 The Afghan government was funded to the tune of billions by the US, its army trained and equipped by NATO. Yet after two decades of occupation, within two weeks, it crumbled. Some might see this as cause to doubt the wisdom of so-called humanitarian intervention. Not so, Britain's MPs. For seven hours today, although a small minority argued the Afghan war could have been if only we stayed a little longer. I'll be discussing the debate with Aaron Bostani. Aaron, how are you doing? I'm very well, Michael. I'm very happy that we could do the show today. Very happy. Yeah, I'm glad to have you on this Wednesday. It seems fitting to have you on, because I think you're going to have some fantastic critiques of the fantasy world, I think, that we saw in the House of Commons today. I will also be speaking tonight to a journalist in Kabul about recent commitments made by the Taliban. Speak to an expert about Preeti Patel's miserly offer to migrants, and we end the show by discussing an extraordinary interview with the head of the British army. As ever, you can tweet on the hashtag Tisgisour with your comments and questions or comment under this video. And of course, hit the subscribe button if you haven't already. Today, Parliament was recalled for the first time since 2014 to debate the Taliban's takeover of Afghanistan. It was a difficult debate for Boris Johnson, with many in his own party critical of his handling of the situation. And Keir Starmer took the opportunity to go in on the attack. I want to address directly all those who served in Afghanistan and their families, especially the families of those who were lost. Your sacrifice was not in vain. Your sacrifice was not in vain. You brought stability, reduced the terrorist threat, and enabled progress. We are all proud of what you did. Your sacrifice deserves better than this. And so do the Afghan people. Mr. Speaker, there's been a major miscalculation of the resilience of the Afghan forces and staggering complacency from our government about the Taliban threat. The result is that the Taliban are back in control of Afghanistan. The gains made through 20 years of sacrifice hang precariously. Women and girls fear for their liberty. Afghan civilians are holding onto the undercarriage of NATO aircraft, literally clinging to departing hope. And we face new threats to our security and an appalling humanitarian crisis. Keir Starmer also accused both Boris Johnson and Foreign Secretary Dominic Raab of complacency for being on holiday when Kabul fell. Yet it wasn't just opposition MPs who decried the situation. Tom Tuggenhart is the Tory chairman of the Foreign Affairs Committee and an Afghan veteran. He won applause across the house for this speech. Like many veterans, this last week has been one that has seen me struggle through anger and grief and rage. The feeling of abandonment of not just a country but the sacrifice that my friends made. I've beat funerals from pool to dumb-blane. I've watched good men go into the earth, taking with them a part of me and a part of all of us. And this week has torn open some of those wounds, left them raw and left us all hurting. And I know it's not just soldiers. I know aid workers and diplomats who feel the same. I know journalists who've been the witnesses to our country in its heroic effort to save people from the most horrific fates. In the year that I was privileged to be the advisor to the Governor of Helmand, we opened girls' schools. And the joy it gave parents to see their little girls going to school was extraordinary and I didn't understand it until I took my own daughter to school. The second image is one that the forever war that has just reignited could lead to. It is the image of a man whose name I never knew, carrying a child who had died hours earlier, carrying this child into our firebase and begging for help. Now, there was nothing we could do. It was over. Because, Mr Speaker, this is what defeat looks like, it's when you no longer have the choice to how to help. This doesn't need to be defeat, but at the moment, downwell feels like it. Throughout the debate and responding to criticisms such as those you've just seen, Boris Johnson argued that Britain had a little agency in events once Biden had made his decision. Here he answers a question from former Prime Minister Theresa May. But will he please set out when he first spoke personally to Jen Stoltenberg, Secretary-General of NATO, to discuss with him the possibility of putting together an alliance of other forces in order to replace the American support in Afghanistan? I'm grateful to my right hon. Friend I spoke to Secretary-General Stoltenberg the other day about NATO's continuing role in Afghanistan, but I really think that it is an illusion to believe that there is appetite amongst any of our partners for a continued military presence or for a military solution. The presence of British troops to fight the Taliban is an option that when no matter how sincerely people may advocate it, and I appreciate their sincerity, but I do not believe that that is an option that would commend itself either to the British people or Mrs. Deaker to this house. Boris Johnson there saying that the House of Commons would not support Britain going back into Afghanistan, but the consensus in the room definitely appeared to be that the Afghanistan war as a whole was a good thing. It was a fight for freedom and a fight for progress and the problem was the nature of the withdrawal. Aaron, what did you make of what we saw today in the House of Commons? I mean it was just pathetic, wasn't it? It was pathetic, so much for it was pathetic and the Tom Tuggen hat, intervention, yes of course 457 UK military personnel died, aid workers have made huge sacrifices and obviously their families now quite rightly are thinking what was that all for? Was it for anything whatsoever? Many more people have PTSD, lost limbs, their lives changed forever. I don't think it was for anything. Now we don't know over the next couple of years there may be contestation within Afghanistan for the kind of country it wants to be and forces within civil society take it in a good direction and maybe that wouldn't have happened without intervention. You know that will take 20 30 40 years for it to work itself out, but at present I clearly think it's inarguable if you were to do the accounting right now that it was for nothing and actually if anything we've taken Afghanistan backwards at a cost of two trillion dollars at a cost of 457 UK personnel at a cost of more than 100 000 Afghan people's lives. Why is this happening? Why is Tom Tuggen hat doing sort of you know effectively confusing the House of Commons for a therapy session? Well because Joe Biden who's the United States president followed the commitment by Donald Trump who had a deal with the Taliban in February last year to withdraw by this symbolic date of September 11th 2021 20 years after 9-11 attacks that was the deal between Trump his predecessor and between the Taliban and Biden stuck with that date he stuck with the plan it wasn't like he was just he was left with that plan and he had no choice and he stuck with that plan because it was very popular. Two-thirds of republican voters backed that plan in February 2020 60% of democratic voters backed that plan there is simply not the appetite amongst the American public for war there isn't and so Biden if he wanted to be elected had to do what he did and if he wants to be re-elected in three years time he couldn't have changed course on this 100% he could not have changed course on this and all the people whinging about failure of American leadership would be the exact same ones saying how did Trump come to power in three years time if Biden changed his mind on this so the the fundamental reason why this is happening is that an American president had to do this because of changes in public attitudes towards intervention particularly in Iraq amongst the voting public now can we stay in Afghanistan without the Americans it is probably one of the most delusional ridiculous unhinged unevidence maniacal he bristic things i've ever ever ever heard emanate from the mouth of a British politician and there are a few of them that said it Lisa Nandy has sort of implied it you had Tobias Elwood who's a a Tory MP for for Bournemouth say it it is a ridiculous thing Theresa May said it to think the Britain could lead a coalition to police a country which has been at war for 40 years the other side of the world which has a population of 40 million which is landlocked and which probably has the highest density of light firearms among the population anywhere on earth if i get my bike stolen hackney i'm not going to