 Welcome to Tisgy Sour. I'm your host Ash Sarka covering for Michael Walker because, well, it's true what they say about Muslims coming over here and stealing all your jobs. We're not gonna be talking about that tonight though. Tonight, we'll be talking about extinction, rebellion, anti-vaxxers, Tony Blair and right-wing hip pieces. And I'll be doing it all with my spectacular superstar co-host and rival YouTuber, Owen Giens. Owen Giens, thanks for joining us. How you doing? I'm in the middle of a... I'm having a little family holiday, very wholesome, but I'm in the middle of a countryside in a sort of cottage. It's exciting actually, but it's great to see you. Hiya. So I think Family Countryside Gateway is code for armed left-wing militia wing kind of training weekend thing. So have fun on the obstacle course. As ever, we love to see your comments and questions in the chat or you can tweet along on the hashtag Tisgy Sour. You've been here a while. You all know the score. Today, up to 200 anti-vaxxers stormed into the lobby of ITN Studios, the home of Channel 4 News and Channel 5 News in protest of, well, quite a lot of things it seems. Take a look. Where's the box? There's some chance today. We want to speak to them. We're not leaving. We want to speak to them as well. The whole country is with us. The whole country is upset. We want answers. No, it's not. No, there's a cap over there. Well, mate, we're willing to die from our kids. We don't care about getting arrested, mate. I've been arrested a few times already. We don't care. I'll put my life down for my kids because they're losing their freedom and news are enforcing it, all right? And you'll all go to hell, trust me. I don't know how you can go home and sleep at night. You know what Boris and that are doing. You know Boris Hancock, they're the real criminals. And you're all enforcing it. You're protecting them. Look. You're all protecting them. I understand you're passionate. Of course you're passionate. Our lives have been ruined. Once they say it, they'll get the owner of the building down. We'll speak to the owner of the building, getting down here. The protesters there demanding to speak to the broadcasting bosses about what they see as COVID misinformation, but which is actually public health information, and vaccine passports, and vaccination for children. So these latest scenes came shortly after anti-vaxxers made an attempt on the old BBC television centre in White City, which is now just really home to loose women, and it's also a so-ho house. Here's what seems to be one of the main protesters speaking for the group before pointing out a prominent journalist passing by. We do not consent to the government oppression. The two-tier system they are trying to, desperately trying to coerce upon everyone. There are tens of thousands of published doctors and scientists who give alternative views of data to the narrative that the media have portrayed as crazy and as downright labels out as conspiracy theories. And we're done now. It's done. It's impossible to do it. That's Jon Snow. Hey, get Jon Snow. Jon Snow. Jon, it's a real shame there. Real shame you didn't speak up for the children when you could. I'm back in your head. Jon, are you a pedophile, Jon? Jon, are you a pedophile? It's pretty nasty stuff there. And reminiscent of BBC journalist Nick Watt being chased through Westminster by anti-lockdown protesters a couple of months ago. I mean, I'd like to ask you something. What do you make of the accusation of pedophilia being woven into the conversation around COVID restrictions, vaccine passports and vaccines for children? Does this mark a bit of a new turn in the anti-vaccine, anti-lockdown movement? Possibly. I mean, it's interesting. I was on Jeremy Van Schoo and we're both regulars on the Jeremy Van Schoo and one of the arguments I came up when I was on was about should 16 to 17-year-olds should they have vaccines? And my mentions afterwards were a mess because they released a clip online of me making the case for a while. It should be the case. And it was full of people who were calling me a pedophile. They were saying, you know, you should be put on a register, keep away from kids. And also saying, you know, the first day to die from this, their blood is on your hands because apparently I'm now in charge of the UK vaccination programme. The reason it doesn't surprise me is when we're talking about anti-vaccine sentiment, we're talking about those who have a particular type of conspiratorial mindset. And we'll talk about this a bit later. I know that there's a difference between if you're on, you know, the leftist understands capitalism as a series of competing social forces. There's a systemic understanding and conspiratorial mindset of a difference about shadowy individuals pulling strings. And actually what's interesting about that is, you know, the deadliest conspiracy theories in history is antisemitism. And antisemitism, one of the most striking features of antisemitic conspiracy theory throughout the ages was blood libel, it's the idea that Jews were killing children. And that was very much an instrumental part of that conspiratorial mindset. And actually, you know, in all conspiracy theories often you do get this feature of harm being done to children by sinister forces. So I don't think it actually is that surprising. I was actually looking, it's quite interesting, I was looking at some old anti-raxa sentiment from the 19th century, because anti-raxa sentiment's been around since vaccines. I mean, since the small vaccines in the early 1800s. And if you look at those anti-raxa pamphlets, they have, you know, tyranny of doctor craft, people like animals with shambles, and they have a lot of the same recurring sentiments, minimizing the threat of the illness, caution, do not be alarmed by the smallpox. You should be alarmed by smallpox, by the way, claims though it's been eliminated, but it was not a pleasant illness. I'm just gonna stop you at a smallpox for just one second, because one of the things that you said which was really interesting is the way in which this is replaying very old tropes, one of which is of course minimizing the illness, but the other being one of blood libel, particularly around the issue of children, because one of the anti-vaxxers who appears to be one of the ring leaders is heard in some of the footage accusing broadcasters of participating in what he calls the murder of children. So just to put your minds at rest, the vaccine is not murdering children. Right now, vaccines are not being offered to children anyway. Under the age of 16, if they don't have underlying health conditions or live with somebody who is immunosuppressed, there are clinical trials for preschool and primary age pupils underway, but the vaccine task force made it very clear. They will not be, sorry, not the vaccine task force, the JCVI will not be rushing out vaccines for children any time soon. After storming the lobby of the ITN studios, the anti-vaxxer protest marched across London to stand outside the offices of tech giant Google, presumably because vaccine misinformation videos get taken down from YouTube and they object to that. Later on, they walked around Lester Square telling people to take their masks off. So we should also mention that one of the regurgitated talking points in anti-vaxx circles is to brand the vaccines as experimental and untested. A megaphone wielding protester repeated this outside of ITN today and asked, where are the long-term studies? Now, obviously the capacity to carry out long-term studies when this is a two-year-old pandemic is somewhat limited, but today America's Food and Drug Administration approved the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine for those aged 16 and over. So this is the first COVID vaccine to fully pass the FDA's rigorous testing process. The Pfizer vaccine is an mRNA-type vaccine, which is the new kind, which sends a kind of messenger