaders, government leaders and officials
00:13:23.520 in Afghanistan now have very large houses and fortunes stashed away in Dubai and Turkey and
00:13:28.840 places like that. So they needed controlling and you know a democracy which we tried to create
00:13:35.340 there perhaps wrongly but nevertheless we tried cannot be created overnight. It takes a long time
00:13:39.900 a lot of strong guidance which we failed to give them in my view. And isn't also the problem that
00:13:46.320 Afghanistan as a country it's just arbitrary lines on the map. Now correct me if I'm wrong with you
00:13:53.300 know tribes who are perpetually warring against each other isn't it practically impossible to
00:13:59.280 turn that sort of state into a western liberal democracy i think it is pretty difficult as we've
00:14:04.920 seen you know and and to be fair i mean it's you can't do something like that in 20 years if you
00:14:09.600 can do it at all and if that's what is best for the people and what the people in that country
00:14:13.680 actually want um then yeah you can try it but it's more than a 20-year project um but but i would
00:14:20.440 thought, you know, although I've been to Afghanistan, I've followed what's happened
00:14:24.780 there, I've taken part in military operations, I don't pretend to be an Afghan cultural expert.
00:14:30.340 But what I would say is that I think a better idea might have been a much looser federal
00:14:35.860 kind of arrangement that is focused much more on the ethnic groups and the provinces, etc.,
00:14:42.560 rather than on a duplicate of the US or a duplicate of the UK with Kabul as its capital.
00:14:48.780 And what do you make a lot of people,
00:14:50.540 I've spoken to a number of people who are here in the UK
00:14:52.940 who are from Afghanistan.
00:14:54.880 You know, one of the things that they'll say,
00:14:56.700 and look, as a Russian, it's quite easy for me to say,
00:14:59.320 you know, we keep interfering in all these foreign countries
00:15:02.860 and in their affairs and look at Al-Qaeda.
00:15:05.080 Al-Qaeda is the product of CIA funding bin Laden
00:15:08.140 to fight the Soviets, my people, right?
00:15:10.540 And we keep messing with these things
00:15:12.180 and then something happens and Al-Qaeda comes from that
00:15:16.200 and then the Taliban came from the Mujahideen to some extent
00:15:19.620 and we keep giving people money that we don't really know
00:15:22.120 and some of them are terrorists and some of them are...
00:15:23.960 And we keep doing this and then it just keeps coming back
00:15:26.480 to bite us and us because we keep messing with things
00:15:29.120 we don't really understand.
00:15:31.140 I don't disagree with that.
00:15:32.600 And I do think if you look at one of the things you mentioned there,
00:15:36.700 the Mujahideen fighting the Russians,
00:15:40.860 what we did there was the right thing to do.
00:15:43.000 And that made up in your view.
00:15:45.020 But that created Osama bin Laden, who then creates the biggest terrorist attack in history.
00:15:49.840 Arguably, yes. But the fact is that we were doing the right thing. In my view, we were doing the
00:15:56.120 right thing. We were pushing back against the Russians. We were in the Cold War. We were fighting
00:16:00.380 the Russians in the Cold War in so many different places. That was just one. It was a very important
00:16:05.400 one. Now, you can't predict what's going to happen as a result of your actions in a situation like
00:16:12.420 that i don't think anyone no matter how clever they were could have predicted that our support
00:16:16.240 for the mujahideen in afghanistan would have led to the situation we're in today similarly you can
00:16:20.680 say well we shouldn't really have fought this the first world war against the germans expansionist
00:16:25.580 policies in europe because it led to the second world war which it did but we didn't know that
00:16:30.160 wasn't known at the time it was you know and you can say that about almost any major event you
00:16:34.700 you shouldn't have done it in hindsight but it's not so easy when you're making decisions at the
00:16:39.800 My point is slightly different, though, and I completely hear what you say about the First
00:16:43.640 World War, and it makes sense. My point is, it's the type of people we're dealing with.
00:16:48.600 You're bringing the Mujahideen. Mujahideen is not an Afghan phenomenon. These were extremists
00:16:52.980 mostly from Saudi Arabia brought in specifically because they were extremists, and we gave them
00:16:58.520 money. And look, this isn't me coming at it from a Russian angle, by the way. I'm just trying to
00:17:03.200 make the point that I think when you deal with these very bad people, the consequences are going
00:17:08.180 to be very bad. Is that wrong? Absolutely. No, it's absolutely right. But as you know, I would
00:17:13.080 say again, you can't foresee, you know, unexpected unintended consequences decades away. You can only
00:17:20.140 to an extent, you can only deal with the situation as you face it, although, you know,
00:17:25.060 maybe greater expertise will guide you to do it in a different way. But you know, if you take the
00:17:30.900 consequences of, you know, the global war on terror, people say, for example, people will say
00:17:35.980 the London suicide bomb attacks in 2005, the 7-7 attacks.
00:17:44.600 You know, Sadiq Khan, who was the leader of those attacks,
00:17:49.480 said he was a soldier of Islam, he was doing this
00:17:52.020 because of what Britain was doing in Muslim countries.
00:17:56.520 But, you know, and people then blame us for that,
00:17:59.420 but actually the reason we were doing what we were doing
00:18:02.100 in Muslim countries was because we had suffered 9-11.
00:18:04.920 Right.
00:18:05.220 Right. And, you know, and as I said earlier, we had to react to that in a very forceful way.
00:18:11.500 And then, you know, it was at the start of it. No, it wasn't really the start of it. So you keep
00:18:15.260 looking back and back. I think, you know, I think there's a, you know, there's, there's,
00:18:19.800 to look at things realistically, you have to see a situation as exists today. Anticipate as much
00:18:27.100 you can in the future, but deal with it. Or if you don't deal with it, you know, people say,
00:18:31.260 well, if we hadn't gone into Afghanistan or into Iraq,
00:18:34.760 we wouldn't have had all these body bags coming back.
00:18:36.440 True.
00:18:37.300 And if we hadn't gone onto the beaches of Normandy in 1944,
00:18:41.180 we wouldn't have had all the body bags coming back from there either.
00:18:43.360 But, you know, you either do nothing and let people run over you
00:18:45.920 or you make an attempt to hit back at them.
00:18:48.860 So I guess your argument, which is one I agree with,
00:18:51.200 is the Soviet Union had to be defeated at that time
00:18:54.260 and we had to interfere in that
00:18:56.120 and the consequences are what the consequences are.
00:18:58.480 But part of the consequences are
00:18:59.920 is that we no longer have a hostile nuclear power
00:19:02.600 that is as big as the Soviet Union challenging us in the West.
