WEBVTT - Part Four: Kissinger 0:00:00.160 --> 0:00:02.840 Hi, everybody. Robert Evans here and my novel After the 0:00:02.840 --> 0:00:05.800 Revolution is available for pre order now from a k 0:00:06.040 --> 0:00:08.479 press dot org. Now, if you go to a k 0:00:08.640 --> 0:00:10.880 press dot org you can find After the Revolution. Just 0:00:10.960 --> 0:00:13.760 google a k press dot org after the Revolution you'll 0:00:13.800 --> 0:00:16.880 find a list of participating indie bookstores selling my book. 0:00:16.880 --> 0:00:19.439 And if you pre order now from either these independent 0:00:19.480 --> 0:00:21.840 bookstores or from a k Press, you'll get a custom 0:00:22.160 --> 0:00:25.439 signed copy of the book, which I think is pretty cool. 0:00:25.520 --> 0:00:27.960 You can also pre order it in physical or in 0:00:28.080 --> 0:00:31.480 kindle form from Amazon or pretty much wherever books are sold. 0:00:31.520 --> 0:00:36.080 So please google a k press after the Revolution um 0:00:36.200 --> 0:00:38.400 or find an indie bookstore in your area and pre 0:00:38.560 --> 0:00:40.599 order it. You'll get assigned a copy and you'll make 0:00:40.640 --> 0:00:52.240 me very happy. Man. Yeah yeah, yeah, how how we all? 0:00:52.520 --> 0:00:57.480 This is behind the dollar bastards, Dollar bastards. This is 0:00:57.520 --> 0:01:02.760 those those dollar bastards. So, I don't know, what do 0:01:02.800 --> 0:01:04.679 you guys think out of all of the characters y'all 0:01:04.680 --> 0:01:08.440 have covered, who do you think Kissinger gets along with? Best? God? 0:01:10.040 --> 0:01:14.800 I mean that's a tough one, that judge and Textas 0:01:14.840 --> 0:01:19.120 with the Bear, the Bear he definitely gets along with. 0:01:20.440 --> 0:01:25.800 There's definitely guys like you know, the guys who did 0:01:25.800 --> 0:01:30.360 the filibustering Walker and those guys who just love to 0:01:30.480 --> 0:01:35.800 just take over other countries. People. There's not We've never 0:01:35.840 --> 0:01:43.679 experienced this level of casualty. This is I mean, you know, 0:01:43.840 --> 0:01:48.120 like there are evil, it's it's the spray of your 0:01:48.120 --> 0:01:52.240 evil that is so remarkable about this. The ability to 0:01:52.440 --> 0:01:57.720 have your finger on this button with this level of 0:01:57.840 --> 0:02:02.160 darkness is uh. I it's a little you know, I 0:02:02.360 --> 0:02:05.040 wouldn't say it's you know again, I mean we've covered 0:02:05.080 --> 0:02:08.160 evil motherfucker's but I don't think they've been able to 0:02:08.240 --> 0:02:12.560 scatter shot in the way that you know, kissingers. It's 0:02:12.560 --> 0:02:15.880 a rare talent at a rare time, on a rare team. 0:02:16.680 --> 0:02:22.360 I would put uh Yon uh Peter Zoon Cohen who 0:02:22.480 --> 0:02:30.040 was the East the Dutch colony guy, the East India, Right, 0:02:30.520 --> 0:02:34.240 he did a lot of killing. Yeah, and he definitely 0:02:34.240 --> 0:02:38.400 had the same sort of attitude, very casual about Yeah. 0:02:38.400 --> 0:02:41.720 There's been a lot of people. Yeah, the the killing 0:02:41.800 --> 0:02:47.240 because we're white Americans, yeah, um, or just white people 0:02:47.440 --> 0:02:50.720 just you know, for for land has been it's a theme. 0:02:51.360 --> 0:02:54.560 It's Jackson. I would put up there with Jackson. He's 0:02:54.960 --> 0:02:59.680 he's he's at that level of like monstrous national leader 0:02:59.760 --> 0:03:02.239 who believes in a fucked up thing, like in terms 0:03:02.240 --> 0:03:04.400 of his death well Andrew Jackson in his in his 0:03:04.400 --> 0:03:08.880 white supremacy Hitler and his Hitler stuff, you know, maw 0:03:09.040 --> 0:03:11.200 and some of the weird things he believed about crop 0:03:11.320 --> 0:03:14.800 rotation or like whatnot. Um, he's at that level of 0:03:14.840 --> 0:03:19.240 like death toll, but he doesn't believe in anything, Like 0:03:19.320 --> 0:03:21.520 he's not trying to do a thing. He's not like, 0:03:21.760 --> 0:03:26.720 he's not like attempting society. Yeah. I guess that's the 0:03:26.760 --> 0:03:30.920 weirdest part of him, because this sort of death count 0:03:31.000 --> 0:03:34.400 usually comes out of ideology. Yes, that's exactly what I 0:03:34.440 --> 0:03:37.080 was trying to get at. Yeah. Imagine if his childhood 0:03:37.080 --> 0:03:40.200 affected him what he would Yeah, that might have an impact. 