bit of DNA into your system and stimulates the immune response. It already had emergency use authorization in the United States. And now the Biden administration is also preparing to rile out an expansive booster shot campaign next month, offering a third shot to patients who receive the Pfizer or Moderna vaccines. So, Owen, how much do you think vaccine hesitancy has had, how much of an impact has vaccine hesitancy had on actual uptake? And do you draw the line between hesitancy and reluctance and outright conspiracy theory? Oh, there's a very big gap. And we should be clear as well about vaccine hesitancy in the UK is very, very low, the lowest of any European countries according to the polling. I mean, earlier this year, the polling suggested in France it was 45%, Germany 33%, Italy 29%, Spain 19%, but here in this country, 11%. So that's quite a striking feature. And actually the war's higher vaccine hesitancy amongst 16 and 17 year olds, but that's actually fallen now, again, down to just 11% overall. So actually for whatever reason, and I'm sure there's a PhD thesis that could be written about it, there is a low level of vaccine hesitancy, but there's a difference between hesitancy where people actually often have concerns about obviously injections, about having anything being, you know, having any vaccination just because of various health concerns or whatever, and an ideological opposition to a mass state sanctioned vaccination program. They're very different things. And actually, ideological anti-vaxxer sentiment is much, much lower. And I think you can link that to, you know, we'd say before about a conspiratorial mindset. It's a particular type, for example, of right-wing libertarian conspiracism. I've been to anti-lockdown protests. I've spoke to people who think that Boris Johnson leads a communist government. I looked at interestingly, you mentioned Nick Watt, the BC journalist who was surrounded, mobbed by anti-vaxxer protesters, some of whom I actually recognized, by the way, from far-right protest. In fact, I recognize a couple of them who chased after me during Brexit. They latched on to the Brexit phenomena, and now they've latched on to COVID as well. And I went on one of their profiles, and it was, you know, Greta Thunberg's part of some great international communist conspiracy. Again, I wish. But equally, you know, QAnon, which is, of course, the right-wing conspiracy theory, often associated with Trump supporters about basically an international pedophile network run by elites. And again, a common feature there of conspiracy theories involving the harming of children. Again, that's what QAnon as well focuses on. Yeah, and you did also, there is also a strand of some who are attracted to some movements on the left. I actually met someone then who I thought I would describe as a Corbyn mom, like an older woman who was attracted to the Corbyn movement. And there was a strand, a very marginal strand, I would say, but it was there of people who rather than, I suppose, coming from a leftist perspective of being driven by overcoming social injustice, that requiring a collective organized response, seeing conspiracy, you know, a conspiracy which they thought maybe they think the left is best place to take on. So you do, you know, it's that conspiracies mindset where people often who are quite vulnerable people and the people I met at anti-Lockdown protests often strikingly, I would say, quite vulnerable people with very often legitimate grievances about the world around them, which is a world which is within favor of elites, in which there are, by the way, some actual conspiracies that do take place. The difference is if on the left, you think it's rational economic actors using their power and their influence in order to gain the system in their favor. But you often, they fall down these rabbit holes online. You know, there are, like, when we look at Big Pharma, we're not defenders of Big Pharma, the privately run system of multinationals who monopolize so much of healthcare innovation because capitalism is about profit and self-interest rather than about humanities needs and our welfare. And throughout history, if we look at HIV drugs, for example, the way Big Pharma acted there with poorer countries, refusing to allow them to do generic versions, cheaper versions, which would save lives, you know, the behavior of Big Pharma generally is often absolutely atrocious. So there are legitimate critiques that we can and we should make, but they've been taken down a different rabbit hole, which is about these conspiratorial elites who are having vented COVID-19 in order to hoard power for the interests of these nefarious individuals behind the scenes and that's what this is about. I mean, it seems like they skimmed the top of a layer of political symbols, narratives and ideas, some of which reflect part of the truth and some of which that don't. And then attributed really, I don't mean this in a dismissive way, but like really fantastical and fictitious root causes then got attributed to it, even though they were really far off. But moving on, there were other protests taking place in London today. Extinction rebellion began the first of two weeks of disruption to the capital, launching on the 230th anniversary of the Haitian Revolution. So activists built a giant pink table in Covent Garden and gathered in Trafalgar Square for an opening ceremony, declaring an impossible rebellion after the latest IPCC report suggested that human civilization may have passed a crucial tipping point in carbon dioxide emissions. Esther Stanford Kose of the Stop the Mangamesi movement called on activists to remember those living in developing countries, including Aiti, who were at the sharp end of the climate crisis. And she said, it's really important for us here in London to begin this rebellion, amplifying the voices of those communities in resistance. So Owen, this is obviously the first in a series of actions planned by Extinction Rebellion. Since the last time XR were out on the streets en masse, the government has begun this process of introducing legislation to make these kinds of protests harder. So what do you think the police presence might be like? And what do you think the political response from the likes of Pretty Patel might be like? I think it's an interesting one because I think the police might think there's a huge amount of scrutiny more than usual on them because of the passing of the policing bill, which obviously essentially allows the state to criminalize all protests on the basis of them being noisy or in nuisance, which is inherent in the whole phenomenon of protest. That's the function of protest. They're supposed to be noisy. They're supposed to be inconvenient. They're supposed to be disruptive. They're a basic democratic right and freedom our ancestors fought for on the basis that we have to find ways to use our collective power to be noticed. That's the whole point. And this allows them to do that. And I wonder that they might think that if they overplay their hands so early after so much scrutiny that that might backfire. They might wait. I mean, you know, it's interesting because I think if it was, for example, Black Lives Matter engaged in civil disobedience, I think myself we would face a very different and more severe response from the state. But actually extinction rebellion, it is fair to say. And if we look at the polling, you know, partly any protest movement is systematically demonized by the media and the authorities. Partly they haven't done themselves often many favors in the way they operate. For example, and this is by the way, not me justifying, I think I should be very clear. And please calm down. I'm just explaining why the authorities might count on there being a lack of public sympathy. So for example, they infamously in East London are working class community, tried disrupting a train at peak hours where working class commuters