WEBVTT - Part Two: How the British Empire and U.S. Department of Defense Murdered an Island Paradise 0:00:01.840 --> 0:00:05.520 Also media, who did it? 0:00:06.280 --> 0:00:06.760 I did it? 0:00:06.800 --> 0:00:09.200 I pressed, oh you did it? You did it? I 0:00:09.240 --> 0:00:11.680 also did it. I have also pressed the buttons that 0:00:11.720 --> 0:00:14.159 I have to start to start my job in the 0:00:14.200 --> 0:00:17.759 podcast which you're listening to right now, the podcast that 0:00:17.840 --> 0:00:21.120 I do for a job. You know who else does 0:00:21.160 --> 0:00:22.400 podcasts my job? 0:00:23.040 --> 0:00:24.720 This is why people ask you to do the atonal 0:00:24.720 --> 0:00:27.720 shrieking because what was that? 0:00:28.400 --> 0:00:28.880 You happy? 0:00:28.920 --> 0:00:29.640 Now? Beautiful? 0:00:29.880 --> 0:00:32.559 You get enough? Andrew T Welcome to the program. 0:00:33.640 --> 0:00:37.879 What up? How's it going? 0:00:38.240 --> 0:00:40.320 Give us one shriek? Andrew? Just one time? 0:00:41.120 --> 0:00:46.760 Yeah? That was tonal. 0:00:47.000 --> 0:00:47.320 There was. 0:00:50.800 --> 0:00:53.519 Subreddit's going to be livid. People are going to be 0:00:53.640 --> 0:00:54.840 letting you up, Andrew. 0:00:55.480 --> 0:00:58.319 Get the get the get the music theory people on here. 0:00:58.360 --> 0:01:01.280 I want to go, Yeah, somebody make an e d 0:01:01.440 --> 0:01:04.120 M track from all of our all my various a 0:01:04.280 --> 0:01:08.720 tonal openings. But also you know who's not a tonal. 0:01:09.400 --> 0:01:15.760 Dolly Parton and the Federalists Twitter account just win for 0:01:15.840 --> 0:01:19.120 her evil take on Christianity, which is I don't actually know, 0:01:19.160 --> 0:01:22.199 but I'm assuming it's be nice to everybody, because most 0:01:22.240 --> 0:01:25.039 of what Dolly Parton says is be nice to everybody 0:01:25.240 --> 0:01:30.200 and give children free books. That's been my general experience. Oh, 0:01:30.920 --> 0:01:35.160 also have incredible chemistry with Burt Reynolds. 0:01:35.480 --> 0:01:38.520 Is it possible that the federal society is like, if 0:01:38.560 --> 0:01:41.080 you give children free books, that's actually doing violence to 0:01:41.120 --> 0:01:43.759 them because they haven't I've gotten a job and earned 0:01:44.120 --> 0:01:45.280 money to buy books. 0:01:45.720 --> 0:01:47.840 Yeah, they think there's a good chance that's what's going 0:01:47.880 --> 0:01:50.680 on there. I also think this is this is like 0:01:51.120 --> 0:01:54.520 this is like a case of pick, like a like 0:01:54.560 --> 0:01:58.280 a naked caveman picking a fistfight with a mastodon. Like 0:01:58.960 --> 0:02:01.960 you really do not want to want to throw down 0:02:02.000 --> 0:02:03.280 against Dolly Parton. 0:02:03.480 --> 0:02:08.880 Yeah, she's like in top ten of most likable people. 0:02:09.240 --> 0:02:11.760 Yeah, she is probably the most liked person in this 0:02:12.000 --> 0:02:16.480 entire country. Yeah, by people in this country at least, 0:02:17.120 --> 0:02:20.120 you know who's not liked in this country or most 0:02:20.160 --> 0:02:25.960 other countries. Ooh, the Department of Defense controversial. 0:02:26.520 --> 0:02:27.840 You know that's true. 0:02:28.919 --> 0:02:32.679 People like soldiers Andrew. But even so, if you want 0:02:32.680 --> 0:02:34.960 to talk, if you talk to soldiers, the number one 0:02:35.000 --> 0:02:42.160 thing they complain about is the DoD Right. One of 0:02:42.200 --> 0:02:44.280 the funny things about the Chagos case is that it 0:02:44.320 --> 0:02:49.079 involves what I would describe as incomprehensible evil from two empires, 0:02:49.480 --> 0:02:52.919 one fading into obscurity, and the other rising to the 0:02:52.960 --> 0:02:55.480 precipitous heights from which we will all spend the rest 0:02:55.480 --> 0:02:59.040 of our lives watching it fall. That's what we're going 0:02:59.120 --> 0:02:59.720 to talk about. 