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Speaker 1: Also media.

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Speaker 2: Oh what, I don't even know. I don't even know.

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Speaker 2: It's like three days before the election.

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Speaker 3: I had a milkshake.

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Speaker 2: You look so happy when you were drinking it, though. Tired,

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Speaker 2: Oh yeah, no, it's great. Tired of everything, my everyone.

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Speaker 2: I know.

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Speaker 3: I'm wearing a hoodie.

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Speaker 2: I'm wearing a hoodie. You guys, mm hmmm. Oh I

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Speaker 2: am good stuff, good stuff. So how's uh, how's everyone doing?

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Speaker 2: How's how were y'all feeling.

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Speaker 3: The aforementioned high on sugar? Yeah, I'm uh.

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Speaker 1: I've worked out really hard today, so I'm a little sore.

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Speaker 2: I worked out a bit. I need to finish after this.

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Speaker 2: But you know who never works out, Margaret.

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Speaker 3: Uh, colonialism and ever world out?

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Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean that's true. And I mean also, none

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Speaker 2: of the people in this podcast episode work out anymore

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Speaker 2: because they're all they've all been dead for decades. Oh,

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Speaker 2: because we're talking about World War One. Yeah, there we go.

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Speaker 2: That more or less worked.

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Speaker 3: Yeah.

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Speaker 2: When we last left our friend Lawrence, he had just

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Speaker 2: met auDA Abu Tayi of the Howitat tribe and Feisal,

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Speaker 2: and auDA had decided that, with Lawrence's help, they were

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Speaker 2: going to make an attack on the city of Akaba

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Speaker 2: from the north. Now, this is kind of like the

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Speaker 2: major central like action scene is beautiful in the movie.

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Speaker 2: They they shoot it as this absolutely gorgeous like cavalry charge.

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Speaker 2: And the gist of what's happening here is that Akaba

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Speaker 2: is this port city. It's got a bunch of guns

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Speaker 2: that are trained on the sea, and after the disaster

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Speaker 2: that had been you know, Gallipoli, the British aren't really

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Speaker 2: interested in trying to take this critical port city by

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Speaker 2: like a sea a naval invasion because that just doesn't

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Speaker 2: tend to work out very well for them in this period.

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Speaker 3: So they have to call upon the riders of Rohan.

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Speaker 2: They do have to call upon the riders of Rohan.

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Speaker 2: And the reason why this has a chance of working

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Speaker 2: is that Lawrence is going to kind of Lawrence's idea

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Speaker 2: that he and there's some debate here as to like

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Speaker 2: who specifically decided to attack Akaba, but Lawrence seems to

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Speaker 2: be the one who is, like, I can take instead

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Speaker 2: of like marching in from either of the sides they expect.

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Speaker 2: The kind of back of this city is to this

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Speaker 2: vast desert that is considered impassable because like how would

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Speaker 2: you get a bunch of guys on foot across this right, Like,

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Speaker 2: it's just absolutely some of the deadliest terrain on planet Earth.

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Speaker 2: And Lawrence is like, if we get a small force,

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Speaker 2: you know, we can take this tiny gorilla and it's

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Speaker 2: literally just a few dozen guys across this vast desert

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Speaker 2: and then cross into the portion of Syria where the

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Speaker 2: Hawatat keep their spring pastures, and we can find all

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Speaker 2: the people who live in this area, rally them to

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Speaker 2: our banner, and attack Akaba. According to Lawrence, when he

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Speaker 2: broached this plan to Aouda, Aouda's response was all Gondor Yeah, yeah,

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Speaker 2: where was gondor when the when the Westfold fell? No,

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Speaker 2: although he does give like I would say, an equally

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Speaker 2: cool response to anything in the Lord of the Rings,

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Speaker 2: he says, all things are possible with dynamite and English gold.

