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The War on Terror to the Present Day | UK Column Interviews · UK Column Radio

0:08
Hello, this is Charles Malik with the UK Column interview.
0:11
And today I'm joined by Doctor Lucy Morgan Edwards, who has
0:14
intimate knowledge of the system from the inside, having worked
0:17
for both the United Nations and the European Union in
0:21
Afghanistan, possibly the most significant case study of
0:25
Western intervention in the 21st century.
0:29
Lucy, thank you very much indeed for joining me.
0:31
And a warm welcome to UK Column. Thank you for having me,
0:34
Charles. Not at all.
0:36
Now there is, by way of that introduction, obviously going to
0:40
be an awful lot to get through. But I think we'll, we'll start
0:43
with the background, I suppose to a degree in the sort of
0:48
personal sphere. What, what drew you to
0:52
Afghanistan or that region? Because I think you're in
0:55
Pakistan initially. What?
0:56
What drew you to that part of the world in the first instance?
1:00
I went out to to Pakistan to visit a family friend in 1999
1:04
who was working for the United Nations, and her housemate at
1:08
the time was a Canadian woman who had had to evacuate from
1:12
Afghanistan while Clinton was doing the bombings of eastern
1:15
Afghanistan. Of course.
1:17
And just that my discussions and conversations with this woman
1:21
really drew me in. She obviously loved the place
1:25
and was working as a as an engineer doing urban
1:29
reconstruction there. And in fact, a year later she
1:33
came to London and invited me to go and work with her.
1:36
This was a year before 911 and we I had a very old contract
1:41
situation because at that stage British and Americans were
1:43
supposed to be under a fatwa. So I was subcontracted through
1:47
an NGO actually to work for UN Habitat and was taken by her and
1:53
sort of dropped off in Kandahar and pretty much left and had to
1:59
find my own way. And in fact, ended up staying
2:02
with a couple of chaps who worked for an NGO, Handicap
2:06
International. But I was working in our office.
2:09
So it really gave me an amazing insight into Afghanistan at a
2:12
time where there are only about 60 foreigners in the whole
2:14
country. The country had pretty much been
2:17
been forgotten. It was in the midst of a four
2:19
year drought and you would see Pakistani, ISI and Al Qaeda
2:27
representatives flying in or people coming in from Saudi
2:31
Arabia to do Hawking and and so on.
2:35
And at the time bin Laden was living in in Kandahar, so his
2:39
staff would come around to our compound.
2:42
So it was an amazing insight and I think at a time that was very
2:47
special because it was before the war began.
2:50
And it enabled me to really see Afghans in the light of, for
2:54
example, how they later reacted to 911 and how they were forced
3:01
to deal with this massive intervention that that took
3:03
place and lasted for for 20 years after that.
3:08
It is an extraordinary perspective, as you say, and
3:10
this might be hard to answer objectively, but from from your
3:13
perspective or any of those around you, did anybody have any
3:17
inkling of what was to come? No, I mean I was there in the
3:23
summer, the year 2000 and then to the autumn and then had to
3:26
leave and went to Pakistan. In fact, I evacuated myself at
3:30
the time of the bombing of the USS Cole in Aden.
3:37
And because people were trying to link that to al Qaeda, they
3:39
were linking it to al Qaeda in the media.
3:41
Now, in fact, perhaps people are starting to say that it was
3:44
potentially a false flag to lead people into this idea that bin
3:48
Laden would then be behind the attacks of 911.
3:52
But no, I had no inkling of what was to come.
3:55
And then when when 911 did happen, at the time I was
3:58
actually in England, and I wrote to some of my former colleagues.
4:03
And because it's very hard to communicate with people at that
4:05
stage, there were no mobile phones.
4:09
There was a sort of, you could go to a telephone booth in the
4:12
town and, and phone home, but then you'd be exposed to all
4:17
these Arab Afghans who weren't really Afghans.
4:19
And of course, the Arab, the Afghans didn't even really want
4:22
them there. Well, not most of them didn't
4:24
really want them there. So communications were very
4:28
difficult. But my staff who were very, they
4:31
were very sweet. I mean, they were, they
4:33
supported the Taliban. They were Pashtun and
4:36
potentially because of that, I was quite surprised.
4:38
I thought being educated, of course they're not going to
4:40
support the Taliban, but they did because they saw the Taliban
4:44
as a stabilising force that had cleared out the warlordism of
4:48
the early 90s. And actually they were quite
4:50
happy when the Taliban took Talib Khan in the North East of
4:54
the country, which was a Northern Alliance territory.
4:56
And we're really hoping, hoping that they were going to then
4:59
take the whole country, which they had almost had by by the
5:03
time of 911. OK, Well, that that sort of
5:07
takes us forward to, to one of the things obviously that I did
5:09
want to talk about, which is that, you know, this issue
5:12
endlessly debated about the influence of the Taliban and
5:15
indeed, you know, whether they were in a position of
5:18
controlling Afghanistan or whether they were being
5:20
controlled and, and all of that. And also how that relates to,
5:24
like you say, the events of September the 11th, 2001 to, you
5:29
know, very nearly 25 years ago. And, and I think if I'm right,
5:33
you know, regardless of what one thinks was actually behind those
5:36
events, the view held by most people that you came across in
5:41
Afghanistan was one of complete ignorance.
5:42
They had no idea that that either had even happened or was
5:46
related to what was going on in their country.
5:49
Absolutely yes. They they expressed massive
5:52
surprise that that that this could have come from
5:55
Afghanistan. And for the first few days,
5:59
we're pretty much ignorant of it actually.
6:02
I mean, they weren't completely cut off.
6:04
They were starting to break Taliban edicts and bringing in
6:08
DVDs from Pakistan and and so on.
6:10
But we didn't have the Internet access and e-mail to the same
6:12
extent that we do nowadays. I mean, you pretty much if
6:15
you're going to write an e-mail home, you had to put it on a
6:18
disk and then take it to the UN office and have it sent from,
6:22
from the UN satellite system there.
6:25
So, you know, there was really a feeling much more of isolation
6:29
and after 911 when as I say, when I was in touch with
6:34
colleagues who I considered to have been well educated people,
6:37
many of them had been educated actually under the Soviets as
6:39
engineers. So they were, I was mostly
6:42
working with engineers, they were water engineers and so on.
6:46
Considered that this was something completely alien to
6:50
them. And in fact, as we know,
6:53
although bin Laden was there, he was actually pretty sick at the
6:56
time. And I read in the Pakistani
6:59
press in late 2001 that he had been treated for with dialysis
7:05
and had in fact died. I think that was in, it was
7:08
either Friday Times or Dawn, one of the main Pakistani papers.
7:12
And I can't remember whether it was Rob Pindy where he died or I
7:15
think it was in Pakistan where they said he died.
7:19
So, yeah, a lot of the, when you look back, a lot of what we were
7:22
told just didn't add up. And it's only, I mean, I, I came
7:29
to a new realization about the events of 911 when I moved to
7:33
New York. And that was in 2014.
7:36
And it wasn't something that I'd given a great deal of thought
7:39
to, although I considered that it was a rather a bizarre story.
7:42
But I was very focused immediately on Afghanistan and
7:45
all the people I'd met and my colleagues who I was very
7:48
concerned for as the American bombing campaign started.