00:19:06.240 That's a very good way of putting it, I think.
00:19:07.800 Yeah, yeah, I would agree.
00:19:09.400 And moving back towards Afghanistan,
00:19:12.800 it shocked so many people
00:19:15.020 because it literally seemed to happen overnight.
00:19:18.320 Could you give an explanation as to why the US
00:19:21.740 withdrawing in the manner that it did was so disastrous?
00:19:25.920 Well, I think the first thing is that
00:19:28.680 that President Biden made the decision in April that he was going to go.
00:19:34.520 He did so, he was given options by his team that reviewed the situation in Afghanistan
00:19:40.020 when he became president, or when he was elected president.
00:19:43.940 And he was given a series of options, one of which was what he did,
00:19:47.980 but it wasn't the one he had to do, it was only one of the options he had.
00:19:51.980 And then he immediately announced it, and it was to happen in very short order.
00:19:56.600 You know, the British foreign minister, foreign secretary, in evidence he gave to Parliament not long ago, he himself said that even in Britain, people didn't really believe the Americans were going to do it.
00:20:09.680 You know, they announced it and they said they intended to, but we didn't believe it really was going to happen.
00:20:14.860 It was hard to comprehend, which accounted for our, I think, misappreciation of the situation as well.
00:20:20.580 But if you can imagine a British government taking that, what's the Afghan government view they're going to take?
00:20:24.880 they were just they disbelieved it they did not expect it to happen they couldn't they couldn't
00:20:29.400 really face it because they knew what the consequences were likely to be so they they
00:20:34.520 were they were told that they weren't even given time to adjust to the idea that it was going to
00:20:39.740 happen and then to plan for a new situation now whether they could have planned and organized
00:20:45.880 themselves and organized the army in such a way that something different would have happened I
00:20:49.480 don't know but they weren't given that chance it was a very short flash to bang period and then as
00:20:54.040 i mentioned before the the withdrawal took place in august um not in which was at the height of the
00:21:01.240 power of the taliban it's their fighting season it's when they're most active it's when they're
00:21:05.140 all on the ground trying to kill people and i'm just going to interrupt you the fighting season
00:21:10.040 what does that mean well it's that they tend to fight they tend to be more active in fighting
00:21:14.940 in the in the summer months okay unless in the winter months you talk about them like they're
00:21:19.780 some kind of termite or something that comes out of its burrow in summer.
00:21:23.180 It is the reality.
00:21:24.520 And it's understandable in a way because, and it's true,
00:21:28.720 in many parts of the world, people do tend to kind of wind back in
00:21:33.740 during the more harsh periods of the year, the winter,
00:21:36.880 and that's what the Taliban did.
00:21:38.460 Traditionally, most of the fighting by the British forces,
00:21:41.740 the American forces in Afghanistan, was done over the sort of late spring,
00:21:46.980 summer, early autumn type period.
00:21:48.900 And the rest of the year, it was less active.
00:21:51.880 So if he'd waited, let's say, until, I don't know, until the late autumn or winter,
00:21:58.120 then it's likely we would not have seen such a rapid and immediate collapse
00:22:02.640 of the government and its forces there.
00:22:05.540 And the other problem, I think, of this situation,
00:22:09.540 the other reason it was a catastrophe is because, for some reason,
00:22:12.740 Biden withdrew all the US forces, pretty much most of them,
00:22:16.100 before evacuating the civilian population.
00:22:19.420 The civilian population should have been evacuated
00:22:21.560 from the time he made his decision back in April, over months.
00:22:25.960 And we wouldn't have seen this fiasco.
00:22:27.800 And it's the same with the British.
00:22:29.080 We should have started it back then
00:22:30.480 when they made the decision originally to withdraw.
00:22:33.720 We would not have seen this utter disaster, which is so damaging.
00:22:37.400 It's obviously, you know, cost a lot of lives.
00:22:40.160 There's lots of hostages in Afghanistan now
00:22:42.020 who wouldn't be there if they'd been evacuated.
00:22:43.680 and it was so damaging to the reputation and the image of the West.
00:22:48.180 So, you know, I think that all of those different factors,
00:22:51.460 had they been done in a different way,
00:22:53.720 and contrary to what we're talking about foreseeing the future,
00:22:56.180 all of this, you know, a second lieutenant,
00:22:59.060 when he first receives his training at Sandhurst or at West Point in America,
00:23:03.180 would have been trained to avoid all these situations.
00:23:05.340 So why didn't they, if it's basic training, why didn't they do that?
00:23:10.800 I don't know.
00:23:11.260 i don't know but i think there'll be an investigation and you know and i think there
00:23:16.120 should be an independent inquiry into what happened both in britain and in america and
00:23:20.180 other countries and in nato um not not to have a witch hunt and nail people to the to to a stake
00:23:27.700 or something but to um to learn the lessons from it and find out what really did happen to make sure
00:23:33.300 nothing like it happens again if we have any similar type of situation but like i just can't
00:23:38.860 answer it. It's so illogical. I've spoken to many sort of experienced military people who just
00:23:43.240 really can't understand the thinking behind what happened there. We have heard that the
00:23:48.840 intelligence community, as it's now called, did suggest that the Afghan army wouldn't be able to
00:23:55.780 hold off. So it's kind of odd that it's happened that way. The information apparently was available.
00:24:02.260 I think there was, you know, people saw the options, you know, the possibilities.
00:24:11.860 It might be that they couldn't hold the thing together for very long
00:24:16.820 or they would lose the plot immediately or whatever, or it might take a lot longer.
00:24:21.200 There were different options.
00:24:22.160 I don't think anyone came, not that I've seen anyone came to that specific.
00:24:26.180 I think the US intelligence assessment and the British intelligence assessment,
00:24:30.820 I'm not saying there weren't dissenting views,
00:24:33.140 was that the government would hold up until the end of the year.
00:24:35.860 That was the best assessment.
00:24:38.600 But a military person knows you should never plan for the best case.
00:24:42.860 You should plan always for the worst, almost dangerous case.
00:24:46.640 And very clearly, that's not what happened.
00:24:48.680 Yeah.
00:24:49.260 And I wanted to ask you, because obviously a lot has been made,
00:24:52.560 and not wrongly so, of the amount of equipment and arms
00:24:56.880 and the money that was essentially left to now the Taliban.
00:25:00.820 Do you think that could have been avoided or did we have to leave that equipment to the Afghan army
00:25:05.840 so that they would, in our minds at least, have the chance to defend themselves?