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Speaker 2: That's an that's an an eternal truth. Enough dynamite and

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Speaker 2: English gold, I feel like I could do anything too. Yeah, yeah,

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Speaker 2: now this is you know, there's a bit of debate

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Speaker 2: here as to like the extent to which Lawrence was

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Speaker 2: kind of central to all the planning here. In twenty fourteen,

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Speaker 2: Iraqi historian Ali Alawi published a biography of Faisal, who,

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Speaker 2: after the Great Arab Revolt, went on to be the

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Speaker 2: first King of Iraq. His reappraisal of Feisal suggests that

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Speaker 2: Lawrence was not the one to suggest Akaba as a

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Speaker 2: location to attack, and that Feisal made that call on

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Speaker 2: his own. Now, I kind of feel like the the

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Speaker 2: fact that Lawrence gets a lot gets credit for coming

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Speaker 2: up with the idea of going after Akkaba in the

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Speaker 2: first place is less Lawrence's fault and more sort of

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Speaker 2: the fault of that Peter O'Toole movie. Because I went

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Speaker 2: through Seven Pillars of Wisdom and I read the portions

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Speaker 2: of the book which discuss Akaba, and there aren't a

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Speaker 2: whole lot. There's not a whole lot of a Kaba

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Speaker 2: talk in the book, not a whole lot of Akaba Takaba.

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Speaker 2: And it does not seem like what's in there from

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Speaker 2: what's in there, I know I had to do it.

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Speaker 2: I had to do it. It doesn't seem like to

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Speaker 2: me like Lawrence was taking credit for the idea itself

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Speaker 2: just to attack the city. In fact, he notes that

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Speaker 2: Feisal was unable to participate in the attack, which quote

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Speaker 2: through the Ungrateful load of this Northern expedition upon myself,

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Speaker 2: which sounds like he's saying it was not my idea,

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Speaker 2: but Feisal was, you know, had to stay his base

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Speaker 2: for this, so I had to like handle the implementation,

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Speaker 2: right oka. And he describes the fact that like he

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Speaker 2: had to be the one on the ground doing it

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Speaker 2: as leading to a dishonest implication, which I interpreted him

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Speaker 2: being kind of uncomfortable with being given credit for dreaming

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Speaker 2: up and executing the whole campaign.

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Speaker 3: Which is probably one of the biggest problems with him

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Speaker 3: in general, right, is how people like view him as

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Speaker 3: like the one white guy who saved everyone or right right?

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Speaker 2: Which is I mean? And I hope it's hard in

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Speaker 2: a podcast episode focused on Lawrence, because there's so many

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Speaker 2: people involved on every side of this to not have

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Speaker 2: it seem like you are. I mean. And he does

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Speaker 2: play a central role, but he's also not the only

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Speaker 2: shot guy. He's not the only shot he's certainly not

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Speaker 2: the major shot collar on the British side either, right,

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Speaker 2: Like General Allenby up in Palestine is making a lot

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Speaker 2: of calls and making a lot of direction, Feisal is

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Speaker 2: a major player here, and I think actually seven Pillars

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Speaker 2: gives a pretty fair accounting of how that all actually

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Speaker 2: worked out, and despite how central Akaba is to the movie,

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Speaker 2: the actual battle the capture of the city only merits

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Speaker 2: a couple of sentences in but really just a sentence

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Speaker 2: because all he writes about it in the book is

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Speaker 2: we tricked the Turks and entered Akaba with good fortune, right,

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Speaker 2: which is not like to be blown up into the

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Speaker 2: absolute like center of this like four hour epic movie.

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Speaker 2: Very funny is this?

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Speaker 3: Now, they didn't do this with thirty six guys. They

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Speaker 3: did this, but the thirty six guys went and got

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Speaker 3: out and.

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Speaker 2: Got other guys. Right. It was the thirty six or

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Speaker 2: so far, I think it was like forty five or

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Speaker 2: whatever that crossed the desert. And this is this is

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Speaker 2: an amazing feat. It's like one of the most impressive

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Speaker 2: feats of insurgent warfare because they they cross this massive,

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Speaker 2: absolutely merciless desert with just literally nothing but what they

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Speaker 2: are able to carry on them with their camels. Lawrence

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Speaker 2: and forty five men and each of his fighters. All

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Speaker 2: they have on them is a forty five pound sack

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Speaker 2: of a flower and all of the water they can carry.

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Speaker 2: That's all they have. With them to keep them alive,

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Speaker 2: rubber heroes. Just a huge sack of flower. Well, it

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Speaker 2: won't go bad, you know, not in the time that

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Speaker 2: you're out there. And I guess, like, yeah, that's that's

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Speaker 2: all you got, flour and water to keep you moving.

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Speaker 3: I mean sometimes raw calories will do. She said, high

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Speaker 3: on sugar.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, no, that's it's completely changed my prepping load out.

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Speaker 2: All I keep in my truck is ninety pounds of

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Speaker 2: flour in a bunch of water.