7:53
Yeah. Well, there you go.
7:54
That, I mean, I think what you've just touched on there is,
7:56
is so significant because, you know, we've mentioned the
7:58
Taliban, we've mentioned bin Laden.
8:01
And of course, you know, he was the poster boy for so much that
8:07
people were almost distracted beyond their control by any
8:13
other information, any other sort of credible story,
8:18
particularly about about September the 11th, but also
8:20
about Afghanistan. And and yet somehow all of this
8:25
was supposed to make some sort of sense and to make the case
8:28
for what became, you know, decades of horrific turmoil.
8:35
I, I think just just to go back to your own personal
8:39
circumstances and situation, here we are in the UK, or at
8:42
least I am. Many of the audience will be in
8:45
the UK now in a year where we are being convinced, or at least
8:50
there is an attempt to convince us that migration is the
8:54
greatest of all our problems. That in particular it is people
8:59
who come from South Asia or in many cases specifically
9:04
Afghanistan, people are who are holding the Islamic faith and
9:08
all that kind of thing. And that there's a huge amount
9:11
of sort of contrived narrative baggage that goes with that.
9:14
Having spent that time in Afghanistan, in a society that
9:17
has been so demonized, let's say in the Western media, what what
9:23
were your experiences living as a as a lady at that time at
9:28
doing what you were doing? Well, at the time, I mean, at
9:32
the time that I was invited to go and work in Afghanistan, I
9:35
was actually working in Belgrave Square for the Country Land
9:37
Owners Association and asked my boss whether I could have a
9:42
sabbatical. And he just looked at me in
9:44
astonishment and said, why do you want to go to a country
9:46
where they're so awful to women? And, and of course it was
9:51
different for me once I was there because I was treated a
9:54
little bit as a third sex, particularly when I started
9:57
working as a freelance journalist.
9:59
But at the beginning, when I first arrived in Kandahar, the
10:02
overwhelming thing was the, the sense of hospitality and the
10:06
sense of humour that the people had, that the people that I
10:09
worked with had had. I mean, of course I didn't meet
10:12
their wives, but they used to talk about their wives as the
10:15
sort of commander of the household.
10:17
I did meet women in Kandahar and then later in her at because I
10:21
was doing, I was organising sort of basic training in in public
10:25
health for them with the World Health Organization.
10:28
And also working on what later became known as community forum
10:32
projects, where Habitat was trying to establish a sort of
10:38
community system whereby after the the war and the civil war
10:43
that had had lasted for 23 years, you could start to
10:46
rebuild some sort of structures and then program the aid through
10:50
those consensus driven models. And so yes, my, my feeling was
10:59
that I was the first thing that struck me when I walked into our
11:03
office in Kandahar was that they had all these Victorian English
11:06
proverbs hanging on the wall. And it just seemed so sweet and
11:09
innocent actually. And that, yeah, the people were
11:14
incredibly welcoming and protective of me and kind.
11:20
So, you know, that's why after 911, my immediate reaction was
11:25
distress that they were being targeted with blame or that the
11:29
the Afghans in general were being targeted with blame for
11:32
having held bin Laden. And of course, in relation to
11:35
what's going on now, you just see the same churning over of
11:39
the media, the repetition, the the drumming into people's
11:43
brains that this is a, a regime that that has to be demonized.
11:48
And of course, funny enough, I mean, when I went there, part of
11:52
the reason my boss said to me, Oh, well, why do you want to go
11:54
to a place where they're treating women so badly was
11:56
because Christian Amanpour of CNN and Emma Benino, who was a
12:00
European commissioner, very liberal European commissioner,
12:03
had been there a few months before and had made a small
12:10
segment of news about how awful the Taliban were and how badly
12:13
they were treated and how they were detained in jail in
12:16
Kandahar. Well, in the years to come, I
12:19
found out from another friend who'd been working for the
12:22
Afghan Wireless Telephone Company and then other people
12:25
who work for the Red Cross, who were some of the few foreigners
12:29
that were there, that actually Christian Amanpour and Emma
12:33
Benigno had gone to the local hospital and into the women's
12:36
section and had been asked to stop filming and had
12:40
consistently refused and carried on filming.
12:42
And it was actually the female chief of the ward who'd asked
12:46
them. So it was the female chief who
12:48
denounced them to the Taliban. And they then they were taken
12:51
briefly to some police station and detained very, very briefly.
12:57
But they made a huge stink out of it in the media.
12:59
And Emma Benigno, one, was one of the chief cheerleaders.
13:03
I'm not defending the Taliban's treatment of women, Of course.
13:06
It's a very conservative society.
13:09
But it's equally conservative in Pakistan and also potentially in
13:13
Saudi Arabia, where they also have Sharia law.
13:15
That means that people might have their hand cut off if if
13:19
they're convicted of stealing. So why is it that we focus just
13:23
on Afghanistan? I mean, my feeling is definitely
13:26
that the relentless propaganda that you would see round the
13:29
clock of footage of a woman being executed in the stadium,
13:33
et cetera, et cetera. It was very much aimed at
13:37
convincing the domestic population in Britain that that,
13:40
you know, that we was coming in there to save women and, and to
13:44
about human rights and democracy and so on.
13:47
And it was massively effective, but completely wrong.
13:53
And what I subsequently saw during my six years staying in
13:59
in the country where I was involved with election
14:02
monitoring and journalism and worked for NGOs like the
14:07
International Crisis Group, where I looked at justice
14:10
issues. So I was very interested in
14:11
justice because you can't have democracy unless you've had, you
14:15
have somehow had a process of transitional justice where you
14:20
sideline and indict people who have been involved in earlier
14:24
phases of the conflict and so that they don't then become the
14:29
government. But the West didn't do any sort
14:31
of process, real process of justice.
14:33
They didn't want to focus on justice issues because they
14:37
wanted to partner up with warlords, many of whom had been
14:40
in exile during the Taliban regime and who were facilitated
14:45
by the West to come back and brought back from places like
14:49
Paris and, and Turkey and and London and basically given cash
14:54
and weapons and enabled to go back to their fiefdoms where
14:57
they then became the partners of the West in in this whole
15:01
process of governance. Yeah.
15:04
I mean, you know, the situation is in so many ways, it appears
15:08
to be so complicated because there are so many different
15:10
moving parts and apparent influences.
15:14
But but in some sense, it's also very simple.
15:17
And, and we see, we see this MO being carried out in in so many
15:21
different places, At least when you do peel back the layers and
15:24
you understand what is going on. And I think, you know, something
15:28
you've certainly said is, is to follow the money.
15:32
And you've just talked about the, the warlords.
15:33
I mean, in terms of how that money did travel, where, where
15:38
was it coming from and how was it moving?
15:41
How was the money influencing the situation?
15:44
Well, I think Julian Assange encapsulated it most accurately
15:47
when he said that the War on Terror, and particularly the war
15:50
in Afghanistan, was about washing money out of the Western
15:53
taxpayer base into Afghanistan, through Afghanistan.
15:57
And then of course, the money was coming out in the drugs
15:59
trade, where it could then be redirected to a small elite.
16:03
Now, whether that elite was related to military or
16:08
intelligence agencies, freelance intelligence agencies in order
16:13
that it could be redirected into black operations in other
16:17
theatres of conflict, for example, on the underbelly of
16:21
the former USSR, now Russia in the Caucasus and so on.