0:03:40.360 --> 0:03:44.600 I imagine if that had actually impacted him in any way. Yeah, 0:03:44.760 --> 0:03:47.840 and it it Yeah, that's the that's the it's so 0:03:47.920 --> 0:03:51.880 fucked up that like it's fucking Craig again. We keep 0:03:51.880 --> 0:03:54.600 getting back to like Walter from the Big Lebowski logic, 0:03:54.680 --> 0:04:01.960 But like, at least those other war criminals had an ethos. Yeah, yeah, Um, 0:04:02.680 --> 0:04:06.000 you could negotiate or talk down or at least there 0:04:06.000 --> 0:04:09.560 would be like an angle at least like, oh, you 0:04:09.600 --> 0:04:14.280 are a you're a person like not to morally compare 0:04:14.360 --> 0:04:18.720 him negatively to Hitler, because for the record, folks, Hitler's worse, 0:04:18.839 --> 0:04:23.200 you know, basically, And yeah, but there's at least you 0:04:23.240 --> 0:04:26.440 can grasp onto a level of understanding with Hitler, because 0:04:26.440 --> 0:04:28.400 it's like, well, I believe in things, and I even 0:04:28.400 --> 0:04:30.159 believe in things that like, I think it would be 0:04:30.200 --> 0:04:32.960 okay to like use violence in order to to to 0:04:33.560 --> 0:04:35.240 because of those things that I believe. I think there 0:04:35.240 --> 0:04:39.200 are situations that justify violence, and those are based on 0:04:39.240 --> 0:04:43.480 things that I believe about morality. And Hitler had things 0:04:43.480 --> 0:04:46.720 that he believed about morality that he felt justified violent violence. 0:04:46.760 --> 0:04:49.440 And so you can grapple at least with what must 0:04:49.480 --> 0:04:51.000 have been going on in the man's head when he 0:04:51.040 --> 0:04:53.479 did some of the terrible things he did. I cannot 0:04:53.720 --> 0:04:55.480 get into the head of a man who is willing 0:04:55.520 --> 0:04:59.880 to do this to keep a gig. Yeah a yeah, 0:05:00.040 --> 0:05:01.680 it's for a gig that he didn't even need. He 0:05:01.680 --> 0:05:04.800 didn't even need this job. Now he's he's almost as 0:05:04.800 --> 0:05:07.720 bad as Dr Phil Yeah, oh, I mean, yes, that's 0:05:07.720 --> 0:05:11.000 a little bit hyperbolic. Dave I don't think I don't 0:05:11.040 --> 0:05:16.800 think that's hub uh dr phillion levels of evil. It's 0:05:16.880 --> 0:05:20.400 also just the the dumb the idea that sixty minutes 0:05:20.440 --> 0:05:23.320 like was like take the keys hang, have the keys 0:05:23.320 --> 0:05:27.440 hang there you go, yeah, you know, yeah, just the 0:05:27.520 --> 0:05:32.040 run annual normalization. It's like, now, yeah, when it comes 0:05:32.080 --> 0:05:34.360 to the folks who will defend Henry Kissinger or even 0:05:34.360 --> 0:05:36.920 call him a great statesman, and those folks do exist. 0:05:36.960 --> 0:05:40.640 I have read some of their books. Um, when you 0:05:40.680 --> 0:05:42.640 get to those people, there are generally a couple of 0:05:42.640 --> 0:05:44.359 achievements that they will trumpet. Is like, well, you have 0:05:44.400 --> 0:05:46.960 to give him, you know these things, right, um? And 0:05:47.000 --> 0:05:49.600 they sound impressive on paper. Um. In nineteen seventy three, 0:05:49.640 --> 0:05:53.200 he and North Vietnam's lead though won the Nobel Peace 0:05:53.240 --> 0:05:55.479 Prize for their work in the negotiations that became the 0:05:55.480 --> 0:05:58.880 Paris Peace Accords. Right, winning a Nobel Prize for stopping 0:05:58.880 --> 0:06:02.080 the Vietnam War. Impressive sounding on paper if you don't 0:06:02.080 --> 0:06:04.280 think about the fact that he extended the Vietnam War. 0:06:04.920 --> 0:06:08.680 He to you know, um, was a part of that. Um. 0:06:08.720 --> 0:06:11.720 He didn't negotiate the first Strategic Arms Limitation Treaty and 0:06:11.800 --> 0:06:14.240 Anti Ballistic missile treaty with the Soviet Union. Those are 0:06:14.279 --> 0:06:19.240 good things, but but he the whole thing. It would 0:06:19.240 --> 0:06:23.640 be like congratulating Sully sullen