:00:29. > :00:33.back at the top of the hour. Now it London. Talking to the Taliban. The
:00:33. > :00:36.fate of America's spying whistleblower. And should bankers go
:00:36. > :00:39.to jail for their incompetence? My guests today are Mustapha Karkouti,
:00:39. > :00:45.who is a Gulf based writer and broadcaster Marc Roche of Le Monde,
:00:45. > :00:49.Catherine Mayer of Time Magazine and Janet Daley of the Sunday Telegraph.
:00:49. > :00:52.Welcome to you all. The Taliban have an office in Qatar which looks a bit
:00:53. > :00:57.like an attempt at an embassy. The existence of this office appeared to
:00:57. > :01:00.derail peace talks with the United States and the Afghan government. Is
:01:00. > :01:08.it becoming increasingly obvious that as the US and its allies pull
:01:08. > :01:18.out of Afghanistan, the future belongs to the Taliban? Have they
:01:18. > :01:23.won the war? Sure! America has decided that the war is over. The
:01:23. > :01:31.health posted a date when they intend to withdraw. They have left a
:01:31. > :01:41.vacuum that the Taliban will fill. I cannot believe how badly this has
:01:41. > :01:44.been executed. The president has made it clear he was pulling America
:01:44. > :01:50.out of its global policing role. He said that in his very first tour of
:01:50. > :01:56.eastern Europe. He said, we are moving missiles out, you would on
:01:56. > :02:00.your own. We want to go back and spend money on a welfare state. He
:02:00. > :02:04.cannot rely on America as you depends Shields. He has done the
:02:04. > :02:10.same thing in the Middle East. But to announce a final date on which
:02:10. > :02:17.you will be gone is tantamount to saying, just hang in there and you
:02:17. > :02:23.can fill the vacuum as soon as we have left. Presumably, if it is
:02:23. > :02:26.worth talking to the Taliban, it has always been worth talking to the
:02:26. > :02:36.Taliban and we could have saved a lot of lives if that had been
:02:36. > :02:36.
:02:36. > :02:42.engaged properly earlier. Certainly, there is no doubt about that. Talent
:02:42. > :02:45.talking to the part a la band would have saved lives, but there have
:02:45. > :02:55.been a lot of complications. They have talked to so many sides, not
:02:55. > :03:00.only the Taliban before they launch a reasonable discussion. The Taliban
:03:00. > :03:10.have been in Qatar for the past three years, they have opened
:03:10. > :03:18.
:03:18. > :03:25.offices. Waikato?Cat is the closest Gulf state, the most trusted. They
:03:26. > :03:35.talk about the Saudi relationship, but that is not easy sailing all the
:03:36. > :03:40.
:03:40. > :03:47.time. But Qatar is 100% in agreement with the Americans. The Americans
:03:47. > :03:55.have the largest case in Qatar, which is probably the second base
:03:55. > :04:01.after the one in Germany. So the relation is tremendously close.
:04:01. > :04:08.you think to put it simply that the Taliban have won the war? I think we
:04:08. > :04:12.should probably stop talking about the Taliban as if they were one
:04:12. > :04:17.body. What you are talking about in Qatar is one branch. One of the
:04:17. > :04:23.problems with Afghanistan has always been a lack of unity. You have
:04:23. > :04:32.different ethnic groups, different warlords, and what you are seeing is
:04:32. > :04:38.the resurgence of one particular brands. I think what we are seeing,
:04:38. > :04:45.I agree with Janet about the mistake in giving the date of withdrawal,
:04:45. > :04:52.but I think that vacuum is not so much the way to describe it, but
:04:52. > :04:54.instead there has been this huge pendulum going back and forwards
:04:54. > :04:59.between intervention and non-intervention for a few years.
