Latest / UK Column Radio / Investigating War — with Iain Overton

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Investigating War — with Iain Overton · UK Column Radio

0:08
Hello, I'm Charles Mallett with Auk column interview.
0:11
Today I'm joined by Dr. Ian Overton, who is the Executive
0:16
Director of Action on Armed Violence, as well as being an
0:20
investigative journalist and an author in very warm welcome to
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UK column and thank you very much indeed for joining me.
0:28
Thank you. No, it's a It's a pleasure.
0:30
Good. Now, there is an awful lot to
0:33
try to cover today. How much of that will actually
0:35
get through remains to be seen. But just say that the audience
0:39
have a basis for understanding what it is that you're going to
0:42
be talking about and why. Would you just explain a bit
0:46
about what it is that action on on violence does do and how your
0:50
involvement with it started? So we basically root civilian
0:56
harm in conflict zones at the epicentre of of what we're
0:59
interested in. And we do that through
1:03
investigating harm in conflicts as well as looking at what
1:09
what's for a long time I thought was a sort of a rather sort of
1:12
tinfoil hatted expression as sort of military industrial
1:16
complex. But as the longer I've spent in
1:18
this space, the more I think that actually that actually
1:21
McCarthy was was writing calling it that.
1:24
So we investigate the military industrial complex and we do
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throw through field research. So my work has taken me over the
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years to around 25 conflict zones around the world of
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differing levels of harm, as well as doing things like
1:39
Freedom of Information request, deep dive analysis into data.
1:43
And we run a global explosive violence data set where we look
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on a daily basis at civilians killed or injured by explosive
1:51
violence in popular related areas.
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And we cross reference that to things like the arms trade and
1:57
who is profiting from the sale of such weapons to to various
2:01
regimes and and nations. OK.
2:05
Thank you very much for that. Now the the pursuit really is to
2:09
try to staunch the flow of in particular, if I've understood
2:14
correctly, civilian casualties. I mean statistically I think
2:18
this, this bears sort of greater scrutiny.
2:21
Can you just explain with, with particular regard to say
2:24
explosive ordinance why it's, you know, it really is a matter
2:28
of concern that we think about civilian populations who get
2:32
caught up in these sorts of conflicts?
2:35
So my own background is I was ABBC journalist and then a
2:39
Channel 4 News journalist. And then I set up something
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called the Bureau of Investigative Journalism.
2:43
But around 12 years ago I joined Action on Violence and at the
2:47
same time we set up this global explosive violence Monitor.
2:51
And it was quite a revelation because up until that point I've
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been to lots of places where there were clearly huge sorts of
2:58
impacts of, of conflict on towns and cities.
3:02
But we set out to look at all English British language media
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reports of civilians recorded injured or killed in these
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cities, alongside all injuries and deaths.
3:13
And we found out relatively quickly that when explosive
3:15
weapons were used in towns and cities, around 90% of people
3:19
killed or injured were civilians, compared to something
3:22
around 20% in lesser populated areas such as rural terrain.
3:28
And I thought in the first instance, this might have been
3:31
an anomaly. But year 2 came year three-year
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4, Year 5, every year for a decade, the same basic patterns
3:39
of harm are very clearly evidenced.
3:41
And over that time, we've obviously seen Homs and Aleppo
3:45
and Mariupol and Gaza unfolding where, you know, we're back in
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the sort of terrain of of Hiroshima and Dresden, you know,
3:53
massive deaths of civilians in urban areas, often very
3:58
distanced from the general public's mind and concern,
4:02
although I think Gaza and Mariupol have brought it more
4:05
fiercely into the living room. But certainly, you know, a
4:08
decade ago, nobody talked about this phrase explosive weapons in
4:12
populated areas. And I wonder if your listeners
4:15
are familiar now with that framing.
4:17
And I would say that that's come out of the sort of lobbying work
4:20
and advocacy work that organizations like mine have
4:23
tried to do to to make this a concern.
4:26
And we, we actually got over 80 states signing a political
4:30
commitment to avoid the use of explosive weapons in populated
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areas in Ireland a couple of years ago.
4:36
And, and of course, you could say that this is, you know,
4:39
since Ireland a few years ago, we've seen the, the devastation
4:42
of Gaza and the, the continuing terrors of Ukraine.
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But I think at least we're now acknowledging that this is a
4:49
real issue of 21st century warfare and civilians,
4:54
strangely, in a space where militaries are often distanced
4:56
from the fighting because of drone warfare and increasingly
4:59
autonomous systems, the civilians are really caught in
5:03
the in the terror of the mall in between.
5:05
And this is a a very different relationship to war that we saw
5:09
potentially, let's say in 1914, where soldiers were the primary
5:13
victims and civilians were often relatively protected by being
5:17
further away from the front lines.
5:19
Yes. Now, obviously the answer to
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this question is that it, it doesn't matter either way
5:25
because the important thing is that civilians are dying.
5:28
Clearly that is, that is not right.
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I mean, let's go a step further and say that it's not right that
5:32
competence are dying either. I mean, nobody really should be
5:35
dying. But from what you've what you've
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researched, are you suggesting, and it could be a combination of
5:40
these. But he's suggesting that this is
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a change in the nature of warfare and therefore that that
5:45
battles are being fought more amongst the civilian population
5:48
or that civilians are more vulnerable because they don't
5:50
have the the tactical expertise or indeed the sort of
5:54
protections that combatants would have.
5:55
Or is it sort of hybrid of of both of those factors?
5:58
I mean, I think it's a hybrid in in a way.
6:00
So obviously in someone like Gaza, the civilians can't leave
6:03
their areas. And we've seen many an instance
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where people are are are hurt in one location, they become
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refugees and then they're hurt in the second location and even
6:12
the third location. So we've seen multiple assaults
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on civilians that are moving within the space, particularly
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in Gaza. In other places like Ukraine,
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yes, you saw a massive spike in the early days, civilian harm
6:24
and then a kind of a slow levelling off as people began to
6:27
pour it over the border into Poland, et cetera, realizing how
6:31
terrible Russian invasion was. But I think I, I go to the very
6:35
heart of the matter and the argument that if you look at the
6:38
origin of the rules of war, it really sort of began in Cressy
6:42
or Agincourt where, where soldiers and, and there's a
6:45
reason why chivalry is called chivalry, because the Cheval,
6:49
the, the, the knight on the horseback was the sort of
6:52
archetypal arbiter of faith and justice in the battlefield.
6:57
And chivalry was in, in a way, not doing the coup de grace on
7:01
your enemy, but actually letting them live.
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And so over time, I think that you saw soldiers actually
7:09
creating rules of war so that they had a fighting chance of
7:12
survival if they were ever captured.
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It wouldn't all just be executions all round.
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And over time, I mean, even up to sort of the middle of the
7:20
20th century, the rules of war were very much discussed by
7:23
soldiers for soldiers. And then overseas saw the, the,
7:26
the Total War of the 20th century emerging into the
7:30
civilian space and you saw the Geneva Conventions coming out of
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that and a whole raft of UN deployments and, and, and
7:38
treaties and various other things.
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But I think a mark of the 21st century has been a slow erosion
7:43
of some of those sort of profoundly held beliefs about
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the protection of civilians. We're talking about the rules
7:50
based order being sacrificed on the altar of, of strategic
7:55
convenience. But at the same token, you're
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also seeing a distancing of a lot of soldiers from the
8:00
battlefield so that that, you know, we're seeing people
8:03
fighting drugs in warfare for far, far removed.