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Speaker 3: Yeah. And the camel trailer was a good touch.

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Speaker 2: Yeah. Yeah, I do have a camel.

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Speaker 3: Yeah.

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Speaker 2: It's miserable here, a horrible place to have a camel.

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Speaker 2: They do not do well in the Pacific Northwest.

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Speaker 3: It's like huskies in New Orleans.

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Speaker 2: Yeah. I think a big part of like why Akaba

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Speaker 2: gets so so much focus is that it is kind

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Speaker 2: of the first time Lawrence becomes a celebrity. Because at

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Speaker 2: the time in which they successfully take Akaba, the Brits

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Speaker 2: are kind of hungry for a win. The Western Front

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Speaker 2: is mostly bad, Like even the good news is really

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Speaker 2: bad news. Gallipoli was this catastrophe, and so the fact

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Speaker 2: that like this is they're going to take this strategically

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Speaker 2: important city from the Turks quite easily is a big deal.

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Speaker 2: So after two hideous months, it takes them two months

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Speaker 2: to cross the desert. Like that's how long they're living

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Speaker 2: off with a sack of flower desert oased a huge desert. Yeah,

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Speaker 2: like this is an incredible feat. Lawrence and his guys

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Speaker 2: reach the outskirts of Akaba, and by the time they

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Speaker 2: get to the city itself, their numbers have grown to

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Speaker 2: about a thousand. They recruit all these guys from the

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Speaker 2: local tribes in the area and the Turks, who were

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Speaker 2: slightly more competent in real life than in the movies.

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Speaker 2: The movie just shows Lawrence and his guy's writing and

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Speaker 2: this glorious rowhim cavalry charge and they just smash the Turks.

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Speaker 2: That's not at all what happens. They don't even actually

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Speaker 2: fight in Akaba. What happens is the Turks send a

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Speaker 2: five hundred and fifty man relief force to bolster a

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Speaker 2: Kapa's defense, and before they can get to the city,

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Speaker 2: Lawrence and his cavalry fall upon them in Ambush fort

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Speaker 2: or forty or so miles north of the city, in

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Speaker 2: a place named Wadi Abba Alissan. And this battle, there's

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Speaker 2: like a kind of funny like clown shit moment and

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Speaker 2: that like it starts with this again very lord of

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Speaker 2: the Ring shit. There's this argument between Lawrence and I

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Speaker 2: think it's Outa about like who's going to attack where first,

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Speaker 2: And finally Outa and his guy's charge in on one side,

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Speaker 2: and so Lawrence is like, fuck, we have to charge

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Speaker 2: it on the other, like just go, just go, just go,

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Speaker 2: you know, we can't let them like beat us to there.

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Speaker 2: And then as they're running, Lawrence is just like like

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Speaker 2: emptying his pistol like while charging on campmel back and

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Speaker 2: he shoots his camel in the head. auDA loses his

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Speaker 2: camel too. Outa has like fourteen bullet holes in his

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Speaker 2: gear when this battle ends, and I don't think any

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Speaker 2: of them actually hit his body. Like this guy is

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Speaker 2: just a like a fucking dull key Character's amazing. He's

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Speaker 2: got blot armor. Yes, he's got to. He's the main character.

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Speaker 2: Hell yeah. So as much of a shit show as

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Speaker 2: that kind of sounds like, the battle goes incredibly well.

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Speaker 2: They kill like three hundred something Turkish soldiers, absolutely destroy

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Speaker 2: this entire force, and Lawrence loses. Lawrence and and out

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Speaker 2: loose two men. Wow, yeah, which is like that's a

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Speaker 2: that's a big dub. That's about as well as the

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Speaker 2: battle could go. Yeah, so that's part of why this

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Speaker 2: becomes so like famous, you know overseas is like, wow,

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Speaker 2: what a fucking what a fucking coup. Now.

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Speaker 3: I hope it was a different camel than the one

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Speaker 3: that took him all the way across the desert. I

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Speaker 3: hope you like switch in there.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, Aerra Gord like charging at the fucking Battle of

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Speaker 2: pelenor Fields and excellently cuts fucking horses head off. Yeah,

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Speaker 2: Gandolf blasts a lightning bolt in the shadow facts. Yeah,

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Speaker 2: the King of Horses just tumbling as they hit the

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Speaker 2: Orc lines. I do also like to imagine that in

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Speaker 2: like Aerra Gorn's version of Seven Pillars of Wisdom, like

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Speaker 2: the whole Battle of Helm's Deep is just the Orcs

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Speaker 2: attack that said Helm's Deep and we won. We figured

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Speaker 2: it out, We figured it out, it was fine, our

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Speaker 2: friends came.