0:02:59.760 --> 0:03:03.880 This really is like a relay race, like a. 0:03:04.240 --> 0:03:07.360 Yeah, yeah, it's yeah, it's it's beautiful. It's just like 0:03:07.480 --> 0:03:10.480 two sides of the graph meeting for one brief shining 0:03:10.560 --> 0:03:13.679 moment and before. 0:03:13.360 --> 0:03:15.840 We end this cold open, I just just one more, 0:03:16.000 --> 0:03:17.120 one more, a tonal shriek. 0:03:18.919 --> 0:03:21.840 You So I'm not a I'm not a wind up doll, 0:03:21.919 --> 0:03:24.000 all right, you know I'm a person. 0:03:24.160 --> 0:03:29.280 Two three, Ah, beautiful. 0:03:34.800 --> 0:03:38.800 We're back. So from where I stand, both the British 0:03:38.840 --> 0:03:42.400 Empire and the United States have pretty equal levels of 0:03:42.440 --> 0:03:45.960 guilt over Chagos, right. I wouldn't say either Americans or 0:03:46.000 --> 0:03:48.720 Brits have more to feel ashamed of here, but of 0:03:48.760 --> 0:03:52.080 course officials from both governments have a vested interest in 0:03:52.160 --> 0:03:54.600 making the other into the bad guy. And you get 0:03:54.600 --> 0:03:56.360 a hint of this in an article I found in 0:03:56.400 --> 0:04:01.000 a French journal at two Days Ocean Indian by Julian Darup, 0:04:01.080 --> 0:04:04.000 who writes Britain was forced on her own by its 0:04:04.040 --> 0:04:08.160 former colony, the USA, to depopulate Chagos of its indigenous 0:04:08.200 --> 0:04:11.240 population of British subjects and force them into exile in 0:04:11.280 --> 0:04:14.560 a foreign country, against all the principle of the United Nations, 0:04:14.560 --> 0:04:16.839 the principles of human rights, and the Magna Carta. A 0:04:16.920 --> 0:04:20.680 unique case perhaps about precedent in British colonial history. Like 0:04:21.640 --> 0:04:25.359 they didn't get forced. They wanted some nukes for cheaper. 0:04:26.360 --> 0:04:29.560 It's not forced, you can say a lot, but without 0:04:29.640 --> 0:04:32.680 precedent is the wiest lie. 0:04:32.920 --> 0:04:35.440 This would be like, this would be like back when 0:04:35.480 --> 0:04:38.239 I did drugs, if I was like, well, my drug 0:04:38.279 --> 0:04:40.920 dealer forced me to buy that cocaine with all that 0:04:41.000 --> 0:04:45.960 weed because it was just too cheap. You know, when 0:04:46.000 --> 0:04:49.840 I did drugs, I only do gas station drugs now, Sophie, 0:04:49.839 --> 0:04:54.480 I'm gas station sober. I keep saying this just kratom, 0:04:54.720 --> 0:05:00.960 Trucker pills, and beer. Sure, Robert, sometimes some of that 0:05:01.120 --> 0:05:03.960 Delta eight stuff while it's still legal. Please don't talk 0:05:03.960 --> 0:05:11.640 about it. My god, those weird mushroom gummies that are 0:05:11.680 --> 0:05:19.599 apparently legal in gas stations in Texas now glorious gas 0:05:19.600 --> 0:05:22.160 stations in a lot of states now sell all of 0:05:22.200 --> 0:05:24.919 the drugs that you used to have to spend like 0:05:25.080 --> 0:05:28.880 twenty five minutes listening to Romstein videos with a weirdo 0:05:28.920 --> 0:05:30.960 in his apartment to get it's wonderful. 0:05:31.400 --> 0:05:34.000 Yeah, now you watch them with just like a kid 0:05:34.040 --> 0:05:35.640 who's there. We're here for minimum. 