get anything more than a a crime reference number from the police but the likes of Tugan hat and Theresa May and Tobias Elwood think we can run a country the other side of the planet unbelievably out of touch unbelievably out of touch and the only reason why they think we can do this without the Americans is because they still believe in this imperial idea of Britain which was reformulated in the war on terror and the the fundamental truth is Michael Britain is a country of 65 million people it's quite wealthy but it's got relatively limited resources it is not China it is not the United States it is not the European Union it's not even Russia and it's certainly not a country like Iran and the region because it's it's not as near so we're a small player here in this context we aren't this big player it's not the 19th century and i find it frankly ridiculous the 80s after the second world war we have British politicians still behaving like this and one thing that Boris Johnson said and i i agree with it we went to afghanistan and it's important to say the iraq war was an illegal war the war in afghanistan actually had a certain a certain legal basis i believe which emanates effectively from the provisor around nato and collective security right we could have that debate you might think it's wrong i thought it was wrong but at least it made a bit more sense than iraq that happened because of 9 11 it was initiated by an american government if an american government which which was suffered the initial attack which provided the overwhelming majority of of forces of resources of political military support if they pull out there's no mission anymore and it's important to say michael on the 9 11 attacks of the 19 environment's 50 15 were from Saudi Arabia none were from afghanistan but any case that happened in new york it didn't happen in london so there is absolutely no basis for british soldiers to be there i don't think there ever was it's it's evaporated over the course of the weekend but for these people to feel important they have to create this completely senseless idea of britain and its role in the world which has absolutely no relationship whatsoever to reality and most people know this most people recognize it but they're enabled by i think the most corrupt venal fetid ignorant media in the west and i'm talking about the british media which is almost as bloodthirsty as most of our politicians there seem to be a kind of desperation i think among mps and and the media class whereby they kind of recognize they're out of step with public opinion so they have to go into overdrive to create this sort of new counter reality whereby it's the complete consensus that liberal intervention works and any civilized person would believe that you should invade other countries to protect the rights of women except well to protect the rights of women obviously that's not what normally happens when you invade another country we'll move on from that but they are so terrified that this isn't popular they just they just have to lock out any other opinion as being beyond the pale and you know it was odd in in the clips that we showed you that i do think that probably boris johnson's intervention was closest to the public's position even if it was a massive minority in the house we should clarify obviously nato can't make any intervention legal by international law but boris johnson was saying or i mean he's correct to say that by nato treaties we were obliged to to intervene in afghanistan but obviously you know alliances can't make wars legal i want to talk about the differences that have emerged between the labor party and the democrats in the united states because this is really really stark labor's commitment to liberal intervention has been completely unswerving you saw it today in the house of commons you've seen it in all of the interventions from kia's dharma and lisa nandy over the past week or so and joe biden is saying precisely the opposite he's saying liberal intervention hasn't worked and it's over this was the u.s president on monday how many more generations of america's daughters and sons would you have me send to fight afghanistan civil war an afghan troops will not how many more lives american lives is it worth how many endless rows of headstones are like the national cemetery i'm clear on my answer i will not repeat the mistakes we've made in the past mistake of staying and fighting indefinitely in a conflict that is not in the national interest of the united states of doubling down on a civil war in a foreign country of attempting to remake a country through the endless military deployments of us forces those are the mistakes we cannot continue to repeat now compare that statement to this from kia's dharma in the house of commons today recent events in afghanistan shame the worst not just the scenes of chaos but what it says about our abandonment of the afghan people for those brave people around the world living under regimes paying scant regard to human rights but resisting those regimes in pursuit of democracy equality and individual freedom what does this say to them will you get away what does this retreat from freedom signal to those prepared to stand up for it what does this surrender to extremism mean for those prepared to face it down and what does it mean for those nations who support an international rules-based system when we hand over power to those who recognize no rules at all that is the challenge of our time the challenge of our time is a struggle between those who follow the rules and those who recognize no rules and the role of military intervention is to expand freedom biden in that first clip sounded like someone who'd learnt from the past 20 years kia's dharma sounded i mean he sounded like he could have just borrowed that speech from tony blair in 1999 or something ara ara and i want to bring you in on this are you surprised at this breach which has emerged between kia's dharma who tends to like to you know suggest that he is of the same ilk as joe biden to say i'm taking inspiration from him but whereas joe biden i mean did used to be very hawkish and now he does seem to have to some degree moved on kia's dharma is very much stuck in i mean really the hubristic days of tony blair thinking we can reshape the world in whatever image we please would you know who sounded like joe biden was boris johnson boris johnson was effectively saying this is not pragmatic it was their mission they've ended it that's that's life and i think that like we said before that was much closer to the british lecturer i think what biden has said is hugely popular with republican democrat swing voters right everybody loves to talk about these people in an election but actually in between elections they don't like to talk about the things that matter to them politically i think you know he like i say he couldn't have been reelected without doing this and the last neocons the last and the labor party has neocons it also has liberal interventionists they're not the same thing although they sometimes feel like it the last liberal interventionist to neocons now mainstream politics isn't the labor party right the tories they care about leveling up they care about winning they want to keep these northern seats they've just won they want to keep the southern seats where the lib dems are looking like they could give them a real fight they're they're worried about the union they would want to focus on building a post-Brexit economy and they want to get rich that's what tories want to do they want to look after their mates and they're looking at these adventures abroad from 20 years i think we have had enough of this there's nothing to be gained from it and you have the labor party like you say it's kind of rinse repeat he basically could have he sounds like a kind of the b-side of tony blair right and apparently kia starmer opposed war in iraq on the one hand michael work work this out for me he's saying might doesn't make right right you can't just come to power and seize power and that be viewed as legitimate might doesn't make right but we can invade a country because might doesn't make right this doesn't make any sense it doesn't make any sense and he's talking about all these countries that are desperately seeking freedom well the kingdom of Saudi Arabia and this is going to pose really interesting questions now for the british political establishment michael functionally we might be looking at if the Taliban aren't as bad as the worst-case scenario which is not you know likely but i'm just saying functionally we may be looking at regime which is quite similar to Saudi Arabia Saudi Arabia until quite recently i