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Speaker 3: Yeah, well that is kind of like because Gandalf goes

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Speaker 3: off to get help, right, Yeah, so he's just like yeah, yeah, yeah,

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Speaker 3: he is the equivalent to him going through the desert anyway.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, now a big part of why Lawrence had

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Speaker 2: been so motivated to take a Kaba because like there

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Speaker 2: was debate, you know, should we should the French help

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Speaker 2: us out with this? Are the British going to like,

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Speaker 2: you know, attempt some sort of like landing Lawrence doesn't

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Speaker 2: want any Europeans in the city because at this point

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Speaker 2: there's a lot of debate. We don't really know when

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Speaker 2: he became aware of the sikes Pico agreement, which we're

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Speaker 2: going to talk about and explain here, but that's basically

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Speaker 2: the British French agreement that like split up the Middle

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Speaker 2: East under their spheres of influence. Right, we don't know

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Speaker 2: when Lawrence knew about it, But the actual answer is

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Speaker 2: probably that doesn't really matter, because he was aware of

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Speaker 2: the debate around what became sikes Picot right from pretty

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Speaker 2: much the beginning. So maybe he didn't know until late November,

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Speaker 2: you know, nineteen seventeen, when it got leaked out that

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Speaker 2: like this specific agreement had been signed, but he knew

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Speaker 2: that his leaders and the French were talking about carving

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Speaker 2: up the Arab world and he didn't want that to happen. Right,

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Speaker 2: He was okay with the idea of the British having

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Speaker 2: a sphere of influence in the Arab world. He didn't

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Speaker 2: want the French because again the French the genocide and stuff,

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Speaker 2: he's not happy with them, and he's in general like

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Speaker 2: he feels like there's this guilt that he's got kind

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Speaker 2: of this whole time with the idea that like, I

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Speaker 2: am fighting for Arab independence and I'm pretty sure my

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Speaker 2: side is going to betray these people, right, that we're

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Speaker 2: not going to live up to our promises. So a

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Speaker 2: big part of why he wants to take Akaba and

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Speaker 2: he wants the Arabs to take Akaba is the more

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Speaker 2: cities that they are in military control of when this

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Speaker 2: thing ends, the better their odds of keeping those cities

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Speaker 2: under their control. Right, Like, if the British or the

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Speaker 2: French occupy Akaba, there's no getting them out, you know,

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Speaker 2: like they're not going to lead, right, They're gonna set

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Speaker 2: us a sheep.

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Speaker 3: So, yeah, to do some terrorism in order to get

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Speaker 3: the British or the French to lead.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, But whereas you know, if if the Arabs are

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Speaker 2: running Akaba like they're running Mecca, and then the French

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Speaker 2: are like, okay, well we're gonna come in there. It's

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Speaker 2: a lot easier to be like, well, no, like we already,

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Speaker 2: we already have this set up. We're good.

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Speaker 3: Yeah, what a mind fuck for Lawrence because yeah, I mean,

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Speaker 3: like at least this version of him that's being presented,

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Speaker 3: which makes sense to me. Yeah, yeah, he wants what's best,

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Speaker 3: but he's like working within a flawed system and he

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Speaker 3: knows that not just a flaw system, but an evil system. Yes,

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Speaker 3: and he's like, oh, this is going to go badly, yes,

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Speaker 3: but still being like, well it's better than letting the Turks?

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Speaker 2: What else am I gonna do? It's he's he is.

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Speaker 2: He is in a very complicated situation, and there's a

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Speaker 2: lot to say about He is kind of lying to

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Speaker 2: all of these Arab guys that he claims to love

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Speaker 2: and consider brothers, right, He's he is not telling them

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Speaker 2: the full truth, but he is also lying and actively

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Speaker 2: kind of betraying England, like in a way because he

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Speaker 2: he's actively trying to like he's not telling his superior officers.