Burger if he threw the 0:06:23.680 --> 0:06:28.039 geese into the he had been breeding geese and that 0:06:28.160 --> 0:06:36.400 exactly making bang noises to scam to the plane. Yeah, 0:06:36.440 --> 0:06:41.000 what an amazing achievement. Yeah, um, and yeah, it's one 0:06:41.000 --> 0:06:44.560 of those things like, yeah he got and part of 0:06:44.560 --> 0:06:47.400 like the arms reductions that he secured with the Soviet 0:06:47.440 --> 0:06:49.880 Union are less impressive than they sound. I was just 0:06:49.920 --> 0:06:52.880 talking in the last episode about that documentary Command and Control, 0:06:52.920 --> 0:06:54.360 and one of the points it makes is that like 0:06:54.640 --> 0:06:57.880 these Atlas two missiles, which nearly killed half of the 0:06:57.880 --> 0:07:01.279 people on the East Coast through radioactive fallout, we're obsolete 0:07:01.400 --> 0:07:05.200 and not effective and recognized as not being useful. But 0:07:05.240 --> 0:07:08.320 they were kept in the arsenal not because we needed them, 0:07:08.440 --> 0:07:10.360 but because we were going to have a treaty with 0:07:10.400 --> 0:07:12.840 the Soviets soon and we wanted to have something we 0:07:12.880 --> 0:07:15.560 could give up that wouldn't actually cost us anything like 0:07:15.560 --> 0:07:17.600 like that, Like it's that kind of ship, like that's 0:07:17.600 --> 0:07:24.440 all of the fucking Yeah he respect fuel rods basically, Yeah, yeah, yeah, 0:07:24.480 --> 0:07:27.520 And he does this, He helps negotiate reductions in nuclear 0:07:27.600 --> 0:07:32.880 arms after pushing the missile gap myth for the JMP administration. Right. Um, 0:07:32.960 --> 0:07:35.840 he did help pass an international convention against biological weapons, 0:07:35.880 --> 0:07:37.320 which is cool if you don't think too much about 0:07:37.320 --> 0:07:41.640 the defoliants that he ordered spread out across Southeast Asia. Um, Jesus, 0:07:42.040 --> 0:07:45.000 we need to stop people like Kennedy Kiston Jo. We 0:07:45.040 --> 0:07:48.840 have to stop. I must be stopped. The only way 0:07:48.920 --> 0:07:52.000 to abuse me. He had a role in the Helsinki 0:07:52.080 --> 0:07:55.239 Final Act Article ten, which committed nations on both sides 0:07:55.240 --> 0:07:57.920 of the Cold War to quote respect human rights and 0:07:57.960 --> 0:08:01.600 fundamental freedoms, including the freedom of conscience, religion, or belief 0:08:01.640 --> 0:08:06.240 for all without distinction to race. Yeah. He's literally the 0:08:06.280 --> 0:08:08.360 guy who's in a room and he's like, we should 0:08:08.480 --> 0:08:10.720 kill everyone, and then he walks out and comes back 0:08:10.720 --> 0:08:14.440 in another door and goes killing bad. The killing must stop. 0:08:14.640 --> 0:08:18.560 It's like when deal with me was like, well, I'm 0:08:18.560 --> 0:08:22.080 gonna find the real killer. Yes, yes, we gotta find 0:08:22.080 --> 0:08:24.680 this guy. Sell out there. Henry Kissinger doesn't go to 0:08:24.760 --> 0:08:26.840 d C anymore because he might run into the man 0:08:26.880 --> 0:08:35.280 who ordered the carpet bombing of Laos. We are all 0:08:35.280 --> 0:08:38.480 trying to find the guy who did this. We're not 0:08:38.559 --> 0:08:40.640 gonna live till we find out which son of a 0:08:40.720 --> 0:08:44.520 bitch is behind this. Now there is, however, one huge 0:08:44.760 --> 0:08:48.480 titanic achievement that even the most hardened critics have to 0:08:48.480 --> 0:08:52.400 give Kissinger. He restored diplomatic relations between the United States 0:08:52.400 --> 0:08:54.840 and China. Now, this is a huge deal, no matter 0:08:54.880 --> 0:08:57.480 how you slice it. For a brief primer, China had 0:08:57.480 --> 0:09:00.320 them a big old civil war between the communists who one, 0:09:00.760 --> 0:09:03.760 and the nationalists who we backed, who we were called like, 0:09:03.800 --> 0:09:07.160 you know, democrats, republicans, whatever like called democratic forces. They 0:09:07.160 --> 0:09:09.559 had you know them a dictator as it always is. Um. 0:09:09.640 --> 0:09:13.120 He was a dude named Chang Kai shek Um And yeah, 0:09:13.200 --> 0:09:15.839 malt wins in ninety nine Shanghai Check and his forces 0:09:15.880 --> 0:09:17.480 take all the gold they can carry, and they flee 0:09:17.520 --> 0:09:20.079 to Taiwan. And for the next thirty years, the United 0:09:20.120 --> 0:09:23.080 States refuses to acknowledge the legitimacy of the Chinese state 0:09:23.120 --> 0:09:25.240 and deal with it directly. In one of the most 0:09:25.360 --> 0:09:29.160 unhinged decisions in the history of US foreign policy, decades 0:09:29.200 --> 0:09:33.400 of presidents pretend Taiwan it's the real China, Like Taiwan 0:09:33.440 --> 0:09:36.760 has a permanent seat on the the U. N. Security Council. 