think now they can drive until recently couldn't drive couldn't vote couldn't be political representatives couldn't go into the same shopping malls as men right at one point couldn't have 3g phones you know you could have a functionally similar regime one is our ally and our and our flag flies at half mass when their sovereign dies the other is the enemy of democracy now that doesn't make any sense does it and interestingly you know the president who ran away ghani he left the country michael that reputedly 170 million u.s. dollars clearly the the afghan sort of forces are not the people involved in that aren't stupid they aren't going to i would you i wouldn't they're not going to die for a man who at the first you know glimpse of a problem here has departed the country the 170 million u.s. dollars and i think a really interesting sort of uh the the alternative to that the converse is the british ambassador who's still over there signing people's visas that's what public service looks like ghani clearly isn't in that mold and he's left so why are they going to fight for a guy who's a coward and who ran away at the first site of trouble so does kia starman want ghani still to be the president does he still think that ghani's a legitimate president you've left the country you've got the first plane to tajikistan with 170 million u.s. dollars and people are saying that the government you oversaw was really corrupt and basically things went getting done and money was being siphoned off left right and center but we think you'd be the perfect person to run this country and by the way i mean again we have to work out here let's get the details down michael of this alternative reality that they're building we have a military alliance led by the brits the americans aren't there okay and ghani's the president this is a guy who just run off 170 million u.s. dollars this is like a fairytale michael this is like children speculating about what they're going to do when they're the king of england right it has no basis in serious pragmatic foreign policy debate and that's what's really remarkable about this and we see it time after time now with the center the rotten extreme center in anglo-american politics is that the people who talk about being sensible and pragmatic they often sound like the most idealistic kind of you know ridiculously emotional people you could you can you can conceive of and that we have a responsibility to all the people looking around the world that want freedom let's start with the kingdom of saudi arabia okay let's start with yemen no let's start with all these places as well we can start with a man or Bahrain or all these other regimes that we're quite friendly with no we're going to stay in afghanistan and we're going to commit even more soldiers and more money no thank you i mean for me i don't know about you michael i don't know our audience i was watching yesterday and i thought thank god we're out thank god and after we've seen protest today maybe we're going to talk about it later afghans flying the afghan flag if anybody is going to change that country for the better it's going to be those people and god bless them i hope they do i really hope they do but it's not about oh you have to help them how could you leave them it is physically impossible to impose liberal democracy on a country with bombs and bullets it can't happen it cannot happen and afghanistan is flanked by iran and by pakistan you might not like them they're not particularly nice regimes but women have the vote in pakistan there was a woman president in iran they produce more women graduates than men afghanistan can be like that it doesn't need white people with guns and and and f-35s and aircraft carriers it can happen and it's the only conditions under which it can happen is them doing it themselves and i think this is something which can't really get into the head of people like starmer and the coterie of fools around him in the labor party there is not a single country on the face of the earth with liberal democratic values with a majoritarian electoral system imposed by a foreign force and people say what about germany what about you know italy japan after the war that wasn't in an era when you're fighting against guerrilla warfare that was conventional war two countries they had recognized political leaders and prior to that they were affluent liberal societies other than those examples people cite from the second world war it's never ever happened political progress in the global south has historically come from national liberation struggles the exact same thing that these people view as toxic so maybe there's a bit of wisdom in a gentleman you might know the name of him jeremy corbin and i'm sure we'll talk about him later in the show but all the answers that the people who've been denigrating him for so long think that they haven't foreign policy they really have zero zero to offer and it feels to me i'll finish on this michael it feels to me that all these these performative speeches from johnny mercer and he's talking about you know looking after veterans of course we should look after veterans but for this one week and we talk about the people of afghanistan for this one there's one week johnny one week one day even one hour one speech it feels like this performative like you said michael was kind of over performative response is masking a lot of guilt and masking probably the recognition and then we'll probably see this in the medium to long term that the war never should have happened and it had absolutely no moral political basis at all because what we're we're dealing it with here michael is for 20 years people like you and me if we say we don't think we should be at war in iraq actually we think peace is quite good we don't think you know being like you know militarily militarily ultra-nationalist we think that's quite bad we would be called unpatriotic oh you don't think we should be in afghanistan why do you hate your country so much over the weekend that's gone that has gone that entire the ruling ideology of anglo america since the war on terror has evaporated and i'm fascinated to see what happens next because i think these are the kind of these are the screams in the immediate response but ultimately something's going to have to fill that vacuum and i don't think it's going to be militarily ultra-nationalism is precisely why kiyosama's intervention just sounded so totally odd because this language the challenge of our time is a struggle between those who follow the rules and people who have no care for rules whatsoever that's george w bush language that's that's that's this sort of maniki in the world is divided between good and evil and we have to side with the good even if it is with bombs and and bullets and it's it's like he hasn't learned anything i think you're absolutely right to say it's childish you know i saw i read an article by he's called le fargon twitter i hope i pronounced that correctly but he had a great piece about the labor right where he was suggesting the contradiction of their ideology is this constricting realism at home to say look we have to take the world as it is we can't be particularly ideological we can't try and radically transform society because that's not how it works then you get to foreign policy and suddenly they're like oh we can enforce from above liberal democracies everywhere in our image and if it goes wrong it's because we've made some little tactical error here or there someone made the wrong decision on this day you know they never take a step back and say maybe this whole thing that we think we can just project the world in our image and by the way as Aaron says neocons liberal intervention is quite different people i think lots of these people the kiyostamas of the world do genuinely want to project the world in their image i don't think they are you know cynically trying to just sort of bring about hyper exploitation but they are the dupes for the people who do want to bring about hyper exploitation because what they want is is a nonsense and even after a 20 year war where after as we talked about propping up a government with billions of pounds and training its army with the best military alliance in the world the most advanced military alliance in the world it collapses within two weeks they still think oh it must have been that there was a wrong decision here a slightly wrong strategy there it just doesn't occur to them that this whole edifice you've built up where we can fight these ideological wars abroad telling people we're going to bring them freedom when they didn't ask to be invaded is a sham what made me sort of laugh is that you know you