were going to work. And obviously the whole point of protest should be to focus on targets of power, not on working class people in East London who are maybe on zero hour contracts and so on, who might be financially penalized because of it. So, you know, the polling shows that extinction rebellion have had a hit. So I don't know, will the authorities think to themselves, well, on the one hand, there'll be a lot of watching eyes because of the policing bill being pushed to you so quickly. So let's not, you know, play into the hands of maybe the softer critics who we could win over. But equally, they might think to themselves, extinction rebellion have burned a lot of their sympathy with the wider public. And if we clamp down with them, then we might actually, you know, we might actually get quite broad acquiescence or some consent for that. I mean, on that, you know, extinction rebellion, at the same time, you know, all protest me or often protest me, this are generally quite unpopular in their time, but they do achieve things. And we saw in 2019, the polling showed that the climate emergency went massively up in public opinion. And that was because climate, the extinction rebellions and tactics did pierce public consciousness and make that issue more salient, whilst at the same time, people might roll their eyes at extinction rebellion. But I think we'll see. I think we'll just, you know, I think this, the state will either think, well, actually people won't mind if we crack down, but equally, the legislation is fresh. I guess I'm interested in one of the things that you brought up, which was the Canningtown tube incident, because I was one of those voices that was quite critical of XR. And I suppose I'm interested in whether they will have adjusted in terms of outlook strategy, you know, organization in order to accommodate some of the critiques that were coming from the left. So during the last wave of actions, many people, including myself, criticised extinction rebellion for having a view of the police, which was highly idealised and therefore alienating lots of ways to people of colour who had experienced really negative interactions with the police outside of public order, policing kind of situations. So do you think that the explosion of consciousness following on from BLM around the police might have changed things about how XR relates to the police? Will it still be love bombing the police, join with us? We're doing this for you to love the police, be nice to the police, blah, blah, blah? Or will there be a little bit more of a critique of the role of state power? An infamous example of that was, for example, they did this tree in 2019, live from the Royal Courts of Justice. It's been announced that all protesters arrested during the April rebellion will be prosecuted. We are asking the police and legal system to concentrate on issues such as knife crime and not nonviolent protesters who are trying to save our planet. And a lot of people are like, ooh, the dog whistle, it hurts, it pains us. And you know, wretches of the earth are an example of an environmental group which focus on black, brown and indigenous voices. You've very much been at the forefront of criticising the lack of diversity of representation within the ranks of XR. You know, often, you know, one NGO chief has described the environmental movement generally as a white middle-class ghetto. It's often different in the US, by the way, or Canada, where you do get indigenous communities who are often at the forefront, like in Atlanta, and you get the indigenous peoples who are often at the forefront. But, you know, in Britain, there was one bit of research that showed that workers at green NGOs generally were the second least diverse of all sectors in the UK after farming. And often, a lot of XR activists notably come from the countryside, very white areas of the country. And they haven't had that understanding of, you know, their understanding of power is essentially if we use rational arguments and compassionate arguments, we will simply convince those with authority and power to do the right thing. They don't have an understanding of dynamics of power, that you have economic actors for whom it, you know, making profit is all. They gain the system through lobbying, through donating to political parties, through the revolving door between politicians and corporate Britain, and that they're taking action which challenges, you know, those corporate entities' ability to make profit is something the system is inbuilt to resist, but for very rational self-interest. And that, so I think we'll now BLM, because BLM was one of the greatest acts of consciousness-raising of our time throughout the Western world and beyond. And it put out the absolute forefront, people, you know, who often were not politically engaged, pride of place, this idea that the criminal justice system was inherently racist, that it discriminated against people of colour. And that's, you know, and people realise that's not just the case in terms of the mass incarceration in the United States, but here in Britain as well. Will that have fed into XR? Well, we're about to find out, because it's the first mass actions of XR since BLM exploded. Have they listened to those critics, like, for example, Wretched of the Earth? Have they listened to people of colour who think the wider environmental movement is not representative, and given throughout the global South and poorer communities, disproportionately people of colour in the global North will be the hardest hit by the climate emergency, is obviously a travesty if the climate movement, fighting as it is for climate justice and a just transition, doesn't censor the very voices who are most going to be affected by the climate emergency. So this is a real test for them, because a lot of people on the left, let's be honest, their patience began to get really, really tested for the extinction belly. It was this torn between we must always defend protesters against repression and fighting for climate justice, but equally, my word, these people are tome deaf and they shoot themselves in the foot, and then we all suffer the consequences because everyone just lumps any progressives together in one basket. So I think they really have to come under pressure to answer to those calls, because otherwise they will keep making completely, this idea of mass arrest, go and get yourself arrested. It's like, oh, great, because the criminal justice system is going to treat black people just the same as when they're arrested, is a kind of white, older woman from Dorset. I mean, it isn't. Well, speaking of mass arrests and 24-hour courts, how should Keir Starmer respond to extinction rebellion? And how do you think he will end up responding to extinction rebellion? Well, obviously, he'll have to do the focus group, and I don't know how quick a turnaround they are. It is after all August, lots of people on summer holidays. So that might be a bit of a problem there. Yeah, I mean, I think, look, at the end of the day, Keir Starmer's so far, given actually, Keir Starmer in his leadership bid, in which he set out 10 pledges which he has systematically reneged on in terms of radical domestic policies, he basically said he'd be a bit more professional Corbyn, but he did actually famously, in his leadership election, video, which kind of wooed a lot of the left, including people who voted for Corbyn twice, focused on his background in defending extra-parliamentary movements, like, for example, at Wapping, the protest is, so the strikers against, when the Murdoch Empire crushed the unions, the printers, and also the minor strike and all the rest of it. And obviously, that history, which he so eloquently in that video, movingly in that video showcased is not something that he has spoken about ever since he won that leadership election, but I'm afraid that was a leadership election which was clearly completely dishonest. Yeah, I