16:26
Where of course you've, you've seen the support for Islamic
16:29
fundamentalism, whether it was just about enriching the, the
16:33
Western banking system and, and keeping it liquid.
16:37
Because of course I, you know, what I've learnt since I've
16:40
become much more interested in economics and finance is that,
16:43
you know, so much of what we see geopolitically has to be
16:46
directly related to what's going on in the financial system.
16:50
And if you don't understand what's going on in the financial
16:53
system, I think it's quite hard to understand what's going on
16:56
with these major events, whether it's COVID or whether it's wars
17:00
or so on and so forth. Absolutely.
17:04
And I think that that takes us in some ways neatly to the
17:07
excellent book that you wrote about your experiences.
17:10
So I'm just going to hold up now the Afghan solution.
17:13
And indeed, you posit that there was a viable solution that was
17:19
put forward by Abdul Haq and this was in effect, in short,
17:25
dismissed. Now I mean that Abdul Haq is
17:29
perhaps a name that that many won't know.
17:32
Just give a bit of background because I think again, although
17:36
we are talking specifically about 1 country and one person,
17:39
this actually does speak to the model for intervening and and
17:45
how you know, hope is effectively crushed at the
17:48
earliest possible stage so regularly.
17:51
And of course, the the result is exactly like you've just been
17:53
describing with the, the, the passage of of money.
17:56
But just just give a bit of background on on his sort of
17:59
Life and Times. Well, Commander Abdul Haq was a
18:04
well known commander during the 1980s jihad against the Soviets.
18:09
And he came from a family that were known as resistance
18:12
royalty. They were dubbed resistance
18:14
royalty by many of the Western journalists who were travelling
18:17
in Afghanistan and who had to go into Afghanistan with with
18:22
members of the resistance. His family came from
18:25
southeastern Afghanistan, from a place called Jalalabad.
18:28
And in fact, I met the family. I was taken to that family a
18:32
year after the events of Tora Bora by a journalist who'd been
18:35
in Tora Bora. And she had, you know, that I'd
18:40
said I was interested in covering the drug story.
18:42
So she said, well, I'm going to Jalalabad.
18:43
Why didn't you come with me? So that was How I Met the
18:47
family. Abdul Haq had been killed a year
18:50
before in October 2001. But the significance of him and
18:54
and what I found was that he as someone who had he was a a
19:00
leading Pashtun, but he had been working to bring back the former
19:05
king as an umbrella beneath which the various tribes and
19:10
even senior Taliban had agreed to collapse the Taliban regime
19:15
and to work together in forging a new Afghanistan, a new
19:19
solution for Afghanistan. And this would have been an
19:22
internal solution. So had having much more
19:24
legitimacy and, and bearing a lot more relevance to local,
19:29
local structures, whether they were tribal from the South,
19:33
which is of course the area where the Taliban are from, but
19:35
also involving the Northern Alliance, which Kamal that
19:38
Masood was the head of. So really my investigation was
19:43
into why it was that the West ignored this plan.
19:47
And I, I found documents and letters that he'd written to
19:51
various Western leaders and ambassadors in the early 90s
19:55
where he was warning about the fundamentalism being fostered in
19:58
the training camps along the border of Pakistan.
20:01
And he was just ignored it at every turn.
20:03
And in fact, I ended up meeting a group of British.
20:08
One was a, a former cameraman and another was a British
20:12
baronet and another was the former head of the Special Boat
20:15
Service who had been trying to get support for him within the
20:18
British establishment and failing.
20:21
So I've got, they've given me their various sit reps which are
20:23
in the back of the book. And oh, there was also an
20:27
American wing trying to find support for him in Washington,
20:30
DC and the two brothers called the Richies, Joe and James
20:33
Ritchie, who had been brought up in Afghanistan in in the 1950s
20:37
sixties, and who'd made a lot of money on the Chicago Options
20:41
Exchange. And so really it's, it's the
20:45
story of what they were trying to do and what Abdul Haq was
20:49
trying to do and why he felt that the bombing campaign would
20:52
just completely destroy this, this plan that he had made with
20:55
Masood. Obviously Masood was killed 2
20:58
days before 9/11 with we are led to believe that it was al Qaeda
21:01
that killed him. I, I now have my doubts about
21:04
that. But you know, just extremely
21:09
interesting how he basically said that he had people ready in
21:14
position throughout the southern arc of the, of the, the southern
21:17
cities of Afghanistan, sort of Gardez, Paktia, Paktika, Ghazni
21:21
and so on. And that they would be ready to
21:25
turn over their core commands to the new regime.
21:30
But it it required the West not to bomb because if, if bombing
21:34
took place, all these moderate Taliban, because the Taliban
21:38
being a stratified entity, the moderates would leave and go
21:41
back to their families, leaving the more extremists in charge,
21:44
the more extreme al Qaeda related elements, the Taliban,
21:47
some of whom were of course foreigners.
21:49
And of course, that's really what happened.
21:51
And the West ignored him. The West wanted to work with its
21:57
with its partners. People had thought that it could
21:59
control these warlords. I mean, there seems to be an
22:02
absolute obsession about working with strong men.
22:04
And of course you see that with Jelani and Syria.
22:07
I remember going to give evidence to, I think it was a
22:10
House of Lords or House of Commons Select Committee on
22:13
Defence. And all the MP could think to
22:17
ask, I think it was Caroline Moon.
22:19
All she wanted to know was who's the next strongman that we can
22:21
support? And I just said it's not about
22:25
that. But she's was not interested to
22:27
listen. They don't understand.
22:28
It's about legitimacy, it's about history, it's about trust.
22:32
It's about building relationships, which takes time.
22:36
And you know, I'm afraid the West just wants to impose its
22:40
cookie cutter solutions everywhere it goes.
22:43
It, it doesn't have the time or the interest or the patience to
22:47
try to understand the people that it's dealing with.
22:50
You know, most of our people in the Foreign Office we now
22:53
understand. And also the military don't
22:55
speak Pashtun or, or I mean, some of them speak Dari, but
23:00
they, you know, they're just, there's just a sort of, they
23:03
want to do a quick in and a quick out.
23:06
And of course it's not a quick thing.
23:07
And we ended up being there for 20 years and, you know, spending
23:12
a huge amount, trillions of dollars worth of, of money that
23:15
went into it. And of course, complete
23:17
disaster. I mean, I, I was speaking to
23:19
someone who's just come back from Afghanistan 2 days ago and
23:22
he said it's just so depressing and there's no hope for anybody.
23:26
You've got the Chinese in the North East who are extracting
23:29
gold. You've got Khalilzad, who was
23:32
the American Afghan envoy who who concocted so much of this
23:38
disastrous plan, still overseeing Afghanistan,
23:42
apparently flying in every few months.
23:45
And the rumors are that the Americans are sending in plane
23:48
loads of dollars every week or so, so that the feeling is that
23:53
the and the Americans are actually still in control.
23:55
They're they're flying drones around Kabul.
23:57
They control the airspace, according to this person, and
24:01
the Taliban are enriched and happy and very confident and
24:05
very arrogant and completely unwilling to take a sort of more
24:12
moderate and sensible approach to the population.
24:15
The population are just collateral.
24:18
They they don't appear to care about them.