cannot we cannot get a deal we cannot get a deal if we stay there if the americans were still there there would not have been a sustained political agreement between the taliban between the the government that was headed up by ghani without the russians the chinese and the uranians and and and and realistically the pakistanis right that's what diplomacy and that's what diplomacy is diplomacy is when you do things with people you don't like if you're only going to do things with people you like you physically pathologically incapable of diplomacy and so i look at lisa nanby and she's saying about how we should still be there and the people that she would have to work with if we were to stay there and for it not to be a route for it to not be like 1842 right and literally for everybody we deploy there to die for that to work it would require working with these people now lisa nanby i think basically favours regime regime change in iran in russia and she wants to impose sanctions on china we're a country of 65 million people michael so it adds another layer to this thing of like hubris and and and these childish fantasies about building liberal democracy overseas at the end of a barrel of a gun and at the same time you won't work with let's let's be real china is is asia's unrivaled superpower it is and you're not you're you're gonna do that without the americans and you're not even gonna talk to the other people either and these people want to form a government god help us michael you know often we say what britain's only a medium-sized country 65 million people we've got better people than that to be the foreign secretary or the shadow foreign secretary my god how could you have somebody who is physically incapable of diplomacy she she literally won't work with people that she disagrees with you're the last person i want to be the foreign secretary lisa nanby i'm sorry she would be no better than any conservative clearly clearly i mean what would she do as a foreign secretary which would be better she's favoring a staying there without the americans and that without working a single one of the regional powers that matter you're not interested in actually getting a successful outcome you're a puritan you're an ideologue and it's an ideology which has just been found out after 20 years failed war in afghanistan we have big problems michael because sadly this is this is not just most of the political establishment it's most of the media too they they think they still think they're right what's it going to take i mean that's an open question to our audience i mean because i have no idea let's go to some comments at this point we have 899 from ish attack thank you very much don't think i heard any mp talk about the role saudi played in all this mess i really don't think we're one of the good guys in the middle east as i said i didn't i have to admit i didn't watch the whole seven hours of debate so i'm i can't confirm whether or not anyone mentioned saudi but it's definitely not taking any prominence in this debate and i think this really fits into how ideologically it is to say the world is divided between people who follow the rules and people who don't care for the rules because saudi arabia is one of our key allies in the region right it's pure ideology joshua youngerman with a five dollar donation says just want to say your coverage of afghanistan has been a must watch must watch remembering the words of barbara lee today who voted no on war after 9 11 thank you very much for those kind words and yes barbara lee was the only congress person who voted against the american invasion of afghanistan an incredibly brave thing to do she got a lot of flak for it at the time as you can imagine techno kyle with 499 keep up the great work also can you bring back the marx t-shirt that aron is wearing we should do that i'll mention that to to um to our merch department and clarissa s sends a super chat message wishing happy birthday to a la h or a la h happy birthday a la h um let's go straight on to our next story after their successful military campaign to take over afghanistan the taliban have launched a pr campaign a group hosted an unprecedented press conference on tuesday in car bull the conference was hosted by the taliban's spokesperson zaby hula majahid who had never before shown his face to the media the task majahid had set himself was to reassure the international community it is very understandable the international community is expressing worries about the security and about afghanistan but i reassure all internationals the un all embassies to all our neighbors that we will not be allowing the soil of afghanistan to be used against anybody we assure them we keep our promises and we keep the islamic emirates promises it was of course allowing al qaeda to operate in their territory and plan the 9 11 attacks that would end the taliban's last period of rule so you can see why they might want to reassure other countries it's not going to happen again as i say it's probably too early to take their word for it the taliban didn't just limit themselves to suggesting only those outside the country had nothing to fear from their rule here the spokesperson tried to reassure those afghans remaining in the country who had worked for the americans i want to reassure all our countrymen whoever has worked in the military in translation we have given amnesty to everybody there is no revenge all those young people who have talent who have got education we don't want them to leave we want them to hear to be here in afghanistan work for their own country i reassure all of them no one will go after them no one will ask them why you worked with or why you translated for the americans or you supported them now that was a really interesting statement i thought especially because of the statement that the spokesman made that he doesn't want young people to leave this reminded me of a conversation we had with anatole levin last friday he was saying one of the the key determinants of what kind of regime the taliban implement will be whether or not they decide that they need technocrats do they need educated middle-class people to help run the country and to help grow the economy now if we take this man at his word potentially they do again too early to say that's going to be a frequent refrain in this section i'm afraid finally the issue about which most is still unknown and about which there should be the most concern is how the taliban will treat women last time they were in power women were virtually erased from public life there were horrific punishments for things like adultery they've suggested this time will be different this is what the spokesperson said on that topic our god our quran says that woman is a very important part of our society they can work they can get education they were needed in our society and they will be actively involved if the international community is worried about these issues we will tell them there will be no uh nothing against women in our ruling our people accept our women are muslims they accept islamic rules if they continue to live according to sharia we will be happy they will be happy it goes without saying that is a very big if if they live according to sharia now that can mean many different things sharia can be applied in a very radical way which means that you stone people to death for adultery or it can mean that you know the system of justice you'll have head scarves and you'll have a particular type of judiciary making decisions according to the quran so that that can look like that that can look many different ways basically again as i say that common refrain it's too early to say to discuss how seriously we should take the taliban's claims though i spoke earlier to obo dilaba here a university lecturer in car bull i started by asking him if we should believe what the taliban said at tuesday's press conference well i think you have the luxury of not believing it i think people in afghanistan right now don't have any other option but to cling to the hope that all of this is true the idea is that the taliban are have in the past shown a certain level of incongruence between what they've been saying and what they've been doing they have had such statements before however ground realities in provinces have been different the difference between them and now is that now their leadership is going to be in afghanistan so the same excuse of insubordination in such cases that they used to refer to is going to be there no more now what happens is people who have a higher stake in this future are apprehensive that much of what the taliban are saying are for international appeasement and this is