 The broadcast is live. Hello. Nice to have you with us. It's the 16th of April, the 16th of April 2021. 16th of April 2021. Just think about the year 2021. The United States on the 11th of September 2021 is planning to withdraw finally from its war in Afghanistan. 2021, the United States went to war in Afghanistan, direct war, this particular episode of war in 2001. Well, you don't need a lot of mathematics for that, but that's 20 years. 20 years the United States has been at war with Afghanistan. That's about four or five times the length of World War II. It's extraordinary. This withdrawal, if it happens on September 11, then one should be quite clear that the United States has been in the process of promising withdrawal for a long time. This one looks like it's going to happen. The German Defense Minister has said that NATO troops will also leave. I think that's quite significant. We're going to get into that in a second. You're listening to give the people what they want with Zoe. Hello, Zoe. Prashant. All good. Prashant and Zoe from People's Dispatch, which I hope you read at peoplesdispatch.org and me, Vijay from Globetrotter. Coming back to this whole business of 20 years in Afghanistan, the United States most likely is going to leave on the 11th of September. This withdrawal of 2,500 troops. At the high point, the United States says 100,000 troops. But if I'm honest, I think it was more because there were lots of mercenaries and CIA and so on on the ground. Plus, let's not forget Pakistani troops operating alongside the United States in Afghanistan, all of that. The last 2,500 troops will be withdrawn. Mr. Biden says by this year, that's likely it's possible. It's most likely going to happen. This has been a long process of negotiation, which took place in Qatar in the Gulf, where the Afghans had the Afghanistan's Taliban organization had an office. I visited this office. It's out there in the souk in Qatar, an unprepossessing place, I must say. It looked more like a little shop than an office of a political organization. But the Taliban didn't put much stock in those negotiations, to be honest. In September of 2020, the discussions opened again. In October, the negotiations started. The long time United States diplomat with Afghanistan's Al-Mekh Halilzad was in the middle of this. So was the Turkish government. So was the United Nations and so on. And in March this year, they seem to have come up with an agreement. Now, here's the problem. United States is going to withdraw. This is a major defeat for the United States since Vietnam. Please recall, the United States entered the war in Afghanistan or prosecuted a war in Afghanistan to destroy not only Al-Qaeda, but of course the Taliban. And the Taliban now remains perhaps stronger than it was 20 years ago. So the war aim of destroying the Taliban has not been met and the United States is going to withdraw. This is a decisive important strategic defeat. It also leaves behind a government led by Ashraf Ghani, former World Bank official. Mr. Ashraf Ghani has been disrespected by the United States government, by Trump, by Obama before that actually and now by Mr. Biden. Mr. Ashraf Ghani has made overtures to Russia. He's made overtures to Iran. This is something that has distressed the United States government. They're leaving behind a government which is looking more towards Asian powers than to the United States for support. Interestingly in Kabul, Gulbuddin Haqmatiar, one of the most brutal political forces in Afghan history has decided to throw in his lot with Mr. Ashraf Ghani. Now this has created problems. This has created serious problems because the number two man in Afghanistan, Abdullah went on Facebook to criticize Gulbuddin Haqmatiar. And I must say my heart was in my mouth because I was thinking about the statement made by Meir Rehman in the parliament in Afghanistan where he said, look, we're going to enter a new period of civil war. Friends, this is not actually something to not take seriously because in Afghanistan, when the Soviet Union pulled out, the country dissolved into a terrible, terrible, ugly civil war. More people died in that civil war than in the war against the Soviets and against the communist government. Please bear that in mind. So when Rehman says in the parliament that Afghanistan might dissolve into civil war, this is serious stuff. Zalmi Khalilzad has tried to bring together the older leader of the Taliban, Mullah Omar's son, Mullah Yakub Akhand, he's tried to bring the Haqqanis, particularly Sirajuddin Haqqani, Mullah Nakibullah and others to the table. They're supposed to have a discussion in Istanbul on the 24th of April, the Qataris, the Turks, the UN, the Taliban, the United States was going to come to the table and so on. But the Taliban has said, we will not come to Istanbul until all foreign troops have left the country. They want to press their advantage. They're really quite masterful tacticians. Let's see what's going to happen. I must say that personally, I'm glad the United States is leaving Afghanistan. I'm glad NATO is leaving Afghanistan. It would be shambolic for the world to actually turn their eyes away from Afghanistan, which has been in a long-term crisis since the 1960s. It needs peace. It requires peace. And I hope very much that the jubilation around the US troop withdrawal doesn't lead to a callousness toward the Afghan people. They don't require, I think, the world to step aside. So I hope very much the United Nations, which recently announced that in the first quarter of 2021, civilian casualties was up by 29 percent since last year. 29 percent. The war is continuing, even though the United States, which