8:05
And I first helped expose a part of the Bureau of Investigative
8:09
Journalism, the use of, you know, U.S. drone strikes out of
8:12
the Midwest killing civilians in Pakistan.
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You know, can you get even further distance from war from
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that? And so my concern is, is as
8:21
warfare becomes a very different beast fought by soldiers, and
8:25
I'm not denying soldiers bravery and all of this or their their
8:28
risk to them, but they're, you know, war can be a bloodless
8:31
thing for many an aircrew. And you combine that the people
8:36
who are really suffering at the very basis of war are often
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those civilians caught as as, as people in the middle of this of
8:43
this conflict. And I think when we also now
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throw in the mix of AI and targeting systems fuelled by
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artificial intelligence, I think you're going to see even more
8:54
people being targeted as combatants where merely they're
8:58
just fighting age male or they're in the wrong place at
9:00
the wrong time. Or the AI system feel compelled
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to add a name because it doesn't want to say, I think I finished
9:07
now for the day. We don't have to kill anyone
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else. And I think that all of these
9:11
things are occurring at the same time, that the rules of war
9:14
themselves are, are not being addressed through a civilian
9:18
prism. And I sit down with a lot of
9:20
military types and, and, and, and speak to them about their
9:23
rules and processes. And understandably, because the
9:26
world they live in is a military world, they don't often consider
9:29
civilians at the epicenter of what they're doing.
9:31
Civilians are a secondary or even tertiary thought.
9:35
I don't blame for them for that, but I do think that that then
9:38
creates a space for civilians like myself who have seen and
9:41
witnessed war in all of its different terrible faces, to
9:44
actually also be an advocate for the voice of civilians in the
9:47
strategic planning and outcome of conflicts.
9:51
Yes. And now look there's a there's a
9:52
lot that can follow on from from the points you've made there and
9:56
and what you've been through. I mean, I think I would first of
9:58
all say that you're very diplomatic, for want of a better
10:02
word, in suggesting that you shouldn't blame members of the
10:06
armed forces for conducting operations that do have a
10:10
civilian death toll attached to them.
10:12
I mean, I would say that the laws of armed conflict are very,
10:15
very clear on this matter and that that should be avoided at
10:19
almost all costs. Now, the question that falls out
10:22
of that, therefore, given the statistical background and the
10:25
changes in the nature of warfare and exactly what you're
10:27
describing, where there is that divorce now from reality, you
10:30
know, you can sit in a Porter cabin somewhere and kill people
10:34
left and right without even hearing anything go bang.
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There's a huge sort of desensitization to the whole
10:41
process. So I guess the question that
10:43
falls out of it is, is what is happening in particularly
10:47
populated urban areas? Is that actually deliberate in
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so far as it is a deliberate attempt to kill civilians in,
10:57
you know, a sort of a completely unjust method?
11:02
So I, I think that it's almost unequivocal that Russia and
11:05
Israel have conducted campaigns that through the rules of
11:09
engagement rule book, if they even had one in, in the 1st
11:12
place out the window. So I think certain militaries
11:15
have absolutely no conscience about the the deaths of
11:17
civilians. And I think we've even seen
11:19
seats in the Knesset's political rhetoric almost, well, I would
11:24
say at points of genocidal intent and certainly Russia's
11:28
framing of Ukraine is has been devoid of any human rights
11:32
concern. But let's talk about NATO
11:34
countries. So one thing which I was really
11:36
surprised is I asked the British RAF for lists of all the
11:40
civilians killed or injured in their op shader, which is their
11:45
their air flights over Iraq and Syria.
11:47
And they came back and they said that they had killed or injured
11:50
4300 Iraqi and Syrian militants, but that they had only killed 1
11:55
civilian in the entire space. Now, my, my, my, I would put it
11:59
to the RAF that they have therefore either done one of two
12:03
things. They've either broken the, the,
12:05
the, the, the, the nature of war.
12:07
In other words, they've made war entirely bloodless to civilians,
12:11
which is the first time this has ever happened in human history.
12:14
Or that they have wilfully ignored the fact that civilians
12:18
have died, maybe even covered it up or done a system, a
12:22
bureaucratic system of casualty recording where the default is
12:27
always is to the assumption of guilt as opposed to the
12:30
assumption of innocence. And that this willful failure
12:35
then then is, is a framing of how they believe themselves to
12:39
be good men conducting of a conflict far away.
12:43
Now, when I go back, I mentioned I, you know, I don't blame the
12:46
military. So I don't necessarily blame a
12:47
corporal who's given a job as a drone pilot and that's his his
12:51
role to go out and do this. I, I, I don't blame him
12:54
exquisitely I, I, I, because I think obviously he can make the
12:57
choice to, to resign or to, to, to hang up his Commission or
13:00
whatever. But I, what I do blame are the
13:03
more senior individuals who maintain this absolute belief in
13:09
that they are working for the greater good that they are.
13:12
They have no faults and ultimately the war that they are
13:15
fighting is essentially a good one.
13:17
So they, they, they lean into uncritically and then if they
13:20
also within that bureaucratization of their own
13:24
violence, enable them to be violent against civilians, but
13:28
pass that off as violence against militants, then I, I
13:31
would say that they probably deserve a, a long night of the
13:35
soul where they have to sort of reconcile that with their own
13:38
conscience. And I think we just don't see
13:40
that exquisitely. And let's say drone strikes.
13:42
We're also seeing that emerging with the accusations by special
13:47
forces killings in Afghanistan, where we're seeing people at
13:51
senior command level in UK special forces saying that there
13:55
was a willful cover up by their seniors to mean that they
13:59
wouldn't properly interrogate allegations of civilians being
14:02
caught being executed as part of routine at special forces
14:06
operations. And I do think that the most
14:09
incredible thing is that one of the individuals who's been named
14:13
by the BBC is actively hiding evidence.
14:16
Somebody called Hugh Jenkins is now First Sea Lord.
14:19
He's, you know, he promoted even in the face of the BBC saying
14:23
that he hid evidence that civilians were killed in special
14:28
forces OPS. So I think that there is real
14:31
questions to be asked about the way that the British military
14:35
frame themselves as a force of good.
14:38
And this means that they cannot ever contemplate that they
14:41
haven't been a force of good. And when do you have individuals
14:44
like myself come along and I expose this?
14:47
One thing I've noticed is that initially they were quite
14:49
willing to speak to me. And over time, I've become
14:52
persona non grata and I'm not allowed to speak to people at
14:56
senior level of the MOD anymore. And so I think that there
14:59
becomes this sort of defensive framing that if you're not with
15:02
us, you're against us and therefore you have nothing of
15:05
merit to say. And there becomes this
15:07
incredible hostility as if I am part of the problem rather than
15:11
exposing a problem. Yes, that is something we will
15:15
come back to because I absolutely want to talk about
15:17
the relationship between the military, government,
15:20
corporations and the media. But sorry, just clarifies, Gwen
15:24
Jenkins actually the the First Sea Lord.
15:27
Sorry, you said. You said you but but anyway,
15:30
Gwen. Jenkins exactly.
15:31
As you say, and and he was director of Special Forces and
15:33
we'll come back to that as well. But just before we do, I think
15:37
something again, you know, when we're talking about this, this
15:40
idea that so much is in effect hidden from public view because
15:44
unless you've gone into deep research and you've actually
15:47
gone to these places as you have and you've studied it, it, it is
15:51
very easy, particularly for people in Western Europe to have
15:54
really no sense of what is going on.