0:09:37.160 --> 0:09:40.280 That is China's seat, but taiwanas you can look on 0:09:40.320 --> 0:09:49.800 a map, it is somewhat smaller than actual China. What 0:09:49.800 --> 0:09:53.640 we're doing, it's like what we're doing in Venezuela. Yeah, 0:09:53.640 --> 0:10:00.000 it's like yeah, like that guy is the president, Like yeah, right, Yeah. 0:10:00.040 --> 0:10:01.280 It's one of those things like you don't have to 0:10:01.320 --> 0:10:03.840 be a fan of Mao to recognize this as stupid, 0:10:04.000 --> 0:10:06.120 Like Mao is in the head of a government that 0:10:06.280 --> 0:10:09.040 is this basically a whole continent, and you're just pretending 0:10:09.040 --> 0:10:13.640 he's not. And that's nuts. Um, the emperor has no land. Yeah, 0:10:13.679 --> 0:10:18.520 it's craziness. Um, it's stupid. Uh yeah. And in fairness again, 0:10:18.559 --> 0:10:20.520 because we're about to talk about like Kissinger had nothing 0:10:20.520 --> 0:10:22.080 to do with this, right, Kissinger is not why we 0:10:22.120 --> 0:10:25.080 refuse to recognize the existence of the Chinese government. This 0:10:25.160 --> 0:10:27.439 is a dumb thing that when he comes into power, 0:10:27.520 --> 0:10:30.559 he and Nixon are both very astutely recognized as a 0:10:30.640 --> 0:10:32.920 dumb thing, and they don't want this to continue, and 0:10:32.960 --> 0:10:36.840 it is it is hard to overstate how dangerous this 0:10:36.920 --> 0:10:40.360 state of affairs is. Um for one reason, after stalindize 0:10:40.400 --> 0:10:44.000 in nineteen fifty three, relations between the USSR and Mouse 0:10:44.080 --> 0:10:47.640 China steadily decline. In nineteen sixty four, the year China 0:10:47.679 --> 0:10:51.840 conducts their first successful nuclear tests, diplomatic relations breakdown between 0:10:51.840 --> 0:10:55.960 both communist nations. So now you have three massive empires, 0:10:56.200 --> 0:10:58.640 all of whom are armed with nukes, none of whom 0:10:58.640 --> 0:11:03.320 are directly talking to each other. Like this is a 0:11:03.360 --> 0:11:07.079 bad situation, um and Kissinger does recognize how dangerous the 0:11:07.120 --> 0:11:09.760 status quo is. Now. In nineteen sixty nine, China and 0:11:09.760 --> 0:11:12.760 the Soviet Union have a series of border skirmishes. Their 0:11:12.760 --> 0:11:16.120 soldiers are shooting at each other, Moscow threatens to start 0:11:16.160 --> 0:11:19.040 dropping nukes, and for a time the Chinese government conducts 0:11:19.040 --> 0:11:23.320 its affairs from underground bunkers. Again very reasonable that Nixon 0:11:23.360 --> 0:11:24.920 ni Kissinger are like, well, we should probably have some 0:11:24.960 --> 0:11:27.719 way to fucking call these people on the goddamn phone, right, 0:11:27.760 --> 0:11:31.520 Like this seems bad. Let's just get a phone. Let's 0:11:31.520 --> 0:11:33.760 get a fucking phone. You would think it would be 0:11:33.800 --> 0:11:35.800 that simple, Dave, But we're gonna talk for about an 0:11:35.840 --> 0:11:41.120 hour and ten minutes about how it's not. So. By 0:11:41.160 --> 0:11:44.000 the time nineteen seventy one comes around, Nixon and Kissinger 0:11:44.040 --> 0:11:46.280 were also both looking for a major diplomatic coup that 0:11:46.320 --> 0:11:48.560 could distract from the fact that they hadn't quite managed 0:11:48.559 --> 0:11:50.440 to in that whole Vietnam War thing, and had in 0:11:50.480 --> 0:11:53.360 fact made it all very much worse. There's also some 0:11:53.440 --> 0:11:55.400 rational self interest in here, you know, whatever else you 0:11:55.400 --> 0:11:56.840 