0:05:36.080 --> 0:05:38.440 Yeah. No longer do I have to sit through an 0:05:38.600 --> 0:05:43.120 entire bass Nectar album to get mushrooms. I just go 0:05:43.200 --> 0:05:45.440 to what should have been a seven to eleven in 0:05:45.520 --> 0:05:53.960 a civilized nation. That nectar, I don't know, he's probably 0:05:54.040 --> 0:05:56.800 base nectar. I don't care. I don't care. 0:05:57.000 --> 0:05:58.880 I'm going to guess you're wrong, and that's fine. 0:05:59.600 --> 0:06:03.479 Yeah, bass nectar is a worm or like a little fly. 0:06:04.240 --> 0:06:07.080 I'm thinking I'm fishing pilled these days, Andrew. I got 0:06:07.080 --> 0:06:09.880 my hunting license in hand and everything, and I'm gonna go. 0:06:10.240 --> 0:06:13.360 I'm gonna go fish. So not for bass, because I 0:06:13.360 --> 0:06:15.919 don't think they're up here, but I'm thinking of bass 0:06:15.920 --> 0:06:20.440 because I used to fish for bass. I consider fish oil. 0:06:20.480 --> 0:06:24.240 I call it bass nectar, Andrew. It's not made from baths. 0:06:24.320 --> 0:06:27.920 But y'all, y'all can y'all can just get dungeonus crabs 0:06:27.920 --> 0:06:29.960 from the ocean at times of the year, right. 0:06:30.080 --> 0:06:32.320 You sure can at times of the year. Yeah, and 0:06:32.400 --> 0:06:34.400 you could get muscles. But all of our muscles are 0:06:34.400 --> 0:06:36.320 poisoned right now, so we are not doing that. 0:06:36.360 --> 0:06:36.440 This. 0:06:36.760 --> 0:06:40.440 It's like a huge, huge shame because uh, I used 0:06:40.480 --> 0:06:42.480 to go to muscle Monday every week. 0:06:42.600 --> 0:06:44.760 Oh glorious, Oh my god. 0:06:44.880 --> 0:06:46.240 And then also the food was good. 0:06:47.240 --> 0:06:51.000 I have two great muscle memories. One time me and 0:06:51.160 --> 0:06:52.720 me and a very good friend. 0:06:52.760 --> 0:06:55.359 Like how great Andrews joke just was? 0:06:55.400 --> 0:06:57.880 I'm sorry? Did I What did I miss? Not ship? 0:06:58.480 --> 0:06:59.240 What did I miss? 0:07:00.160 --> 0:07:03.120 Okay, you'll listen to it when you listen to the edit, 0:07:03.160 --> 0:07:06.799 and I just watch you to know Andrew deserved his flowers. 0:07:06.839 --> 0:07:10.040 Here you go, Andrew, Nice to you, and I. 0:07:10.000 --> 0:07:11.920 Will be proud of you in the future. When I 0:07:12.000 --> 0:07:14.760 listened to this episode, Andrew. But now I got to 0:07:14.800 --> 0:07:17.040 talk my muscle stories because I got two really good 0:07:17.120 --> 0:07:20.559 muscles stories. One is me and a very good friend 0:07:20.560 --> 0:07:23.040 of mine spent like a week in Baja and we 0:07:23.080 --> 0:07:25.720 went like clambering down the side of this cliff side 0:07:25.720 --> 0:07:28.080 that was filled with like tidal pools, and there were 0:07:28.120 --> 0:07:30.040 all of these muscles that we like picked and then 0:07:30.120 --> 0:07:32.680 climbed up the rockside and like they were alive until 0:07:32.680 --> 0:07:34.840 the second we threw them into the fucking past. It 0:07:34.880 --> 0:07:37.400 was amazing, glorious, one of the best things I've ever eaten. 0:07:37.760 --> 0:07:40.600 And then a year or two later, with that same friend, 0:07:40.680 --> 0:07:42.800 I was in the UH. I was in the all 0:07:42.800 --> 0:07:45.760 you can eat buffet at the Bellaccio, having an eating 0:07:45.800 --> 0:07:48.760 contest that we had decided ahead of time would be muscles, 0:07:49.640 --> 0:07:52.239 And unfortunately, as soon as we arrived, we called ahead 0:07:52.280 --> 0:07:54.240 to make sure the bilacio had muscles, and they were like, 0:07:54.240 --> 0:07:56.120 oh yeah, we got them. And as soon as we 0:07:56.200 --> 0:08:00.040 arrived we realized the muscles have been rancid, and the 0:08:00.040 --> 0:08:03.680 biloaggio's staff had decided to cover them with thousand island 0:08:03.720 --> 0:08:05.800 dressing in order to disguise the fact that they were 0:08:05.840 --> 0:08:10.000 no longer fit for consumption. Now, this friend and I 0:08:10.040 --> 0:08:13.560 are both the kind of people that, when we realize 0:08:13.800 --> 0:08:17.080 a plan we have made is untenable, our only thought 0:08:17.240 --> 0:08:19.600 is to just kind of fight through it, right, you know, 0:08:19.640 --> 0:08:23.280 it's it's battle of the bulge logic. We're Americans, you know, 0:08:24.040 --> 0:08:26.680 when it all costs, and in this case, that meant 0:08:26.720 --> 0:08:30.520 we each consumed several pounds of ransom muscles. I won 0:08:30.600 --> 0:08:31.760 it fourteen plates. 