mean, what he should do is say, based on what Keir Starmer is, is go and, well, actually, I mean, he'll go, oh, I don't agree with him, but with that tactics, but the climate emergency is an existential threat facing humanity. And that's what, you know, a labor leader should go, look, look, being disrupted is annoying for people, but there's nothing more disruptive than the climate emergency, which is a threat to our very survival as a species. And he should use it as an opening to talk about, you know, because we know from, as I've said in 2019, climate emergency, as an issue, became more salient because of the protest. So he should use it as an opportunity to set out a radical green industrial revolution, which will create jobs, stimulate the economy, you know, in terms of free transport, publicly owned transport would be good, in terms of expanding renewable energies, and a shift to a green and just economy. Those are things he should be talking about passionately. Do I think he'll do that? No, he hasn't done a passionate speech, well, his life, probably, that I've ever seen. And he hasn't showed any capacity to use a moment, an opening, in order to make a progressive case. Well, an example of this was earlier this year, when the Tories said they were gonna increase corporation tax. Now, what should the blader said then? They should have gone, hold on a minute, year after year, the Tory told us, they told us, and this was the basis of the economic dogma, that if you cut taxes on big businesses, then you'll get more revenues coming in because it will make them more profitable. And they themselves have said, that entire dogma is nonsense. It's wrong, it's factually incorrect, and this shows the door's been, we've got to push at this door and demand a much more just tax system, but they didn't do that. They said, oh, no, don't increase corporation tax. The economy will suffer. And I think that's the problem. That was an open goal, and they just kicked the ball in the opposite direction. So I think, will he use more interest in the climate emergency? I mean, that's the other thing you could say. We've gone through this terrible emergency with COVID, but this is the biggie, and we're already seeing the extreme weather across the world. The polling shows that that has cut through extreme weather. People have made the connection between human activity emissions and extreme weather, but I just don't think he's gonna make any compelling progressive argument on that because he's not made a single compelling progressive argument since he was elected leader of the Labour Party last year. Well, we live in hope. It might just be good anyway, even though we've got no reason to think so. Before we move on, looking at the super chats, we've got Mayor Yorishan Anand Raja with a fiver who says, I am a healthcare worker. I've been called Elias slash murderer by anti-vaxxers as I leave work. They are becoming extremists. Thank you for covering this. Thank you so much for your fiver and it really sucks. It really sucks that healthcare workers who are just going in doing their job to keep us alive despite our own best effort, our own best efforts are being treated this way. That really sucks. We've also got a comment from Holly Peacock in the super chat saying, please give a shout out to my comrades, John Mitchell, who sprained his ankle and got COVID-19 in the space of a few days. John, I'm really sorry, that sucks. You have a shout out, but also, Holly, what did you do to this man? Like pushing him down some stairs and sending him a contaminated swab. I'm looking at you with a degree of suspicion, speaking of looking at people with a degree of suspicion. It was only a matter of time before Tony Blair made another rare intervention into politics, this time to defend his legacy in the Middle East and castigate President Biden for the withdrawal of US forces from Afghanistan in an article for his own Tony Blair Institute for Global Change. The former prime minister wrote, we didn't need to do it, we chose to do it. We did it in obedience to an imbecilic political slogan about ending the forever wars, as if our engagement in 2021 was remotely comparable to our commitment 20 or even 10 years ago. And in circumstances in which troop numbers had declined to a minimum and no allied soldier had lost their life in combat for 18 months. So this is something we've been hearing a lot in the last couple of weeks, that the Afghan occupation had become practically cost free in human terms for the allied forces and it needed a minimal presence in order to stabilize the Afghan government. But this graph from the economist shows what's been happening to the Afghan forces since the Taliban's resurgence about 10 years ago. So you can see the 2011 Surgeon US forces, you have an increase in Afghan deaths, it goes up, it goes up, it goes up. And really, when by the time you have the US negotiations with the Taliban beginning, you've got a relatively stable number of allied deaths, obviously, or deaths are tragic, but a relatively stable amount, but a huge increase in Afghan deaths of the Afghan forces. It's not on this graph, but this is something which happened afterwards, which is after the announcement of Trump's withdrawal from Afghanistan, that was one of the most deadly years for Afghan forces and police forces, whereas there are of course no deaths of allied troops in the past 18 months. All of that Taliban violence was very much concentrated on the Afghans. So even before the Trump deal, you've got this picture of the Taliban getting stronger, the death toll for Afghan troops getting worse, and that continued long after the deal as well. In an interview with Sky News, Blair went on to defend what sounds like indefinite occupation of Afghanistan. Take a look. With these situations, you've got to be prepared to commit for the long term. And I know how difficult it is to do that, but the truth is, when we came to the end of 2019, we were in a situation where troop levels were significantly down, America had a few thousand troops, NATO had something like 8,000 troops. The country could have been helped through the next phase of its progress, but then we decided for political reasons that we had to withdraw under the previous American administration and then under this one. And even though I understand how difficult these things are, if it matters, and I think Afghanistan did matter and does matter to us, you've got to be prepared to hold to your course over the long term and to see it through, even though it's difficult and even though it's painful because it matters to our security as well as of course to the people of Afghanistan. So there you can hear in very vague terms this idea of committing for the long term, helping Afghanistan through the next phase of its progress without a clear sense of what that next phase would look like, or even a realistic acknowledgement of what the situation actually was, which was a worsening state of affairs for Afghan forces, greater gains made by the Taliban, the destabilization of both the local and the national Afghan governments. I mean, we're gonna talk about jihadism and Islamophobia in a bit, but just for now, I want to ask you what you think about Blair's theory here because basically what he's saying, and he's written this elsewhere is that Britain and America have this role and it's a traditional global leadership role. And that status means that both countries have to be willing to make long-term military commitments which aren't touched at all by the shifts in the concerns of domestic politics. Do you buy that argument? Well, it's interesting because that is essentially what US military strategy has tried to cater for because the Vietnam War, which obviously haunts US political and military elites in which after the Cold War in which the US, of course, became the global hegemon, but its hegemony at least was contested then by the Soviet-led bloc. But after the