timed until the last soldier leaves then the taliban behavior would change and all of that is based on assumptions as well the reality is we have to wait for them to form a government and then see how much accommodation they have within them for conflicting views for newer ideas how much does it matter how that government is formed i understand negotiations are still going on at the moment will the big moment where we know whether they're for real be the one where they say who they are going to invite into their government and who they aren't going to invite into their government i think that would be a good start with regards to really knowing how they plan on moving forward because they have had a past where they didn't have much international recognition when they were here in the 90s there was a time when they did approach the un they did approach the united states and they did try to get international recognition but that didn't work for them so hoping that in itself as a memory is deterrent enough for them to change behavior modify their behavior this time around so it starts with how inclusive the government is and then from that way forward we have to see how they form their specific commissions what the education policies are going to be like what general government policies are going to be like and all of that is going to be very closely linked with the quality of life that people perceive for themselves as well under the Taliban so there have been protests yesterday in Jalalabad or i think today against the Taliban and they tried to hoist the Afghan flag back up and i'm hoping that this is not the start of things to come and the Taliban really need to expedite their process of forming a government because the longer a political vacuum stays the more people get anxious with regards to what the Taliban have in store so yeah it starts with the government and then we see the rest of the policy policies follow and it's very closely linked as to what the bodies look like that are making these policies so the more inclusive the institutions the more inclusive the policies are going to be one of the points that i thought was particularly interesting in that press conference was the spokesperson saying we don't want young educated people to leave the country want them to stay here and help rebuild the country presumably you would fall into that that category of people an educated class in in afghanistan who they say they want you to stay do you believe them when they say that and are you considering should i up sticks and leave or should i stay and and try and help rebuild a new afghanistan when they say that what do they mean do they mean they would prefer these people to stay or they block them from leaving because they both have very different ramifications the Taliban for 20 years have been the enemy so their enemy image constructed in the heads of the post 90s generation is one of savage violent people who cannot accommodate conflicting opinions and that's not a world that a lot of these young people would want to live under for my case specifically i have i have certain safety nets i have a certain background that helps enable me to raise the voice and shake the bush more than other people can and i'm planning on using that and i'm planning on using my my groups here and try to act as that devil's advocate try to act like someone who is going to not compromise on the vision of the world that we had so when we're trying to reconcile the two worlds that the Taliban had and what the generation that grew up after them have there there have to be people that can give newer ideas because if it's just the Taliban making the decisions and every one of us leaves there are going to be people here that will have to suffer due to those policies so i guess uncle ben said it right with great power comes great responsibility and those of us who can raise a voice have to raise a voice we owe it to the people what do you think the role is at this point for outside countries to try and pressure the Taliban to stick to their word what leverage do they have and how should they best use it they have all their leverage in the world they have the relief of sanctions they have foreign aid they have international recognition all these cards are in their hands and these are things that the Taliban do care for and we see that from how they weren't in a rush to move into the presidential palace and announce their government the fact that they're still having their leadership come here and lead meet political leaders within Kabul is a sign is a good sign it shows that they really do care about how the international community perceives them we heard Justin Tridoo say that they would not accept a Taliban run government so yeah they're there the international community still holds a lot of cards and they can help in enabling the voices of the youth and women of Afghanistan to help create a society that is livable if they do want to stop the brain drain they need to create a world that is that is is is good enough for these people to stay because people decided to cling on to the tires of a plane and fall to their death but not live under the Taliban regime that is very bad PR for Taliban and they should realize that whoever their opponent were managed to create this image and this fear of them and it's time for them to rebrand and they can rebrand by taking safe smart steps to show these people that the world that is being constructed now is one that has space for them so yeah it's now or never the the international community has done a lot of bad to Afghanistan with a lot of mistakes supporting corruption the unresponsible withdrawal from Afghanistan the shutting off of borders the too little too late with regards to the immigration that they're offering Afghans now after all of that the least the international community can do is engage with the Taliban and help enable voices other than the Taliban to make sure that the newer world is one that is sustainable MPs at the moment in Westminster are having a big debate about the withdrawal from Afghanistan and the Taliban takeover it seems to me really the consensus which is being put forward by our MPs is that essentially this was a good war that for those 20 years that Western troops were there they were securing freedom they were increasing security and that it was by leaving that they have abandoned Afghanistan and I wanted to know what what your thoughts are on on that particular interpretation of what's happened over the past week and what's happened over the past 20 years The mission for Afghanistan was an utter failure the its failure can't just be summarized in the way it ended in the way that they left it also can be seen in the way that it was conducted any war that protects for that long is already a lost war the idea that the West came here with extreme cultural insensitivity it didn't recognize what these people were willing to accept what they weren't alienated the local population brought in diaspora to rule the country that really didn't understand the country much either alienated the local leaders the same local leaders who then stood up by the Taliban even with regards to the addressing the basic needs of the people so there's this policy of how you need the insurgent swim right so that means you have to address basic needs to make sure more and more insurgents don't end up picking up arms and they managed to feel that because you go to rural Afghanistan it it's the same rural Afghanistan it was before the West came it's the same rural Afghanistan after the West went so you can go around and and absolve yourself of responsibility and say well we did pay them money but that's like throwing money at a fire right so what did you do to contain the fire why were you enabling corrupt politicians why did you not have a plan for the Afghan peace process why did the United States sign a peace deal and had no idea what the Afghan political settlement would look like why did the West not have a regional approach and try to reconcile the different visions for Afghanistan that the neighbors had so the end the list goes on neither was the start of the war a smart approach neither was the end of the war a smart approach and who suffers at the end of the day the common Afghan there are people patting themselves on the back for a successful mission other people saying that it wasn't but no one really talks about the agency and the suffering of the common Afran 9 11 people jumped out of burning buildings jumped to their deaths because they thought that was a better option in 2021 Afran's cling on to airplane tires to fall to their death right and this vicious cycle will keep repeating