0:08:31.800 --> 0:08:36.040 By the way, I'm really too I'm trying to guess 0:08:36.160 --> 0:08:37.360 which friend of. 0:08:37.320 --> 0:08:40.680 Yours is we were dizzy. He'll listen to the show. 0:08:40.720 --> 0:08:43.719 At some point we got disastrously ill, and in my 0:08:43.960 --> 0:08:45.880 case it was after I drove home, and in his 0:08:46.040 --> 0:08:48.520 case it was on a Greyhound bus back to Elm. 0:08:49.200 --> 0:08:54.559 No, Lord, I can I just say, I will just 0:08:54.920 --> 0:08:57.760 throw this out there. If you're having an eating contest, 0:08:57.800 --> 0:09:00.800 you can't go with muscles bro at the Lago Buffet. 0:09:01.480 --> 0:09:02.760 We did, My man, we did. 0:09:03.040 --> 0:09:06.480 It's like, no, not because of the danger, it's just 0:09:06.559 --> 0:09:08.960 you gotta go with high, high margin foods. 0:09:09.559 --> 0:09:09.760 Yeah. 0:09:09.840 --> 0:09:10.040 I know. 0:09:10.160 --> 0:09:12.800 It was a bad decision because we The Blagio buffet 0:09:12.880 --> 0:09:15.240 has a bunch of like really good looking food in it, 0:09:15.360 --> 0:09:21.719 and we walked past it for fourteen plates. It was 0:09:21.760 --> 0:09:23.000 a horrible decision. 0:09:23.440 --> 0:09:25.640 Did you at least did you at least still a bathroom? 0:09:26.840 --> 0:09:28.359 Uh? No, not from the Belagio? 0:09:28.880 --> 0:09:29.199 Damn it? 0:09:29.360 --> 0:09:32.360 Robert can I and I tell my muscle story, which 0:09:33.360 --> 0:09:34.480 for sure, Yeah. 0:09:34.400 --> 0:09:38.079 Yeah, you're allegedly allegedly Yeah. 0:09:38.559 --> 0:09:42.960 Well I'm not positive. Yeah, I guess I will just say. 0:09:43.440 --> 0:09:45.679 This still narrows it down too much, so it'll be 0:09:45.720 --> 0:09:48.160 pretty clear who this is. And because you can only 0:09:48.240 --> 0:09:52.880 have two neighbors, really, it's pretty I guess if you 0:09:52.960 --> 0:09:54.640 are really sleuth and you could figure this out. But 0:09:54.720 --> 0:09:59.400 in college, I was friends with this guy who had 0:10:00.520 --> 0:10:02.200 you know what, actually this is? This is this could 0:10:02.200 --> 0:10:06.280 be a couple of different people. Anyway, his stepdad owned 0:10:06.320 --> 0:10:10.959 a house next door to a beachside presidential compound, and 0:10:11.679 --> 0:10:15.000 we went and visited, and we were we were just 0:10:15.120 --> 0:10:19.400 digging muscles on the on the on their what we 0:10:19.559 --> 0:10:22.440 thought was their beach, and you know, the lines are 0:10:22.440 --> 0:10:27.120 not very clearly drawn. And we came back I can't 0:10:27.120 --> 0:10:28.559 remember it was the mom or the dad was like, 0:10:28.640 --> 0:10:31.400 you guys didn't go past this, did you. Uh? And 0:10:31.520 --> 0:10:34.079 it turned out we possibly had poached some of the 0:10:34.200 --> 0:10:35.080 king's muscles. 0:10:35.400 --> 0:10:38.120 Oh my god, I'm surprised they didn't black bag you 0:10:38.280 --> 0:10:40.839 and send you to Chagos, which, by the way, is 0:10:40.880 --> 0:10:42.080 where this story ends. 0:10:42.800 --> 0:10:46.400 Is this is where they would have It was a 0:10:46.520 --> 0:10:49.559 president at a time when that very well could have happened. 0:10:49.600 --> 0:10:51.000 And I guess I'll just leave it at that. 0:10:51.360 --> 0:10:53.600 Yeah, all well done. 0:10:54.840 --> 0:10:59.720 Anyway, that was quite a long digression about muscles. I guess, sorry, 0:10:59.800 --> 0:11:04.880 but I thought it was. Yeah, so that's quote I 0:11:04.920 --> 0:11:07.360 read from those British clod From that from that French 0:11:07.480 --> 0:11:09.840 article where they were like, ah, the poor British forced 0:11:09.880 --> 0:11:13.719 to forced to ethnically cleanse their island by the Americans. 