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Speaker 2: He didn't tell them that he's planning to even attack

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Speaker 2: Akaba this way, right, Like they don't find out until

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Speaker 2: the city gets taken because he doesn't want them to

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Speaker 2: make a move that would put them in the city. Right,

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Speaker 2: So he is kind of he's kind of I mean,

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Speaker 2: he's he's the situation he's in. He's kind of fucking

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Speaker 2: over everyone to some extent. But I think he is

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Speaker 2: overall trying to trying to secure what he sees as

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Speaker 2: a good outcome for the Arabs, right again, doing the

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Speaker 2: paternalistic thing. If he's not going to tell them necessarily

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Speaker 2: he does. There's some evidence that he eventually does kind

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Speaker 2: of that he does talk to like come out about

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Speaker 2: some of this to like Faisal, But it's all very

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Speaker 2: murky right Like again, this is skulduggery and spycraft.

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Speaker 3: I mean, I want the sixteen year old to have

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Speaker 3: been secretly planning the whole thing.

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Speaker 2: Right right. Yeah. Unfortunately we don't get a happy story

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Speaker 2: ending for Dome. Ok. Yeah, it's a bummer. So the

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Speaker 2: British government spins the Battle of Akaba into this like

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Speaker 2: massive thing for them because they really needed the good propaganda.

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Speaker 2: And when they start doing this, Lawrence he's got this

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Speaker 2: keen instinctive understanding of the moment that he inhabited. One

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Speaker 2: of the things that makes him like such a such

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Speaker 2: a an incredible figure here is that he has an

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Speaker 2: understanding not just of all these dynamics of insurgent warfare,

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Speaker 2: but of how propaganda plays into insurgent warfare and plays

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Speaker 2: into actually securing victory here. And he knows that now

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Speaker 2: that the British are invested in his success because they

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Speaker 2: need these wins, this is my best chance to get them,

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Speaker 2: to force them to deliver guns and support from my

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Speaker 2: Arab allies, which will allow them to take and hold

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Speaker 2: more cities, which is going to give them the best

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Speaker 2: odds of winning a state of their own and not

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Speaker 2: just being cut apart by the great powers. So again,

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Speaker 2: Lawrence is kind of aware of the broad strip strokes

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Speaker 2: of Syke's Pico. And to be clear, Sykes Pico never

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Speaker 2: actually gets instituted. When we talk about these significance. It's

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Speaker 2: not because they actually do Sykes Picot. It's because Sikes

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Speaker 2: Pico is an evidence of the ways in which the

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Speaker 2: British and French are talking about carving up the Middle East,

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Speaker 2: and what finally gets done looks a lot like what

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Speaker 2: Sykes Picot was planned to be, right, but it's not

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Speaker 2: exactly the same thing. Just to be clear here, because

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Speaker 2: like actual scholars will be like well, they never really did,

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Speaker 2: Sykes Picicau. It's just what happened was very similar, and

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Speaker 2: it's evidence that this is how they'd been talking, right, yeah,

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Speaker 2: for a long time. So at this point, the Brits

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Speaker 2: are still reeling from several failed assaults on Jerusalem, where

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Speaker 2: the Turks had beaten them back and established a dusty

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Speaker 2: desert version of the trench stalemate on the Western Front.

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Speaker 2: A general named George Allenby was brought in to clean

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Speaker 2: up the mess. And Alanby is more competent than most

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Speaker 2: British generals, we'll say that, right, Like, not that he's

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Speaker 2: got a spotless record here, but he's definitely like better

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Speaker 2: than the guys who had been doing this before. And

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Speaker 2: Lawrence knew that, you know. Once Allenby comes in as

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Speaker 2: the only British officer with a major victory behind him,

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Speaker 2: he was in a position to get a lot out

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Speaker 2: of it new boss. So he travels to where ALANB

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Speaker 2: is and I think I think Allenby's and Palestine at

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Speaker 2: this point, and he sits down with his boss to

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Speaker 2: get alan B to send guns to his men. Lawrence's

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Speaker 2: motivation here, according to Scott Anderson, was to sell allan

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Speaker 2: B the World War One general equivalent of heroin, which

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Speaker 2: is a promise that he can break a stalemate in front. Right,

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Speaker 2: Lawrence is like, I can stop the Turks from getting

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Speaker 2: relief forces from Medina up to I think Jerusalem. And

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Speaker 2: I can also, like basically ensure that you have as

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Speaker 2: good a chance to break this stalemate as possible by

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Speaker 2: carrying out my own offenses that pulls Turkish strength away. Right,

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Speaker 2: Just give me the guns, Just give me the guns.

