22/06/2013 Dateline London

back at the top of the hour. Now it London. Talking to the Taliban. The

fate of America's spying whistleblower. And should bankers go

to jail for their incompetence? My guests today are Mustapha Karkouti,

who is a Gulf based writer and broadcaster Marc Roche of Le Monde,

Catherine Mayer of Time Magazine and Janet Daley of the Sunday Telegraph.

Welcome to you all. The Taliban have an office in Qatar which looks a bit

like an attempt at an embassy. The existence of this office appeared to

derail peace talks with the United States and the Afghan government. Is

it becoming increasingly obvious that as the US and its allies pull

out of Afghanistan, the future belongs to the Taliban? Have they

won the war? Sure! America has decided that the war is over. The

health posted a date when they intend to withdraw. They have left a

vacuum that the Taliban will fill. I cannot believe how badly this has

been executed. The president has made it clear he was pulling America

out of its global policing role. He said that in his very first tour of

eastern Europe. He said, we are moving missiles out, you would on

your own. We want to go back and spend money on a welfare state. He

cannot rely on America as you depends Shields. He has done the

same thing in the Middle East. But to announce a final date on which

you will be gone is tantamount to saying, just hang in there and you

can fill the vacuum as soon as we have left. Presumably, if it is

worth talking to the Taliban, it has always been worth talking to the

Taliban and we could have saved a lot of lives if that had been

engaged properly earlier. Certainly, there is no doubt about that. Talent

talking to the part a la band would have saved lives, but there have

been a lot of complications. They have talked to so many sides, not

only the Taliban before they launch a reasonable discussion. The Taliban

have been in Qatar for the past three years, they have opened

offices. Waikato?Cat is the closest Gulf state, the most trusted. They

talk about the Saudi relationship, but that is not easy sailing all the

time. But Qatar is 100% in agreement with the Americans. The Americans

have the largest case in Qatar, which is probably the second base

after the one in Germany. So the relation is tremendously close.

you think to put it simply that the Taliban have won the war? I think we

should probably stop talking about the Taliban as if they were one

body. What you are talking about in Qatar is one branch. One of the

problems with Afghanistan has always been a lack of unity. You have

different ethnic groups, different warlords, and what you are seeing is

the resurgence of one particular brands. I think what we are seeing,

I agree with Janet about the mistake in giving the date of withdrawal,

but I think that vacuum is not so much the way to describe it, but

instead there has been this huge pendulum going back and forwards

between intervention and non-intervention for a few years.

Point back to the Balkans, everyone was very nervous about

intervention. There was a feeling that by not intervening, there was

so much suffering that could have been avoided. That created this

massive swing to rapid intervention in Afghanistan and Iraq, which

looked so messy and disasters that it swung back the other way. Now you

have the pendulum is swinging in more a few bridleway. Syria,

Afghanistan, whatever. What is not happened in the process is an

attempt to redefine the terms on which intervention should take

place. And America clearly has doubts about policing the world and

about its moral right to do so, whether it really hasn't this export

of all brands of morality and ethics. Whether interventions are

winnable, whether we know the effective interventions. There is

this huge and CDs debate which has to go on. The way politics is at the

moment with weak leaders, it is exactly the wrong time to have these

fundamental debates. Do you see this as being a lost war

as far as the United States is concerned? Absolutely not. Despite

the shortcomings and corruption, the government they have put in is still

elected. There has been an election, women have more rights. We have not

lost so many men find nothing. I think we did make it possible to try

to have a resolution. The government in Afghanistan should decide.