:04:59. > :05:03.Point back to the Balkans, everyone was very nervous about
:05:03. > :05:09.intervention. There was a feeling that by not intervening, there was
:05:09. > :05:14.so much suffering that could have been avoided. That created this
:05:14. > :05:19.massive swing to rapid intervention in Afghanistan and Iraq, which
:05:19. > :05:25.looked so messy and disasters that it swung back the other way. Now you
:05:25. > :05:30.have the pendulum is swinging in more a few bridleway. Syria,
:05:30. > :05:35.Afghanistan, whatever. What is not happened in the process is an
:05:35. > :05:39.attempt to redefine the terms on which intervention should take
:05:39. > :05:44.place. And America clearly has doubts about policing the world and
:05:45. > :05:54.about its moral right to do so, whether it really hasn't this export
:05:54. > :05:58.of all brands of morality and ethics. Whether interventions are
:05:58. > :06:04.winnable, whether we know the effective interventions. There is
:06:04. > :06:09.this huge and CDs debate which has to go on. The way politics is at the
:06:09. > :06:18.moment with weak leaders, it is exactly the wrong time to have these
:06:18. > :06:28.fundamental debates. Do you see this as being a lost war
:06:28. > :06:33.
:06:33. > :06:37.as far as the United States is concerned? Absolutely not. Despite
:06:37. > :06:45.the shortcomings and corruption, the government they have put in is still
:06:45. > :06:53.elected. There has been an election, women have more rights. We have not
:06:53. > :07:03.lost so many men find nothing. I think we did make it possible to try
:07:03. > :07:06.
:07:06. > :07:09.to have a resolution. The government in Afghanistan should decide.
:07:09. > :07:14.government in Afghanistan have said they will not play ball if the
:07:14. > :07:23.Taliban are having this recognition. They are right. The
:07:23. > :07:28.government in Afghanistan are right, the Taliban is unacceptable. It is
:07:28. > :07:37.different in Northern Ireland, where you have people who are Catholic and
:07:37. > :07:43.Protestant. The point is, they are now saying, we're going to talk to
:07:43. > :07:49.the Taliban, we will reinstate them. The government in Afghanistan is
:07:49. > :07:54.saying that is unacceptable. By default, the Taliban will end up
:07:54. > :08:04.taking power. I do not think this agreement is over the principle
:08:04. > :08:07.
:08:07. > :08:17.itself. Really, it is more style than anything else. Suddenly, the
:08:17. > :08:17.
:08:17. > :08:20.Afghanistan President is being told what to do, to listen to us. Yes,
:08:20. > :08:25.that was incredibly badly handled. That is also the point about who you
:08:25. > :08:30.talk to, which goes back to my point about Afghanistan being incredibly
:08:30. > :08:40.splintered. These processes only work if you not only talk to the
:08:40. > :08:42.
:08:42. > :08:45.right people, the people who can deliver something. As people say,
:08:45. > :08:52.you only make peace with your enemies, you do not make peace with
:08:52. > :09:02.your friends. Absolutely. The less palatable the person, the more they
:09:02. > :09:03.
:09:03. > :09:07.are delivering. They are now saying they want to swap one American
:09:07. > :09:11.prisoner for five of their leaders who are in one tan all. They are
:09:11. > :09:21.unable to sit there saying, we want this and we want that, because they
:09:21. > :09:23.
:09:23. > :09:25.know they have the Americans over a barrel. They have weakened the very
:09:25. > :09:30.government you were saying has accomplished what it has
:09:30. > :09:32.accomplished. The US Justice Department has filed
:09:32. > :09:35.criminal charges against Edward Snowden - the fugitive former
:09:35. > :09:43.intelligence analyst who leaked details of PRISM - a secret
:09:43. > :09:52.surveillance operation. Is Snowden a hero or a villain? Whichever way he
:09:52. > :09:55.is, he's probably toast now. I don't think there was ever any question
:09:55. > :10:03.over whether he would be prosecuted are not. There will be ambiguity
:10:03. > :10:06.about this, because what we are seeing is a stage where, if you
:10:06. > :10:10.believe that there should be intelligence agencies, which I think
:10:10. > :10:15.most of us would believe, that they perform a fairly vital function,
:10:15. > :10:21.they also have to perform that function in a world in which neither
:10:21. > :10:25.the legislation that governs how they are supposed to act has kept
:10:25. > :10:31.pace, nor at the agencies themselves, so they are now dealing
:10:31. > :10:39.in this world of data. There is clearly, in the case of the
:10:39. > :10:49.revelations about GCHQ and how it is trawling more data than the
:10:49. > :11:04.