15:56
And now we set that against the what it is that armed forces are
16:00
doing under what they've been given as rules of engagement.
16:04
Now, of course, if you look into that, it's certainly for the,
16:06
for the British Army rules of engagement are written down in
16:09
JSP 398 at joint service publication and they are an
16:14
expression of political will. They're an expression of how to
16:17
how to use force. Now, the reason I'm setting that
16:20
out because I'd be very interested to hear your views
16:23
on, first of all, that in itself, because I think a lot of
16:26
people in the armed forces are not really aware that in actual
16:29
fact, when the rules of engagement change, that can be
16:32
for political reasons rather than reasons of a change in
16:37
threat or risk on the ground. But also in light of the
16:40
comments by the Secretary for War, Pete Hagseth in the United
16:44
States, who's basically saying, right, well, rules of engagement
16:47
thing of the past, crack on, do what you like.
16:50
I mean, absolutely, I, I think that the, you know, the, the,
16:53
the class fits in framing war as an extension of politics by the
16:57
means is, is, is very true. And I, I think that there's
17:01
this, I wouldn't call it naivety, but there's a certain
17:05
reluctance by the British military to sort of say, they
17:08
always say we're not political. We're not political.
17:10
And there's a virtue, of course, in that because a politicized
17:12
military, you know, is something that, you know, you, you, you
17:15
associate, let's say, with a Central American Republic in, in
17:19
the 1980s. You know, you, you've got to be
17:21
wary of that sort of thing. But, but I think that, that
17:26
there is a kind of a, a, a wider political framing.
17:30
So I think that, you know, this old idea of the British military
17:35
or the British nation, essentially post empire is a
17:38
nation seeking to find a role for itself.
17:41
And I think the, the, the military hasn't really caught up
17:44
with that agenda and it still to some degree wants to be
17:47
Everything Everywhere all at once.
17:49
So I came out with a story today that showed that we, our
17:52
reservists were sent to 51 countries last year and the year
17:56
before, British Army person, you know, went to 171 countries
18:01
around the world. And I think that there is this
18:04
desire to constantly find an enemy, to have this persistent
18:08
framing that we are the last defenders of some bastion of
18:11
civilization. And that this means we're always
18:14
seeking to sort of find a role to be engaged with.
18:18
And when that role is then officially granted by the policy
18:21
makers that we are allowed to be in Iraq or Afghanistan and and
18:25
fight a war, then then of course the the gloves come off.
18:30
And then there's a question, well, what are we going to do?
18:33
What's the end goal? What are we actually selling?
18:36
Can we sell democracy down the barrel of a gun?
18:39
Can we achieve this? And one of the things I really
18:41
find striking and and actually quite problematic is that
18:45
because the military says we're not, we're not, we are, you
18:48
know, we are the fault. Let Caesar be unto Caesar and
18:51
then we will do what we have to do.
18:53
That that to that degree that they they refuse to sort of
18:57
really bring on lessons of the past in any meaningful way.
19:01
So if you say, what were the lessons of Afghanistan?
19:03
What were the lessons of Iraq? These it's like pulling teeth.
19:06
It's a very painful process. I went to Basra a couple of
19:10
months ago and I sat down with lots of families who had been at
19:14
the very hard end of British military engagements and
19:17
families had been lost. Terrible events had occurred.
19:21
I'm not saying this was purposeful.
19:22
I don't think the British military aimed machine guns at
19:25
civilians like the Russians might do.
19:27
But nonetheless, I think that there were terrible outcomes.
19:31
And when of course, we want to address this from the British
19:34
military perspective, I think that some of the rules of that
19:39
led to those engagements aren't particularly looked at.
19:43
You know, we, we, we shut down the, the Iraq historical
19:46
allegations team process. This entire process of
19:50
investigating these special forces in Afghanistan has been
19:53
a, a very slow and expensive process.
19:56
Even Northern Ireland has revealed nothing of any
19:58
substance about, you know, 30-40 years on.
20:01
And I think that the military's desire to learn from its
20:04
failings, which is negligible, means that when it comes to the
20:07
next position where it has to use rules of engagement in a
20:11
lethal manner, it it doesn't sort of go well, we can't behave
20:15
in the way we previously did. And I think that that failure of
20:18
institutional memory to learn from its own mistakes means that
20:23
to a degree that is a political decision.
20:25
And the political decision ultimately comes, I think, from
20:28
a fundamental, which is that governments, often government
20:31
after government, treats the military with a rare
20:36
exceptionalism in British life where they're always brave,
20:39
they're always doing exceptional work, and they're always to be
20:44
praised. And that's there's no public
20:46
space in Britain to be anything but overtly critical.
20:50
And of course you don't. You shouldn't be critical for
20:52
the sake of criticism. But when there is valid
20:55
criticism, and I think the British military definitely has
20:58
valid criticism, whether it's racism or sexism in its rank,
21:01
whether it's claims of extradition killings in
21:04
Afghanistan, whether it's failing to protect civilians in
21:07
Iraq, whether it's the death of individuals in Kenya and and
21:11
allegations of wrongdoing there. All of these are murky truths
21:15
that are are circulating around the British military at the
21:18
moment that but there's a reluctance, an institutional
21:21
reluctance. And I think that that stems from
21:24
a political exceptionalism that the military has granted.
21:28
But it's also something rooted in the British military's own
21:31
framing of itself as a force of good and an an unassailably
21:35
good. Which means that, you know, as
21:38
you say, Gwen Jenkins gets promoted rather than castigated,
21:42
even in the face of damning evidence.
21:45
Yes, I think, I think what you say would be agreed with by a
21:48
lot of former servicemen, myself included.
21:51
I think that absolutely is the perception of what 1 is doing
21:55
and the way that you're told to, to sort of think about going
21:58
about doing it. I think just since you've
22:02
mentioned it, it, it does give an insight, you know, on this
22:06
theme. The, the report that you've,
22:08
you've just referred to about, you know, we described just
22:11
before we started recording effectively an exercise in what
22:14
might be described as military tourism.
22:16
And really, you know, what should we take out of that?
22:20
Because clearly the, the, the purpose, well, is it, but the
22:24
purpose of an armed force could be said to be to deliver lethal
22:28
force, you know, in a place where it is required.
22:31
I mean, it's highly questionable as to whether it is ever
22:34
required. So that's perhaps a bit of a red
22:36
herring. But when you set that alongside
22:38
what you're talking about, I mean, what is it that you do
22:41
think about that? What, what does that say about
22:43
the way in which our armed forces are conducting
22:46
themselves, or indeed having money thrown at them to do this,
22:49
that and the other? So, so this is gonna be quite
22:53
controversial, but John Johnny Beale, who's the BB CS defence
22:56
chief, said to me once that the, one of the biggest controversies
23:00
he's ever reported on was the number of public school boys who
23:03
go to Santa's. And, and I'm a former public
23:06
school boy who, who got a scholarship to go to Sandhurst.
23:09
And I decided after university to join the BBC instead, which
23:12
is a different form of corrupt institution anyway.
23:16
So, so, so, but one of the interesting things is that if
23:20
you get an overseas forum posting as a, as an army
23:23
officer, as any soldier, but essentially obvious, there's
23:26
always a chance you're going to get, if you have a family,
23:29
you'll get a boarding school allowance.
23:30
And I was sent to boarding school on my father's boarding
23:33
school allowance. So there's a natural imperative
23:35
as if you're a major to want to be sent as a defence attache to
23:39
a different country. So then you get a boarding
23:41
school allowance. And I know somebody who sent who
23:43
sent 44 sons to Gordonston based on this premise.