broke the country in half, not only in the invasion in October 2001, but in the intervention against the People's Democratic Republic of Afghanistan in 1979-80, when Brzezinski and others backed the Mujahideen. The United States has, for a long time, played a very, very bad game in Afghanistan. And we hope, of course, that the people are able to put their lives together. Now, speaking of the Gulf and Qataris having a role in this particular venture of peacemaking in Afghanistan, just south of Qatar in the United Arab Emirates, something else is happening. Arms deals, wars against Yemen, not always sure what the UAE is up to. Prashant, what's happening in the United Arab Emirates? Right, Vijay. Actually, it's an interesting point you made in the beginning when you said that the U.S. was at war with Afghanistan because so much of media coverage, so much of our thinking is conditioned to believe that the U.S. and its allies are there as peacekeepers or as some neutral third parties. So when we're talking about Iraq, when we're talking about Afghanistan, in all these places, we often, I think, don't really register the fact that the U.S. actually is at war with these countries. And I think Yemen also qualifies as one of those countries where this is the case. Because while U.S. troops are not there, it provided very crucial aid to the Saudi-led coalition in Yemen. It provided intelligence, it provided refuelling for its aircraft, and it has provided weapons to both Saudi Arabia and Yemen for the longest time. And the recent decision on this regard was that the U.S. has decided to resume this key deal involving $23 billion worth of arms to the UAE. And of course, we know the role the UAE has played in Yemen. It has been an integral part of the Saudi-led coalition. And the coalition has been directly responsible for causing the greatest humanitarian disaster of our time with millions of the verge of starvation. Most of the population of the country dependent on humanitarian aid. Tens of thousands of people killed. You see in Saudi air raids, you know, destroy schools, destroy houses. And there's been a huge amount of damage that has cost. And immediately after Biden had come to power, Joe Biden had come to power, there was news that there was going to be maybe a bit of a pause as far as the steal was concerned, which includes the sale of F-35 aircraft. And that it would be widely welcomed by activists, anti-war activists, peace activists across the world. Because it was so evident, the extent of the crisis in Yemen and the UAE's role was so evident that it seemed almost abhorrent to go ahead with this deal. Because Trump, the Trump administration had processed the deal at the very last moment, despite internal opposition from Congress and other sources. So it was considered the most natural first thing to do that this deal would be reviewed and then possibly scrapped. But now news has emerged that this deal is definitely going to continue. And I think it's a classic example of what we've talked about, what you mentioned as well, that I really don't know what Ashraf Ghani, this is not a Republican or a Democratic issue. It from 2001 to 2021, we've seen all stripes of governments, governments of hope, governments of so-called reaction, all of them continue these policies in West Asia, especially. And I think this is, again, yet another sign of that. So not great signs in Yemen, because infighting has been continuous. The fact that the US continues to be a key player there means that it is difficult for the regional countries to come together and work out a solution, which is probably the only way to go about it. For instance, as long as the US is there, defending Israel's interests, especially, there's very little chance that what you pointed out in the case of Afghanistan, that Turkey, Afghanistan, all the regional players come together and try to come up with a solution that looks increasingly difficult. So very unfortunate decision that we have there. And we talked about the Cypri report on arms sales a few weeks ago. The UAE is the ninth biggest importer of arms in the world and it's a very small country. And we're talking to, of course, Yemen, we can't forget Libya either, where its role has been exactly pretty much the same, you know, spending money, sending agents, creating, you know, pushing its interests, both in the entire region and causing complete chaos and loss of life and property and livelihoods to people. So that way, in sense, a very disappointing decision, there are, of course, protests against them. I believe they will continue across the world as well. These are very dangerous people, you know, who don't want to see a genuine peace in Afghanistan, a genuine peace in Yemen, a genuine peace in Libya and so on. Very dangerous people, guns, of course, lubricating the whole thing. You're watching, give the people what they want. You are watching either on Facebook or on YouTube. Make sure to share the link, spread the word about this show. This is a little corner of the universe where we try to offer an alternative to war and insanity and try to put some reason back into the world in a very small way from People's Dispatch and Globetrotter. Zoe was on behalf of People's Dispatch in Ecuador covering the presidential election, trying to bring some sanity into reporting there. Zoe, what did you learn in Ecuador and how do we understand the first round victory of the left-wing candidate Pedro Castillo in Peru? Yes, I am back in New York City now. Last Sunday was a big shock for a lot of people. I mean, there were three elections on that day in Latin America. There was the second round runoff elections in Ecuador