:11:04. > :11:11.Americans. The problem you have with people like Edward Snowden is that
:11:11. > :11:14.the agencies have to move against them because they can only operate
:11:14. > :11:22.on the basis that the people who work for them will not reveal
:11:22. > :11:26.secrets. You clearly sought with Bradley Manning, although I know it
:11:26. > :11:31.is not directly relevant, there are similar themes. There were things
:11:31. > :11:37.that needed to be revealed, things that were being done badly. But the
:11:37. > :11:42.real failing with these people is to have a system whereby these people
:11:42. > :11:47.can, with confidence, go and deal with it in other ways other than
:11:47. > :11:53.leaking. And also laws that properly govern it and understand what the
:11:53. > :11:56.issue of data is. Fundamentally, all these
:11:57. > :12:02.organisations that protect us are lying and keeping things secret and
:12:02. > :12:07.doing things illegally. We accept it and close our eyes, because they are
:12:07. > :12:13.supposed to defend us against terrorism. So I think it is
:12:13. > :12:19.essential that you have dissenters, people like Edward Snowden, issue
:12:19. > :12:21.was what they are doing that is illegal.
:12:21. > :12:28.GCHQ say they have done nothing illegal.
:12:28. > :12:31.Of course they would say that. are talking about a law which was
:12:31. > :12:41.not formulated for what it is that they are doing, which was the point
:12:41. > :12:43.
:12:43. > :12:48.I was trying to make. The legality is less interesting, as is the
:12:48. > :12:51.question, is he a hero or a villain. The real question is what
:12:51. > :12:59.is the difference between a free society and that Attallah TV and
:12:59. > :13:02.one? He has revealed is something that people find shocking, the
:13:02. > :13:06.extent of the surveillance that has been going on. People 's private
:13:06. > :13:13.information. To say, we haven't actually been listening into your
:13:13. > :13:17.phone calls are reading your e-mails unless we suspect you're up no good.
:13:17. > :13:20.That is no good. Supposing they said, we're posting a policeman in
:13:20. > :13:26.front of every house in the country and he will monitor who comes in and
:13:26. > :13:31.goes out and how long they stay. But still worry, we're not going to
:13:31. > :13:35.invade your privacy. But we're going to keep a careful record of everyone
:13:35. > :13:44.who visits your house and every house you visit. That is what they
:13:44. > :13:52.are doing, effectively. The whole issue in my personal view, we did is
:13:52. > :13:55.to know what is going on. Every now and then, every ten years, 50 years,
:13:55. > :14:00.you have a story like this coming out. There is a lot of secret work
:14:01. > :14:08.going on, keeping it away from the public. I think we should know what
:14:08. > :14:13.is going on. I agree with you, the information came out, extremely
:14:13. > :14:23.important and shocking, but we need to understand what goes on,
:14:23. > :14:25.
:14:26. > :14:31.regardless of what the USA would accuse Edward Snowden of.
:14:31. > :14:35.question is how much freedom and privacy are we prepared to sacrifice
:14:35. > :14:42.for the possible notion of absolute safety. We are not going to get
:14:42. > :14:50.absolute safety anyway. But there is no per the seat, so it is not as if
:14:50. > :14:53.we are sacrificing something. We just don't have it. Also these
:14:53. > :15:03.agencies are linked with the government. It was the same in
:15:03. > :15:04.
:15:04. > :15:06.France, they have spies on private conversations of two journalists. It
:15:06. > :15:14.was completely illegal. If you hadn't had the whistleblower, we
:15:14. > :15:17.would not have known about it. not think anybody denies that
:15:17. > :15:20.whistleblowers are incredibly important. My point was that
:15:20. > :15:30.whistleblowers are great and brave people, because it will be
:15:30. > :15:38.