0:11:14.280 --> 0:11:16.439 Something done before. 0:11:16.960 --> 0:11:20.280 I will say this is our fault equally with the British, 0:11:20.360 --> 0:11:22.360 but I consider that a silly way to look at 0:11:22.400 --> 0:11:28.079 this entire situation. Right. Yeah, So from the end of 0:11:28.160 --> 0:11:30.240 the British Empire, the decision they're making here is that 0:11:30.320 --> 0:11:32.800 their best case scenario is they is to keep having 0:11:32.840 --> 0:11:36.160 an empire on paper, but also like not have to 0:11:36.760 --> 0:11:39.640 do anything there, just kind of let the Americans do it, right, 0:11:39.679 --> 0:11:42.959 So they consider this a pretty good deal. Yeah. Now 0:11:43.520 --> 0:11:48.160 for our part, the Americans, we are equally responsible, but 0:11:48.400 --> 0:11:51.040 we deny our responsibility in a different way. 0:11:51.160 --> 0:11:51.280 Right. 0:11:51.360 --> 0:11:53.200 The British like to play out were put upon by 0:11:53.240 --> 0:11:56.360 those American bullies and the Americans and our attempt to 0:11:56.640 --> 0:11:58.959 ignore our complicity in this. We do the thing we 0:11:59.080 --> 0:12:00.880 do best, which is we be we pretend to be 0:12:01.000 --> 0:12:04.640 big dumb tourists, like, well, no, we didn't know. I'm 0:12:04.800 --> 0:12:07.959 just a poor, simple bar from Corns. You know, I 0:12:08.040 --> 0:12:10.599 didn't know there was people on this island when I 0:12:10.720 --> 0:12:14.480 built my navy base. That was not a Kansas accent 0:12:15.920 --> 0:12:20.679 born Leghorn was like, what are we doing? Yeah, I 0:12:20.720 --> 0:12:22.960 don't know why. I don't know why I said Kansas, 0:12:23.040 --> 0:12:25.960 but there you go sort of like, well. 0:12:25.880 --> 0:12:29.240 You'd imagine like a real good LBJ Paradise, Yeah, I 0:12:29.240 --> 0:12:32.440 would have done yeah, yeah, like and it is exactly 0:12:32.520 --> 0:12:35.360 that kind of attitude of just like, well, well shucks, 0:12:35.400 --> 0:12:37.199 I didn't realize there were people there. 0:12:37.320 --> 0:12:40.760 Nobody told us, you know, and that was like, you 0:12:40.840 --> 0:12:44.360 can we have paperwork from Navy officers being up being like, 0:12:44.920 --> 0:12:47.360 we need to have the British kick these people out 0:12:47.520 --> 0:12:50.640 for us, because otherwise we're gonna look like shit when 0:12:50.679 --> 0:12:53.360 people find out that we had them do this, you know. 0:12:54.640 --> 0:12:57.040 And it is very clear that American officers were well 0:12:57.080 --> 0:12:58.960 aware of what had to be done to ready Chagos 0:12:59.080 --> 0:13:02.480 for them act. They demanded it in nineteen sixty five. 0:13:02.679 --> 0:13:05.360 Admiral and this is one of the most ridiculous names 0:13:05.440 --> 0:13:11.040 in Navy history, Elmo zoomweight Zoomwalt told his British counterparts, 0:13:11.160 --> 0:13:15.000 fucking Elmo and Elmo is this is a genocide done 0:13:15.200 --> 0:13:19.120 in part by an Elmo, you know, just tragic. My 0:13:19.240 --> 0:13:22.480 own personal desire is to have no indigenous laborers on 0:13:22.559 --> 0:13:25.120 the island because I can foresee the kind of political 0:13:25.200 --> 0:13:28.679 complication that the Soviets always make when you have that 0:13:28.840 --> 0:13:32.840 kind of indigenous population. Therefore, I strongly advocate that there'll 0:13:32.840 --> 0:13:34.960 be none there when that we take over and establish 0:13:35.080 --> 0:13:39.319 the base. And it's such a such a navy man 0:13:39.600 --> 0:13:41.840 in the fucking sixties thing to be like, Yeah, it's 0:13:41.880 --> 0:13:44.839 those damned communists making all these people angry that we 0:13:44.920 --> 0:13:52.240 have turned their sparkling beaches into diesel fuel. Yeah, coons 0:13:52.320 --> 0:13:53.120 for some reason. 