24:20
They don't need to have any legitimacy with them in terms of
24:24
providing services, education, et cetera, that there's just no
24:27
hope for the people there. And this was all predicated and
24:31
predicted by Abdul Haq, who understood that there was a
24:35
window of opportunity that needed to be exploited and that
24:39
if that window of opportunity was lost, there wouldn't be
24:42
another opportunity. It wouldn't be easy to row back
24:46
the political situation once it had unravelled.
24:49
And you know, I found it very hard trying to explain this to
24:52
people, you know, people in London and military people, you
24:57
know, a lot of them, you know, they have, they might have good
24:59
intent, but they just feel that if you just dig a few wells and
25:03
you pay off a few elders that you can achieve marvellous
25:06
results. That that's just a fundamental
25:08
misreading the complexity of a, of a complicated tribal society,
25:14
I'm afraid. And, you know, I feel that we've
25:17
lost so much since the colonial times when we used to have
25:20
people like my grandfather, who was with Glove Pasture in Jordan
25:24
building up the Arab Legion, that people really, you know,
25:27
they spoke the local languages. They were respected by the
25:30
soldiers and the people that they worked with because they
25:34
they really took the time to to try to understand the local
25:38
culture. And I think we've completely
25:40
lost that these days. And particularly in in the era
25:44
of drone war where everyone thinks that it's just a quick
25:48
fix to to, to get what we want out of a situation, which
25:52
appears to be a monetary. Well, it appears that what we
25:57
wanted of out of Afghanistan wasn't just about sort of
26:00
geopolitical in terms of occupying a slice of Central
26:03
Asia. That was very strategic, but it,
26:06
it also seems to have been related to the drugs trade and
26:10
potentially smuggling of people, artifacts, children, you know,
26:15
women, etcetera, into the Middle East and, and other places.
26:19
So I'm afraid it's it's, it was predictable, but it's extremely
26:24
depressing. That it certainly is.
26:28
And I think that there's so many more conversational points to to
26:33
come out from that. I mean, you've just talked about
26:36
colonialism, which has of course been turned into a hand grenade
26:39
of of some magnitude these days in terms of discussion or
26:44
debate. But exactly, you know, the point
26:46
you make about having subject matter experts and people who
26:48
actually knew the people for good or for I'll, you know,
26:51
let's put the outcomes to one side.
26:53
And I think, you know, how better to articulate that than
26:56
the the memoirs of Jonathan Powell, who was chief of staff
27:01
in Downing St. through this period.
27:03
And he wrote some years later after the events of September
27:10
the 11th, 2001 were were pointing towards Afghanistan or
27:14
at least an Afghan incursion. Did he call the Foreign Office?
27:18
Did he call the Secret Intelligence Service?
27:22
You know, did he call anybody who might have had some sort of
27:25
background on the area? No he didn't.
27:28
He went to Waterstones on Piccadilly and bought Ahmed
27:32
Rashid book on the Taliban that that was his first action and
27:37
and not only that it it absolutely beggars belief.
27:40
He then told Tony Blair and Alistair Campbell that it was a
27:43
really good book and he said Tony could borrow it once he'd
27:47
finished it. I mean, you know, that that was
27:49
the the sort of the, the state of affairs.
27:53
So, so you know, what you say, I think absolutely speaks to that.
27:58
And, and I think also for so many people who are conditioned
28:02
into thinking, well, say what, you know, why, why does this
28:04
matter? It's got nothing to do with us.
28:06
Well, I would say, of course, the, you know, taking Assange's
28:10
point, the rinsing of the money, like you say, it's taxpayers
28:14
money, It's our money that this is our money that is paying for
28:17
this. And, and of course the, the very
28:19
obvious effect, whether or not one believes that migration is
28:23
either organic or indeed a problem, the fact of it is that
28:27
a huge amount is driven either directly or indirectly by
28:31
exactly what it is you're describing.
28:32
And, and how better to, to explain that than the, the, the
28:35
absolute disaster with the so-called sort of data issue and
28:39
the inflow of, of Afghans into this country.
28:42
So I mean, I think there are so many things that point back.
28:44
I I slightly disagree about the migration.
28:46
I definitely think the migration is being weaponized.
28:48
I mean, Afghans weren't allowed to come into the country before
28:51
9/11. It was much more controlled.
28:53
They still had just as much need as they do now.
28:56
The UN had no budget really to pay any for anything in relation
29:00
to the drought at that stage. And people were literally
29:04
starving and having to sell all their final possessions and were
29:08
living in refugee camps in, in Iran and, and in Pakistan and
29:12
were basically ignored and forgotten.
29:14
I, I do think that the, the migration is definitely being
29:18
weaponized. It seems to be systematic and it
29:23
it seems to be also about, you know, Britain seems to have this
29:27
horrendous sort of schism now where everything is blamed on
29:32
the Muslims and the Jews have become the victims.
29:36
And, and I think that that is very much something that I see,
29:41
for example, the Daily Telegraph that I used to write for as a
29:44
freelance journalist. I'm astonished by the fact that
29:47
they don't seem to have any foreign correspondence.
29:49
They have people like Hamish de Bretton Gordon and, well, Con
29:54
Coughlin with them all the times who were basically pure
29:57
propagandists. They're warmongering, drum
30:00
beating, fervid, fervid sort of warmongers.
30:04
And that seems to be a massive Zionist bent to everything in
30:10
the Telegraph. It seems to be edited, as a
30:11
friend commented, by Conservative Friends of Israel.
30:14
It's not the newspaper that I used to know and whether it's
30:18
the comments section, which is potentially, you know,
30:21
infiltrated or or the editorial that there's no nothing is
30:27
graduated, nothing is moderate in the way that it used to be.
30:31
And it's all sort of the Muslims that are blamed for everything.
30:34
And you know, isn't the anti-Semitism horrendous in
30:38
Britain? And I just think it's completely
30:40
nonsensical because you look at how Israel has infiltrated all
30:45
of our political class, how they're all, I mean, you
30:48
basically have to be a member of Labour or Conservative or now
30:51
even Reform Friends of Israel. And you know, why?
30:56
Why do we have our parliamentary representatives serving a
30:59
foreign state? That's what people need to start
31:01
asking. And, you know, it seems to be
31:05
that there's some evidence that a lot of the the migration which
31:09
has been weaponized is actually being promoted by some Israeli
31:14
or Zionist groups. So I think it's a little like,
31:18
you know, it's, it's, it's a, it's neither sort of, it's not
31:21
one thing or the other, but I think it's definitely being
31:23
weaponized against Britain to destabilize the population.
31:27
No, I mean that that I evidently did not articulate it correctly.
31:31
That is exactly the point I was I was intending to make.
31:34
It was exactly about the weaponization, particularly in
31:36
in so far as setting up what could really be described as a
31:39
civil war, but but also to lead people down the down the path of
31:44
accepting digital ID and so many other things besides.
31:47
But but you know, this just to go back to the beginning, was
31:49
why I asked you how you felt you were treated in that society.
31:53
Because that, you know, such a number has been done on places
31:57
that are over there and full of Muslims, you know, as they
32:00
people therefore cannot countenance that there could be
32:03
any, any way in which that could possibly work here.