government in Afghanistan have said they will not play ball if the

Taliban are having this recognition. They are right. The

government in Afghanistan are right, the Taliban is unacceptable. It is

different in Northern Ireland, where you have people who are Catholic and

Protestant. The point is, they are now saying, we're going to talk to

the Taliban, we will reinstate them. The government in Afghanistan is

saying that is unacceptable. By default, the Taliban will end up

taking power. I do not think this agreement is over the principle

itself. Really, it is more style than anything else. Suddenly, the

Afghanistan President is being told what to do, to listen to us. Yes,

that was incredibly badly handled. That is also the point about who you

talk to, which goes back to my point about Afghanistan being incredibly

splintered. These processes only work if you not only talk to the

right people, the people who can deliver something. As people say,

you only make peace with your enemies, you do not make peace with

your friends. Absolutely. The less palatable the person, the more they

are delivering. They are now saying they want to swap one American

prisoner for five of their leaders who are in one tan all. They are

unable to sit there saying, we want this and we want that, because they

know they have the Americans over a barrel. They have weakened the very

government you were saying has accomplished what it has

accomplished. The US Justice Department has filed

criminal charges against Edward Snowden - the fugitive former

intelligence analyst who leaked details of PRISM - a secret

surveillance operation. Is Snowden a hero or a villain? Whichever way he

is, he's probably toast now. I don't think there was ever any question

over whether he would be prosecuted are not. There will be ambiguity

about this, because what we are seeing is a stage where, if you

believe that there should be intelligence agencies, which I think

most of us would believe, that they perform a fairly vital function,

they also have to perform that function in a world in which neither

the legislation that governs how they are supposed to act has kept

pace, nor at the agencies themselves, so they are now dealing

in this world of data. There is clearly, in the case of the

revelations about GCHQ and how it is trawling more data than the

Americans. The problem you have with people like Edward Snowden is that

the agencies have to move against them because they can only operate

on the basis that the people who work for them will not reveal

secrets. You clearly sought with Bradley Manning, although I know it

is not directly relevant, there are similar themes. There were things

that needed to be revealed, things that were being done badly. But the

real failing with these people is to have a system whereby these people

can, with confidence, go and deal with it in other ways other than

leaking. And also laws that properly govern it and understand what the

issue of data is. Fundamentally, all these

organisations that protect us are lying and keeping things secret and

doing things illegally. We accept it and close our eyes, because they are

supposed to defend us against terrorism. So I think it is

essential that you have dissenters, people like Edward Snowden, issue

was what they are doing that is illegal.

GCHQ say they have done nothing illegal.

Of course they would say that. are talking about a law which was

not formulated for what it is that they are doing, which was the point

I was trying to make. The legality is less interesting, as is the

question, is he a hero or a villain. The real question is what

is the difference between a free society and that Attallah TV and

one? He has revealed is something that people find shocking, the

extent of the surveillance that has been going on. People 's private

information. To say, we haven't actually been listening into your

phone calls are reading your e-mails unless we suspect you're up no good.

That is no good. Supposing they said, we're posting a policeman in

front of every house in the country and he will monitor who comes in and

goes out and how long they stay. But still worry, we're not going to

invade your privacy. But we're going to keep a careful record of everyone

who visits your house and every house you visit. That is what they

are doing, effectively. The whole issue in my personal view, we did is

to know what is going on. Every now and then, every ten years, 50 years,

you have a story like this coming out. There is a lot of secret work

going on, keeping it away from the public. I think we should know what

is going on. I agree with you, the information came out, extremely

important and shocking, but we need to understand what goes on,

regardless of what the USA would accuse Edward Snowden of.

question is how much freedom and privacy are we prepared to sacrifice

for the possible notion of absolute safety. We are not going to get

absolute safety anyway. But there is no per the seat, so it is not as if

we are sacrificing something. We just don't have it. Also these

agencies are linked with the government. It was the same in

France, they have spies on private conversations of two journalists. It

was completely illegal. If you hadn't had the whistleblower, we

would not have known about it. not think anybody denies that

whistleblowers are incredibly important. My point was that

whistleblowers are great and brave people, because it will be

prosecuted and Chris you'd and that cannot be done otherwise. What you

make of the question that these leaks have done damage to making

people safer? It's an important part of the government are up to. I agree

with Janet on that one. I think there is this idea of national

security and the external threat that we are now all under and it has

been used to justify all sorts of unjustifiable land grabs. And

again, it is incoherent. There hasn't been a proper debate about

what we're trying to do, so, although I do believe that

intelligence agencies are necessary to keep us safe, I do not think from

most of the revelations we've had, that that is what this has been

about. Janet, what do you feel is actually happening here? This is why

the law is very important. The various agencies are probably within

the law of their own country. We can't spy on our own people and we

will spy on yours and you give us information. Yes, they said we are

not spying on any American citizen, so that's all right then, they are

only spying on the rest of us. There are lies, their friendly countries,

they are absolutely open to all the spying and intrusions. Only

Americans we want to protect. That is absurd because there have been

American citizens who have been responsible for terrorism. They get

confused about you and I being Americans with British passports and

it should put us out of the reach of GCHQ and the Americans. We should be

safe on both accounts. Is there going to be any way to control this?

Secret agencies have to remain secret and it only their failures

which become public. This is clearly a disaster for the spying agencies.