23:47
Now I think that that's part of I mean, that's one of the
23:50
incentives. But I think there's also and and
23:53
many of us, you know, any of your listeners have been to
23:55
boarding school or, you know, there is this sort of framing of
23:58
of the boarding school came out of this concept of empire this
24:02
yearning to be in a far off location, doing daring, do worth
24:07
worthy things, often through a military prism.
24:10
And so the military mindset is very much always let's seek
24:14
what's on the distant horizon. The senior personnel of the
24:18
military are often ex special forces who got granted not just
24:22
the excitement of getting sent everywhere all the time, but
24:25
also in secret in a sort of James Bondish way.
24:28
So I think that there's very much rooted at the heart of the
24:31
the the British military desire to be in another place.
24:35
Salisbury Plain is very boring if you compare it to doing
24:39
manoeuvres in Kenya or Brunei or Borneo.
24:42
But then underpinning all of that I think is also this
24:45
Britain wanting to punch above its weight.
24:48
It's a small nation, an island nation.
24:50
But you know, we're part of the Security Council.
24:53
I think we're, there's this also implicit understanding that we
24:55
were last invaded in the early 18th century.
24:58
You know, there's not much argument that anyone wants to
25:01
invade us with any meaningful force at the moment.
25:04
I don't think Putin desperately wants to take Edinburgh and
25:07
London with the, you know, a phalanx of Russian soldiers.
25:12
So I guess the question is, is what, what is the military for?
25:16
And of course it's partly a projection of power.
25:18
But then I think we, we're entering a real crunch period
25:21
where our, our, our global ambitions don't really work out
25:25
to our budgetary constraints. And so I think what you're
25:29
seeing is US trying to be everywhere, everything all at
25:32
once on a Poundland budget. And that doesn't work.
25:36
So either you get the ex military types who go on the
25:39
Today program saying we need a lot more money in the face of,
25:42
you know, major cuts throughout other parts of the British
25:45
governmental supply. Or you have a position where we
25:50
say actually we need to retract a bit.
25:52
And I did notice today that the MOD said that they're going to
25:55
pull back a little bit from some foreign deployments.
25:59
But I think there is a fundamental tension as to what
26:01
Britain is in the post imperial age.
26:03
I think that that does aligns badly with a recruitment
26:07
challenge that the military have trying to say, look, join the
26:10
military and we'll send you peeing in the Alps or, you know,
26:14
climbing the Himalayas or whatever it is, which is
26:17
obviously exciting. And who wouldn't want to do
26:19
that? And so I think that there's this
26:22
tension about what is Britain, what is empire mean, you know,
26:26
years on after giving giving way to empire and what does the
26:30
British military have to say? But you know, as you know, if
26:33
you walk the halls of Santa's, the halls of Santas, the full of
26:37
oil paintings of people doing, you know, exciting and heroic
26:41
things in, you know, the Hindustan or, you know, the
26:45
Hindu Kush or whatever. And this is incredibly exciting
26:49
and who, you know, that sort of roots itself in a consciousness
26:52
of what we are. But I think that they're, you
26:55
know, when you speak to Italians or French, not necessarily the
26:58
French, because they have the French Foreign Legion, but the
27:00
Germans, the Spanish about their militaries, they look at us
27:03
slightly perplexed and they go, you know, why?
27:05
Why do you have to be everywhere?
27:07
And if you ask that question, you know, the intriguing thing
27:10
is that I, I don't think that this is a matter of major public
27:14
debate in the British sort of conversation.
27:18
We almost think, oh, that's just what the military do and they'll
27:20
always do that. But, you know, when I look back
27:23
at our previous imperial endeavours and our footprint,
27:28
our military footprint and ask the question, were we a force of
27:31
true good, a much more complex question mark rises.
27:35
And so I think we have to be persistently vigilant as to what
27:38
we're doing and which countries and how we're doing it.
27:41
Because, you know, did we do good in Iraq?
27:44
Did we do good in Afghanistan? And, and also from a, from a
27:47
very specific perspective, you know, did our former soldiers
27:51
sent to Afghanistan and Iraq, how do they manage, you know,
27:55
civilian life now knowing what they were asked and tasked to
27:59
do? And I think we need to have
28:01
empathy from both perspectives is about, you know, not just the
28:04
empathy and perspective of the Iraqi or the Afghan civilians
28:08
caught up, you know, in our own military endeavors, but also the
28:12
legacy of those wars on soldiers who were sent to places.
28:15
And I know at least three soldiers who took to have taken
28:18
their lives after tours of Afghanistan and Iraq.
28:21
And, you know, that does come with a a moral injury that has
28:25
occurred as a consequence of us doing things that we're not
28:28
entirely convinced did good. Very much so.
28:32
Now to go to the point you're making about the in effect, the
28:36
background and the sort of lifestyle of a lot of the people
28:39
who do end up becoming big decision makers and, and
28:43
relating that to what we are seeing, albeit very slowly
28:46
through the Afghan inquiry and the suggestion that there have
28:49
been extrajudicial clear killings made by special forces
28:52
over a number of years. And again, this is not isolated
28:56
to British special forces. Of course.
28:59
The, the what has been very interesting to observe is what's
29:01
happened in Australia with the case of Ben Robert Smith, the
29:04
decorated corporal who was found guilty, or rather sorry he was
29:13
pursued A libel case, a civil case therefore, and lost because
29:17
on the balance of probability the court decided that he had
29:22
committed extrajudicial killings and yet no criminal trial.
29:26
And the same in the United Kingdom.
29:28
Now, do you think that that what you've described bears relation
29:33
to, in effect, the lack of scrutiny really that's gone
29:38
into, with the exception of the Afghan inquiry, the lack of
29:40
scrutiny and indeed the lack of any sort of suggestion that
29:44
there might be consequences for what may have happened?
29:49
I mean, I, I, I, I don't think that the inquiry into
29:52
Afghanistan will result in a singular conviction.
29:55
In fact, explicitly any evidence given to the inquiry does not
29:59
then hold standing in a Criminal Court, which I don't think
30:02
really has been highlighted anywhere of any significance.
30:05
And I think that that is an incredible thing that you set up
30:08
an inquiry and by doing so, you actually to a degree, render the
30:13
fundamentals of British criminal process obsolete.
30:19
You know, we've seen it with Northern Ireland and the Bloody
30:21
Sunday killings. We've seen it.
30:23
And, and and of course it gets reduced into this framing that
30:25
somehow this is lawfare. These are terrible liberal left
30:30
wing lawyers striving to sort of gut the heart out of our heroic
30:34
soldiers. And of course, you know, we did
30:37
see one or two badly behaved lawyers, don't get me wrong.
30:42
But simultaneously the, the question I would raise is
30:46
surely, if you believe in due process, the rule of law and the
30:51
and nature of democracy, that inquiring about the overstep of,
30:56
of, of the rights of, of, of individuals, the, the, the, the,
31:00
the failure of the rules of war, the, the deaths of civilians.
31:04
Surely this is part and parcel of the package we were
31:07
promising, which is democracy. So I see myself as a thorn in
31:11
the side of the military. But because I believe that if we
31:14
don't have people like me interrogating the military the
31:17
the military's actions, then the military has carte blanche to do
31:22
whatever it will. So I almost see myself as an
31:25
ally to the military because without people like me,
31:29
everything is lost. But so, so on a wider
31:32
perspective, I think that the impunity that has been enjoyed
31:35
by the Americans, the British and other forces that we may
31:39
have seen begin in home. In Fallujah, for instance, we
31:43
saw the deaths of lots of civilians there. the US got away
31:46
with it. I've teamed up with Julian
31:48
Assange to expose the WikiLeaks military logs of Iraq.