:15:38. > :15:42.prosecuted and Chris you'd and that cannot be done otherwise. What you
:15:42. > :15:47.make of the question that these leaks have done damage to making
:15:47. > :15:53.people safer? It's an important part of the government are up to. I agree
:15:53. > :15:59.with Janet on that one. I think there is this idea of national
:15:59. > :16:04.security and the external threat that we are now all under and it has
:16:04. > :16:07.been used to justify all sorts of unjustifiable land grabs. And
:16:07. > :16:13.again, it is incoherent. There hasn't been a proper debate about
:16:14. > :16:18.what we're trying to do, so, although I do believe that
:16:18. > :16:21.intelligence agencies are necessary to keep us safe, I do not think from
:16:21. > :16:30.most of the revelations we've had, that that is what this has been
:16:30. > :16:33.about. Janet, what do you feel is actually happening here? This is why
:16:33. > :16:41.the law is very important. The various agencies are probably within
:16:41. > :16:48.the law of their own country. We can't spy on our own people and we
:16:48. > :16:51.will spy on yours and you give us information. Yes, they said we are
:16:51. > :16:57.not spying on any American citizen, so that's all right then, they are
:16:57. > :17:02.only spying on the rest of us. There are lies, their friendly countries,
:17:02. > :17:05.they are absolutely open to all the spying and intrusions. Only
:17:05. > :17:12.Americans we want to protect. That is absurd because there have been
:17:12. > :17:17.American citizens who have been responsible for terrorism. They get
:17:17. > :17:23.confused about you and I being Americans with British passports and
:17:23. > :17:29.it should put us out of the reach of GCHQ and the Americans. We should be
:17:29. > :17:33.safe on both accounts. Is there going to be any way to control this?
:17:33. > :17:39.Secret agencies have to remain secret and it only their failures
:17:39. > :17:44.which become public. This is clearly a disaster for the spying agencies.
:17:44. > :17:50.It's great for the public to know but a disaster for them. We should
:17:50. > :17:59.look around and learn from Scandinavia or somewhere else, in
:17:59. > :18:07.that area. There's not much secrecy as it is in America and the rest of
:18:07. > :18:12.Europe, as well. It is time to open it up to the public. Because, at the
:18:12. > :18:19.end of the day, it's our right, the right of the citizen, to take part
:18:19. > :18:22.in that discussion. They're not too many people working for them. It's a
:18:22. > :18:31.huge organisation, much bigger than the armies in certain countries.
:18:31. > :18:37.There no supervision. I think it has to be supervised and the best
:18:37. > :18:40.supervision, like it was in the US for a time, was Congress. Barack
:18:40. > :18:47.Obama was saying there was more congressional oversight than in the
:18:47. > :18:51.past but who's to know? A final thought there's no way of rolling
:18:51. > :18:59.the clock back. The Internet exists, the technology exists. You
:18:59. > :19:06.were shocked but I bet you weren't surprise this goes on? Of course.
:19:06. > :19:13.democratic free societies feel free to create this kind of extraordinary
:19:13. > :19:21.powerful intrusive operation on their people, anyone who impinges on
:19:21. > :19:24.their country? That's a terrifying prospect. OK, let's move on. After
:19:24. > :19:27.being at the heart of the worst financial, economic and political
:19:27. > :19:30.crisis of our lifetimes, a few top British bankers have lost their
:19:30. > :19:32.jobs. Some have faced disgrace but none has gone to jail. Should
:19:32. > :19:35.bankers be jailed for their catastrophic business mistakes? What
:19:35. > :19:39.do we make of the other proposals for reforms in Britain including
:19:39. > :19:44.that bankers bonuses should be deferred for a decade?
:19:44. > :19:51.Should they go to the jail or the guillotine in France? Not the
:19:51. > :19:56.guillotine. But, to be frank, incompetence, laziness, or even
:19:56. > :20:02.stupidity is not a crime. It's not like insider dealing, fraud. It's
:20:02. > :20:09.impossible to prove in front of a jury that you did a crime. So the
:20:09. > :20:13.prosecuted banker makes no sense. Also, if you want to prosecute
:20:13. > :20:20.bankers, you have to do is prosecute lawyers, accountants, financial
:20:20. > :20:25.advisers. And politicians and regulators. Where does it end? It's
:20:25. > :20:31.much better, I think, to go back to the basics of the problem, banks are
:20:31. > :20:37.too big to fail, too big to change. Ask the outgoing governor of the
:20:37. > :20:47.Bank of England. Unless you break up the banks in smaller entities, and
:20:47. > :20:50.