on and on and on because every time the West comes in here from its imperial colonial times it destabilizes the society it leaves fragile states it goes back and then eventually the society in the world here haunts them then they come back again and then we restart over when is this going to stop and it only stops when sustainable and stable governments are formed here and when the West rather than being run by their own national interests really care for the welfare of the Afghan society and the Afghan people and now is a time to break that vicious cycle because if you don't this will come back to the West again and I really hope it doesn't and I do not want us or our generations following us to start this all over and have to go through all of this we've suffered enough let's just try to be human for each other again that was a bad lover here speaking to me earlier today in Kabul we're gonna go straight on to our next section pretty but tell today's that she didn't believe the Taliban's PR on women's rights however if you are a woman or another oppressed group in Afghanistan you'll need to join a very long queue to get help from pretty Patel's government that's because she has announced that over the next 12 months a bespoke resettlement scheme will only accept 5000 people over five years the government has committed to resettling a total of 20 000 Afghans speaking to sky this morning Patel defended the commitment this isn't just about bringing people over this is about resettlement resettling people so that they can begin a new life in the United Kingdom if we don't do it quickly they might not be alive well we are working quickly on this and why not 20 000 all at once primarily because we cannot accommodate 20 000 people all in one go we have to have this well actually I spoke to the Canadians last night came they can't okay so what if I say to you so I will tell you now what they've said they have an aspiration for 20 000 people and that also includes their locally employed staff so we are talking about this new scheme in addition to the work that we are doing with locally employed staff another categories that will be included in the repatriation flights that you're seeing currently we're bringing back almost 1000 people a day and when it comes to locally employed staff we've already brought over 2000 people back since June this year and we've had 13 charter flights bringing people back so look this is an enormous effort but I think also there are some really important points to just highlight right now for viewers we can't do this on our own no country no government can do this on their own so I spoke to my five eyes counterparts last night we have to work together the Americans clearly they are in Afghanistan they're working with us in our military in terms of securing the airport helping to facilitate people to get them out of Kabul get them out of Afghanistan and in our case take them to different locations and then come to the UK but the international community has to work together on this and it's not about one country saying we're going to do x we're all working together to really save lives and this is effectively what we are doing with our scheme it's a really disgraceful answer in so many ways I mean obviously the policy is more disgraceful than the answer but just it was so unpersuasive she's saying we a country of 67 million people a very wealthy country of 67 million people can only possibly resettle a maximum of 5,000 people over the next 12 months what possible explanation for that is there I'm kind of annoyed there wasn't a follow-up saying like really why you your government is so incompetent you can't possibly manage to resettle more than 5,000 people in a country of 67 million people it doesn't it doesn't stack up the other thing I thought that was again kind of disgusting about that answer was Patel pretending that Britain is doing orbit and the problem is that the international community isn't stepping up we need to get other countries to do their bit as well now this is a complete reversal of the truth it's a complete reversal of what recent history showed us during the Syrian refugee crisis the most recent major refugee crisis we gave Britain gave asylum to 20,000 people 20,000 people similar to what we're offering to Afghans that compared to 788,000 people who moved to Germany 788,000 Syrians moved to Germany 20,000 to Britain for Sweden a much smaller country 173,000 that's of course not to mention the three and a half million resettled in Turkey or the one million in Lebanon we are the bad guys we are the ones not pulling our weight so for a home secretary of this country who's been one of the stingiest countries when it comes to resetting refugees to say oh the problem is the rest of the world it's it's gross it's it's wrong it's false it's misleading and I mean it's callous given the context given given what she is talking about so how did we get here and why is Britain so stingy when it comes to refugees I'm joined by Tim Neyar Hilton CEO of refugee action a charity which supports people claiming asylum in the UK Tim could you start by giving me your reaction to the announcement on Afghan refugees which was made by the government today hi Michael thanks very much for having me on the on the show so the situation in Afghanistan obviously is absolutely there for civilians we have Afghan friends and colleagues and people that we work with who are desperately scared uncertain whether to stay in their houses whether to flee the situation absolutely dire given that it is a positive step UK government has committed to 20 000 afghans to be resettled in this country however this is just a start it's nowhere near enough what is needed so just to be clear they're only talking about 5000 in the first year and then the rest could be spread over 10 15 20 years there's no end point to this program at all so you know some people could potentially be waiting for decades to be resettled what we want to see is at the absolute minimum a doubling of that commitment to 10 000 a year to use this as a springboard for a global resettlement program a full global resettlement program like the one that was announced in the middle of 2019 as an ongoing program to deal with not just the problem or the issue or the crisis that exists today but the next crisis and the one after that and also all the intractable refugee problems that resettlement programs were primarily designed for and what we need to ensure therefore is that the UK government's approach to resettlement is based on principles rather than headlines and the fear at the moment is that this announcement is just a headline I think it's also worth making the point that resettlement takes time it's a process that first of all you have to cross a border and secondly there's a process around uh around ensuring that resettlement is the right approach for people it takes time it's not an emergency response and if we're talking about the people trapped right now in Afghanistan and unable to get out the government need to organize some kind of emergency evacuation program and it would be utterly disingenuous of them to imply that this announcement today is is going to solve that particular problem and the final point I just want to make is all of these this announcement could be being used by the government as a cover for their assault on the UK assembly system so the anti-refugee bill that is currently going through parliament and has just passed its second reading punishes rather than protects people you know if you take an example of a of an Afghan family who have experienced persecution and potentially gender-based violence but have not got onto one of these programs that family may well be forced to take the most daily to claim asylum in a Western European country if they do that under this new legislation they will be treated completely differently from the people going through these programs they will be shipped off potentially to an offshore island they'll be warehoused in barracks style accommodation and they'll be given very very different rights from from people who come through come through a formal resettlement program so we need to be really really clear on the one hand we've got Dominic Robb Dominic Robb saying we're a big hearted nation and then on the other hand we've got the government pushing this small minded anti-refugee bill through parliament and they need to sort that out that bill needs to be needs to be torn up and we need to commit to an asylum process that's a program Tim Neyette Hilton we are having still some problems with the connection so we'll leave the interview there but thank you so much for for joining us this