31:54
And we saw war crime after war crime being committed and
31:58
recorded by the British, by the American military.
32:01
Not one of those allegations of war crimes ever ended up in
32:05
court. So the Americans laid out in the
32:07
early 21st century clear case for the impunity of the American
32:13
forces, and the British simultaneously sort of got on
32:16
board. And we had an inquiry, the Iraq
32:19
Historical Allegations team, but that folded with no evidence of
32:22
wrongdoing. I think that then Russia saw
32:26
that impunity acting and they thought, well, if you're going
32:28
to do it in with Fallujah, we'll do it in Homs and Aleppo.
32:31
That led to no, no outcomes. So then you saw it in Mariupol
32:36
and then now we're seeing it in Gaza.
32:38
So I would say that the impunity enjoyed by Netanyahu is rooted
32:44
in the very claims of democracy that we sold to the world
32:49
through armed conflict in the early 21st century that we
32:52
didn't then support with due legal process of holding our own
32:57
to account. So I, I think this is part of a
33:00
much bigger play of actually, what do we mean by civilization?
33:04
What do we mean by the, the rule of law?
33:06
What do we mean by justice? And so I, I, I don't, I mean,
33:10
I'm, I'm a tiny actor in all of this, but I do.
33:13
That is a philosophy that spurs me on, that I believe myself to
33:17
be a defender of facts and a defender of truth in an age when
33:21
so much is contested. Yeah, no, there's, you know,
33:25
there's a lot of important substance there.
33:28
Now you use the phrase holding to account and I think this is
33:32
really where we want to go. You I think I'm right with the
33:36
BBC from 97 to 2005. And obviously that period is
33:41
effectively exactly when the the so-called War on Terror was, was
33:45
basically being wound up with the then, well, I suppose Afghan
33:49
deployment 2001 and then Iraq 2003.
33:53
And this is, I don't mean this to be necessarily Bob, question
33:56
about your time at the BBC, but but from the perspective of an
34:01
insider, do you believe that during that period the BBC was
34:04
doing what it is supposed to do and holding the government to
34:08
account? So it's very interesting.
34:11
I, I was just talking to somebody at the BBC the other
34:14
day about this. I, I was in the BBC newsroom
34:16
when we saw the second plane hit the Twin Towers.
34:19
And in that moment, we knew our entire lives had changed.
34:22
I'm looking back on my role at the BBC.
34:26
So I, I went on embeds with the British military.
34:29
I was in Iraq during the, the, the descent into chaos in Basra.
34:34
I was embedded with the British military there.
34:36
And I think I did all of that relatively uncritically.
34:40
I, I was, you know, we, we felt that there was a major shift
34:43
that occurred. I think a lot of people got on
34:45
board with, you know, I'm, I mean, we didn't quite go as far
34:48
as US correspondents turning up with a rifle and a gun in our
34:52
hands and saying we were on board.
34:54
But I think there was a lack of critical review.
34:57
And I remember when I was at Channel 4, we, there was a very
35:01
good journalist there called John Sparks who began to look,
35:05
he was a Canadian and he began to look at extra renditions,
35:10
renditional flights. And I remember thinking that
35:13
that's an interesting perspective.
35:14
Why would you look at that? And he began to find more and
35:17
more stuff. And I think it took a Canadian
35:19
actually to sort of, you know, breakthrough the patriotism that
35:23
we all get can get affected with.
35:25
And then a few years later, after I left the BBC, after I
35:28
left Channel 4, I set up the Bureau of Investigative
35:31
Journalism. And then this incredible, a
35:35
reporter called Chris Woods came to me and said, I think we
35:38
should begin to look at U.S. drone strikes in Pakistan.
35:42
And we began to look at this. And to be honest, this was my
35:45
first time and this was 2012, that I began to look at the War
35:49
on Terror with any profound critical eye.
35:52
I'd been looking at a whole bunch of other things.
35:54
And it took a while for me to actually have the veil taken off
35:58
my eyes. And there was an absolute crunch
36:00
point that came was when the we were going to give our story of
36:05
over 30 children and civilians killed by U.S. drone strikes in
36:10
Pakistan to a major International Paper.
36:13
I'm not going to say which one it was, but they they were going
36:17
to run that front page. They then called me the day
36:21
before and they said the CIA basically said that you're not
36:23
trustworthy, we shouldn't work with you.
36:25
You work with Julian Assange, don't work with you.
36:28
So we're not running the story. And then I, the story ran with
36:32
the Guardian the next day. So it came out anyway, a few
36:36
months later that major International Paper got an
36:39
exclusive from the CIA that they would own.
36:42
And I think that there was a deal made.
36:43
I can't prove it, but there was something very whiffy.
36:46
And I when I raised that with the editor of this paper, he
36:49
started screaming at me in a way that was far too emotional when
36:52
you gauge it as to the sort of, you know, the, the question
36:56
asked did not merit the response given.
36:59
Anyway, my point is this is that I think it takes a great deal to
37:03
be a journalist who is able not to be sucked in to patriotic
37:08
endeavour or even nationalistic endeavour, if you will.
37:11
And I think it's taken me a long time to actually realize that
37:15
the best patriot is the critical patriot.
37:18
Somebody who can actually look at the intersection between the
37:21
media, the politics, the military industrial complex in
37:25
such a way that actually you say the truth will liberate us and
37:29
the truth is the ultimate thing that we should seek out.
37:33
And so I wouldn't say that there was a coherent editorial ploy at
37:38
the BBC not to hold government to account, but I think that
37:42
becomes institutional blindness, that actually there are certain
37:46
things that just remain beyond the Ken.
37:51
And often it's outsiders in the BBC, people who don't
37:54
necessarily come from a certain group who can offer that.
37:58
And I would raise my hat to Hannah O'Grady, who's been the
38:03
BBC producer behind the expose. They ended up blowing the lid on
38:08
the special forces allegations of killings in Afghanistan.
38:11
So there are some exceptional people who do hold society to
38:16
account. But equally speaking, I have
38:19
numerous on numerous occasions gone to the BBC, gone to major
38:24
news publications with stories that I truly believe are
38:27
revelatory. Let's say so for instance, I
38:30
expose there have been over 600 spy plane flights by the British
38:34
over Gaza during the Gaza conflict.
38:37
The BBC wouldn't touch that. And I think that there is a, a
38:41
kind of a, a failure for the BBC to consider themselves sometimes
38:46
as being the people who should investigate the military.
38:50
And I'm not saying that I'm not criticizing individuals for
38:53
that. I think that that come becomes a
38:54
culture where they're caught between not wanting seem to seem
38:57
as if they're unpatriotic, but at the same time not realizing
39:01
that sometimes it's unpatriotic to hold the the the the the
39:05
government of the day to account.
39:08
OK. I mean, you know, your
39:09
perspective on this, albeit sort of almost 20 years ago is, is,
39:14
is fascinating. And I think I just want to draw
39:17
this out a little further because obviously you're
39:18
describing your own position as being one of not using what
39:22
you're describing as a critical eye at that period.
39:25
But obviously now in retrospect, you see that things differently.
39:28
Again, in retrospect, were you, were you sort of alongside
39:33
people who you think were using a critical eye?