00:25:09.520 Is that what's happened or has this been a catastrophic mistake of just handing weapons and material to the enemy?
00:25:16.260 I think as we didn't appreciate the speed at which the Afghan forces would collapse,
00:25:21.400 and we didn't, you know, the US, the UK didn't appreciate that,
00:25:25.320 they couldn't just have taken all the weapons away when they went, I don't think.
00:25:29.420 before or during the Taliban offence.
00:25:33.880 If you couldn't have done that,
00:25:34.780 it would have been even worse than what we did.
00:25:37.440 But I think now is the time to try and deal with it,
00:25:42.600 to destroy some of it if we can.
00:25:45.280 We can work out the concentrations of the equipment
00:25:48.060 and strike it from the air.
00:25:49.660 I don't think we will do that.
00:25:51.160 Because we've got hostages in the country.
00:25:52.820 Partly because there are hostages in the country,
00:25:54.780 but also because we seem to be more interested
00:25:58.260 in trying to negotiate with the Taliban
00:26:00.180 and become on good terms somehow with the Taliban,
00:26:03.860 which I think is a mistake.
00:26:05.440 Why?
00:26:05.960 I can understand why we should not destroy this kit,
00:26:13.540 but it's an option that could be taken.
00:26:16.300 I think in the circumstances, it's not going to happen.
00:26:18.700 Sorry, I interrupted you there,
00:26:19.860 but I'm very curious because instinctively,
00:26:23.200 it doesn't make sense to me
00:26:24.340 why we're negotiating with the Taliban,
00:26:26.180 given how you've described them,
00:26:27.380 given the people that they're now putting in power,
00:26:30.340 basically terrorists that we've been looking for for decades.
00:26:34.840 But to people listening to this who maybe take a neutral view
00:26:38.360 or don't know what to think,
00:26:39.520 why is it a mistake to negotiate with the Taliban?
00:26:42.280 Well, I mean, I think I'll give two sort of answers to that.
00:26:47.880 The first point, really, why are we wanting to negotiate with them
00:26:55.480 and be on good terms with them?
00:26:57.380 And I think the answer to that lies in President Biden's reputation, or lack of, at the moment.
00:27:06.860 He was talking about how almost, and other members of the US administration as well,
00:27:12.600 talking about how we're kind of on the same side now against the Islamic State,
00:27:18.840 who he described in a recent speech as the sworn enemies of the Taliban.
00:27:23.380 And there's been talk of, for example, British forces
00:27:27.440 helping to train the Taliban to deal with the Islamic State.
00:27:32.400 Just an extraordinary concept.
00:27:33.640 Yeah, there have been.
00:27:35.940 We're going to train the Taliban now.
00:27:37.840 Well, I hope not, but there's been consideration of that.
00:27:40.740 And some members of parliament have been sort of advancing that idea as well.
00:27:44.880 Are these people mental?
00:27:45.940 Well, in my view, yes, but not in their own view.
00:27:49.080 But going back to the point about being friends with the Taliban,
00:27:54.320 I think President Biden...
00:27:55.720 I mean, by the way, the Taliban and al-Qaeda,
00:27:57.740 the Taliban and the Islamic State, are not sworn enemies.
00:28:00.260 None of them are.
00:28:00.780 They're jihadists.
00:28:01.400 They have the same agenda.
00:28:02.780 They have the same doctrine.
00:28:04.120 They have the same intentions.
00:28:05.320 They just wear different cap badges.
00:28:07.240 Sometimes they hate each other and kill each other.
00:28:09.560 Sometimes they're friendly with each other.
00:28:11.080 That's the way it works in that part of the world.
00:28:13.440 You know, we can't really comprehend it because it's not our culture,
00:28:16.700 but it is their culture and we should be able to comprehend it um but but it was much better for
00:28:22.160 president biden now to to advance the uh the narrative that we've we've basically handed
00:28:28.060 over afghanistan to these guys who are going to be helping us fight the islamic state which is
00:28:31.820 the greatest evil that's that agenda the reason we shouldn't the aren't the other part of the
00:28:36.180 answer the reason we shouldn't um negotiate with the taliban i think will be in good terms the
00:28:41.700 Taliban. The Taliban's victory, which is the greatest victory for Islamic jihadists, I think,
00:28:47.900 in modern times, even greater, for example, than the overtaking of Iran by the ayatollahs back in
00:28:57.640 1979, which created a terrorist state in Iran. We now also have a terrorist state, a Sunni terrorist
00:29:02.940 state, as opposed to a Shia terrorist state in Afghanistan. That victory is hugely damaging to
00:29:11.260 the west and hugely inspirational to insurgency movements and jihadists everywhere it's it's the
00:29:19.760 greatest inspiration they will have had certainly in my memory um defeating the great satan the west
00:29:26.880 the us nato they've defeated it and it's got it can only be something that will celebrate they
00:29:33.160 will celebrate they have been inspiring and inspire you know insurgents in many different
00:29:38.660 places around the world to overtake the country that they're fighting against um so that's already
00:29:45.900 there but recognizing them which effectively amounts to kind of bowing to them showing them
00:29:52.780 deference um it's just going to add to that it's going to give them greater credibility than they
00:29:57.800 have now and it's not going to achieve anything because none of these people are going to be
00:30:01.840 influenced by what we say we talk you know i think nancy pelosi in the u.s said um she said um
00:30:09.460 you know the taliban must have uh you know women in the government
00:30:14.820 i mean yeah the government is made up of terrorists
00:30:20.380 perhaps she'd like women terrorists in the government as well i don't know that's progressive
00:30:26.200 isn't it that is progressive but that's that's the kind of stuff that's coming out and but
00:30:31.340 Anyway, they haven't taken notice because there are no terrorist women in their government.
00:30:36.320 So they don't take notice of what she says.
00:30:37.920 They don't take notice of what we say.
00:30:39.020 They won't do either.
00:30:39.720 They'll do what they want to do.
00:30:41.300 China will be the players in Afghanistan now.
00:30:43.700 And Pakistan, of course.
00:30:45.900 But China and Pakistan will be the major influences in Afghanistan from now.
00:30:49.940 Not Britain, not America.
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00:31:53.660 And so what do you think the future holds for Afghanistan?