32:07
But a bit. But absolutely it is a
32:08
weaponized situation. Now what I wanted to come on to
32:12
just just to go back because I think we should really just
32:15
flesh out the the Abdul Haq point because it is stunning to
32:21
to read some of the correspondents and you've
32:23
referred not by name, but to Sir John Gunston who was out there.
32:27
And I'm just going to read from the appendix that contains facts
32:31
sent from him to Charles Guthrie, who was then chief of
32:35
the defense staff. And this is sent in October
32:38
2001. And and just a couple of bits.
32:41
You talked about the the Special Forces chap, Major Seger, he was
32:46
with. And Gunston writes that they
32:49
have been over the last few weeks trying to bring to notice
32:53
to those who have an interest in solving the Afghan business the
32:56
potential of a remarkable Pushtun guerrilla commander,
32:59
Haji Abdul Haq. And then they go on and have a
33:02
meeting with a small sort of portfolio of people from the
33:07
Foreign Commonwealth Office and the Secret Intelligence Service.
33:10
Service. And, and the result of that,
33:13
Gunston summarizes, is the response was polite.
33:15
They disinterested in Hack as they, FCO and SIS are looking at
33:21
other Pushtoon assets. They will contact Hack if
33:25
interested. And then it goes on to say that
33:28
basically nothing has happened and they're not at all
33:30
interested in Abdul Haq. And Gunston, keen to give the
33:34
benefit of the doubt, presumably knowing which side his bread was
33:38
buttered, says this reluctance is probably for good operational
33:42
reasons unknown to ourselves. So that's his sort of very
33:47
benevolent line on it. But the first line of his
33:51
proposed solution to Charles Guthrie is we believe that the
33:56
quickest, least damaging, least controversial and most long
34:00
lasting solution for achieving a terrorist free Afghanistan can
34:04
be achieved from within in bold by Afghans.
34:09
And yet look what happened. And again, for people to think,
34:14
oh, well, you know, that was just Afghanistan.
34:17
Look at what's happened since. And I mean, I just be interested
34:19
on, you know, your thoughts on on that exact that situation.
34:23
You know, Guthrie running, running the Ministry of Defence
34:26
and you know, had the ear of the Prime Minister, everybody else
34:31
that needed to hear what what was to be said from the ground
34:35
in Afghanistan and yet completely ignored.
34:39
You know, we see this time and again, do we not?
34:42
I think so. And I think it's because the
34:45
people like Guthrie aren't making the decisions.
34:47
So that's he's just a cog in the wheel, fairly low level
34:50
actually. I think the, the decision makers
34:53
are much higher up and they have to do with the the banks, the
34:56
capital markets and, you know, the currency.
35:01
And I think we make the mistake and particularly where you see
35:04
all this sort of Trump Derangement syndrome going on in
35:07
our society. And I'm not a supporter of
35:09
Trump, but I think that one needs to understand that there
35:12
are different groups. They're almost like mafia
35:15
factions. And he potentially represents 1.
35:17
And he's the sort of loss adjust of the United States as it goes
35:21
bankrupt now. And he's everything that he's
35:23
doing with Greenland, with Venezuela.
35:25
It's all about resources and trying to extend the, the, the
35:30
value of, of the dollar as, as it basically goes under consumed
35:34
by the interest payments they have to pay as they roll over 30
35:37
and 10 year debt bonds and or gilts or treasury bills,
35:41
whatever you want to call them. And so, you know, Trump is
35:46
beholden to financial pay masters in the same way as our
35:50
own political class are and our own, our own military leaders.
35:55
See, and, and I suppose it's all come since, particularly since
35:58
the mass financialization of everything in, in the 1990s
36:01
where we had that we no longer have the separation of retail
36:06
banking and investment banking. You know, what used to be the
36:09
Chinese wall, the Glass Steagall Act, which Bill Clinton removed.
36:13
So you have all this massive debt proliferation and all these
36:17
huge problems. You know, it just seems that
36:20
these decisions are made at a much higher level.
36:23
And I think that it, you know, it had to do with money and
36:29
black operations. And of course, poppy is
36:31
something that feeds into that very nicely because it's easy,
36:34
easy to transport. It's, it's a cash crop.
36:37
It's, you know, it's very cash rich and so on.
36:39
And I'm afraid that when I look back on what the British and the
36:43
Americans were doing, more and more hints throughout my book
36:47
that they were very involved with the drug trade and that
36:51
these these strong men that they brought back.
36:54
The first thing that they did in October 2001 was to sow the next
36:58
poppy, poppy crop, which was harvested in spring 2002.
37:02
And from then on, if you look at the UNODC figures, the poppy
37:07
crop, it increased exponentially year after year, whereas it had
37:11
been at 0 metric tons per year in the last year of the Taliban.
37:16
Yeah. I mean, that is perfectly
37:17
extraordinary. And actually just on on a
37:19
personal note, in terms of who cares and who makes decisions,
37:25
it was absolutely pathetic to be on the cusp of deploying to
37:29
Helmand with the Army in 2007 and to have a briefing from I
37:33
think what was then called the stabilization unit for the
37:35
Foreign Commonwealth Office, Diffield and MOD.
37:38
And we had a briefing from a young lady who was clearly out
37:42
of a depth but very enthusiastic.
37:45
And when asked about exactly this issue and what the economic
37:49
plan for Afghanistan was, and bearing in mind this is, you
37:52
know, we're six years in and not just six years in, but two years
37:56
into the sort of surge from 2005, her answer rather glibly
38:00
was, oh, we're working on that. And it was it was perfectly
38:05
astonishing. It was just sort of stunned
38:06
silence. It was a, you know, commander's
38:08
briefing. And everyone just sat there
38:10
looking at her thinking, what, what are you on?
38:14
And and again, the same with, you know, you've talked about
38:16
sort of building wells and stuff.
38:18
I remember during that same sort of rotation of, of talks being
38:21
spoken to by somebody from DFID who stuck a map on the wall
38:25
saying, yeah, well, you know, this is where we've had some,
38:27
some of the projects going on. And it then transpired that this
38:31
map was, I think, 20 or 30 years out of date.
38:34
And he had absolutely no idea what else had gone on.
38:37
They hadn't. They'd kept no records.
38:38
They had no idea where the money had gone or anything like that.
38:41
But but what I wanted to get to in terms of decision making was
38:44
just to really flesh this out. Who who does decide And also who
38:48
cares? You have an anecdote about
38:50
meeting David Cameron when he was of the opposition.
38:53
Tell me what happened then. Yes, well at the time I was, it
38:58
was 2005 and I was working for the European Union ambassador to
39:03
Afghanistan. So he was heading up this, the
39:05
political part of the EU. There was also the European
39:08
Commission, which was disbursing aid money and for him my
39:13
responsibilities were counter narcotics security sector
39:17
reform, which was centralising and building up the Afghan
39:20
National Army and police and going around the, the PRTS, you
39:26
know, the Provincial Reconstruction Teams and of
39:28
course NATO. So I had to go to various NATO
39:30
meetings in the CFC Alpha, which was the main American base in,
39:35
in Kabul, where we had all these coordination meetings of, of
39:39
various people. And I flew back from my R&R to
39:44
London in May. I'd just been to Helmand and
39:47
they were talking about the, the British coming out to Helmand, I
39:50
think it was the following year. So there was quite a lot in the
39:53
press about it. And Cameron was leader of the
39:55
opposition at the time. And I was invited by a friend
39:59
who was very close to David Cameron to a dinner party.