between Guillermo Olazo and Andrés Arauz. We had the first round elections in Peru and general elections for the Assembly. And then also the second round of subnational elections in Bolivia. In Ecuador, contrary to all prior polling, to all projections, Andrés Arauz, the progressive candidate from the Union for Hope Alliance, fell short some four points of winning the race. And so the neoliberal conservative banker Guillermo Olazo was elected to the presidency. I mean, there have been, since this happened, since Sunday night, I think every hour there's been kind of new analysis coming out, new, you know, opinions on how this was possible, how it happened, what was done, what wasn't done. I mean, we see in the first round that Andrés Arauz is the clear winner above the second and third place candidates by over 10 points. He secured 32% and Guillermo Olazo and Jacopérez were almost at a technical tie with 18%. And so I mean, how did this happen? I mean, there's a lot of factors, there's some internal factors which I think are really important to not, you know, forget about, which of course have to do with kind of the fractions within the movements, you know, some of the historic relationships between what is a progressive government and the social movements. I think these are challenges and relationships that happen in all places where there's, you know, progressives in some places, socialist state, how do they relate to the movements? How do they relate to the demands of the movements? But I think what's important and especially in this space, and today since we're talking so much about U.S. imperialism, is to really look at this kind of the conditions within which these elections took place. I mean, if we think about the process, even leading up to the first round, the union of hope was only created because, you know, the party of the citizens revolution, the party of Andrés Arauz, Rafael Correa, and the people that are part of this progressive project was banned, was dismantled. They were unable to register the candidacy. Rafael Correa himself was supposed to run as the vice presidential candidate, but he was not allowed to. There was a, you know, law fair happening in Ecuador is, I would say it's even to a greater degree than we see in other countries in Brazil and other places. I mean, everyone from Rafael Correa being at the front of the project to even just functionaries of the state during his time in office have been slapped with suits, have been, you know, taken out of political life through the judiciary. And then, you know, of course, in the first round elections, there was a huge controversy which lasted over a week about who is going to be the second place candidate. All of the attention was taken away from Andrés Arauz. The discussion was not about the fact that the progressive citizens revolution and its legacy was able to secure this victory, but it was about who's the second place candidate, what interference happened. I mean, there were allegations that the electoral council intervened in the first round elections and, you know, saying this was Corriismo, this was the fault of them, and they don't even have representation in this council. So just wanted to give kind of that, you know, backdrop. And so when they go to the second round elections, you know, not only were 10 days taken out through this dispute between the second and third place, but then there was a curfew and a state of emergency. All of the classic kind of like lead up to the election mobilization was kind of taken away. And then the right wing was basically able to mobilize these undecided voters, you know, through this campaign. And in the end, they were able to kind of swing this block of people who were not sure between Corriismo and a neoliberal model, which was not painted as a neoliberal model, and ultimately Guillermo Lasso won. On the other hand, just south of Ecuador and Peru, we had a very surprising result, which was the victory of Pedro Casillo, who is, you know, leading up to the Peruvian elections, there was a technical tie between five candidates, according to all pollsters. This did not happen. Pedro Casillo was, you know, polling behind these first five, who is from the rural region of Ecuador, he's from a teachers union, he's from a peasant organization, a very uncompromising clear image of, you know, policies for the people, solidarity to Venezuela. He was able to come in first place with 18%, following him with around 12%, I think, percent is Keiko Fujimori. So these two will likely face off in the second round that's going to be held in June. This is going to be a very hot race. I mean, Keiko Fujimori, just to remind people, is the daughter of Alberto Fujimori, who is the dictator in Peru, oversaw forced sterilization of indigenous people, you know, massive human rights violations, a very brutal military campaign against armed insurgent groups in the country, the rewriting of the constitution, the deepening and imposition of the neoliberal model. And then on the other hand, we have Pedro Casillo, who's kind of this beacon of new hope of the left, who has this, you know, unflinching and uncompromising project, calling for a new constitution, calling for pro people policies, nationalization of industries. I think this is a really key moment for Peru. We have to keep, you know, studying what's happening there and not lose sight of it. Yes. And Mr. Pedro Casillo has made the very correct assessment saying that, look, I'm from rural areas. I ride a pony. And, you know, the candidates of Lima just didn't see me. The pollsters didn't see me. And look at me now. And I think that's a very interesting sentiment that for the first