00:31:56.160 i think um i think there'll be now a period of relative peace the the the panchiris the north
00:32:05.260 the the kind of the the renewal of what was the northern alliance which fought against the taliban
00:32:11.220 during its previous reign in afghanistan and managed to prevent it from taking
00:32:15.520 the north of the country um the panchiris uh have pretty much been i think crushed by
00:32:23.380 the taliban according to some rumors and i don't know this there are any rumors with assistance
00:32:29.100 from pakistan from pakistan military which is beyond beyond possible because the pakistan
00:32:34.860 military basically created the taliban and enabled the taliban to to achieve what it's achieved
00:32:40.220 today um but with with them out of the way maybe maybe they'll re uh generate themselves hopefully
00:32:47.900 and become a thorn in the flesh for the Taliban.
00:32:51.080 I hope they do.
00:32:54.480 But at any rate, I would anticipate there'll be a period of relative peace
00:32:59.540 for maybe a year, two years.
00:33:01.680 Because the country's been at war for a long time.
00:33:05.300 People want, they actually do, even with the Taliban,
00:33:07.840 they want a degree of stability and relative lack of violence.
00:33:11.620 They won't get it under the Taliban, but that's what they want.
00:33:14.980 And then I think we'll see maybe in a couple of years' time
00:33:17.340 or maybe even less, one or more uprisings against the Taliban in the country.
00:33:24.060 And we'll see some kind of, maybe civil war is going a bit too far,
00:33:28.520 but certainly some kind of resistance against the Taliban happening.
00:33:33.700 And meanwhile, we will see a very repressive government,
00:33:37.180 people already, journalists being whipped for reporting on, you know,
00:33:41.700 demonstrations taking place in different cities, people being executed,
00:33:45.860 Taliban going to door looking for people who were working for the British,
00:33:49.320 working for the Americans, who worked for the last government,
00:33:52.560 who were doing human rights work, anything like that,
00:33:54.960 going around, rounding them up, dealing with them.
00:33:57.940 We will see women not allowed out of their houses without the male escort,
00:34:02.200 without being covered head to foot, girls and women not really being educated.
00:34:06.780 They say, oh, they can be educated in accordance with Sharia law.
00:34:11.120 We know what that means.
00:34:12.380 So that's going to be the country.
00:34:14.580 and it'll probably get some form of economic support from China
00:34:20.060 in return for allowing China to plunder its resources
00:34:23.640 and in return for as much stability as the Taliban can impose.
00:34:28.300 And when you see everything that has happened
00:34:30.380 and you served in the military
00:34:31.760 and you, I imagine, have had friends who have lost their lives,
00:34:36.120 does it make you feel that those servicemen
00:34:38.400 have lost their lives in vain for nothing?
00:34:40.580 No, it doesn't. Far from it.
00:34:43.080 I think, I mean, all we shouldn't forget is the reason we went to Afghanistan.
00:34:46.960 We went there in 2001 in relatively small numbers with the US in also relatively small numbers.
00:34:53.240 And together with this northern alliance that I mentioned, defeated the Taliban and al-Qaeda.
00:34:58.560 And then there was the resurgence.
00:35:00.460 But we went there to get rid of the Taliban and al-Qaeda, particularly al-Qaeda who carried out 9-11.
00:35:05.400 That was the reason. It was a counterterrorism mission to make sure it didn't happen again.
00:35:09.820 We stayed, and we discussed before whether it's right or wrong to stay.
00:35:13.560 We did stay, and we stayed for one reason.
00:35:16.280 We stayed to prevent Afghanistan from, again, becoming a safe haven for terrorists
00:35:21.740 from which they could attack the West.
00:35:23.760 We achieved that mission.
00:35:26.860 And the British soldiers and American soldiers and other soldiers who were killed there
00:35:30.720 died protecting British citizens who would otherwise have died by terrorist attack
00:35:36.620 launched from Afghanistan and citizens of allied countries so that was it it was it was success
00:35:42.200 in that respect in the terms of the pure mission it was a um it was a sacrifice that was necessary
00:35:49.260 and worth making and I say that knowing many soldiers who have been killed there and the
00:35:54.080 families of many soldiers have been killed so I'm not saying it lightly but I do not believe
00:35:57.600 that their sacrifice was in vain people talk about different missions when we were in Afghanistan
00:36:02.920 you know for the whole period the mission has changed and shifted and is it to counter narcotics
00:36:07.920 is it to give women's rights is it to enable girls to go to school no it was none of those things
00:36:13.060 it wasn't any yes of course all those advantages if you can achieve them but the mission was to
00:36:19.560 destroy terrorism not to to put women on equal footing with men in Afghanistan desirable though
00:36:25.800 that might be now moving on that that sacrifice that was made and that success and that effectively
00:36:32.820 effectively that victory, which I would call it against terrorism, has now been betrayed by this
00:36:38.760 withdrawal, because that threat remains there. It's not gone away. President Biden says,
00:36:43.960 the war is now over. I have ended the war in Afghanistan. No, he hasn't. He's pulled the
00:36:48.500 American troops out. He's betrayed those troops that fought there for 20 years. He's betrayed
00:36:54.340 his own countrymen, who are now a greater threat from terrorism than before 9-11. And he's betrayed
00:37:00.040 the people of Afghanistan. Although there are plenty of other people in the world we could fight
00:37:03.800 for, who need us to fight for, but we don't have the resources to fight for everybody. And we
00:37:08.600 weren't actually fighting for the people in Afghanistan. We were fighting for our people's
00:37:12.320 safety. And you talk about terrorism, and you referred earlier to the fact that these people
00:37:17.620 are all jihadis, the Taliban, al-Qaeda, ISIS, etc. And you talked about they have the same vision.
00:37:23.680 We've had a number of people on the show, former al-Qaeda members turned double agents and other
00:37:28.700 people who've studied the region very well what is your understanding of these people's agenda
00:37:33.640 what do they want well essentially they want a global islamic caliphate they want first of all
00:37:42.700 they want all countries in the world that were ever under islamic rule to return to islamic rule
00:37:49.840 and that includes spain for example where which was originally part of the caliphate includes of
00:37:55.740 course, Israel, and, you know, a number of other places that were once under Islamic
00:38:02.620 dispensation. And not only that, it wants them under their idea of Islam, not, for
00:38:09.920 example, Jordan's idea of Islam or the UAE's idea of Islam, but the fundamentalist
00:38:18.400 idea of Islam, closer to what Saudi Arabia is. But Saudi Arabia, of course, is also
00:38:24.480 not seen as legitimate Islam for a number of reasons,
00:38:28.180 partly because it is also allied to the United States.
00:38:30.460 That can't be.
00:38:31.500 So that's the first stage.
00:38:32.820 And the second stage is then to engulf the rest of the world
00:38:36.160 that wasn't ever Islam.