39:36
Or was there a sort of, in a way, a blanket sort of effect on
39:42
people at that period? Because it was, you know,
39:44
similar to what we've seen over the last five years in in some
39:47
ways, that there was such an assault on the public about how
39:53
dangerous things were here and that was all related to what was
39:55
going on in the Middle East and all the rest of it.
39:56
Did you do you think there were people there who genuinely could
40:00
see what was going on or or or not?
40:04
I think there were occasionally some people and they often, as I
40:08
said, they may have come from an Irish background or a Canadian
40:11
background, or they were often weren't sort of invested in the
40:14
Britishness. So there was that.
40:16
There was also, I think something else that was
40:17
occurring at the time, which was very unusual, is that we
40:20
suddenly found ourselves as as white journalists to be
40:24
potentially liable to violence. So when I was in Basra, for
40:29
instance, I remember going up to the, I was with the, the British
40:32
military on an in bed and I, there was huge violence
40:36
occurring in the streets of Basra and the British Army were
40:39
under terrible attack. And I was like, I want to leave
40:41
the front gates here and go out and report on what the civilians
40:45
out there are fighting. What why they're so upset with
40:48
us, given we're a liberating army.
40:51
And the Colonel of the time said, by all means you're free
40:54
to go, but if you get caught in trouble, I'm not risking a man
40:58
to come and save you. And it, it gave me a real pause
41:01
for thought because I thought, you know, I could easily become
41:05
somebody who is hanging off a bridge, burnt alive, because I
41:08
am the first white person who's unarmed or diverse, you know,
41:12
British person unarmed that they'll find and they can do
41:15
harm to. And of course, we saw that with
41:17
ISIS. I mean, I wrote a book about
41:19
suicide bombers and I met lots of, you know, would be suicide
41:23
bombers. And there was always a lurking
41:25
fear that one of them might just decide to take me with them on
41:28
their journey to paradise and blow themselves up while I was
41:31
interviewing them. So, you know, I, I, throughout
41:34
the last 20 years, I have had to navigate this space that has
41:37
existed where the, the, the, the, the media have become seen
41:42
by particularly some Salafist jihadists as part of the
41:45
problem. And of course, of course,
41:46
certainly there are media institutions that have been part
41:49
of the problem. We have some, some people are
41:52
are unquestionably uncritical. My wider comment of the British
41:56
media in general is that it tries to occupy the space of
42:02
patriotism. It, it doesn't like to criticize
42:05
the military in anything that unless it's absolutely clear
42:08
dry, and it certainly is reluctant to contemplate the
42:12
military industrial complex in the sort of more philosophical
42:15
way. So I think that it requires in
42:19
a, in a strange sense, I mean, I come from a military family.
42:22
So I've understand how the military works.
42:24
And, you know, I, I was very, very close to joining the
42:27
military myself and I spent years in that sort of cadet
42:30
space. So I kind of understand the
42:32
military reasonably well. And I think that that those two
42:35
things that give me a relative understanding of the, the nature
42:38
of the military. I also know that there are lots
42:41
of people in the military or veterans who are very similar
42:45
minded to me. So, you know, I know that they
42:47
they are more than capable of having quite critical
42:50
perspectives on the military as well.
42:52
And I think that there is this sort of lack of understanding to
42:57
some degree by the British press as to actually how the military
43:01
operates and what they, what they see themselves as in some
43:04
ways. And within that space, there's
43:08
I, I, I know there are certain names that the British military
43:13
veterans who keep on being sighted in the British military,
43:17
who are often exceptional voices, not universal voices.
43:21
And those names are often right, quite right wing, quite pro
43:24
military, often more asking for more defense spending.
43:28
And, and I, I, you know, people like, you know, Colonel Kemp,
43:32
for instance, keeps on being put out there as a kind of a, a
43:36
spokesperson, even though he left over a decade ago for the
43:39
military. And I think that the British
43:42
press, including the BBC, has a kind of a failure to be truly
43:48
critical of of most institutions up until the point that those
43:53
institutions become so corrupt that you can't do anything but
43:57
expose them. Yeah, OK.
44:00
I mean, it is, it is fascinating.
44:02
It's very interesting to hear you say that, that the BBC in
44:04
effect won't touch stuff, notwithstanding your previous
44:08
involvement with the organization.
44:09
And that in itself is, is fascinating, especially in light
44:12
of what, you know, Tim Davey falling very slowly on his sword
44:16
after the January the 6th sort of editing issue and what not
44:21
now, just just in terms of sort of what drives what.
44:26
You spoke at the Oxford Union some years ago and you you
44:29
talked about the, the lack of influence that media has due to
44:34
the fact that there's no, I mean, it's just part of the same
44:36
cycle. But you know, people aren't
44:37
investing in news sources in the way that they once were.
44:42
And yes, we do still have this perpetual state of conflict.
44:48
And as the saying goes, all wars are bankers wars.
44:52
Now. What is your take on that And
44:55
and and in effect, what does drive Watt in so far as the
44:59
result being conflict is concerned?
45:03
Well, so for for instance, we we sent 170 Watt to 100 troops to
45:09
171 countries the year before last, and of those countries, 19
45:16
of them appeared on the UK government's own list of human
45:20
rights concerns. 8 of them experienced since 2020 a
45:25
military coup. We've trained up soldiers from
45:29
African countries that then have gone back to militaries that
45:32
then undertake coups in their own country.
45:35
We embed organizations like BA Systems at the very heart of our
45:42
notion of what is good for the British economy.
45:44
And BA Systems sell to Israel. They also sell to Saudi Arabia,
45:50
both of which have been involved in terrible violations against
45:53
human rights, particularly the the dropping of bombs in in
45:56
towns and cities. And so I think you've got this
46:00
military industrial Nexus where to some degree our military, we
46:06
have defense attaches all over the world.
46:08
And those defense attaches are to some degree tasked with being
46:12
cheerleaders for Britains military exports, our defense
46:15
exports. We also have an entire
46:17
community, as you know well, of ex soldiers who then go into the
46:22
security industry and then they end up being deployed in paid
46:26
roles in countries all over the world, particularly our special
46:29
forces. That's very lucrative for them.
46:32
And so I think you've got this very close relationship between
46:37
the military, the military industrial complex and then
46:40
human rights abuses that invariably come from that.
46:45
One thing that really struck me for instance, is I looked at the
46:47
share price increases of BA Systems post October the 7th and
46:53
their shares went up remarkably high.
46:56
And the the chief executive of BA Systems ended up selling
47:00
£3,000,000 worth of shares, which would have been a
47:03
£1,000,000 less before October the 7th.
47:07
I asked the press office about this and they they said that one
47:10
of the reasons for this is he wanted to purchase a flat.
47:13
And it turned out, I think that he had bought a london-based
47:16
flat potentially for his kids, I don't know.
47:18
But anyway, this flat was essentially born out of the
47:23
profits made from sales to Israel.
47:26
And that really strikes me that about the nature of goodness in
47:29
society. And CS Lewis once wrote a very
47:32
interesting commentary. He said he didn't see hell as
47:36
being a concentration camp or a torture chamber.
47:40
He saw that as an outcome of hell that was a product of hell.
47:43
Rather, he said that hell to him were offices where men with low
47:48
voices and clean fingernails in well lit rooms.
47:51
Past resolutions agreed minutes and issued memorandums.
47:57
And to me the I see hell in the same regard, that the hell is a
48:01
place which is far devoid from war, but actually is the profit
48:06
center and the profit Nexus of how that is and it.