can say about them, I don't think either of these 0:11:56.880 --> 0:11:59.040 men want to die, and they recognize like, well, this 0:11:59.040 --> 0:12:01.120 could cause a nuclear or that ends all life on earth, 0:12:01.120 --> 0:12:04.680 including us. We should probably deal with this. Yeah. Yeah, 0:12:04.760 --> 0:12:07.880 they finally realized that life is actually has purpose once 0:12:07.880 --> 0:12:10.040 it's there. Yeah. It's also one of those this is 0:12:10.040 --> 0:12:12.920 getting a little off topic, but like people talk about, 0:12:13.400 --> 0:12:15.200 you will see, at least on the right people say like, well, 0:12:15.240 --> 0:12:17.240 you know, if the nationalists had won the Chinese Civil War, 0:12:17.280 --> 0:12:19.520 a lot less people would have died. And it's like, well, 0:12:19.559 --> 0:12:21.640 the specific things Mao did that killed a lot of 0:12:21.640 --> 0:12:23.920 people wouldn't have been done. But if Chang Kai shek 0:12:24.000 --> 0:12:28.439 is in charge of China and like, while China is communist, 0:12:28.600 --> 0:12:30.679 they almost get in a nuclear fight with the U. 0:12:30.760 --> 0:12:33.839 S s R. Do you think, like right wing Chen 0:12:33.920 --> 0:12:36.719 Kai check led China is less likely to have a 0:12:36.800 --> 0:12:40.079 nuclear fight with the Soviets? Would the hard nosed version. Yeah, 0:12:40.160 --> 0:12:42.560 what is it like if they're not on the same 0:12:42.640 --> 0:12:46.960 ideological side. Yeah, people don't talk a lot about the 0:12:46.960 --> 0:12:49.080 fact that the U. S s Are and Communist China 0:12:49.200 --> 0:12:54.720 nearly nearly nuked each other, just like the Ares. And 0:12:54.800 --> 0:12:59.000 also Mao killed landlords. So are those people well fair? Yeah, 0:12:59.400 --> 0:13:02.480 some of them were landlords. It's not the landlords were 0:13:02.480 --> 0:13:04.920 complaining about. It's the you know, the people who didn't 0:13:04.920 --> 0:13:07.800 have grain. But that's a story for a completely different 0:13:07.800 --> 0:13:10.480 set of days. At this point in time, you've got 0:13:10.480 --> 0:13:12.960 two countries that should three countries that should all be 0:13:13.040 --> 0:13:15.640 talking on the basis that they all individually have the 0:13:15.679 --> 0:13:18.679 ability to end all life on earth, and they're not. 0:13:18.880 --> 0:13:21.240 And and Kissinger is like, you know what I can 0:13:21.280 --> 0:13:23.280 get in here. You know, I can make this work. 0:13:23.440 --> 0:13:25.920 I can make this work. Um. And also it will 0:13:25.960 --> 0:13:29.280 help us win an election. Um. So it just so happens. 0:13:29.440 --> 0:13:31.960 That is also a time in which China is willing 0:13:32.000 --> 0:13:34.520 to sit down with the United States. Maw wants us 0:13:34.600 --> 0:13:38.319 help negotiating with the Soviets, which is very strange and 0:13:38.720 --> 0:13:41.840 like the does not make a lot of Yeah, I 0:13:41.880 --> 0:13:45.520 can't talk to these guys, can't talk to someone who 0:13:45.559 --> 0:13:49.160 else can't talk to these Nixon, you love communists, git 0:13:49.280 --> 0:13:56.040 in here. Um, you know, it's just the you've got 0:13:56.080 --> 0:13:58.560 like the way the Cold War is portrayed from the 0:13:58.600 --> 0:14:01.439 thousand yard view to people like watching the propaganda of 0:14:01.480 --> 0:14:04.680 whatever state. And then you've got like Mao being like, hey, Nixon, 0:14:04.720 --> 0:14:07.679 I need your help to deal with the Soviets. I 0:14:07.800 --> 0:14:12.000 need a rational partner, and Nixon being drunk. You know, 0:14:12.440 --> 0:14:15.600 you know who's gonna get me Win Sinch, me Richard Millhouse, 0:14:15.720 --> 0:14:21.720 Nixon the election at seventy two. MAUSEI dung it is 0:14:21.800 --> 0:14:24.560 it is weird politics. And this it's almost like it's 0:14:24.560 --> 0:14:31.000 almost like there's only there's only three people in the world. Yes, yes, um, 0:14:31.040 --> 0:14:33.800 so this is uh you know, and Nixon, yeah once once. 0:14:34.000 --> 0:14:36.160 Nixon is very much down to talk with China. But 0:14:36.200 --> 0:14:39.600 it is not that simple because since the diplomatic