00:38:37.340 But it's a duty to take back those lands
00:38:39.280 that were once Islamic lands
00:38:40.860 and then to extend that to the rest of the world.
00:38:43.720 But people like al-Qaeda and bin Laden
00:38:46.600 and also, I would guess, the Taliban and Islamic State
00:38:51.200 don't see that as something they're going to achieve
00:38:54.060 what they see they see that in the long long distant future they see creating steps towards
00:39:00.980 that process as being their mission in other words to kill as many people as possible as many
00:39:06.680 non-muslims as possible and as many apostate muslims as possible and to set muslims against
00:39:13.860 non-muslims in other words to creating country like this civil war between muslims and non-muslims
00:39:18.560 that's their their their kind of way of eventually working towards this process
00:39:22.540 and that's their that's all of their objectives in different in you know in different ways the
00:39:27.400 Taliban before 9-11 were focused mainly they weren't so much focused on that wider objective
00:39:32.000 they were focused more on Afghanistan that was their place that was what they wanted they wanted
00:39:36.740 to run it they wanted it to be the way they wanted it now 20 years later they've been they've spent
00:39:42.620 20 years fighting the west they've gotten many new members in the in the organization who are
00:39:47.880 more outwardly focused. Some of them have been to Guantanamo Bay as guests of the Americans there.
00:39:52.680 And so they've now changed their perspective to an extent. And at least some of them also have
00:39:59.160 that outward focus of conquering the world. In some of the recent statements they've made,
00:40:03.440 that's come through. And I guess people here in the West, I think there's so many things we don't
00:40:10.460 understand about how the rest of the world works. I mean, you talk about the decline of America and
00:40:15.280 NATO's reputation. And that was the first thing that obviously stuck out to me as someone coming
00:40:19.260 from Russia. Most people in the rest of the world understand only one language, which is strength,
00:40:24.020 right? Strength and force, right? If you're stronger, they will listen to the words that
00:40:28.140 you say. If you're Nancy Pelosi, they won't because they know there's nothing behind that,
00:40:31.680 right? But the other thing we don't understand is the power of conviction
00:40:34.940 and the power of belief. And these people are ideological, right? That they have an ideology
00:40:40.820 that drives them forward. Because a lot of people might in the West look at the time and go,
00:40:45.100 look, they've got their country, quote-unquote, back,
00:40:47.680 they've got control, they've got American weapons,
00:40:49.620 they've got money, they're now negotiating with the West.
00:40:52.640 Why would they want to attack us?
00:40:54.620 Like, why would they want to?
00:40:56.080 You know, you talk about there's going to be more threat of terrorism
00:40:58.880 than before 1911.
00:41:00.180 Surely they're just going to go back to being nice, peaceful Afghans
00:41:03.580 and living in prosperity.
00:41:05.540 Yeah, unfortunately, very few people do actually understand
00:41:09.380 cultures foreign to their own.
00:41:12.620 they they you know there's a modern trend of wanting to claim that all cultures are equal
00:41:18.360 and therefore worthy of respect um but really without any attempt to understand them they're
00:41:25.620 just they're they're probably better than us but we don't really need to understand them and they
00:41:29.820 don't understand them um and that's why you get um you know staunch feminists who complain about
00:41:37.960 some builder whistling at a woman walking down the street which might well be offensive i don't
00:41:42.220 I've never experienced it and don't ever expect to.
00:41:44.520 But that's their complaint.
00:41:46.420 Their complaint is not that women get stoned to death
00:41:48.900 in countries like Afghanistan,
00:41:51.560 that women are forced to wear robes that cover them head to foot.
00:41:55.620 That's not their complaint,
00:41:56.800 because it's a culture that's superior to ours probably.
00:42:00.180 They don't understand it.
00:42:01.500 And they also make a pretense that women do it voluntarily,
00:42:04.660 which they really don't in any of these countries.
00:42:07.120 Who would? Who could possibly?
00:42:08.200 um you know there's kind of a it's in many ways it's kind of a um a British not it's not and it's
00:42:15.860 not only British but a British ignorance and arrogance that um that really allows this
00:42:21.900 misunderstanding to to go on I think it you know it's I I was I had a knife at my throat from an
00:42:28.080 Afghan at the age of 17 in England um for a cultural misunderstanding I don't think I was
00:42:35.420 particularly to blame although he did and he blamed the entire history and betrayal of his race
00:42:40.540 on me for that for that one thing but you know since then since 17 when I first encountered a
00:42:46.940 very very different culture I've I've done my best to learn from it and to and to appreciate
00:42:53.060 and understand it but not necessarily to respect it I guess the question a lot of people would
00:43:00.300 probably want to understand is why would these people continue to engage in terrorism now?
00:43:06.820 They've won, right? They've got money. They've got gunships. They've got weapons. They've got
00:43:13.860 their country under their control. They are about to be negotiated with by the Western powers.
00:43:23.200 Why would they continue to try and kill innocent people? Why continue terrorist attacks? Why are
00:43:28.440 you concerned about that well because because it's it's basically in their in their religious
00:43:35.060 doctrine you mentioned just now they have they're kind of zealous people they have they have you
00:43:39.620 know doctrinal inspiration um they're ideological and it's in their ideology they have to do it
00:43:46.340 it's what they're told they have to do um if even let's say even if some or the majority of the
00:43:54.720 taliban leadership are not focused externally which i don't really think is the case now but
00:43:59.980 let's say that's the case they are so closely linked and aligned to al-qaeda in particular
00:44:05.980 and have been for many many years and have fought alongside al-qaeda for 20 years against the west
00:44:12.640 including the you know in the in the fighting in in august they they owe something to al-qaeda
00:44:18.160 so they owe them to operate out of afghanistan they don't owe anything to you or me not to kill
00:44:23.540 not to let al-Qaeda kill our sister or daughter or anything like that or wife.
00:44:28.560 They owe something to al-Qaeda and therefore they will pay their chips to al-Qaeda
00:44:36.080 and al-Qaeda will carry on attacking for them.
00:44:38.420 The same with the Islamic State.
00:44:39.560 They're not as closely linked, but nevertheless, they're all on the same side.
00:44:43.120 They pretty much want the same sort of thing.
00:44:46.240 That's a very, very bleak picture that you're painting there.
00:44:49.540 Do you think part of the problem in the West is that we've forgotten what it means to go to war?
00:44:56.040 We're so disconnected in this country, in America, from the idea of going to war,
00:45:01.060 from the idea of battle, from the idea of fighting.
00:45:04.340 None of us really know, apart from yourselves.