It's great for the public to know but a disaster for them. We should

look around and learn from Scandinavia or somewhere else, in

that area. There's not much secrecy as it is in America and the rest of

Europe, as well. It is time to open it up to the public. Because, at the

end of the day, it's our right, the right of the citizen, to take part

in that discussion. They're not too many people working for them. It's a

huge organisation, much bigger than the armies in certain countries.

There no supervision. I think it has to be supervised and the best

supervision, like it was in the US for a time, was Congress. Barack

Obama was saying there was more congressional oversight than in the

past but who's to know? A final thought there's no way of rolling

the clock back. The Internet exists, the technology exists. You

were shocked but I bet you weren't surprise this goes on? Of course.

democratic free societies feel free to create this kind of extraordinary

powerful intrusive operation on their people, anyone who impinges on

their country? That's a terrifying prospect. OK, let's move on. After

being at the heart of the worst financial, economic and political

crisis of our lifetimes, a few top British bankers have lost their

jobs. Some have faced disgrace but none has gone to jail. Should

bankers be jailed for their catastrophic business mistakes? What

do we make of the other proposals for reforms in Britain including

that bankers bonuses should be deferred for a decade?

Should they go to the jail or the guillotine in France? Not the

guillotine. But, to be frank, incompetence, laziness, or even

stupidity is not a crime. It's not like insider dealing, fraud. It's

impossible to prove in front of a jury that you did a crime. So the

prosecuted banker makes no sense. Also, if you want to prosecute

bankers, you have to do is prosecute lawyers, accountants, financial

advisers. And politicians and regulators. Where does it end? It's

much better, I think, to go back to the basics of the problem, banks are

too big to fail, too big to change. Ask the outgoing governor of the

Bank of England. Unless you break up the banks in smaller entities, and

you put Essex among one of the purposes of their actions that SX --

ethics. They are trying to put companies together and they are not

all lazy traders. When I heard about this proposal, it does smack of a

trial, bankers are the least popular figures in the country, journalists

running close sometimes but let's make an example of them but it's not

going to be easy, is it? I have contempt for banker bashers and

banker bashing, it cheap populism of the worst order. People talk about

bankers, you have to differentiate between the Taliban. You really have

to differentiate between bankers. It's kind of you to compare bankers

to the Taliban. I'm sure they will love your support. I believe in

making a distinction between tabloid journalism and broadsheet

journalism, actually. You are the home of lost causes, really. I

really am. I think this is cheap populism, ludicrous, and are already

rules on criminal negligence that, again, as Mark says, you half to

look at where the blame lies. I think the blame lies in many of

these cases with the structures, the regulators, all sorts of people.

with the politicians who egged them on. And learned more to people who

can't pay. And dare I say, even with the voters. These subjects become

something, we push it over there. You can hugger their phones, at

least. In America, the original sub-prime events which created this

entire credit crunch was politically stimulator to. There where

politicians, video clips of democratic senators urging the banks

and building societies, the financial institutions, to lend

money to the poor. Why should the poor be deprived of the right to own

property? We must allow them to share in the American dream. This

was a politically induced crisis. The business about distributing the

debt so everybody had one rotten timber in every ship, but was an

invention of academic economists. The bankers may have behaved like

pigs, and made a fortune out of this, but they were subjected to

political pressure and academic pressures. And their own greed. And

the bonuses. Bonuses is another matter. The whole banking system is,

in itself, in control of everything. They control politicians rather than

the opposite. They control our lives. Really, no one can control

them. They get away with everything. Why, so far, in my life I don't

remember at all seeing any bankers caught doing something wrong.

America, bankers have been sent to prison in the past for criminal

Ford. But not incompetence. We are talking about these supposedly

remedies that are ludicrous, that are being suggested. One of these

things, just to give you another possible remedy, getting some more

women in there. I don't believe that it's way too easy. It's glib in the

other direction. But what if you open up these systems, not just to

women, but to minorities. You mitigate against certain trends

where people just continually reinforce the directions that they

are taking. You get proper questioning. Do you agree with that?

Yes, had there been more women, risk would have been more tempered. But

why are bankers so well paid? Why do they need bonuses? You are dealing

in huge figures, that's why. I'm not saying it's right. I think most

incentive schemes are fundamentally flawed because they are always based

on targets which are gained in one way or another. Fix renumeration.

Bankers make huge profit and its politically driven. Because then,

you pay huge amounts of tax and governments were hungry for the

revenue. The reason Gordon Brown encouraged light touch regulation,

was because he wanted the revenue. OK, we have to leave it there.