situation 0:14:39.640 --> 0:14:41.960 has been done for so very long, there aren't like 0:14:42.160 --> 0:14:44.600 US diplomats in China that we can like send a 0:14:44.600 --> 0:14:47.400 message through, right like you literally don't have those ties. 0:14:47.800 --> 0:14:50.360 So the US does have ways of communicating with the 0:14:50.400 --> 0:14:53.040 Chinese government there through back channels, though, because you can't 0:14:53.040 --> 0:14:55.640 admit publicly that you're doing it because Taiwan is your 0:14:55.640 --> 0:14:58.120 ally and Taiwan doesn't want to acknowledge that the Chinese 0:14:58.160 --> 0:15:01.360 government is legitimate government. Very um. One of the back 0:15:01.440 --> 0:15:04.520 channels is through the leader of Communist Romania, Nikolai Chechescu, 0:15:05.040 --> 0:15:08.400 and the other, oh, Nikolai Nikolaia is not the bad 0:15:08.400 --> 0:15:16.320 guy of this story. Is your hero, not your hero, 0:15:16.440 --> 0:15:19.080 but let's call him a benign force in this specific 0:15:19.120 --> 0:15:25.080 in yeah. The other is through the military dictator of Pakistan, 0:15:25.440 --> 0:15:29.360 General Adha Mohammed Yaya Khan. Now we should probably talk 0:15:29.360 --> 0:15:31.760 a little bit of history here. In seven, the British 0:15:31.800 --> 0:15:35.160 gave up ruling over the Indian subcontinent finally. As a rule, 0:15:35.200 --> 0:15:38.480 whenever colonial powers leave their former possessions, they attempted to 0:15:38.480 --> 0:15:41.240 set up states based on their pre existing alliances and 0:15:41.360 --> 0:15:44.200 racial biases. This is why we have, for example, the 0:15:44.360 --> 0:15:47.760 entire modern map of the Middle East. In this case 0:15:47.760 --> 0:15:50.400 of the Indian Subcontinent, what had once been a colony 0:15:50.440 --> 0:15:54.640 was split into India and Pakistan. India is obviously Hindu majority, 0:15:54.640 --> 0:15:57.320 in Pakistan as a Muslim majority nation. Now, if you 0:15:57.360 --> 0:16:00.800 know your English colonialists, you know they're not very good maps. 0:16:00.840 --> 0:16:03.880 So the Brits divvying up the subcontinent, decide that Pakistan 0:16:03.960 --> 0:16:07.000 should include two huge chunks of land separated by more 0:16:07.000 --> 0:16:10.240 than a thousand miles of India. West Pakistan is the 0:16:10.240 --> 0:16:14.240 Pakistan we know and love today, right, classic Pakistan, like 0:16:14.280 --> 0:16:18.040 the Yeah, East Pakistan is like the new Coke of Pakistan, 0:16:18.240 --> 0:16:21.880 except for now it's Bangladesh, right, Um, But at the 0:16:21.920 --> 0:16:24.800 time Bangladesh is East Pakistan. And there's just like a 0:16:24.800 --> 0:16:28.080 whole funkload to India in between the two, which is 0:16:28.440 --> 0:16:30.840 there's like a line that Pakistani people will say at 0:16:30.840 --> 0:16:33.160 the time that like East and West Pakistan are only 0:16:33.240 --> 0:16:39.400 united by religion. Um, the English language and Pakistan Airlines 0:16:39.960 --> 0:16:43.600 and by far, Pakistan Airlines is the strongest of the three. Um. 0:16:44.160 --> 0:16:49.720 Cool England once again, I mean, just guy, what do 0:16:49.760 --> 0:16:51.560 you say we put a blind photo on and then 0:16:51.640 --> 0:16:55.240 trying to pin the town on this junk and the 0:16:55.240 --> 0:16:58.440 the fact that Indian partition, that England partitions India at all, 0:16:58.520 --> 0:17:01.720 is a humanitarian crisis an incomprehensible scale. As many as 0:17:01.760 --> 0:17:04.679 two million people died, often as the result of horrific 0:17:04.760 --> 0:17:07.600 racial or religious violence. And Henry Kiston just hearing that, like, 0:17:07.680 --> 0:17:11.399 hold on, I'm getting hard. I can do better. That's nothing. 0:17:12.000 --> 0:17:15.520 I can beat those rookie numbers. A week Where do 0:17:15.560 --> 0:17:20.320 I send congratulations? Cord tended twenty millionaire displaced. But even 0:17:20.320 --> 0:17:22.800 though East and West Pakistan are supposed to be united 0:17:22.800 --> 0:17:26.280 by faith, there's like massive ethnic divides, right, Like they're not. 0:17:26.359 --> 0:17:28.959 The fact that they're all ostensibly Muslim does not mean anything, 0:17:28.960 --> 0:17:31.520 because like they're completely different parts of the world with 0:17:31.640 --> 0:17:34.600 completely different chuncks of history. Right, And at least America 0:17:34.720 --> 0:17:38.040 learns this lesson. Yes, thankfully, we we get this right. 