evening super insightful stuff we are going to go to our next story and our final story since taking control of Afghanistan the Taliban have been keen to portray themselves as a more moderate force than the organization which ran the country in the 1990s and in that attempt to change their image they've gained a surprising ally the chief of the British army and how do you feel about collaborating with the enemy when they have carried out such atrocities against the UK military personnel over the years I think you have to be very careful using the word enemy I think people I need to understand who the Taliban actually are and of course what they are a disparate collection of tribes people as president cars I put it to me only yesterday they're country boys and the plain fact is that they happen to live by a code of honor and a standard which has been their standard for many many years it's called Pashtun Wali it has honor at the heart of what they do they are bound together by a common purpose which is they don't like corrupt governance they don't like governance that is self-serving and they want an Afghanistan that is inclusive for all so I think rather than talking about what except women um well again I think we have to wait and see I mean I don't know what they mean we can't support the way that they treat women we surely well I think you have to listen to what they're saying at the moment and I think you have to listen to the facts on the ground they are definitely they are definitely yeah and I'm not saying that's anything that you and I would approve of particularly but I do find that I absolutely but I do think that they have changed I think they recognize that over the course of the last 20 years Afghanistan has evolved they recognize the fundamental role that women have played in that evolution and yes they at the moment will undoubtedly say that they want to respect women's rights under Islamic law and that will be a sharia law but that doesn't necessarily mean that they won't allow them to be involved in government and in education and in medicine and those things that they need them to be involved in so I think we have to be patient we have to give them the space to show how they are going to step up to the plate and whether or not we can work with them will very much depend upon how they treat all Afghans that was sir Nick Carter chief of the defense staff since giving that interview he's taken a lot of heat for taking the Taliban at their word Lynn O'Donnell is a journalist in Afghanistan she tweeted British army lines to take general so Nick Carter calls the murderers liars misogynists and drug dealers of the Taliban reasonable changed and there we were thinking he was a serious person a full and apologist an embarrassment and liability shame on you Andrew Neil who you'll know is chair of GB news former star host at the BBC UK chief of defense joins Taliban PR team didn't he tell us a few months ago that the Afghan army was a formidable fighting machine the Senate Carter's also getting some flat because he said and the Afghan army would be able to defeat the Taliban Labor's shadow foreign secretary Lisa Nandi called the comments unpalatable that was speaking to sky shortly after that interview personally I do think Nick Carter did sound a bit naive in that clip saying the thing that you know gels the Taliban together is they're against corruption and also completely taking them at their word that they want an Afghanistan that is inclusive to all is you know I think going way too far you should be a lot more critical of what these people are saying than than that given what they did in the past and what they've been doing more recently at the same time I did think it was interesting having the boss of the British army avoid some of the tropes that we get from some of our you know quite hawkish liberal politicians which is to just see the Taliban as something which is evil incarnate which it would be wrong to even negotiate with on any level it did seem like he had a more nuanced take than some people we heard in the House of Commons today for example even if clearly as I say he got some things wrong Aaron what did you think of the comments there from some Nick Carter and also the response to them yeah it was at one point I was almost expecting him to say therefore you know in Afghanistan for the many not the few you know he was it was like it was like he was eulogizing you know the social justice element of the Taliban which not even you know not even Taliban public relations people do and I'm sure that's that's part of what they offer their domestic audience so I don't doubt it and clearly the sort of the way they're represented in the West is evil monstrous ogres and there's obviously a great deal of truth to it but that can't be the only side to them because clearly to emerge that quickly they have they have some consent from somewhere I know it's really hard for a Western audience to accept but that's because we're not in receipt of all the facts you know if you were part of a wedding party and your entire extended family was killed in a drone strike you probably would look to them as the people capable of transforming the country for the better I'm not I'm not legitimizing anyway I don't agree with what he said but I agree with what you've just said there Michael which is there is a really interesting contrast and I thought the person who really struck it perfectly well was the superb guest you got on Monday Michael the academic Paul what's his Paul Rogers Paul Rogers amazing so he had a political sensitivity to the situation in Afghanistan wasn't going to caricure the people there because it is really important to say that the Taliban of today are very different to the Taliban of 20 years ago why well it's one of the youngest countries on earth is one thing you know I think about half the countries basically 18 or under they have literally no memory of the Taliban that includes many of the younger people that are fighting for them the sort of preceding 20 years before we go there is of course civil war and more the USSR the last 20 years has been more civilizing not so there was a civilizing mission but clearly there's been the emergence of civil society there's been attempts at elections increased literacy etc not all good for instance poverty has also increased but clearly that the context the last 20 years now with the rise of Taliban is very different to the the first time we had the Taliban Taliban 1.0 so I can kind of see what he's getting at maybe it might not be as terrible as the first time maybe there'll be the space for civil society and women and ethnic minorities and so on to change things the better maybe but it was yeah the tone he said wasn't that you know it was almost like I actually got a message from somebody after the interview and they said you know maybe the British army maybe the Brits are in on this you know because it was like a really I don't I don't think that I don't think the person the message me thinks that but it was a really strange you know it's just senior military guy to say these things maybe he was overcompensating you know maybe that the fundamentally now the British army know they're going to have to work with the Taliban at least the next couple of weeks months to get people out get service personnel out NGOs out so he probably thinks he might have to say these things because there's also a foreign audience which is watching what we say it's not just domestic audience that said it was still overkill I think your your final hypothesis is quite possible actually because he did also say in that interview he was asked why did you say that Ashraf Ghani and the Afghan army could still win this I think you know Andrew Neil said months ago I think he said it as recently as as last week and he said that was to try and give confidence to the Afghan army so he said I didn't say it because I believed it I said it for strategic reasons because I want the Afghan army to well they don't they don't have to have been subscribers to the times so again slightly plausible but you can see why he might rationalize what he says as serving a particular tactical or strategic purpose again as I said I mean we can we both agree that many other things he said they were silly and and wrong at the same time there are so many MPs who I think do just see the Taliban as evil incarnate they see the western propped up government is this liberal democratic you know wondrous thing that everyone loves and that does ignore a lot of the reality on the ground I was reading an economist article from 2019 actually super interesting it was saying for the truck drivers they interviewed in