:20:50. > :20:56.you put Essex among one of the purposes of their actions that SX --
:20:56. > :21:06.ethics. They are trying to put companies together and they are not
:21:06. > :21:11.all lazy traders. When I heard about this proposal, it does smack of a
:21:11. > :21:14.trial, bankers are the least popular figures in the country, journalists
:21:14. > :21:20.running close sometimes but let's make an example of them but it's not
:21:20. > :21:25.going to be easy, is it? I have contempt for banker bashers and
:21:25. > :21:29.banker bashing, it cheap populism of the worst order. People talk about
:21:29. > :21:35.bankers, you have to differentiate between the Taliban. You really have
:21:35. > :21:41.to differentiate between bankers. It's kind of you to compare bankers
:21:41. > :21:43.to the Taliban. I'm sure they will love your support. I believe in
:21:43. > :21:50.making a distinction between tabloid journalism and broadsheet
:21:50. > :21:54.journalism, actually. You are the home of lost causes, really. I
:21:54. > :22:00.really am. I think this is cheap populism, ludicrous, and are already
:22:00. > :22:05.rules on criminal negligence that, again, as Mark says, you half to
:22:05. > :22:10.look at where the blame lies. I think the blame lies in many of
:22:11. > :22:14.these cases with the structures, the regulators, all sorts of people.
:22:14. > :22:21.with the politicians who egged them on. And learned more to people who
:22:21. > :22:25.can't pay. And dare I say, even with the voters. These subjects become
:22:25. > :22:31.something, we push it over there. You can hugger their phones, at
:22:31. > :22:36.least. In America, the original sub-prime events which created this
:22:36. > :22:42.entire credit crunch was politically stimulator to. There where
:22:42. > :22:48.politicians, video clips of democratic senators urging the banks
:22:48. > :22:52.and building societies, the financial institutions, to lend
:22:52. > :22:57.money to the poor. Why should the poor be deprived of the right to own
:22:57. > :23:01.property? We must allow them to share in the American dream. This
:23:01. > :23:09.was a politically induced crisis. The business about distributing the
:23:10. > :23:13.debt so everybody had one rotten timber in every ship, but was an
:23:13. > :23:17.invention of academic economists. The bankers may have behaved like
:23:17. > :23:24.pigs, and made a fortune out of this, but they were subjected to
:23:24. > :23:31.political pressure and academic pressures. And their own greed. And
:23:31. > :23:41.the bonuses. Bonuses is another matter. The whole banking system is,
:23:41. > :23:47.in itself, in control of everything. They control politicians rather than
:23:47. > :23:57.the opposite. They control our lives. Really, no one can control
:23:57. > :23:58.
:23:58. > :24:07.them. They get away with everything. Why, so far, in my life I don't
:24:07. > :24:11.remember at all seeing any bankers caught doing something wrong.
:24:11. > :24:21.America, bankers have been sent to prison in the past for criminal
:24:21. > :24:24.
:24:24. > :24:29.Ford. But not incompetence. We are talking about these supposedly
:24:29. > :24:32.remedies that are ludicrous, that are being suggested. One of these
:24:32. > :24:42.things, just to give you another possible remedy, getting some more
:24:42. > :24:45.
:24:45. > :24:48.women in there. I don't believe that it's way too easy. It's glib in the
:24:48. > :24:57.other direction. But what if you open up these systems, not just to
:24:57. > :25:00.women, but to minorities. You mitigate against certain trends
:25:00. > :25:05.where people just continually reinforce the directions that they
:25:05. > :25:10.are taking. You get proper questioning. Do you agree with that?
:25:10. > :25:20.Yes, had there been more women, risk would have been more tempered. But
:25:20. > :25:24.
:25:24. > :25:33.why are bankers so well paid? Why do they need bonuses? You are dealing
:25:33. > :25:36.in huge figures, that's why. I'm not saying it's right. I think most
:25:36. > :25:44.incentive schemes are fundamentally flawed because they are always based
:25:44. > :25:50.on targets which are gained in one way or another. Fix renumeration.
:25:51. > :25:55.Bankers make huge profit and its politically driven. Because then,
:25:55. > :25:57.you pay huge amounts of tax and governments were hungry for the
:25:57. > :26:02.revenue. The reason Gordon Brown encouraged light touch regulation,
:26:02. > :26:05.was because he wanted the revenue. OK, we have to leave it there.