0:17:38.160 --> 0:17:40.400 You know, by the time we get into Pakistan, we're 0:17:40.400 --> 0:17:42.960 done with the stupid stuff. We're faking a vaccine drive 0:17:43.000 --> 0:17:49.639 in order to steal people's blood. Yeah, they're good. Guys 0:17:49.640 --> 0:17:55.320 are back. You know how to fix this? Yeah? Um 0:17:55.320 --> 0:17:58.760 so yeah, here's the Smithsonian magazine kind of laying out 0:17:58.800 --> 0:18:01.840 the relationship between East and West Pakistan. By the time 0:18:01.960 --> 0:18:04.880 Kissinger and Nixon take office, with most of the ruling 0:18:04.920 --> 0:18:08.040 elite having immigrated westward from India, West Pakistan was chosen 0:18:08.080 --> 0:18:10.639 as the nation's political center. Between nineteen forty seven and 0:18:10.720 --> 0:18:13.840 nineteen seventy, East Pakistan had only twenty five percent of 0:18:13.840 --> 0:18:16.600 the country's industrial investments and thirty percent of its imports, 0:18:16.600 --> 0:18:20.160 despite producing fifty nine percent of the country's exports. West 0:18:20.200 --> 0:18:24.280 Pakistani elites saw their Eastern countrymen as culturally and ethnically inferior, 0:18:24.520 --> 0:18:26.880 and an attempt to make Urdu the national language less 0:18:26.920 --> 0:18:29.080 than ten percent of the population of East Pakistan had 0:18:29.080 --> 0:18:31.600 a working knowledge of Urdu was seen as further proof 0:18:31.600 --> 0:18:34.080 that East Pakistan's interests would be ignored by the government. 0:18:34.280 --> 0:18:37.960 Making matters worse, the powerful, powerful Bolas cyclone hit East 0:18:37.960 --> 0:18:41.879 Bangladesh in November of nineteen seventy, killing three hundred thousand people. 0:18:42.160 --> 0:18:45.320 Despite having more resources at their disposal, West Pakistan offered 0:18:45.320 --> 0:18:48.760 a sluggish response to the disaster. As French journalist Paul 0:18:48.840 --> 0:18:52.080 Dreyfus said of the situation, over the years, West Pakistan 0:18:52.119 --> 0:18:55.680 behaved like a poorly raised, egotistical guest, devouring the best 0:18:55.720 --> 0:18:58.760 dishes and leaving nothing but scraps and leftovers for East Pakistan. 0:18:59.800 --> 0:19:03.560 So school, it's not great. It's not great. And Pakistan's 0:19:03.960 --> 0:19:06.840 military is what's in charge, right, It's a military dictatorship. 0:19:06.880 --> 0:19:09.479 They run everything and they are hyper focused on India, 0:19:09.520 --> 0:19:13.960 who is their primary geopolitical rival. In nineteen Pakistan attempts 0:19:14.000 --> 0:19:16.840 to invade cash Mere, sparking a vicious conflict. And I'm 0:19:16.880 --> 0:19:20.360 not giving you the whole the detail of the conflict 0:19:20.400 --> 0:19:23.520 between India and Pakistan. Please don't take this as me 0:19:23.680 --> 0:19:25.440 throwing all of the blame on one side or the other. 0:19:25.520 --> 0:19:27.359 This is just like the Barsted Cliffs notes, because we 0:19:27.400 --> 0:19:30.280 have a lot to cover in this episode. Um, and 0:19:30.320 --> 0:19:32.320 the US, it's worth noting, had been selling arms to 0:19:32.359 --> 0:19:39.520 both countries in nineteen six. Yeah, I know, American strange. 0:19:40.080 --> 0:19:44.640 Come on, so our history is so different. Lbj's administration 0:19:44.680 --> 0:19:46.760 was forced by public outcry as a result of this 0:19:46.800 --> 0:19:50.480 to issue an arms embargo on both nations. Pakistan saw 0:19:50.520 --> 0:19:52.960 the embargo is unfairly harming them, and as a result, 0:19:53.040 --> 0:19:55.359 there was bad blood among the high command towards the 0:19:55.400 --> 0:19:59.359 Democratic Johnson administration. By the time Kissinger and Nixon are 0:19:59.400 --> 0:20:02.080 in the White House, the president of Pakistan is again 0:20:02.080 --> 0:20:05.240 this guy Yahya Khan. We'll just call him Yaya because 0:20:05.240 --> 0:20:09.280 it's fun to say. Yeah. Um. He took power in 0:20:09.320 --> 0:20:11.720 March of nineteen sixty nine by forcing out another general 0:20:11.720 --> 0:20:15.640 in instituting martial law. Kissinger once wrote of him, yah 0:20:15.720 --> 0:20:18.000 Ya is tough, direct and with a good sense of humor. 