time in a long period, one sees a rural left candidate coming forward as a potential president of Peru. Ecuador, you mentioned Ecuador. Lenin Moreno will be leaving office at any rate and Guillermo Lasso will be sworn in. Lenin Moreno, a man who threw Julian Assange out of the embassy in London as part of his deal with the United States government in order perhaps to facilitate an IMF loan. To get an IMF loan, he betrays the integrity of a journalist. Prashant, it's been now what, two years since Julian Assange was thrown out of the Ecuadorian embassy sitting in Belmarsh prison. What's the latest there? Right, Vijay, it's two years like you said, since he was dragged out, very visuals that to this day remain very, very disturbing. You know, he was, he had been in that embassy cooped up in that small building for many, many years, effectively a prisoner in every sense of the term. And then from there, he was sort of dragged out and taken to this whole process of a so-called trial, so to speak, during the peak of the COVID-19 pandemic. We saw he was initially convicted, of course, for jumping bail, which is for lack of any other word absurd. And now he remains in jail because the United States has chosen to appeal the decision by the judge in January, when I submitted to reject the extradition plea of the United States. And I think a couple of things, of course, to always remember when we're talking about Julian Assange, the first that people are often happy to sort of forget, you know, it's usually he's termed as the founder of WikiLeaks, which is maybe sometimes often a convenient way for at least some sections of the media to not point out that he's a journalist. And he was doing basically what a journalist is supposed to do, bring out information which those in power tried to suppress. Of course, we talked about the, in the past about the video of that horrific incident, the helicopter attack, the death of two Reuters journalists, among other things, but also a number of important, a lot of important such information that actually revealed the extent of corruption or the reality of so many things. And that is clearly why Assange is impressive. Everyone knows that there are, he's being charged with, of course, the Espionage Act, which, you know, you're charging a journalist with Espionage again shows the extent to which this is very clearly a political case. And right now, what we do see is that the Trump administration, very similar parallels to the UAE issue again, the Trump administration leaves, the Biden administration comes in, files the appeal. There was some hope that, you know, the Biden administration would not follow through on that appeal. And Assange continues to remain in Belmarsh prison only due to the fact that this appeals process is to go, which is the second part of the UK judges' pronouncement in January, which really disappointed a lot of experts and journalists. So in some way, see that for no real crime, so to speak, the fact that despite the fact that the extradition appeal was denied, Assange remains in prison. And there were protests across the world in the US, in Australia, in the United Kingdom, demanding his release, of course, and in many other parts. But the fight for Assange's freedom, I think, is something that, you know, we sort of, it has to be front and center of our agenda as journalists as well. And because it's, you know, it really tells us a lot about the state of the profession today, the stance we take on this issue really tell us a lot about the state of the profession today. And it's one thing to sort of say that, you know, the legal process has its own way, etc. But the key question is, why can't he be out on bail? There's absolutely no reason. He's not a flight risk. This is a very difficult time for the entire world due to the pandemic. There is absolutely no justification for his remaining behind bars right now. And the circuitous logic with which he's put in prison, I think, is a disgrace to the entire world for lack of a better way of putting it. Let's not forget that Julian Assange and the WikiLeaks organization provided firm information of US war crimes in Afghanistan and in Iraq, firm evidence, including of course, providing or leading us towards the information about the flights that took people out of Afghanistan from Bagram airport out to, you know, various places to be tortured in black sites. Let's not forget all that because that's part of the record of what Julian Assange and the WikiLeaks organization was able to do. United States, UK and so on continuing to arm the United Arab Emirates in its war in Yemen. We know that it's this arms deals that destabilizes so much of the world, also destabilizes the United States. There's been shooting in Atlanta, these women at the various shops in Atlanta. Then there's the shooting a few hours ago in Indianapolis at a federal express center. There's also shooting by the police of young unarmed people. You want to take the guns out of the hands of the UAE while they bomb the Yemeni people might want to consider taking the guns out of people in the United States, including the police. Zoe, just a few minutes. What is this epidemic of shootings? Yeah, I mean, it's hard to talk about US imperialism and its impact on the world, you know, maneuvering this discourse of human rights without looking what's happening within the United States. And I think the last year under the pandemic, we've seen a massive, we of course saw massive uprising in May and June in response to the police killings of an unarmed black man, George Floyd. And of course, with the other murders of Breonna Taylor and you know, the countless other black working