00:45:06.580 But everybody else of my generation has never been to war, has never been to fight.
00:45:11.940 I think it's a very good point.
00:45:13.080 And there's a, you know, if you look at many of the statements made in Parliament, with the exception of certainly some of the, maybe all of the former military MPs that are there now, and there are a few now, more than there were.
00:45:28.880 But if you look at a lot of things said there, it clearly betrays a lack of understanding of war.
00:45:37.460 and this is people who are supposed to be directing war
00:45:40.400 like the Prime Minister, the Foreign Secretary
00:45:42.700 maybe not the Defence Secretary who was in the army himself
00:45:45.660 but I think their kind of lack of urgency
00:45:51.280 has betrayed their lack of understanding of war
00:45:56.580 and for example the Foreign Secretary
00:45:59.820 as he has been discussed endlessly in the media
00:46:03.180 was on holiday when all this started
00:46:04.940 Now, to me, if I'd been on holiday when this started, I'd have been straight back.
00:46:10.440 Because this is a situation that requires leadership, grip and command.
00:46:15.640 And he was the man to do that.
00:46:17.060 But I would say he was kind of thinking this is another crisis.
00:46:21.100 The Foreign Office deals with lots of different crises and I don't come back from holiday every time.
00:46:25.340 I think that kind of thing shows a lack of understanding of war.
00:46:29.120 I think many people in this country, most vast majority of people, of course, in this country, thankfully, only understand war from what they see on their television or in their computer game, which isn't probably that close to reality.
00:46:43.720 But I think many of them do,
00:46:46.260 certainly many of the people I've spoken to,
00:46:48.320 do understand that, you know,
00:46:51.300 if not understand it, they support,
00:46:53.920 certainly support the soldiers,
00:46:55.640 even if they don't support necessarily
00:46:57.120 the political aims behind their military operations.
00:47:00.280 And I think that's improved over my,
00:47:03.180 the time since I first joined the army,
00:47:05.060 it's improved a great deal
00:47:06.200 when we were doing a lot of very dangerous
00:47:08.900 and difficult demanding operations in Northern Ireland
00:47:12.220 and no one really knew or cared anything about it very much.
00:47:16.640 Whereas I think the Afghanistan and Iraq campaign
00:47:19.680 saw a great deal more public support
00:47:22.280 and that's probably because of the media, I think, more than anything else.
00:47:25.120 I'm going to ask you a question and it's a very layman-like question
00:47:29.360 but I'm sure that a lot of people will want it answered.
00:47:32.240 What does it mean to go to war as a soldier?
00:47:35.100 What does that mean to be flown into somewhere like Afghanistan
00:47:38.820 in a place where you have no connection?
00:47:41.600 you've never been before you don't know the language and then be plunged into conflict
00:47:46.420 well it's probably the most exciting thing you'll ever do in your life
00:47:50.020 and and it's it's you know i i'm speaking as somebody who volunteered to join the army
00:47:56.040 um and and everyone in the british army today also volunteered to join the army we don't have
00:48:01.740 any conscripts anymore and if you volunteer to join the army you did so because you want to fight
00:48:07.740 and that sounds shocking you want to fight um you don't want people to be at war you don't want
00:48:15.220 civilians to get killed or whatever you don't want to see your mate getting killed
00:48:19.240 but you don't if you don't want to fight you don't join the army um and it's but i always
00:48:24.820 kind of liken it to a surgeon a surgeon doesn't want to see a traffic accident with people maimed
00:48:30.780 and mangled and mauled but he wants to be the one that chops the leg off if it needs amputating
00:48:35.320 that's what he's trained to do it's what he gets satisfaction from doing a good job repairing the
00:48:39.960 person as best he can so he can have as good a life as possible and a soldier is the same a
00:48:44.800 soldier i think wants to fight wants the excitement of combat um you know there is huge there are huge
00:48:51.920 problems with it as well don't get me wrong everything is not you know as it is maybe in a
00:48:56.620 movie there are some terrible aspects to it but i you know i've known many soldiers myself included
00:49:03.180 who really live to go from military operation to military operation.
00:49:08.360 And the stuff in between is just pretty boring.
00:49:10.580 Now, I appreciate I don't speak for everybody.
00:49:12.860 And there are many people who are terribly badly scarred by war,
00:49:15.660 both physically and mentally,
00:49:17.340 who wouldn't want to go near another one again once they've done it.
00:49:20.580 But I think, you know, really, I go back to the thing I said before.
00:49:24.360 If you don't want to fight, why would you possibly join the army?
00:49:27.920 We talk about ethics and we talk about the Geneva Convention,
00:49:31.560 war crimes etc etc and we talked about marine b before the interview would you be able to talk
00:49:40.460 about that particular case and why you disagreed with the way that that soldier was treated yeah
00:49:45.960 i think you you um ethics and and the rules of war and the laws of war are extremely important
00:49:52.740 and i think it you know i think you know there may be some soldiers who who would have no qualms
00:49:59.160 other than to kill people as and when they could
00:50:03.720 if they don't really need to.
00:50:05.640 I've never met one myself.
00:50:07.200 I'm not sure there aren't any.
00:50:08.840 But I think any government or any military commander
00:50:12.320 would find it extremely hard to ask a soldier
00:50:14.640 to fight without ethics, without adhering to the laws of war.
00:50:20.340 I think it's extremely important.
00:50:22.280 If you do that, if you try and get people to do things
00:50:25.660 that are outside those laws,
00:50:27.420 then you're really condemning them, not just to potential criminal activity,
00:50:32.140 but also to real moral hazard for themselves, which could affect them in untold ways.
00:50:38.360 So I think it's really important.
00:50:41.160 Marine A, who was accused and convicted for murder for killing a wounded Taliban soldier in Afghanistan,
00:50:53.320 I never believed he should have been convicted for murder
00:50:57.780 and ultimately on appeal his conviction was overturned
00:51:04.480 and he was not any longer convicted of murder
00:51:07.260 and he was released from prison
00:51:09.000 but he did serve a period of time in prison
00:51:10.580 what he did was wrong
00:51:12.020 it was against the Geneva Convention
00:51:13.380 it was against the laws of war
00:51:14.540 it was immoral
00:51:15.060 it was unnecessary
00:51:15.880 and it was completely wrong
00:51:17.000 could you just explain what he actually did?
00:51:19.020 right he shot a
00:51:20.880 there was a wounded Taliban prisoner
00:51:23.200 who was probably about to die.
00:51:26.300 He was so severely wounded,
00:51:28.000 he probably would not have survived.
00:51:29.880 And he shot him to get rid of him.