0:20:18.080 --> 0:20:20.320 He talks in a very clipped way. Is a splendid 0:20:20.320 --> 0:20:23.320 product of Sandhurst and affects a sort of social naivete. 0:20:23.400 --> 0:20:27.440 But it's probably much more complicated than this. Now, Sandhurst 0:20:27.520 --> 0:20:29.960 is like the British Royal Military Academy. It's like a 0:20:30.080 --> 0:20:34.920 broadly speaking British West Point. Um. Yahya affected an English air. 0:20:35.000 --> 0:20:37.119 He carried like a swagger stick. He dresses like he's 0:20:37.119 --> 0:20:40.840 a British officer. He acts like he's a British officer. Right. Um. 0:20:40.880 --> 0:20:45.280 He is also a raging alcoholic, one of Haistani politician noted. 0:20:45.359 --> 0:20:48.359 He starts with Kooniak for breakfast and continues drinking throughout 0:20:48.359 --> 0:20:50.879 the day night, often finding him in a sodden state. 0:20:51.920 --> 0:20:58.600 So he's a break just a drunk dude who always 0:20:58.600 --> 0:21:07.120 carries a stick for hitting horse. It's very ton h Yeah, 0:21:07.160 --> 0:21:11.399 I mean Churchill drank a too, right, I mean yes, absolutely, 0:21:11.560 --> 0:21:15.199 It's just something about kay was on meth for a 0:21:15.280 --> 0:21:20.919 decent chunk of his early presidency. Wow, it's we're like 0:21:21.080 --> 0:21:23.240 when we point out that a guy like Yahya is drunk, 0:21:23.280 --> 0:21:26.080 it is not to contrast him with Western leaders. Is 0:21:26.320 --> 0:21:31.480 just some kind of aren't drunk? I think I think um, um, 0:21:31.480 --> 0:21:34.199 what's his name? The guy who came after Nixon but 0:21:34.240 --> 0:21:38.080 not right after Carter, probably pretty sober in the White House. Yeah, 0:21:38.119 --> 0:21:42.040 but his brother was making brother. But I was like, 0:21:42.080 --> 0:21:46.280 I'll tell you, well, I'll drink from German. I'll problem. Oh, 0:21:46.359 --> 0:21:49.639 Billy Billy Carter should have been the president and we 0:21:49.640 --> 0:21:55.439 would have gotten some ship done. Honestly, I'm fine with that. 0:21:55.600 --> 0:21:57.840 I'm fine with that different trajectory. Let's see what he 0:21:58.000 --> 0:22:03.120 Cole bad could pocket. Let's dance. In nineteen seventy, Yah 0:22:03.160 --> 0:22:05.240 Yah decides to hold an election which is meant to 0:22:05.240 --> 0:22:07.119 be more for show than anything else. Right, it's this 0:22:07.160 --> 0:22:10.359 thing you do because he's Pakistan is definitely India is 0:22:10.359 --> 0:22:12.000 a neutral country. They're not on the side of the 0:22:12.040 --> 0:22:14.560 Soviet Union or the US and the stupid Cold War thing. 0:22:14.600 --> 0:22:16.960 They're very intelligently like, what what does it benefit us 0:22:17.040 --> 0:22:20.119 to pick one side? Like fun that stuff. Um. But 0:22:20.200 --> 0:22:22.919 they also because India has got much more of a 0:22:22.960 --> 0:22:26.320 socialist especially early on, is much more of a socialist government, 0:22:26.560 --> 0:22:29.320 there's a lot of distrust from them in the United States, 0:22:29.520 --> 0:22:32.639 and Pakistan really leans on that to be buddy buddy 0:22:32.680 --> 0:22:35.080 with the United States more um and one of the 0:22:35.119 --> 0:22:37.840 ways as part of like his attempts to get closer 0:22:37.840 --> 0:22:39.600 and closer to the US because he wants arms like 0:22:39.640 --> 0:22:42.440 everybody who gets buddy buddy with the U. S Um 0:22:42.520 --> 0:22:44.640 Yah Yah decides to hold an election because we love 0:22:44.640 --> 0:22:47.199 seeing people have elections. We don't really care how they go, 0:22:47.480 --> 0:22:50.520 but we like seeing them. You know. Um, it's sport, 0:22:50.840 --> 0:22:53.920 it's sport. Yeah, So he's allowed, he has a selection 0:22:53.960 --> 0:22:56.879 and his plan is to like basically rig it so 0:22:56.920 --> 0:22:59.320