humiliating defeat that the US suffered in Vietnam, it was believed that one of the main reasons for that was the mass death, which was suffered, of course, by American soldiers, which now to 3 million people were killed, civilians and others in Southeast Asia, Vietnam, Cambodia and Laos, but tens of thousands of American soldiers died and many, many more were maimed and severely injured. And that really did have a big impact in turning American public opinion against the Vietnam War. But so what they tried to do since then is shift to air power and more recently as well, relatively drones, essentially turning military conflict into a computer game where soldiers are safe and simply press buttons in order to send drones where the deaths are not reported upon, where Saint Barack Obama could joke about, you know, if the Jonas Brothers had a hit on his two daughters, he would drone strike them. Ha ha, very funny, Barack, given that your drone strikes were killing little girls in Pakistan, which you know full well, don't get reported. Their lives don't matter in Western media. And because white American soldiers aren't dying, you think that is an apolitical cost. So it's striking that even despite that, and there have been of course, in many ways is obviously a horrendous tragedy, that American fatalities are much lower. Actually more of American contractors died in Afghanistan than soldiers. And Britain also suffered more fatalities in Afghanistan than it did in Iraq. But even despite the fact that it hasn't really been in the news that much, it hasn't really been something that has dominated the consciousness, it was very much eclipsed in lots of ways by the catastrophe of Iraq. Even then, public acquiescence dimmed, and it didn't for lots of reasons. It dimmed because 20 years ago, there was overwhelming support for Western support, for Western military intervention in Afghanistan. Keeper sense supported the war. And then you saw the calamity of Iraq, of course, where essentially hundreds of thousands of civilians died, and you got the rise of ISIS, and Iraq was essentially handed over to the dominance of the West traditional flow Iran. You saw Libya, which ended in disaster, the war on terror. In 16 years after the war on terror, the number of deaths caused by terrorism more than doubled compared to the 16 years before the war on terror, that's obviously paced public consciousness, and obviously what happened in Afghanistan. So all in all, public, even though you haven't had the same mass death that American soldiers suffered in the Vietnam War, all of that collectively has sunk into public consciousness as these are all disastrous foreign interventions, which we need to disentangle ourselves from. So actually, the reason now Tony Blair is making this very anti-democratic elitist argument that Western imperialism should continue and sort of insulate itself against public opinion, which is what American military strategy has tried to do using technology to its fullest possible potential. It hasn't actually worked, and actually the mass mobilizations of the anti-war movement, which everyone said will actually fail because the Iraq war have had the impact in making it much harder for the West to continue to intervene in these ways without a very severe political cost, which Joe Biden, who is no dove, has succumbed, and that's why he's saying we can't have these, we've got to disentangle ourselves from a forever war, which is what Tony Blair objected to. So no, I think the thesis is just in a democracy, even though it's a very caveated democracy that we have, it's just an anti-democratic elitist argument that just collides with political reality, and that's what has happened in the United States. I mean, it very much seems that he's stinging because one of the core components of the Tony Blair project was military, liberal, humanitarian intervention, so-called. Liberal interventionism seems like it's said in the water, but he does make one interesting point, and one of the points he makes is that Afghanistan is a relatively young country. It has a median age of around 18 years old, and that most Afghans now living have never experienced Taliban rule before. I mean, that's obviously more complex when you think about the regional distribution of the Taliban and the fact that they have been involved in local governance for the past 10 years, but I digress. But basically saying, oh, well, most Afghans haven't lived under national Taliban rule before, so they're not gonna take it quietly. One, do you think he's correct in that assessment that there is a sort of untapped wellspring of resistance to the Taliban amongst the Afghan young? And two, if that is the case, what support, if any, should the UK and the US give to militias who want to fight the Taliban? Well, I think the polling is very, there was an extensive poll done in 2019, which I think was very credible, which suggested sympathy for the Taliban amongst the Afghan population is actually very, very low. But what you have, when we talk about a forever war, even though, as I've said, fatalities endured by the West have been still tragic, but lower than previous conflicts, for Afghans, for young Afghans, who are the majority of the Afghan population, as he rightly says, their space has been forever war. And that forever war doesn't just involve atrocities committed by the Taliban, which I think were relatively well-versed in, but also atrocities committed by our allies in Afghanistan and by US-led forces. So as an example, I interviewed Anand Gopal, he's a brilliant book about this. And he pointed out that the Taliban were essentially defeated in 2001. They eventually just evaporated. And what the local politicians who replaced them did is exploit the American need to say, we're going after these bad guys, by claiming each other, all of their opponents were Taliban and getting the Americans to massacre them. And they did that over and over again. And you got Afghan forces loyal, which the West allied themselves to, warlords and the like, who from the very beginning, you know, attacked villages, raped women, sexed people, civilians, stole livestock and land. You got the Afghan local police, they were 30,000 strong local pro-government militia, they murdered civilians, committed fraud, theft, rape, kidnapping, drugs, trafficking and extortion. You got Afghan detention centers, essentially multiple Abu graves, torture. The International Criminal Court has suggested US armed forces and CAA may have committed war crimes in terms of what they did, repeated civilian airstrikes, which massacred civilians. And over the last five years, 40% of all casualties from airstrikes have been children. And the civilian death toll between 2017 and 2020, before the drop-off you noted, surged by more than 300%. So that forever war, as well as the corruption, which again the US intentionally fueled the Washington Post did a really good study where they looked at how the West, not just ignored corruption, they built it, you know, to purchase loyalty and information, as the Washington Post put it. So for a lot of a younger Afghan population, I don't think it's about, talking about big sympathy for the Taliban, I think with looking though at absolute exhaustion at a forever war, which has defined their lives in which atrocities have been committed by the Afghan government and its allies and the West, Western forces, and as well the massive corruption, which defines the government. And that has, you know, looking the last Afghan presidential election, less than 20% voted the turnout. That's not obviously part of that is because in armed conflict, that has an impact in terms of people being able to go out and vote. But all of those are factors in terms of how the Taliban have managed to seize power in Afghanistan. Tony Blair had more to say about the chaotic scenes we've seen following the withdrawal of American troops from Afghanistan. So let's take a look. Imbicillic