0:13:54.200 --> 0:13:56.360 The only way to make sure we don't look bad 0:13:56.520 --> 0:13:59.200 is to you know, like exile all of them. 0:13:59.720 --> 0:14:03.640 Yeah, kick them all out. The Communists can't take advantage 0:14:03.640 --> 0:14:09.560 of this situation. Amazing stuff. When one reads the correspondence 0:14:09.600 --> 0:14:12.680 of US Navy officials who first laid eyes on Diego Garcil, 0:14:13.040 --> 0:14:15.880 you can almost feel their hunger, right. They ride about 0:14:15.920 --> 0:14:19.640 like a toolls lagoon could shelter like massive numbers of ships, 0:14:19.760 --> 0:14:21.960 huge fleets of them. And it's also one of those 0:14:22.000 --> 0:14:26.000 things because of their location, storms don't really hit Chagos 0:14:26.120 --> 0:14:28.640 like they get like rainstorms and stuff, but cyclones very 0:14:28.760 --> 0:14:30.720 rarely get close enough to Chago's for it to be 0:14:30.800 --> 0:14:35.080 a problem. Admiral John McCain described the islands as the 0:14:35.240 --> 0:14:38.960 Malta of the Indian Ocean. The other John McCain, not 0:14:39.080 --> 0:14:44.920 the one who didn't quite get plane flying down his 0:14:45.080 --> 0:14:48.840 dad though. So I gave Julian a little bit of 0:14:48.840 --> 0:14:51.640 shit there for in my eyes spreading some propaganda. But 0:14:51.760 --> 0:14:53.280 I will say his paper has a lot of good 0:14:53.320 --> 0:14:55.160 stuff in it, and it actually did inform me of 0:14:55.200 --> 0:14:58.240 an added dimension to this horror that my earlier reading 0:14:58.360 --> 0:15:01.560 had not presented to me. Robin Cook, then a Minister 0:15:01.640 --> 0:15:05.120 of Parliament Labor, later claimed that the initial base site 0:15:05.200 --> 0:15:07.800 that the United Kingdom planned to offer to the United 0:15:07.840 --> 0:15:11.400 States was a different island, and not the heavily inhabited 0:15:11.480 --> 0:15:16.840 Diego Garcia. This island, Aldabra was rejected because giant tortoises 0:15:16.960 --> 0:15:20.320 nested nested there, and neither great military power wanted to 0:15:20.440 --> 0:15:25.000 risk the bad pr of hurting tortoises. Now, Jesus Christ, 0:15:25.680 --> 0:15:28.120 I will say, I think tortoises and human beings have 0:15:28.200 --> 0:15:31.480 an equal right to keep living in their homes. That 0:15:31.680 --> 0:15:34.880 considerably outweighed the British desire for better nukes or the 0:15:34.920 --> 0:15:37.360 American desire from an easier place from which to bomb 0:15:37.400 --> 0:15:40.080 the Middle East. But it is pretty fucked up that 0:15:40.080 --> 0:15:42.400 They were like, well, we can't can't kick those tortoises 0:15:42.480 --> 0:15:44.800 out of their home. Better kick the people out. 0:15:45.720 --> 0:15:51.520 Oh my god, that's so uniquely awful. It is. 0:15:51.960 --> 0:15:59.080 It's like a fascinating and like almost yeah almost, yeah, 0:15:59.760 --> 0:16:02.800 yeah yeah yeah, it's kind of evil. You can only 0:16:02.920 --> 0:16:05.800 do while wearing a specific sort of khaki suit. 0:16:05.840 --> 0:16:06.040 You know. 0:16:06.280 --> 0:16:07.880 Yeah, amazing scat I have. 0:16:08.000 --> 0:16:09.840 This would looks terrible. Yeah. 0:16:10.000 --> 0:16:13.000 You can see the hat on the military officer, you know, 0:16:13.120 --> 0:16:16.960 one of those beautiful peaked ones. The question left to 0:16:17.040 --> 0:16:19.760 both the British and the Americans then was this, how 0:16:19.840 --> 0:16:22.160 do you clear an entire culture of people off of 0:16:22.240 --> 0:16:26.680 their home? And the answer is slowly soon after creating 0:16:26.760 --> 0:16:30.160 the Biot, and again the Biot is this political fiction. 