40:02
And it was, I think it was just about 3 couples.
40:05
I mean we're about 6 people. And I was introduced as to
40:10
Cameron as, as having just come back from Afghanistan.
40:12
At the time, I'd been freelancing for The Economist,
40:14
The Telegraph. And the Scotsman and I was now a
40:18
political adviser to the EU ambassador and I was introduced
40:21
to Cameron as someone who knew a lot about Afghanistan.
40:24
And he basically he didn't talk to me.
40:26
He didn't ask me anything about what was going on, what was my
40:30
perspective or point of view. He had no interest.
40:33
And in fact, he spent the evening being very glib and
40:41
giggling really with, with a couple of the other people there
40:44
about how they just managed to topple some female Labour MP.
40:49
I'm not sure what the context was of that, but it was I just
40:52
felt incredibly childish and incredibly boys club and no
40:57
sense of curiosity. Because I think, you know,
40:59
apparently David Cameron was really much more interested in
41:02
polls and was given his talking points by others and, and didn't
41:06
really seem to avail himself of of the facts or, or show any
41:11
curiosity about soldiers that he was about to be sending out to
41:15
Helmand to their death. So, you know, I was shocked by
41:18
that. No, I'm, I'm not surprised.
41:21
I mean, you know that that has largely been not just his
41:23
reputation, but that of those in his circle and others besides.
41:29
But but to actually hear a first hand account of that is, is, is
41:32
rather eye watering. Now you've just mentioned NATO
41:35
and of course we've we've spoken about Russia and I think, you
41:38
know, as we look at well, Ukraine in particular, but also
41:42
of course Greenland and really, you know, anywhere else that's
41:46
in line in the firing line this year.
41:49
We cannot ignore the relationship between NATO and
41:53
Russia, but also between Afghanistan and NATO and Russia.
41:56
And I mean, just give me your take on on how you see that, but
42:01
in a not, not sort of going back necessarily too far, but at
42:07
least going back to the sort of 70s and 80s and how that
42:10
pertains to where we are now and where you see things going.
42:15
And I think the mistake many people in Britain make and I
42:17
find it very astonishing when I come back to the UK, how anti
42:21
Russia the the whole media is. And there seems to be a sense
42:25
that we're still dealing with the Soviet Union.
42:27
There's there's no kind of awareness that actually we've
42:29
moved on from the Soviet Union. And when you go back to people
42:33
like even Kissinger and George Kennan, who was the Great
42:37
American Cold War strategist, he was the ambassador post war in
42:42
Moscow. And he's written memoirs and and
42:45
Diaries. And in fact, one thing that I
42:48
read in Scott Horton's very excellent book about George
42:50
Kennan's attitude to NATO eastward expansion was that we
42:55
should be supporting Putin as a moderate rather than, you know,
43:01
trying trying to, to, to act in the very belligerent way that
43:04
that we have by continuing to expand NATO eastward.
43:07
That, you know, that actually Putin has his own neocons to
43:10
deal with behind him. And that there are people in his
43:13
administration and, and also in the country who are angry that
43:18
he hasn't been a lot more severe on the situation with Ukraine.
43:22
And they've been running a war of attrition and in terms of
43:24
grinding down the Ukrainian army rather than taking territory
43:30
very quickly. And so I think, I mean, actually
43:34
when I, I went to Russia in June, I want, I was desperate to
43:38
go to the Saint Petersburg International Economic Forum.
43:40
And I went there as a freelance journalist and was just amazed
43:43
by how advanced the the system is in terms of their
43:47
relationship with other Eurasian countries, in terms of transit
43:51
routes, resources development and so on.
43:55
And it was 30 years since I'd been to Russia.
43:57
I the the last time I was there was the mid 90s and I was in
44:00
Saint Petersburg for two weeks at that stage.
44:03
And there were shortages. There were queues for food,
44:06
there were people shooting at each other on the corners and
44:10
everything was destroyed. And of course, when I went back
44:13
this time, I was very surprised by how well developed it was.
44:17
And, and it, it seemed just like a western, any sort of Western
44:20
European town. And the same with Moscow, which
44:23
is really quite beautiful. And yet when I come back, I flew
44:26
into Southampton Airport last month, in December, I was
44:30
stopped at the, the, the, the border and essentially really
44:35
hassled by the, the border guard and asked why I'd been to
44:40
Russia. He clearly knew I'd been to
44:42
Russia 'cause I'd just applied to renew my British passport.
44:45
But I was flying in on my Swiss passport and I was then told I
44:49
had to see the policeman behind him.
44:53
So I just thought, well, first of all, I'm not British, I'm
44:55
Swiss. Now I'm flying in on my, I might
44:57
be a dual national, but I'm flying in on a foreign passport
45:01
and I'm, it's not illegal to go to Russia.
45:03
So why are you trying to rough me up?
45:06
So I, you know, I just think it's got really out of hand.
45:09
I think people have become quite hysterical about the situation.
45:12
If only people would read more, stop listening to the mainstream
45:16
media, try to inform themselves, listen to people who do know, As
45:21
for example, Glenn Diesen and all the people that he
45:23
interviews on on YouTube. A lot of former CIA and former
45:28
American military who are very well versed in what's going on.
45:31
People like Larry Johnson, Colonel Lawrence Wilkerson and
45:35
so on. He people who were Cold War
45:36
specialists who talk about why this relentless eastward
45:41
expansion of NATO by I think 1000 miles was of course going
45:45
to provoke Russia. It was going to be unacceptable
45:49
to them in terms of their the security architecture.
45:53
And it was something that America would never allow to
45:55
take place on its own borders. So why would they expect the
45:58
Russians to? Yeah, absolutely.
46:00
But we're not allowed to think like that, are we?
46:02
And, and, and that leads us into, you know, the, the
46:05
influence of the media. But what I'd like to ask you
46:08
about is the influence that the security and intelligence
46:10
services have on the media and how that relationship works and
46:14
how you've seen that work. Yeah, I mean, I I faced a huge
46:17
amount of censorship with my book and ultimately had to self
46:22
publish it. It then got taken over by
46:24
Palgrave McMillan and Pluto Press.
46:26
But I found it very, very hard to get my story out, even though
46:30
I the book was very, very well received and is available
46:35
throughout Afghanistan and Pakistan and it can be found on
46:37
Amazon. But for example, if I appeared
46:41
on the Today programme, which I I was able to get on the Today
46:45
programme, I think largely because at the time they were
46:47
being criticised for not having had women interviewees.
46:52
Most of the people that they interviewed at a certain time
46:54
in, in, in at the time my book was published had been men.
46:57
But I then found that people like Sir Sherrod Cooper Coles,
47:02
who is SIS, that his book came out at the same time as mine.
47:08
Funnily enough, the publisher had who had wanted to publish my
47:11
book, his daughter was going to edit it.
47:14
So that's why I pulled it and published it myself 'cause I
47:17
didn't feel comfortable with having Sherrod Cooper Coles
47:20
daughter involved in my book. But I then found that of course
47:25
Rory Stewart was the only lens through which anyone wanted to
47:29
talk about Afghan affairs. And I found that this was the
47:32
same with publishers, with radio programmes, everything.