class people who have been murdered by the police. In this last week, you know, there was the case of Dante Wright in Brooklyn Center right outside of Minneapolis. Once again, this is, you know, the same region where George Floyd was murdered at the time that the cop that killed George Floyd is on trial. And you know, that's, I won't get into the whole details of the trial. I recommend people check out breakthrough news, the podcast, the punch out and also the freedom side just to learn more about what's happening with the trial. I mean, it's atrocious. It's insane to think that in the country that, you know, champions democracy and human rights across the world, they're unable, unable to bring justice for when agents of the state murder unarmed people who have been doing nothing else but living their lives. And I think I mean, this week we see the case of Dante Wright who is a traffic violation, barely even a traffic violation and he gets murdered by the police. Yesterday, a really, you know, upsetting video was released of, you know, 13 year old Adam Toledo who was killed by police, 13 years old, I want to highlight, a 13 year old boy who was shot and killed by the police. The police said alleged that he had a gun that he was threatening them. In this video, you see him running away from the cops, them chasing after him and then murdering him. So, I mean, of course, this has been met with massive rejection, people on the streets across the United States. And once again, of course, we're seeing the same police brutality. I mean, you know, the police are brutal in the United States. This is what they do. They respond with violence. They respond with tear gas. They respond with baton attacks. And, you know, this is the country that is championing human rights, going across the world, invading and, of course, to its own people. This is the same treatment that it applies, of course, in different levels. Above all, against the Black and Latino communities, the working class communities, just keep, everyone keep your eyes on these protests. I think we might be seeing the beginning of another wave of uprising. People are fed up over 500,000 killed from COVID, you know, continuing police violence against these communities, despite all of the promises. And now we're seeing this is happening, of course, under a democratic presidency. It doesn't matter who's in office. This is the motives up around the police in the United States and people will continue resisting it. This is exactly the reason why you tune in every Friday to give the people what they want. You get direct unfiltered news from People's Dispatch that Zoe and Prashant, I'm Vijay from Globetrotter, wanted to say that sometime today Globetrotter will send out my latest piece with the show wrong about the issue of Xinjiang and the cotton fields of Xinjiang in particular. We look at this pretty closely. The United States has recently decided to sanction Russia about the hacking phenomena, the alleged hacking phenomena during the 2020 election. But actually this hacking of US government sites is the main issue. For instance, the Center for Disease Control and so on. The United States alleged that a Russian non-governmental site is doing some sort of thing and Biden said, well, we're going to sanction them. Russians haven't really responded very much at all. But the policy on China is quite phenomenal and we'll come back to this in some detail. But I just want to point out that the issue raised about cotton needed to be looked at quite carefully. Come back to peoplesdispatch.org. Take a look at that piece. It'll be out later today. This is give the people what they want. Today is the last day of Mr. Raul Castro being in office as an office bearer in Cuba. Raul Castro is a fundamentally interesting man. He was with his brother Fidel in Mexico. They went off to build the Cuban revolution, returned on the grandma, went into the hills. He was one of the survivors of the first attack on the grandma and the columns that walked ashore, including Che Guevara, fought with the guerrillas over through the government of Batista. Well, the government, the kleptocracy, the gangster paradise of Batista stood by his brother right through the entire period of building the Cuban revolution. After Fidel Castro stepped down, he has a very senior person in the Cuban Communist Party took over. But today is his last day and Salute Commandante, it was good to have you. And it's an important day, I think, for revolutionaries around the world. Well, I mean, we're journalists, but we also have opinions. We also have views. We also have feelings. I hope you'll understand where we come from. We don't come from the people that report, for instance, the war on Afghanistan, as if it was an essential thing that the United States had to do to somehow team the barbarians in Asia. We don't report like that. If you want that, you go to CNN. If you want the Afghan point of view, and if you want a point of view that looks at the world from Yemen, from Afghanistan, and so on, come to us. If you want the world from Cuba, certainly come to us. This is give the people what they want. It's Friday. It's the 16th of April, 2021. Zoe and Prashant from People's Dispatch, that's peoplesdispatch.org. I'm Vijay from Globetrotter. Tell us what you think of the show. Tell us how you admire that we dress so well. Tell us that you're telling your friends about this show because you are our ambassadors. We don't advertise anywhere. We rely on you to be our billboards. Go out there, spread the word, bring a crowd. Give the people what they want every Friday just for you. Zoe, Prashant, how's it? Well, she said it. See you next week.