0:16:30.320 --> 0:16:33.120 The British have lassoed some islands together on a map 0:16:33.200 --> 0:16:36.360 and said, we're giving the other islands we had previously 0:16:36.440 --> 0:16:39.040 owned up to be independent countries. We get to keep 0:16:39.600 --> 0:16:43.080 this chunk of them, right, So they make this and 0:16:43.160 --> 0:16:45.520 they inc a deal with the US in nineteen sixty five, 0:16:45.920 --> 0:16:48.760 and after this point Great Britain begins, which you might 0:16:48.880 --> 0:16:52.520 describe as a slow motion exile of the Chegosian people. 0:16:53.000 --> 0:16:55.920 At first, this took the form of encouraging migration away 0:16:55.960 --> 0:16:59.960 from Diego, Garcia to Mauritius. Free tickets on quarterly steamship 0:17:00.200 --> 0:17:03.680 were offered to Islanders who simply wanted to explore their neighborhood. 0:17:04.240 --> 0:17:07.159 But bit by bit they started restricting the ability of 0:17:07.240 --> 0:17:10.639 locals on vacation or who had moved away temporarily. You know, 0:17:10.960 --> 0:17:13.080 you get someone who like, well, I want to make 0:17:13.160 --> 0:17:15.000 some money, I want to acquire a couple of things 0:17:15.040 --> 0:17:16.479 that I can't get on Chiagos. I'm going to move 0:17:16.480 --> 0:17:18.280 to Meridias for like five years, right, and then I'll 0:17:18.280 --> 0:17:20.600 go back home, you know. So some of these people 0:17:20.680 --> 0:17:22.560 start to find out when they try to book routes 0:17:22.640 --> 0:17:25.840 back home that there's no such route any longer. There's 0:17:25.920 --> 0:17:29.520 no more steamships going to Chagos now. Because Chagos is 0:17:29.600 --> 0:17:32.480 so isolated, they don't have a way of messaging back home. 0:17:32.560 --> 0:17:34.720 There's no way for them to warn their families or 0:17:34.800 --> 0:17:37.560 to explain what has happened to them to the people. 0:17:37.800 --> 0:17:40.480 Like from the perspective of people living on Chagos, their 0:17:40.520 --> 0:17:42.920 family members are leaving on like short trips, like I'm 0:17:42.920 --> 0:17:45.760 gonna go be on vacation for three months, and then 0:17:45.800 --> 0:17:47.840 they just don't have her come home and you never 0:17:47.960 --> 0:17:51.440 find out why. Right, this is the British plan. 0:17:52.119 --> 0:17:55.239 Yeah sounds about right, I guess, Yeah, sounds about right. 0:17:55.320 --> 0:17:59.560 I guess. The biot was in British law, British territory 0:17:59.720 --> 0:18:03.400 and all legal precedent makes it clear that the Chagosians 0:18:03.960 --> 0:18:07.080 should have been treated as citizens of the crown. That 0:18:07.160 --> 0:18:09.880 would have created a problem though. If you tell these 0:18:09.920 --> 0:18:13.720 people you can never go home, but hey, you have 0:18:13.960 --> 0:18:18.399 UK citizenship now, they might like go to London and 0:18:18.600 --> 0:18:21.639 find a journalist or a lawyer and start being like 0:18:22.520 --> 0:18:25.960 our culture's being annihilated for some reason, you know, and 0:18:26.080 --> 0:18:28.600 that's a real issue. You can't have them doing that. 0:18:29.080 --> 0:18:32.800 So the British they decide like, well, if these people 0:18:32.960 --> 0:18:35.600 figure out that they have the right to be citizens, 0:18:35.960 --> 0:18:38.840 we can't stop them. But what we can do is 0:18:39.040 --> 0:18:40.480 just never say anything. 0:18:41.280 --> 0:18:41.680 Jesus. 0:18:43.640 --> 0:18:49.280 It's amazing stuff. A Foreign Office memo from nineteen seventy wrote. 0:18:49.119 --> 0:18:52.040 This is some mister beanship, by the way, this is crazy. 0:18:52.040 --> 0:18:53.080 It's bean esque. 