47:36
Rory Stewart was everywhere. And despite the fact that I'd
47:40
been living in Kandahar as a sort of blonde girl from London
47:44
during the, the time of the, the height of Bin Laden, no one was
47:49
interested, you know, and that I'd spent all that time there,
47:51
he'd gone off to Iraq and, and done his own thing.
47:54
But I was asked, did I know him and did he approve of my work
47:57
sort of thing? So that was another kind of way
48:01
that one was censored. And then also, I forgot to say
48:03
that with the Today programme, you would be drilled the day
48:06
before they were going to have you on.
48:07
And if you didn't answer the way that they wanted you to and
48:10
within the tram lines that they'd set, you basically would
48:14
be sort of asked not to come. So it was very, very controlled.
48:18
And then, of course, for example, I had an interview with
48:20
Philip Hammond where I wasn't given a right of reply.
48:23
And he was sort of saying, oh, well, she's just sitting in
48:26
Geneva. I mean, this is the same Philip
48:29
Hammond who is responsible, according to Ian Proud's book,
48:32
for basically reducing all of communication and diplomacy with
48:39
Russia when he was head of the Foreign Office.
48:42
So yes, I mean, there are many ways that censorship takes
48:45
place. But, you know, thankfully I was
48:48
able to promote my book through Facebook at the time that was
48:50
published and then through doing a lot of talks.
48:54
And ultimately, social media has been a good thing because it's
48:57
it's been a sort of democratization of knowledge,
49:00
whereas before all of this information only existed in
49:02
silos that are controlled by intelligence agencies.
49:06
Because I definitely feel that a lot of the journalists that I
49:09
knew in Afghanistan were working for MI 6 and that, you know,
49:14
that they're masquerading as journalists.
49:16
I mean, one of them even went off and spent years working back
49:20
in the Foreign Office and and then suddenly reappeared at the
49:23
Telegraph. So yeah, what we're the way that
49:26
information is presented within the mainstream is very, very
49:30
controlled and it's not going to help the public to understand
49:34
the world. No, well, I don't think there's
49:38
anyone who's in the business of making money who's in in whose
49:42
interest it is that people do understand what's going on.
49:46
And, and I think, you know, really that strikes to the, to
49:50
the heart of the concern for the people, which is can, can people
49:57
do anything to stop this from happening over and over and over
50:01
again? And, and it, you know, it, do
50:03
people have agency? I mean, via democracy or via a
50:08
supposedly democratic process? Perhaps not, but but you know, I
50:11
mean, for example, Chris Coverdale is somebody that I've
50:14
interviewed now a couple of times for UK column talking, you
50:18
know, his point being no, no taxation for for war.
50:21
So, so, you know, holding government to account by by that
50:24
means. Clearly back in 2003 and and
50:28
whatnot, there were large demonstrations against going to
50:31
war in Iraq and whatnot. But I mean, do you see that,
50:34
that there is a way to stop this, this sort of intervention
50:38
war machine? I mean, I suppose that what I
50:43
haven't seen those interviews that you've done with him, but I
50:45
have heard of this through other channels.
50:47
And I'd say yes, definitely people should ask where their
50:51
council tax is going and whether it's legitimate and legal that
50:54
their council tax is potentially going to fund these wars.
50:58
And is that why it keeps increasing?
51:01
Is it all going to Zelensky and and his big money laundering
51:05
operation in Ukraine? I think people need to start
51:09
asking the questions where is our money actually going and
51:12
what are we getting in return for it?
51:15
And is it really the case that I mean, I, I saw a little clip of
51:18
Chrystia Freeland being interviewed by being sort of
51:21
door stepped in in Davos yesterday and she was asked
51:27
about Ukraine and she kept saying Ukraine is, we're
51:30
fighting in Ukraine for Canada's democracy.
51:32
And I just thought, I can't think of anything more ludicrous
51:35
to say. It's nothing to do with Canada.
51:37
You've got a massive ocean in between you Russia.
51:40
There's no proof of Russia's expansionist, you know, that
51:43
Russia's about to invade Canada. It's completely ludicrous.
51:47
Why would people still believe all of this nonsense?
51:50
And I think, I'm afraid that I, I feel that people are quite
51:54
apathetic and possibly because they feel they have no agency.
51:57
But so therefore it means that things are going to have to get
52:00
to the stage where people's pensions are, are maybe worth a
52:04
cup of coffee once a month and they can't afford to buy
52:07
anything else with them because our purchasing power is going to
52:10
decline hugely. Particularly, I mean, if you
52:13
look at what's going on in the gold and silver markets and the
52:15
gilt market and and so on, you know, the currencies are falling
52:20
all the time. The British, the paper markets
52:24
and, and silver in London, the LBMA are blowing up right now,
52:28
which is why the silver price is going through the roof.
52:30
I think until people really start to feel it in their
52:32
pocket, they're not going to find the courage to really stand
52:37
up to this and and say no more. I think that's a very good
52:41
point. I mean, of course in the UK and
52:43
I think in a lot of European nations, the spectre of
52:47
conscription is looming ever larger and that would be
52:50
something that makes it a rather more stark reality.
52:53
Now I know you don't have a crystal ball, none of none of us
52:56
really does. But clearly you have a, you
52:58
know, a very well-rounded and deeply researched background
53:01
into the subjects that we're discussing.
53:04
The pace of change through the end of 2025, the beginning of
53:07
2026, has seemed sort of alarmingly fast.
53:11
How, at least in general terms, how do you see events panning
53:15
out over the course of this year?
53:19
That's a big question. I mean, there's so much going on
53:22
in the background and I think one has to take a step back and
53:26
not be emotionally tied. For example, I mean, everyone's
53:30
getting hysterical about Trump and and Greenland and and what's
53:33
going on in Davos and what's been going on with Venezuela.
53:36
I think that one needs to try to inform oneself by looking at a
53:41
more diverse set of analysts on, for example, YouTube and people
53:46
like Alex Krayner, Tom Luongo, maybe those, I mean, some people
53:51
say they're sort of apologists for this idea that Trump is
53:54
really trying to rebuild America, to reassure industry to
53:58
America's shores. Whereas the sort of Davos elite,
54:02
the Davos crowd, the Black Rock people are, you know, telling us
54:05
that you'll learn nothing and you'll be happy.
54:07
So I think it's people need to be a little less emotional and
54:14
to understand perhaps that what Trump is trying to do is to
54:18
defend the interest as the United States, to consolidate
54:22
the position of the United States in their hemisphere,
54:24
which is about more influence in Canada, more influence in
54:28
Greenland. I mean, I understand there's a
54:30
separatist movement in Alberta. People are fed up with the
54:32
globalists, fed up with the Davos crowd, fed up with Mark
54:36
Carney, all of this green washing, the high taxes, the the
54:41
inability to run businesses, whether it's mining or, or
54:44
whatever that people want to be free to, to build a future for
54:49
their children and not to be taxed to the hilt for these sort
54:54
of globalist initiatives. And so yes, I think, I'm afraid,
54:59
I think Europe looks, looks to be a very bad future
55:03
immediately. You know, the, the Americans are
55:06
looking after themselves. They're looking after the, the
55:08
fact they've got all these interest payments to make on
55:10
their debt, which of course Europe has as well.