is the word that you've used to describe it. But there is obviously a feeling from a lot of world leaders that they just wanted out of it after 20 years, the money and the lives that were lost. Yeah, look, I support a lot of what President Biden has done since becoming president. I mean, I have a great respect and admiration for him as a person. And I understand he inherited this agreement of February 2020, which was very difficult. And I also understand if you're a political leader, you're under political pressure. People want the engagement to end. But we've got to realize we were in a situation where our engagement was dramatically different from where it was 10 years ago, never mind 20 years ago, and where we could have managed the situation. And the problem with what's happened now, and this is my worry, is it's not just about the Afghan people and our obligation to them. And obviously, you feel, I mean, distressed when you see people realizing what they're going to lose as a result of the Taliban coming back into power. But it's not just about the Afghan people. It's about us and our security. Because you've now got this group back in charge of Afghanistan. They will give protection and succor to al-Qaeda. You've got ISIS already in the country, trying to operate at the same time. You know, you look around the world and the only people really cheering this decision are the people hostile to Western interests. So there's a lot in there, obviously. Tiny Blair is arguing that the withdrawal of US troops puts at risk what he sees as the progress secured in the last 20 years, and it will be an opportunity for hostile state and non-state actors. So on this point about progress, as Owen has already said, it wasn't 20 years of peaceful liberal democracy. There were atrocities committed by the Afghan government, the Afghan police, Western forces. There was, of course, local deals, regional deals being struck with the Taliban by local governors, as well as the Doha Declaration which secured the withdrawal of US troops. So it is not anything like a neat and coherent picture of paradise before the return of the Taliban. Of course, you also have huge increases in opium poppy cultivation, which really skyrockets after 2001. And you also have a country which is still, for all Tony Blair talks about the growth of the economy, a country which is deeply, deeply poor. 90% of Afghans live on less than $2 a day. So many of the gains that we're talking about in terms of university and economic simulation, those were contained in the cities. And when you headed out into rural areas, it was a very different picture. But I just want to talk about this geopolitical aspect of his argument for a second because in the article, Blair makes it very clear who he's talking about. He'll be cheering that hostile to Western interests, not just these armed militant groups, but also nation states, Russia, China and the forces of what he calls radical Islam. And so let's just talk about the radical Islam bit for just one second. What Blair writes in his article is this, it is the turning of the religion of Islam into a political ideology and of necessity and exclusionary and extreme one because in a multi-faith and multicultural world, it holds there is only one true faith and we should all conform to it. Over the past decades and well before 9-11, it was gaining in strength. The 1979 Iranian Islamic revolution and its echo in the failed storming of the grand mosque in Mecca in late 1979, massively boosted the forces of this radicalism. The Muslim Brotherhood became a substantial movement, the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan saw jihadism rise. So Tony Blair frames Afghanistan and the Taliban within this decades-long story of the rise of what he calls radical Islam. The Taliban basically high off the fumes of fundamentalism, Harvard al-Qaeda who carried out the 9-11 attacks and helped spawn or inspire the likes of Boko Haram, Al-Shabaab and of course ISIS. But there's a few things that Tony Blair leaves out of his article and leaves out of his historicization of the rise of radical Islam. The first is the role of the US and the UK in funding the Islamist resistance against the Soviets in Afghanistan, the Mujahideen who were the origins of the Taliban. And you could see why he'd leave that bit out. It makes for a very muddied history to think about the ways in which what he calls radical Islam was a Western development and encouraged by the West because it was seen as a bulwark against the forces of communism. But then the second thing is the role of Saudi Arabia. So 15 of the 19 9-11 hijackers were Saudi citizens. Furthermore, in 2009, WikiLeaks revealed that in a classified memo from Hillary Clinton, she warned that donors in Saudi Arabia were the most significant source of funding to Sunni terrorist groups worldwide. And in the same year, the New York Times published documents purporting to show evidence of extensive financial support for al-Qaeda and other extremist groups by members of the Saudi royal family. So kind of weird, right? Why no mention of Saudi Arabia when talking about the spread of jihadism? Could it be because? Tony Blair's Institute for Global Change has accepted millions of pounds from the Saudi government. The former prime minister's company struck a 9 million pounds deal to support the Saudi crown princess project of modernization. And according to the Telegraph, sources said that the total provided to the Institute so far exceeded $12 million, i.e. 9 million pounds. The funding is not mentioned on the Institute's website, despite a subsequent post praising Saudi Arabia and its crown prince. That is, of course, crown prince Mohammed bin Salman, who we all know for allegedly ordering the brutal murder of the journalist Jamal Khashoggi. Mr. Blair's office said that the Institute was under no due to disclose donors or donations and declined to say what discussions Mr. Blair had held with members of the Saudi royal family or the government about its funding. So, Owen, what do you reckon? Do you really think that Tony Blair honestly thinks that the Shia country of Iran have a bigger role in Sunni terrorism than Saudi Arabia? I mean, that's the thing as well. Just by arithmetic, the influence of Iran is severely limited by the fact that I think 80% of Muslims globally are Shia. And if we look at the end of the history, I think it is astonishing because what happened in Afghanistan is the West provided huge amounts of funding and resources, which was often funneled through the Pakistani Secret Services, the ISI, and ended up in the hands of the most extreme groups, which the West was fully aware of, as well as, of course, the role of Saudi Arabia where the Saudi government, again, will play a kind of double, you know, it speaks up, but it's allowed huge amounts of wealthy, influential figures within the kingdom to fund the Taliban and other extreme groups, which is why I looked at it and in that, declassified, sorry, in that leaked memo, was correct. I mean, it was absolutely correct about the role of the Saudi regime, but of course the West, and this is continuity in terms of new labor and the conservatives, as well as under Obama, as well as under Trump, and it's interesting because Trump, when Iran is the presidential in the election originally, did actually criticize Saudi Arabia and then carried on the same essential policy that U.S. governments of all stripes have pursued, and that is the arming and supporting of Saudi Arabia as at the moment it carpet bombs Yemen, which is the biggest humanitarian crisis on Earth, which of course the West is absolutely entangling. So yeah, I mean, you know, the, what, what, yeah, I mean, the irony when they talk about Iran and they ring their hands about Iran, the old demon for Iran, when they, you know, the biggest gain for Iran anyway in the last 20 years was the invasion of Iraq, when the West invaded the country, destroyed