0:18:53.280 --> 0:18:57.560 Yeah. A Foreign Office memo from nineteen seventy writes this 0:18:57.680 --> 0:19:00.320 out directly, quote, we would not wish it to become 0:19:00.440 --> 0:19:02.960 general knowledge that some of the inhabitants have lived on 0:19:03.040 --> 0:19:06.320 Diego Garcia for at least two generations, and could therefore 0:19:06.480 --> 0:19:10.760 be regarded as belongers. We shall therefore advise ministers in 0:19:10.840 --> 0:19:14.800 handling supplementary questions about whether Diego Garcia is inhabited, to 0:19:14.880 --> 0:19:17.480 say that there is only a small number of contract 0:19:17.600 --> 0:19:21.639 laborers from the Seychelles and Mauritius engaged in work that 0:19:21.840 --> 0:19:27.280 is being economical with the truth. That's how they describe it. 0:19:27.640 --> 0:19:31.200 We're not lying, we're economizing with our fact. 0:19:31.280 --> 0:19:35.280 True, that's true. The truth is in recession and yeah, 0:19:35.320 --> 0:19:35.840 what can you do? 0:19:36.280 --> 0:19:38.880 What can you do? There's gotta be some austerity. Hey, 0:19:39.280 --> 0:19:41.879 we're the UK. There's one thing we can still do, 0:19:42.040 --> 0:19:47.960 and it's austerity. If the memo continued, a member of 0:19:48.040 --> 0:19:50.640 the House of Commons were to ask about the welfare 0:19:50.680 --> 0:19:52.680 of these contract laborers in the wake of the US 0:19:52.720 --> 0:19:54.760 base being set up on the island, they were to 0:19:54.880 --> 0:19:58.359 be brushed off and the matter noted as hypothetical until 0:19:58.480 --> 0:20:02.000 construction actually began. A nineteen sixty eight memo from a 0:20:02.040 --> 0:20:05.800 Foreign Office legal observer legal observer had been even more blunt, bragging, 0:20:06.160 --> 0:20:07.840 we are able to make up the rules as we 0:20:07.960 --> 0:20:11.399 go along. And treat inhabitants of biote as not belonging 0:20:11.520 --> 0:20:17.800 to it in any sense. Why not? Yeah, well, what 0:20:17.880 --> 0:20:19.960 if we just decide to fuck these people over and 0:20:20.080 --> 0:20:24.320 never explain it. That seems easier for us. I love 0:20:24.400 --> 0:20:28.560 the rules based international orator Andrew t. It's dope. 0:20:29.119 --> 0:20:33.439 Yeah, you know it is. It's true that it has 0:20:33.520 --> 0:20:37.040 always been this way, but yeah, the fiction that this 0:20:37.240 --> 0:20:39.080 is laws is crazy. 0:20:39.560 --> 0:20:42.960 It is like, you know, if you want to, progress 0:20:43.000 --> 0:20:45.800 can be defined I guess as being like one empire 0:20:45.920 --> 0:20:49.879 being like it is fine to depopulate vast numbers of 0:20:49.960 --> 0:20:52.800 white people from their homes and even kill huge numbers 0:20:52.840 --> 0:20:56.040 of them to the next empire is going like, no, no, no, 0:20:56.600 --> 0:20:59.560 you just make them live in another country, never tell 0:20:59.600 --> 0:21:02.440 them why, and lie about it and make sure they're 0:21:02.520 --> 0:21:10.200 not white. That's number one, right, And yeah that's progress, baby, Yeah, 0:21:11.240 --> 0:21:16.119 great stuff. So under this logic, no explanation was needed 0:21:16.160 --> 0:21:18.600 as to why Chegosians weren't allowed to return home to 0:21:18.640 --> 0:21:21.119 their loved ones, their houses, and the graves of their ancestors. 0:21:21.359 --> 0:21:24.920 They were just guest workers. The government had brought bought 0:21:24.960 --> 0:21:27.959 out their old employer. It owned the plantations, and they 0:21:28.040 --> 0:21:31.040 were no longer needed to work them. One of the 0:21:31.119 --> 0:21:33.080 first wave of exiles for an idea of how this 0:21:33.160 --> 0:21:35.040 works in practice for a lot of like the first 0:21:35.160 --> 0:21:38.200 chunk of Chagosians who get forced out, is Rita Bankole. 0:21:38.680 --> 0:21:41.440 She had been born in June nineteen twenty eight on 0:21:41.520 --> 0:21:44.800 an island called Peros Banjos, about one hundred and fifty 0:21:44.840 --> 0:21:48.159 miles north of Diego, Garcia. Her great great grandmother had 0:21:48.200 --> 0:21:51.640