55:12
But we've managed to cut ourselves off from cheap energy
55:16
from Russia while importing energy from the United States at
55:20
three times the cost. And we have a massive welfare
55:25
bill, which is growing as we have more and more immigration.
55:29
And we have people who don't want to work because they're
55:33
working from home. So they're completely
55:34
unproductive. And, you know, I mean, there are
55:37
some benefits to working from home.
55:38
But I think when it becomes a sort of a real thing where
55:42
people are very defensive of their rights, but they don't,
55:45
you know, they need to see the the bigger picture that actually
55:49
how how effective can I really be when I'm not going into the
55:52
office? I mean, you know, are, are
55:54
people productive if they're all working from home and looking
55:57
after their kids at the same time?
55:59
We have obviously also a massive demographic problem.
56:02
I am one person who feels that that women should be allowed to
56:06
bring up their children, that there is has been this horrible
56:10
kind of demonization of, of women who choose to do that and
56:13
they're called trad wives or something.
56:16
Children need to be protected. You know, we hear all these
56:19
awful stories of what happens to them in daycare with these
56:22
sexual predators and so on. I mean, what's more precious
56:25
than the next generation? So I think also if women didn't
56:30
have to to, you know, if we didn't need 2 salaries to keep
56:34
life and body and soul together, women would be able to have more
56:37
children and then we might not have the demographic problems
56:40
that we have had. So I think there's going to be a
56:44
massive wake up call in Europe. But you know, all these issues
56:47
like LGBT and transgender are going to be kicked into touch
56:51
as, as it becomes increasingly obvious that they're, they're
56:54
not fundamental to actually putting bread and, and water on
56:58
the table. And, you know, as we become
57:01
progressively more impoverished, I'm afraid, given the appalling
57:05
decisions that have been taken by our political class over
57:09
things like Ukraine, which I I see is definitely has been a
57:13
project by the neocons. And I've seen this since 2014
57:17
when Paul Craig Roberts has been talking about it in the United
57:20
States, that this has been a project to support corporate
57:25
interests of Black Rock and Monsanto and so on.
57:28
And I thought, for example, two or three years ago when the
57:31
British hosted A pledging conference for reconstruction of
57:35
Ukraine while the war had only just started and, and they were
57:39
starting to sort of try to parcel out interests of to
57:43
people like Black Rock and so on.
57:45
And it just seemed completely absurd.
57:47
What world are they living in? Did they really believe their
57:50
own propaganda that that they were winning the war?
57:54
And yeah, I mean, it's, you know, some of the propaganda is
57:57
very deeply evil, as we've seen with Butcher, as we've seen with
58:02
the OPCW situation in Duma and Syria.
58:05
And I'm afraid British intelligence has played a very
58:08
evil role in a lot of these psychological operations to
58:13
confuse the public about what's really going on.
58:16
And ultimately the British people will pay the price for
58:22
for these massive mistakes which have cost 1,000,000 billions of
58:26
pounds. Yeah.
58:29
I mean, unfortunately I, I can't pick a hole in your logic, but I
58:34
think, you know, this is, this is heavy, heavy material, which
58:38
is not at all to say that it shouldn't be discussed.
58:39
It absolutely should. And I think you gave some very
58:41
sound advice earlier about encouraging people to read and
58:45
to think more and to, to push beyond the boundaries within
58:48
which we are expected to exist. And so, you know, just just on a
58:53
positive note as we sort of wind up, I mean, the fact is, we're
58:57
here. We've got to get on with it.
59:00
How? How do we How do you keep
59:02
yourself sane and happy? I mean, I keep myself, I, I
59:08
actually like to know what's going on.
59:09
I have a great sense of curiosity.
59:12
I started to distrust the mainstream media when I learnt
59:16
that the story of 9/11 was nothing to do with what we had
59:19
been told. And ever since then, I've been,
59:22
I've had a voracious appetite for, for reading books that
59:26
aren't the, the, the ones that are reviewed in, in the, in the
59:29
mainstream news. I mean, through the process of
59:31
publishing my own book and the, the blockages that I faced and
59:36
then learning about 911 just a few years later when I moved to
59:39
the, to New York, I, I have really changed the way that I
59:45
think about the world radically. I mean, I've gone sort of 180° I
59:49
and I think, you know, people need to think for themselves.
59:52
And that means potentially, I mean, I can't say that I've got
59:55
a massive vegetable garden, but I think really trying to be more
59:58
self-sufficient and understanding that the state and
1:00:01
the government is not going to look after you and that if you
1:00:04
need to disinvest from the financial system and invest in
1:00:08
gold and silver. Or buy some land.
1:00:13
Of course, if you've got any resources, most people don't
1:00:15
have any resources, but just to try to inform yourself about
1:00:20
what's going on and to, to take measures, whether it's, you
1:00:23
know, trying to build a pantry or build a vegetable garden an,
1:00:28
an alternative supply of fuel, you know, having a wood burner,
1:00:31
for example. I mean, the, the government's
1:00:33
trying to get rid of all of this to make us dependent upon the
1:00:36
state, dependent on, on them with this sort of E grid of
1:00:39
electric cars and just keep independent and understand why
1:00:44
they're doing this and reject digital ID.
1:00:47
And, you know, try to keep as much of of your life non digital
1:00:53
as as you can, whether it's using cash, as people like
1:00:55
Catherine and Austin Fitz advise, and just being
1:00:59
self-sufficient as much as you can.
1:01:02
Good sound advice and simple steps.
1:01:04
That's absolutely I think the right note to to draw to a close
1:01:08
on. But before I do let you go, just
1:01:09
just remind viewers and listeners about your book and
1:01:14
where you would prefer that they went to purchase it.
1:01:18
Well, it's been a while now since it was published, so I'm
1:01:20
afraid I'm at the moment I'm. I did have a website at one
1:01:23
stage, but then it got knocked down.
1:01:25
I'm afraid probably Amazon, Possibly, yeah.
1:01:30
I'm not in the UK at the moment so I can't just easily resupply
1:01:33
people, but if they wanted, maybe if people desperately
1:01:37
wanted and they can't get on on Amazon, maybe you could give
1:01:39
them my e-mail address if they come to you.
1:01:42
But you know, I've, I've certainly still got some copies,
1:01:45
but I think they'll find on Amazon.com or Amazon.co.uk.
1:01:49
OK, super. Well, as I say, there will be
1:01:51
notes about all of this in the below the interview on the UK
1:01:55
column website and otherwise in terms of sort of getting in
1:01:58
touch or following your, your thinking what about social media
1:02:01
or, or any other activity that people can follow of yours?
1:02:04
I'm on Twitter and I'm on Facebook, so I think Twitter is
1:02:07
at L Morgan Edwards, something like that, and Facebook it's
1:02:11
just Lucy Morgan Edwards. OK, so I can be followed.
1:02:14
All right, perfect. I'm not sure that something like
1:02:16
that quite gets there these days, but I'll put the I'll put
1:02:18
the exact link in the in the note.
1:02:21
Lucy, It's it's been a huge amount of information to get
1:02:25
through, not just information, but but opinion and and also
1:02:28
evidence of your own experiences.
1:02:30
And I think that is absolutely invaluable, beyond compare.
1:02:33
So thank you very much indeed for joining me at UK Column and
1:02:37
I hope we'll speak again. Thanks very much, Charles.
1:02:39
It's kind of you to have me.