48:09
This could be anything from former special forces chiefs
48:13
having a polite dinner in the Athenaeum all the way through to
48:18
a quiet closed board meeting of BA Systems agreeing on the next
48:22
tranche of weapon sales to Israel.
48:25
And these, this is the military industrial complex, large and to
48:28
me that this space is occupied often by former public school
48:32
boys, it's often occupied by people who, you know, understand
48:37
the mechanisms and architectures of power.
48:39
And it was also occupied by individuals who absolutely
48:43
detest true scrutiny. And these people simultaneously
48:48
wine and dine and, and sit in the same media space as other
48:53
people who dictate what is to be in the papers and not in the
48:57
papers. And I'm not saying there's a
48:59
grand conspiracy here, but I think there's an architecture of
49:04
silence around certain issues that we don't like to call out
49:08
the, that the hell of London and, and the, these, these
49:13
creatures that inhabit this sort of world of, of the military
49:17
industrial complex, We don't call them out for their actions.
49:21
And also within there, there's this profound distance of cause
49:24
and effect. So, you know, the, the, the
49:26
profiteering in the military industrial complex of Britain
49:29
becomes more, becomes easier to consume and to live alongside
49:35
because we are not witness to its consequences.
49:38
We, we don't feel the bombed outs homes of Yemen or of Gaza.
49:43
We, we don't witness them close up.
49:46
So to me, one of the profound roles I believe I play, and I
49:50
think maybe you play as well, is to try and remind readers and
49:55
listeners that there is an outcome to these, you know,
49:59
these, these these processes that the architecture of the
50:03
military industrial complex has very real consequence to the
50:08
lives of others. And I think that's really by
50:11
travelling to the places of harm and coming back to record it and
50:15
then aligning that harm with the profiteering made within the UK
50:20
offers hopefully a kind of a bridge of empathy to say, is it
50:25
right that we do this and is there a better way of doing it?
50:29
Yes. And I mean, Speaking of
50:31
consequences, I think a story that well articulates this,
50:33
which you've written about yourself, is the relationship
50:36
between Christopher Harborne and Reform UK.
50:39
Of course, he's the major shareholder of the defense
50:42
company Kinetic, which has made an awful lot of money from the
50:45
British government by supplying arms and weapon systems that
50:48
have definitely been used in Israel.
50:50
And we've now got a situation where he is funding a political
50:54
party that may yet assume or form a government within this
50:58
country, which will further prop up the business that he is the
51:04
major shareholder in. I mean it, it is an
51:05
extraordinary circle. And of course, we've now had the
51:10
the Strategic Defense Review published this year alongside
51:13
the National Security Strategy, both of which are predicated,
51:16
despite what you're saying about Putin not having designs on
51:19
Edinburgh or London, predicated on the threat of, you know, some
51:23
sort of action from Russia. So the, the defense dividend, as
51:28
it's called, is, is absolutely there for all to see.
51:32
And I mean, you know, it's not just BAE who are doing well out
51:34
of it. You look across the board,
51:35
they're all, you know, everyone's share price has sort
51:38
of shot up in that period. And so it looks like with that
51:42
being the case, there is absolutely a necessity for that
51:46
war in order to make it work. Now, what's your view on that
51:50
with regard to, you know, you've referred to the sort of
51:53
recruiting difficulties is, you know, trying to sell people
51:57
skiing holidays and, and what is increasingly difficult in an
52:00
army that may not be strapped for cash, but certainly doesn't
52:02
have the money that it used to or indeed the personnel and the
52:05
flexibility within the system. And yet there are sort of
52:08
whispers of conscription and whatnot.
52:10
Do I mean, do you see that there is going to be an active push
52:13
for engagement in a in a kinetic conflict for, you know, with the
52:17
United Kingdom involved? I mean, so, so first on the
52:22
kinetic thing, which I think is, is absolutely intriguing.
52:25
And that kinetic would not survive if it wasn't for the
52:27
British taxpayer. So I think 92% of his income is
52:31
reliant on the MOD. And as you say, then there's
52:34
this strange and weird circumstance where it then flows
52:37
back into the pockets of Reform UK, which, you know, by all
52:42
accounts, if you read Umberto echoes framing of what
52:46
constitutes air fascism. I think that, you know, Reform
52:51
UK suddenly ticks lots of the boxes of something that could be
52:54
a precursor to a fascistic political framing.
52:57
So I have great concern about that with regard to the general
53:01
military industrial complex. You know, just as a gentleman is
53:04
in need of a Good Wife, an army is in need of a good war.
53:08
And I think that if you don't then raise the spectre of, of
53:12
Russia or China. I mean Tom Tug and hat his his,
53:17
the thing that keeps him up at night is the threat of China.
53:21
Russia is obviously a more existential threat.
53:24
And I'm not trying to diminish I've been to Ukraine 7 times.
53:27
So I'm not trying to diminish the fact that, that, that
53:30
Ukraine has been absolutely devastated by Russian imperial
53:34
endeavour. But simultaneously, when you
53:37
look at the linguistic map of, of Ukraine, certainly Russia was
53:43
a major feature there. I mean, I, you know, there's not
53:45
many people in, in Britain who speak Russian.
53:47
I, I have yet to see any tangible appetite by Putin to,
53:54
you know, to, to, to want to take the threat exquisitely into
53:59
the NATO space. Now, certainly there, there the,
54:01
you know, there's certainly in the hands of jostling that's
54:03
occurring along the border flyovers and all the rest.
54:07
But what I found very interesting is that, you know,
54:09
I, I went, I, I did a Freedom of Information request six years
54:14
ago. I think it was asking how many
54:16
times RAF jets have been scrambled to address a Russian
54:20
threat. And I think it was, you know,
54:22
every month, for instance. And I took this to the BBC and I
54:25
said, you should report on this. And they were like, no, it's not
54:28
for us. But intriguingly, Fast forward
54:30
six years, that story, if I came out with it now, would probably
54:33
lead every single paper. In other words, newspapers don't
54:37
accept that. You know, there isn't a historic
54:40
background to this. I'll give you another example.
54:43
Boris Johnson gave absolutely £0 to Ukraine in his first year of
54:50
premiership when, when prime as Prime Minister, his first year,
54:54
he gave 0 lbs of aid to Ukraine at all.
54:57
So this notion, this rhetoric we are sort of always standing with
55:00
Ukraine didn't occur even after Don Bass and Luhansk had been
55:05
effectively taken over by pro Russian forces.
55:08
We didn't give them any money at all.
55:10
So, so I I would say that there is always a danger of a
55:14
constructed enemy and a constructed sense of urgency.
55:19
And I've charted the times where defence chiefs have come out
55:24
saying that there's an existential national threat to
55:27
our way of life. At the same time the budgets are
55:30
under debate and they rise and fall in almost perfect sync.
55:35
So three months before any budgetary sign off is granted by
55:38
#11 you get a defence chief coming out or a former defence
55:42
chief saying that Britain is under threat like never before.
55:46
And so I, I can't, I, you can't divest.
55:49
And one of the interesting things is I think there are only
55:51
two people in British cultural life in the media who are asked
55:56
for their opinion in the face of, of an economic reality.
56:01
So estate agents are always asking whether house prices will
56:04
rise or fail. And of course, estate agents is
56:06
always going to say it's going to rise because no estate agent
56:09
wants to be out of a job. And the second person is always
56:12
a defense chief. You always ask ex military
56:14
whether we need security. And you know, there are very few
56:17
former generals who are pacifists.
56:20
So most generals will go. Of course, we need more money.