Afghanistan the difference between the Taliban and the Afghan government was that when the Taliban taxed you going down the street they gave you a receipt so you'd only get taxed once whether the Afghan government you get taxed at every checkpoint by every different military leader because it is well according to this article and it does seem you know according to to lots of what has been written that while the Taliban yeah morally repugnant in so many ways they might be less corrupt than the Afghan government as it existed and for many people that is going to be one of the more important things when it comes to who do you want to rule you again this is not to say I think Taliban rule is going to be a good thing but it's to say that clearly the speed at which they took over the country means they have some legitimacy and they have some legitimacy not because all of the Afghan people who support the Taliban just hate women it's because they are providing something which the US prop government was unable or unwilling to provide Aaron you want to come back in on this I think it's important to say that that does seem to be some sort of and you know we just had a great guest on live from Kabul saying that the war the intervention Afghanistan after 2002 October 2001 rather was a failure I think it's it's hugely important that somebody in Kabul is saying that what we have British politicians saying no it wasn't a failure I know whose opinion is more valuable it's really really really important that people don't just think oh well the regime under Ghani and previously under Kazai you know they were all university graduates and they were all going for lattes and on social media on phones it's just so fatuous and childish it's you know the world is not like that I find this so strange Michael it's almost like we never had anthropology and we never had the idea that different societies just operate in quite different ways and that somehow the Ghani is the good guy and there was like say no corruption fundamentally what do people care about the same things they care about everywhere housing security jobs infrastructure prospects for your children health and if that's not being provided you'll look elsewhere that's what it boils down to and I don't see why it's so hard for people to get their heads around that why is it so hard and they had they had a long time they're 20 years of a different way of doing things imposed by a foreign power and it hasn't it hasn't really done very much for them it hasn't done very much for them of course you we can talk about huge increase in women's rights people going to school and so on but if you're looking at you know poverty if you're looking at you know yeah income deprivation access to certain you know certain social goods not really and they look at Iran next door again people have criticisms of Iran but it's an Islamic Republic you know it's a theocracy and they look at Pakistan a very religious country and now they're occupied by America and both have a far higher standard of living no there's a bunch of reasons why they're historically wealthier than Afghanistan Iran had oil Pakistan is a affluent country part of South Asia by comparison to Afghanistan but it's it's not outlandish to look at those two countries next to you look at your own mismanaged country everything that matters to you isn't really being provided by the government and to look elsewhere I don't get why this is so unthinkable maybe I'm missing something well I think the reason it is unthinkable is because people that live in rich stable countries they take all of that for granted so you don't even notice the fact that one of the big priorities for people who live in countries which aren't historically rich or stable is to have stability and to have some financial security right so the stellar creases of the world they take that for granted so much that they think well of course you would support a corrupt incompetent government which which respects women's rights as opposed to a less corrupt and slightly more competent but misogynist one now you know I don't want to make that horrible choice between those two governments but it's not completely irrational to choose one over the the other you know and I mean you know if the Americans didn't want the researchers to tell about what they should have built is a company is a country which respected women's rights and wasn't incredibly corrupt and which did bring wealth and development to the countryside because they didn't do those things that's why we're in this particular situation maybe you can't do those things with guns and you know planes and bullets as we as we've suggested already there are no good options here can I come back in quickly as well one more final final word tonight yeah I just I just again it boils down to this Western European pathology we we can't do that we can't change we can't change these things you know there are a bunch of ways you can support you can support society organizations you can you can you know support change in domestic policy which would create more you know overseas development aid or a fairer trade policy or more generous migration asylum policies but you can't I just don't understand where this comes from like in 1988 you had the Iran-Iraq war you had nine nine years after the Iranian revolution the situation for Iranian women was far worse than it is today the situation I'm not saying it's perfect it's not it's not perfect far from perfect actually Iran has many many things wrong with it but the situation for women in Iran today is much better than it was in 1988 and that's entirely because of civil society leadership exercised by women and allies inside Iran and it was fundamentally no different to what happened here in women's rights you know you have the American revolution in the 1770s America is not a revolution a democratic republic I think until after the civil rights act of the 1960s you know it takes America almost 200 years to get its house in order when it came to civil political rights and racial equality now Iran has a revolution in 79 you know I think it's perfectly reasonable to say well you get 50 60 70 years right so when people say well should there be regime change in Iran no because I don't want Iran to look like Afghanistan or like Libya should there be massive political reform in Iran of course there should be absolutely and that has to be generated by people inside the country with support of course from the labor movement overseas and and people who share certain values and internationalist kind of principles of course but we we can't change that that's not how politics works it's not how politics works and anything you impose on these countries is not going to be very enduring and people people say oh Aaron that's horrible how could you we can have a difference of opinion but we've already gone over this Michael there are no sort of historical examples of that happening you look at the modernization of Japan or you look at you know changes in other parts of the global south they come from movements inside these countries I don't know what else to say you know we can't we can't say here's a triangle it's got three sides well actually I think you should have four sides you might want it to have four sides but we live in the world we live in and again you know what's so strange about this whole debate with the left Mike because often the left are presented as ideologues impractical utopian but actually all that stuff really applies the kind of liberal analysis of this about you know you know we can build liberal democratic states they can be imposed from above we can have you know regime change the better etc etc I mean my god there's never been a more utopian project in the history of humanity and it's failed catastrophically that is a very apt way to end the show I think great points there let's go to one more comment JTB with 15 pounds unfortunately will likely take less refugees than we really should like the Syrian refugee crisis before sadly I think that's very true really love and appreciate what you all at NM do in these times thank you so much for that kind comment and for the donation Aaron it's been a pleasure speaking to you this Wednesday for a change it's been my pleasure Michael yeah I won't be here I won't be here Friday but it's been my pleasure I had my weekly dose of Michael Walker and I want a wonderful Tiski Sauer audience a little bit early this week you don't want to overdose that's it for now we'll be back on Friday at 7 p.m. do hit the subscribe button if you have not already to make sure you don't miss that for now you've been watching Tiski Sauer on Novara Media good night