it after false pretext, leading to the rise of ISIS, a huge sectarian bloodbath and the sectarianism which they fueled by their strategy in that country incidentally, including their cat-handed to say the least policy where they shut down the entire army, sent a load of people with guns back to their homes with no money. Oh, that caused the sudden violent insurgency did it, which ISIS and the likes exploited. And I mean, that's what happened as well as allowing Shiite groups to take over large sections of the country, humiliatingly, by the way, for the British army because they were kicked out of Basra, essentially by the Shiite militia, a humiliation which led or helped lead to the Britain in its troop surge in Helmand province in Afghanistan because they wanted to prove their military worth after the humiliation that they suffered at the Bashia militia in Basra. And then again, faced a terrible terrible situation and US Marines had to barrel the British out incidentally in 2010. But what we've seen is Saudi Arabia, I'm not just Saudi Arabia, other Gulf states, including Kuwait or the other Western client states, very close to Western power, with wealthy donors often very connected with elements of the regime, which have funded extremist organizations in Syria, in Afghanistan and in large parts of Middle East and in other Middle Eastern countries with consequences globally, including of course in Western countries where some of those targeted Libya again. Again, what was again a huge victory for ISIS and similar organizations was the implosion of Libya, which has reduced to a failed state. The Atlantic Council, a pro-interventionist think tank recently noted people's more violent than it was under Gaddafi and worse, Iraq has been endured by its population. Again, Western power and its actions directly helped those organizations. And the build up to the war in Iraq, there was this whole claim that secular dictatorship as the family say was in cahoots with al-Qaeda are nonsense. And of course, al-Qaeda only became a significant presence in Iraq after the invasion. And then they only got diminished influence because ISIS and more extreme organization then replaced them. So Western power and policy because of people like Tony Blair, who is directly funded by a whole assortment of horrible regimes, including the dictatorship in Kazakhstan, incidentally, including the unpaid advisory work for CC, the dictator of Egypt. But this person that, you know, no tyrant where he hasn't floated his eyelashes at by the looks of things as long as of course their sympathetic Western power, notably in exceptions actually China where he's actually done speeches and interviews which has essentially legitimized the offensive against the Uighur Muslims on the basis it's an anti-terrorism operation. But it's his type of foreign policy which has directly fueled these extremist organizations. They did the West exactly what al-Qaeda and other organizations wanted them to do. They wanted them to go into Iraq and it became a playground for al-Qaeda and other organizations as a consequence. So it's Tony Blair, who is one of the biggest recruiting sergeants for these forms of extremist organizations on Earth whether it be by supporting the Saudis, specifically these interventions which he helped lead and supported which have fueled support for those organizations across the world and something he's willing to speak about and his only answer is to keep doing the same thing that he has done for 20 years and more which led to this disaster in the end. And it's Joe Biden who is no lefty who's just seen the actual consequences of where this has brought the United States and has made a rational decision to disentangle the US as a consequence. Well, you know what they say, Owen. If our first two don't succeed, drone strike again. Before we move on to our next story, 10 euros from Taddish Cantwell. Thank you very much. He says, Martin McGinnis of Sinn Féin asked Tony Blair why he ruined his legacy of the Northern Ireland peace process with Iraq. He failed to learn from the Northern Ireland. He failed to learn from Northern Ireland how harsh military actions breed resistance and prolongs war. We've also got Julie Batterson with a fiver. Shout out to all our Paralympians looking forward to watching them from tomorrow. Thanks to Navarra Media. I don't always agree with you or your guests but I listen and that is exactly what we want. We don't just want an audience that agrees with us. We want an audience which disagrees with us but also nice to us in the comments because that is great. I'm looking forward to the Paralympics too. My big claim to fame is that I was there at the Paralympics the evening where George Osborne got booed by the entire stadium. So that was great for me. And we've also got a comment from Ryan B who says he loves the Cortado. Thanks, Ryan. That's really nice. If you like the Cortado or you would like to like the Cortado why don't you sign up to subscribe for it? It is the free newsletter. You'll get it in your inbox every Friday morning. If you want that kind of thing go to navarra.media slash cortado to join. Now for our next story. Oh my God, this is doozy. There are times in my life where the viciousness and hypocrisy of the right wing media leaves me honestly stuck forwards. And this next story has me just choking on the gall of its all. Yesterday, the Mail on Sunday published a hit piece on Jess Brammer, the former editor of the UK Huffington Post. Brammer, who also used to be a senior journalist at Newsnight is rumoured to be up for the job of executive news editor at the BBC. And the Mail on Sunday follows hot on the heels of Guido Forks in dredging up social media posts to construct a flimsy case against Brammer's impartiality is rumoured to be the source of disquiet from Sir Robbie Gibb, who is a non executive BBC board member. So let's have a look at the offending material first. Guido Forks revealed last month that Brammer had posted a black square on Instagram in support of Blackout Tuesday last year, a social media campaign which took place to draw attention to racist police violence. Then the Mail on Sunday go on to report that Ms Brammer, 38, promoted a series of controversial opinions when she was working for the Huffington Post, the news website, including an article suggesting that black people would leave the UK if Mr Johnson was reelected in 2019. The story added that she also described Brexit as being like a popular TV comedy drama, but less funny. So the best that the right can come up with is that Jess Brammer has been vocal on the issue of racism, which as far as I know is not supposed to be a party political issue. Has tweeted articles that have been commissioned under her when she's an editor. And she made a joke about Brexit, which if we're real, is so banal, it would make Michael McIntyre embarrassed of himself. Furthermore, the Mail on Sunday then dedicated about half the page to Jess Brammer's relationship with fellow journalist Jim Waterson, referring to her as the BLM supporter with Guardian Toy Boy. This section read, Ms Brammer, 38, burnished her left wing credentials last year with her vocal support of Marxist campaign group Black Lives Matter, which wants to defund the police. Her younger partner, Waterson, 31, broke the story that Boris Johnson and Carrie Simon's his then girlfriend had a blazing row at her South London flat in 2019 after his newspaper was passed a recording of the argument by Carrie's left wing neighbor, Tom Penn. Like no offense to Jim, but after you turn 30, you legally just can't be allowed to be called the toy boy anymore. You're also legally forbidden to use any slang that you learned from Love Island. But this article is such a weird combination of McCarthyism and misogyny and complete political illiteracy. Like BLM is not a Marxist group. I wish it was a Marxist group. Of course, there's some Marxists who support BLM and are involved