00:51:32.780 To finish him off.
00:51:33.600 Yeah, basically.
00:51:35.100 And that he should not have done
00:51:37.940 because that is murder.
00:51:39.220 Even in a war situation, it is murder.
00:51:41.000 What he should have done was to do his best
00:51:42.460 to patch him up and then evacuate him,
00:51:45.080 if he could, to somewhere he could get better treatment.
00:51:47.320 Maybe he would die on the way,
00:51:48.420 but that would have been the right thing to do.
00:51:50.840 But he didn't.
00:51:52.280 And it was filmed.
00:51:53.200 One of his fellow soldiers filmed this happening,
00:51:56.260 and so there wasn't any dispute as to the facts of what happened.
00:52:00.960 But my opinion is that the reason he shouldn't have,
00:52:03.420 and this is the reason his conviction was overturned on appeal,
00:52:07.980 was that he was suffering from the most extreme stress
00:52:12.640 which caused him to behave in a very uncharacteristic way
00:52:17.340 and in an illegal way.
00:52:18.680 But stress sometimes does that to people, battle stress.
00:52:21.340 he'd been on numerous operational tours he'd seen someone speak all things done to his fellow
00:52:26.960 marines um and and he was he was behaving out really outside of his control he was he was
00:52:34.120 really not mentally capable of doing what he was doing um and that was the eventual finding of the
00:52:39.580 court of appeal um and and i think you know for whatever reason his first court marshal
00:52:46.740 kind of treated him as if he'd been someone in south london stabbing a rival to get drug money
00:52:57.740 or something like that and and it's not like that at all it's a totally you know it has to be looked
00:53:02.440 at as a totally different situation he was not acting in my view he was not acting in you know
00:53:08.600 under his own mental control um and and you and you do get that i mentioned earlier that the levels
00:53:15.420 of stress um and the the horrors that people see and experience can have very very bad effects on
00:53:22.020 their minds but doesn't that also go back to my point of people you know and there may be very
00:53:26.660 educated people in the law and they don't understand what it's like you know i remember
00:53:31.900 talking to my grandfather who fought in el alamein and he fought in in the second world war and he
00:53:38.140 fought in italy and he said you only really see the soldiers when the lead's flying yeah and he
00:53:43.380 goes and you will never know what that's like so for us to therefore judge him is is ridiculous
00:53:48.720 because we don't know what it's like well i certainly don't to have an islamic fundamentalist
00:53:53.720 with an ak-47 trying to blow my head off no i agree and it's it's it's a it is very difficult
00:54:00.920 to understand unless you've actually experienced something like that but in fact in the case of
00:54:05.200 marine aid that we were talking about the people judging him were soldiers because there's a
00:54:08.660 military court-martial so they should have i i believe they should have done it differently i
00:54:13.140 I mean, you know, I've sat on court-martials myself
00:54:16.180 and different factors come into play.
00:54:19.080 I'm not accusing them of being corrupted,
00:54:23.600 but I do believe it suited the army,
00:54:27.760 it suited the government for Marine Aid to be convicted.
00:54:31.240 Now, I'm not sure how that kind of desire
00:54:35.620 from the armed forces and from the government
00:54:38.100 was transmitted into a conviction in a court-martial,
00:54:40.980 but I know it certainly did suit them.
00:54:43.140 I guess what the point Francis was making
00:54:44.820 was more about the commentary in the media
00:54:46.400 because I remember seeing that story at the time
00:54:48.320 as someone who's not in any way involved with the military.
00:54:51.160 It just seemed like a bunch of people
00:54:52.860 in comfortable armchairs in Westminster
00:54:55.660 talking about somebody who was in a combat situation.
00:55:00.000 And look, as you say, the Geneva Convention
00:55:02.560 and the laws of war and all of that exist,
00:55:04.640 but to expect someone who's just been shot at
00:55:07.880 and nearly killed, having served and seen horrible things,
00:55:11.320 to immediately treat someone who's about to die anyway.
00:55:15.920 I see both sides of it, but I don't think it's reasonable
00:55:19.060 to just expect them to behave with utmost moral perfection
00:55:22.900 in that situation.
00:55:23.920 You can't be clinical, in my view.
00:55:27.580 And in all wars throughout history, leeway has been shown
00:55:30.780 to soldiers who have transgressed the laws of war.
00:55:34.520 There's a real difference between somebody who,
00:55:37.860 in the heat of battle, because they're wound up there,
00:55:40.920 You know, they've seen lots of people killed around them.
00:55:44.180 They're, you know, they're really aggressive
00:55:46.840 and with, you know, blood dripping from them, really,
00:55:49.560 in a very tough combat situation.
00:55:54.300 You've got to treat people differently in that situation
00:55:56.660 from, let's say, an SS squad
00:56:00.560 that lines a group of soldiers up against the wall
00:56:03.460 and machine guns them and murders them,
00:56:05.320 which happened to a company from my own regiment
00:56:08.180 in the Second World War just before the Dunkirk evacuation.
00:56:12.060 So, you know, there's war crimes
00:56:14.780 and there are soldiers behaving in a way that, you know,
00:56:19.580 you can't control human beings like automatons in some circumstances
00:56:23.600 and I think that definitely needs to be understood.
00:56:25.780 But we're seeing, we've seen far too many cases of soldiers
00:56:32.100 being prosecuted and investigated, endlessly investigated
00:56:35.480 as a result of allegations made against them in Iraq,
00:56:38.700 in Afghanistan, and in Northern Ireland.
00:56:40.580 And today we're watching as sort of old-age pensioners
00:56:44.260 who were once soldiers who were being hounded through the courts
00:56:48.000 in Northern Ireland for alleged offences they committed
00:56:51.700 half a century ago, half a century ago.
00:56:54.980 And, you know, this is being done for political objectives.
00:56:59.400 All of it is being done for political objectives.
00:57:01.500 In the case of the Northern Ireland allegations
00:57:04.760 in which soldiers are being hounded there.
00:57:07.660 It is essentially an attempt by Irish Republicans
00:57:11.280 to rewrite history,
00:57:13.160 to present their terrorists as the good guys
00:57:15.260 and British soldiers as the war criminals,
00:57:18.420 which is the total reverse of the truth.
00:57:21.940 In Afghanistan and Iraq,
00:57:24.620 the allegations were made for a rather different reason,
00:57:27.100 but one was money and the other one was
00:57:30.480 Iraqis and Afghans in some cases
00:57:33.320 were making allegations and encouraged to do so by British lawyers
00:57:36.100 in order to score political points over British and Western governments.