56:23
We always need more money. But actually, if you look at
56:25
where the UK is in terms of defense spend, we're only second
56:30
behind Germany. But in terms of per capita,
56:33
we're way ahead of Germany. So we are the biggest defense
56:36
spenders apart from the US in NATO.
56:40
We, you know, and, and one of my questions ultimately is, yes,
56:44
maybe we do need to lean into defence spending if that's what
56:48
the general rhetoric is. But then I have to say, well,
56:51
what, what are we defending? Are we defending our interests
56:54
in Borneo or Brunei or Dar es Salaam or Kenya or wherever the
57:00
hell we are because we seem to be everywhere?
57:02
Or are we actually saying our primary interest is this
57:06
sceptred Isle? I mean, we are, you know,
57:09
granted one of the greatest, greatest opportunities that we
57:12
have, you know, an island nation.
57:14
We it'd be pretty damn hard to invade us.
57:17
And if we were invaded, I'm not entirely sure what mineral
57:21
resources people would be able to claim as Putin is claiming in
57:25
the Donbas. So there's a question of why
57:28
would we be invaded? What would be the benefit?
57:30
What would be the outcome? And none of this is ever
57:34
discussed. And the only other thing that
57:35
just to, I'm sure you've got a question, but the next thing I'd
57:38
finally I'd say is that whenever we, we discuss about the defence
57:42
of the realm, we never, ever bring up the fact that we have
57:44
nuclear weapons. So obviously if we were invaded,
57:47
we, we could just respond with a nuclear attack, which obviously
57:50
would be terrible. But you know, the, the, the idea
57:54
that we have nuclear weapons is never really articulated in the
57:58
media nor in the defence review as being a primary defence of
58:03
our nation. So the impulse is always that we
58:05
need more and more and more, and that the enemy is always at the
58:09
gates. Yes, it is, although actually it
58:12
is interesting to note how many references there are to nuclear
58:15
in the strategic defense review this year.
58:17
But it but in a in a sort of more limited sense as though you
58:22
know, there are there, there is such a thing as a tactical
58:25
nuclear capability. I mean, I think there's much
58:27
debate to be had on that. Going back to.
58:29
What you were saying about, you know, the targeting of militants
58:32
at the same time as apparently not killing single or at least
58:34
only killing one civilian. I mean, it just, it makes
58:37
absolutely no sense. Now we are sort of short ish on
58:41
time now, but one thing I did just want to put to you and I
58:44
don't want to sort of, you know, bring the tone down as it were.
58:47
But but bearing in mind your, you know, your concern and your
58:51
objective with regard to action on on violence.
58:56
I just put the words I, I, I'm pray seeing because I can't
58:59
remember exactly what he said. But Karen Prendergast, who was
59:02
Under Secretary general political affairs at United
59:04
Nations some time ago, was interviewed for a documentary
59:07
about Sudan a while back. And he was very, very candid in
59:12
saying that, you know, plenary bodies like the United Nations
59:18
will be full of people who do say, we must do something about
59:21
it. We will do something about it.
59:23
You know, we are going to stop XY and Z, but they don't mean
59:27
it. And you spoke at the at the
59:30
outset about getting 80 nations to sign up to, you know, making
59:34
a commitment. And I, I don't mean to be
59:37
cynical exactly, but but I mean, where do you see the, the sort
59:42
of divide between people committing either in writing or
59:47
verbally and, and actually doing something about it?
59:51
And and is are we on a, you know, a sort of sliding scale if
59:55
things getting worse or better in that guard?
59:59
I mean, I, I, I, I, I don't think it's a downer at all.
1:00:03
And I mean anyone worth their salt is having an existential,
1:00:07
you know, contemplation about the nature of the international
1:00:11
rules based order as they stand. I certainly think that.
1:00:16
The creation of things like the Geneva Conventions have
1:00:19
certainly saved lives, I think. I think that people, you know,
1:00:23
particularly in the fog of war and the chaos of conflict, need
1:00:27
rules to fall back on because then you have to be reminded as
1:00:30
to what you're fighting for. I think that one of the reasons
1:00:34
why I'm an investigative journalist in this space is it
1:00:37
seeks to align statement with deed.
1:00:41
And you know, a lot of my life is spent saying, well, you
1:00:44
signed up to this and then the realities you're doing this.
1:00:48
So the UK government says there are 30 countries out there that
1:00:51
are human rights of concern and yet we're, we're sending arms to
1:00:55
22 of them. You know, and to me that is OK.
1:00:59
I'm going to use your statement of goodness and intent and I'm
1:01:03
going to hold you up to the reality of what you actually do.
1:01:06
Now, does that have an impact? I, I can only say that I know
1:01:12
I've been part of maybe some of the investigations that led to
1:01:15
the inquiry into SAS killings in Afghanistan or allegations
1:01:20
thereof. I've been part, I was involved
1:01:23
in the WikiLeaks. I was involved in the early days
1:01:25
of exposing the US drone strikes killed civilians.
1:01:30
I, I think I've created a, a small body of work that might
1:01:34
have at the very least added some weight of truth to combat
1:01:40
claims and rhetorical statements that are made in these halls of
1:01:44
power. And so, you know, does that hold
1:01:48
an effect? I mean, I think one has to be be
1:01:51
modest in ones ambitions and honest in ones impacts.
1:01:56
And I'm probably, you know, in the great, in the great scheme
1:02:00
of things, I hope I will be able to die one day old and in my
1:02:04
dotage, but knowing that I did no harm.
1:02:07
And I, I hope that that is the, the, the, the, the journey
1:02:11
through life. But I cannot say that there are
1:02:13
probably many people who will die who will look back on their
1:02:16
life and wonder whether they did inadvertently do harm or lie
1:02:19
for, for in, in their ambitions to either put themselves at the
1:02:24
forefront or through a misplaced national nationalistic
1:02:28
ambitions. And so, I mean, do I think that
1:02:32
the job that you and I have, which is trying to hold truth to
1:02:35
power is important unbelievably. And I, I often contemplate
1:02:40
democracy as being a very fragile bird that you have to
1:02:44
nurture and tend. And if we wasn't for that
1:02:46
nurturing and tending, which it requires truth and transparency
1:02:51
and eternal inquiry, then, you know, we would be in a much
1:02:54
darker place than we find ourselves now.
1:02:56
So I know I, I often contemplate and I've been to plenty of
1:03:00
places where there is absolute restriction on journalistic
1:03:03
activity around the world and those places are far darker than
1:03:06
Britain. So my, my pessimism, which
1:03:11
aligns with some of the the implications, though that the
1:03:14
implicit statements in your question, my, my pessimism is
1:03:18
always, I think, buoyed up by an optimism that ultimately truth,
1:03:22
goodness and fairness rooted in empathy prevails.
1:03:28
In Overton, that is a very good place with which to draw to a
1:03:31
close. But before I let you go, will
1:03:33
you please tell us where we can find more about what you're
1:03:37
doing and indeed any sort of social media sites that you use
1:03:41
and so forth? So please come to that website
1:03:45
whichisaoav.org.uk you can subscribe to our newsletters on
1:03:50
that and everything is retweeted on Blue Sky and on X on AOAV or
1:03:58
my own name, Ian with two eyes Overton.
1:04:02
Super. And that will be in the notes
1:04:04
that accompany this interview. That's been a fascinating
1:04:07
insight to a slice of what it is you've been doing over the last
1:04:11
several decades and perhaps we'll reconvene in future.
1:04:14
But Ian Everton, thank you very much indeed for joining me with
1:04:16
UK column. Thank you.