with BLM, but that doesn't make it a Marxist group. It's just a group that some Marxists are involved with. There are a lot more liberals who are involved with BLM. Does it mean it's a liberal group? No, a dash of political literacy that is all I ask for from journalism. Do I get it? No. So this isn't just gutter journalism. It's so actively stupid that I can feel my brain deteriorating, just having to think and talk about this. Enter Darren Grimes, who felt compelled to comment. He tweeted this earlier today. The answer to the Jess Brammer question is easy. If you cannot imagine the BBC hiring me to be the head of news content, then it cannot be right that they hire someone who has been so blatantly partisan on the other side of the argument the BBC should be representing all of us. I mean, Darren, mate, the reason why I can't picture the BBC hiring you to be the head of news content is because you're a fucking chimp. That's why it's got nothing to do with your politics. But let's entertain this for just one second and say that the non-executive board member, Sir Robbie Gibb, is concerned about Brammer because he's worried she won't be impartial. And of course, director-general Tim Davy had said earlier this year, there is no place for partisanship at the BBC. So would this be the same Robbie Gibb who used to be Theresa May's director of communications, a conservative Downing Street director of communications? And would this in time be the same Tim Davy who stood as a councillor for the Conservative Party in Hammersmith in 1993 and 1994? He was also deputy chairman of the Hammersmith and Fulham Conservative Party in the 1990s. So you can see what I'm driving at here that the hypocrisy is ridiculous. You've got two men, senior roles at the BBC who both played an active part in the Conservative Party and they're not the only ones. Nick Robinson, host of the Today programme, was president of the Oxford Conservative Society. But the real problem is a woman who takes the unbearably radical view that, I don't know, guys, maybe racism is bad and Brexit is kind of long and convoluted and annoying. That's not a Romaniac position. Neither is that a radical position. In fact, these are largely apolitical positions, but because they can be fit into a wider, nebulous anxiety around the woke takeover and trying to make even the most insipid of liberal views seem dangerous and radical, so it can hasten a right-wing taker of our cultural institutions. Well, sorry, Jess, you've got to go. You can't get the job. Owen, what do you make of this? Hypocrisy, stupidity or malevolence? A bit of all of those, but it's malevolence that most concerns me. Organisation, this is what I call it, all-band being the lead of Hungary, which is a semi-authoritarian semi-dictatorship in which a centre-right party that used to be part of the liberal international radicalised with power, used to follow our civil society and democratic norms and ostracised and marginalised even the mildest critics. I mean, that's what they did, and I think that's the way this country is heading. I mean, he names other examples, by the way. David Cameron hired his spin doctor, Craig Oliver, again, from BBC News. You mentioned Robbie Gibbs, of course. Boris Johnson hired Gitto Harry, who ended up on GB News, but then got sacked admittedly for taking the knee or marginalised weapons. And then there's lots of other examples as well. George Osborne, Theo Rogers was a BBC producer. He hired her to be his spin doctor. Andrew Neil, of course, was the flagship interviewer of the BBC. All the way through was chair of the hard-right magazine, The Spectator, the idea that somebody could be chair of an equally left-wing magazine is just beyond even the realms of imagination that just never, ever would have allowed to happen. So there's obviously lots of examples of that within the BBC, actually far more examples of senior BBC figures either working for the Conservatives after the BBC, they're evolving more while having a background of Conservatives or both. Now, you know, Robbie Gibbs, by the way, he's from a big Conservative family. He used to be, by the way, the chief of staff to a Conservative Shadow Cabinet minister, Francis Mord at the time, and his brother is a Conservative minister. So, you know, that is obviously tolerated, but somebody expressing anti-racist opinions, that is seen, anti-racism is seen as completely outrageous and objectionable and to be permanently stigmatised and someone be forbidden from playing any role at the BBC for expressing very basic, though welcome, anti-racist, sentiments. And what we're seeing here is, I'm afraid, this is, you know, I noticed that a kind of more so-called centre-left commentator, John Ehrlich, who I like, very much said this, which is, you know, it is true that you've got this big offensive against the left to delegitimize the left, generally, in the media and public life, but as if it would stop there, no, it means anyone associated with basic liberal opinions, they're getting marginalised. Some of them, I'm afraid, themselves, some of those liberals may have supported the stigmatisation and marginalisation of the left, but it doesn't mean that's gonna, you know, the tiger got fed lots of meat, but the tiger's still very, very hungry. In fact, the more meat you feed the tiger, the hungrier it gets. And all of us know, you know, as someone who works in the mainstream media, half of my life, people are constantly trying to get me fired because of my left-wing opinions, they're often anti-trans activists that are particularly obsessed with getting me fired and boy, do they not let up, you know, it's a constant relentless attempt to get, to get, you know, I mean, I admire their commitment, you know, they can't divulge how that works in private, but it is a relentless attempt. Whatever failures, you know, a lot of people are like, well, come on, Owen, you melt, you've melt, you know, blah, blah, blah, but nonetheless, however melty you think I am, they think I am Joseph Stalin incarnate and I have to face the consequences. So I think, you know, there is this general attempt by this form of authoritarian right-wing populism to marginalize and ostracize not just the left, which a lot of liberals themselves, I'm afraid, cooperate with very actively, but also now to marginalize even vague liberal sentiments and voices and ensure that the only legitimate political opinions in public life are those which are loyal to the political agenda of the ruling government. And that is how our democracy as weak and caveated as it already was is going to die if we don't fight back because that is what's happened to Hungary. It's happening in Poland. Yes, they have weaker democratic traditions. They were under dictatorial rule until the 80s and 90s, but nonetheless, that is a warning and it is, you can see that urban like mentality and that is probably what we're seeing here with Jess Prama. Well, it's time to marginalize the left even more and wind up the show, Owen. Too dangerous for too long. My mind is in my ear telling me, Mr. Johnson doesn't like this. Like, we're going to have to leave it, but thank you everyone for your super chats tonight. And if you would like to support us directly, then you can go to navara.media.com forward slash support. It helps when I say that correctly. Tiske Sauer will be on a break from a week today, but Michael Walker will be back with you in September and maybe he'll even let me back in as co-host if he thinks that I didn't undermine him too much by trying to steal his job. Thank you so much, Owen, for your wonderful insights tonight. If you don't know who he is, I mean, you probably do, but you can just go follow him at Owen Jones 84 on Twitter. He's also got a rival live stream of his own, which I shall not mention, but it is called the Owen Jones show and it is pretty good. Especially the ones with me on it. You've been watching Tiske Sauer on Navara Media. Good night.