00:57:42.700 Well, nice to end on a non-controversial note there.
00:57:45.660 Colonel, it's been an absolute pleasure.
00:57:47.240 We're going to ask you a couple of questions for our local supporters in a second.
00:57:50.960 But before we do, we've got one final question for you as always.
00:57:53.460 Which is always, what's the one thing we're not talking about, but we really should be?
00:57:57.320 I think in this context, there are many things in the world we're not talking about.
00:58:00.840 I think in the context of our conversation, one of the biggest problems we face at the moment is two things.
00:58:11.360 One is radicalization and de-radicalization.
00:58:16.000 And, you know, we've seen cases recently in the last couple of years in London where Islamic terrorists who have been convicted, done their sentence, been let out of prison, have gone through de-radicalization programs, have then carried out attacks.
00:58:28.500 which goes to show our de-radicalization programs do not work clearly certainly not in those cases
00:58:35.380 i suspect and you know many people who are closer involved than i am in prisons etc have confirmed
00:58:40.780 that um that our de-radicalization programs leave a lot to be desired so you know because because
00:58:48.380 if people are indoctrinated they have they have a religious belief in their mind it's it's not like
00:58:55.040 it's not the same as a common criminal who can be made to understand
00:58:59.140 and deterred from carrying out his crime by punishment.
00:59:03.300 Sometimes religious beliefs and indoctrination transcedes punishment,
00:59:09.140 and I think in many of the cases of jihadists it does.
00:59:12.240 So if we're not to keep them in prison indefinitely,
00:59:15.580 which obviously is highly undesirable in any democratic society,
00:59:19.480 then we need to do more about, we need to talk more about de-radicalisation.
00:59:22.820 and I would argue we need to try and involve countries like the UAE
00:59:27.220 and other countries in the Middle East which are Muslim countries
00:59:31.480 to be involved in our de-radicalisation programmes.
00:59:34.720 And the second thing that people aren't talking about,
00:59:37.020 you're getting two for the price of one,
00:59:38.800 is linked to the same kind of problem,
00:59:41.060 which is how you deal with prisoners of this conflict.
00:59:45.860 It's a sort of multi-generational conflict that we're facing.
00:59:51.020 This is not going to end in five years, 10 years, or 50 years.
00:59:55.340 It's going to go on for a very long time, this jihadist conflict.
01:00:00.660 And how do you deal with people you capture?
01:00:03.760 It goes back to the de-radicalization point.
01:00:06.120 But if you look at Guantanamo Bay, you know,
01:00:08.940 President Obama vowed to end Guantanamo Bay.
01:00:13.100 He did two terms in office.
01:00:14.860 It's still there now because there was no solution.
01:00:17.320 in a conventional war you capture prisoners and when the war is over you release those prisoners
01:00:23.300 because hostilities are finished this is not going to finish so there will never come a time when
01:00:28.200 you can really release and expect them no longer to be fighting you and we've seen you know we've
01:00:34.600 got in afghanistan today in the government in certainly in among the taliban leadership people
01:00:39.740 have been to guantanamo bay so they you know they were released and they're still fighting so
01:00:45.060 So it's a real problem.
01:00:46.960 I don't have the answers,
01:00:47.900 but I think one of your extremely clever listeners
01:00:50.320 probably ought to come up with the answer to that question.
01:00:52.780 Let me follow up very briefly,
01:00:54.220 because Guantanamo Bay,
01:00:55.880 I don't know,
01:00:58.480 it just grinds so much against my liberal instincts,
01:01:01.180 what happened there.
01:01:02.180 Do you think it was a mistake,
01:01:03.520 or do you think it was necessary,
01:01:04.880 and do you think we're going to have to do more of that?
01:01:06.720 I think unless someone comes up with a better solution,
01:01:10.500 it was a necessary evil.
01:01:13.200 And I don't really understand how you can deal with a problem
01:01:18.880 like Islamic jihadism, which is a conflict.
01:01:22.680 This is not criminal activity.
01:01:24.640 It is criminal, but it's much more like a conflict.
01:01:28.240 How you can deal with it without something like Guantanamo Bay.
01:01:31.640 And even the genius President Obama, a law professor,
01:01:35.920 elected twice to the most powerful man in the world, twice,
01:01:39.820 he couldn't figure out a solution to it.
01:01:41.920 So if he couldn't, I certainly am not going to be able to.
01:01:44.440 What about all the waterboarding and all that stuff?
01:01:46.580 Surely that was unnecessary.
01:01:48.360 Yeah, I think it was.
01:01:51.240 You know, torture is a very – if you just call it torture,
01:01:55.500 I guess we would certainly classify it as torture
01:01:58.220 as a very controversial thing.
01:02:01.540 And it's certainly forbidden under our laws,
01:02:04.920 and I don't think – you know, I would not support it.
01:02:07.380 I was never involved in any of that, and I would not support it.
01:02:09.620 But having said that, I can understand in some circumstances why they did it in that situation.
01:02:17.060 And the reason they did it was because they were so fearful of another 9-11.
01:02:22.740 Now, that doesn't excuse what happened, but I think it sort of explains why they felt that such extreme measures needed to be taken.
01:02:31.240 And it wasn't just about another 9-11 flying aircraft into building.
01:02:35.780 It was the knowledge and the intelligence that suggested that, you know, that these jihadists were trying to get their hands on biological weapons, chemical weapons and nuclear weapons and getting close towards it in some circumstances.
01:02:49.920 So, you know, it's not an excuse, but I think an explanation.
01:02:54.760 Someone should have told them they just need to get a bat to sneeze on them if they needed a biological weapon.
01:02:59.920 We've ended up with one.
01:03:01.080 You need no further than Wuhan.
01:03:03.100 Exactly.
01:03:03.680 Colonel Richard Kemp, it's been an absolute pleasure.
01:03:05.640 Where can people find your work, your writing, et cetera, online?
01:03:08.340 How do they find out more about what's going on?
01:03:10.760 I've got a website which is called richard-kempt.com
01:03:14.420 and I'm on Twitter which is at colrichardkempt.
01:03:19.040 So if you want to abuse me for any of the horrible,
01:03:21.940 cancelable, triggerable comments I've made,
01:03:25.400 then you can get me on those things.
01:03:26.640 I get plenty of abuse already, so please join in.
01:03:29.440 Colonel, it's been an absolute pleasure.
01:03:31.580 Thank you so much.
01:03:32.940 And if you've enjoyed this interview
01:03:34.960 and you want to see others
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01:03:46.120 Take care
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