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Speaker 2: And here's how Anderson describes it. Lawrence vastly exaggerated both

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Speaker 2: the strength and capability of those rebels already under arms

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Speaker 2: to paint an enticing picture of a military juggernaut, the

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Speaker 2: British advancing up the Palestine coast as the Arabs took

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Speaker 2: the fight to the Syrian interior. Now that's succinct and

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Speaker 2: overall accurate. But Laura, here's his own account of his

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Speaker 2: meeting with Allenby and Seven Pillars is much more colorful.

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Speaker 2: So I'm going to read that here because I just

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Speaker 2: really like the guy's writing. It was a comic interview.

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Speaker 2: For Alan b was physically large and confident and morally

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Speaker 2: so great that the comprehension of our littleness came slow

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Speaker 2: to him. He sat in his chair looking at me,

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Speaker 2: not straight as his custom was, but sideways, puzzled. He

356
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Speaker 2: was newly from France, where for years he had been

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Speaker 2: a tooth of the great machine grinding the enemy. He

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Speaker 2: was full of Western ideas of gunpowder and weight, the

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Speaker 2: worst training for our war. But as a cavalryman, was

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Speaker 2: already half persuaded to throw up the new school in

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Speaker 2: this different world of Asia and accompany Donne and chetwode

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Speaker 2: along the worn road of maneuver and movement. Yet he

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Speaker 2: was hardly prepared for anything so odd as myself, a

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Speaker 2: little barefooted silk skirted man offering to hobble the enemy

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Speaker 2: by his preaching, if given stores and arms and a

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Speaker 2: fund of two hundred thousand sovereigns to convince and control

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Speaker 2: his converts. Alan b could not make out how much

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Speaker 2: was genuine performer and how much Charloton. The problem was

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Speaker 2: working behind his eyes, and I left him unhelped to

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Speaker 2: solve it.

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Speaker 3: WHOA I left him unhelped.

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Speaker 2: I loved the way he writes.

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Speaker 3: He's like, yeah, I was lying him to figure it out.

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Speaker 2: He knew he knew I was, but he didn't know

375
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Speaker 2: how much not my job to figure that out for

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Speaker 2: him anyway. You know what I'm not gonna leave you

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Speaker 2: unhelped to do, listener is purchase the products and services

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Speaker 2: that support this podcast.

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Speaker 3: I'm gonna spend my money on gambling.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, that's that's where Lawrence would spend all of those

381
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Speaker 2: those sovereigns. You know that, really money is always on gambling. Yeah, yeah,

382
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Speaker 2: gamble out with your handle out, I don't know whatever.

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Speaker 2: Fuck it. Ah, we're back and we're talking t E. Lawrence.

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Speaker 2: So Lawrence is, you know, too canny to everything he Lauren,

385
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Speaker 2: t He Lawrence, that's right, t He because he's sneaky. Yeah,

386
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Speaker 2: so his own ambitions are a lot more modest than

387
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Speaker 2: what he's trying to sell. Alan beyond right, he doesn't

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Speaker 2: he doesn't really believe, you know, he knows the reality

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Speaker 2: of the strength of his forces, and he wants all

390
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Speaker 2: these guns to build a more disciplined insurgent movement that

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Speaker 2: will be kind of the core of this Arab state, right,

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Speaker 2: and part of what he wants, Like he's he's kind

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Speaker 2: of less focused on these big offensives that Alan be

394
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Speaker 2: wants because he understands that the tactics these Western Front

395
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Speaker 2: tactics had led his you know, were not the way

396
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Speaker 2: to win in the desert. So after Akaba he takes

397
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Speaker 2: he embarks on yet another like historically significant recon campaign.

398
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Speaker 2: He takes two men with him and alone against a

399
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Speaker 2: vast desert. They travel like a thousand miles or something like,

400
00:20:48,080 --> 00:20:51,760
Speaker 2: this massive journey scouting out all of these Turkish positions.

401
00:20:51,800 --> 00:20:55,600
Speaker 2: The whole operation was inspired by a recognition on Lawrence's

402
00:20:55,640 --> 00:20:58,919
Speaker 2: part that thus far the war had involved haphazard playing

403
00:20:59,000 --> 00:21:01,480
Speaker 2: with men in movement, and he saw that this had

404
00:21:01,520 --> 00:21:03,800
Speaker 2: worked for them, but largely out of luck. And quote

405
00:21:03,880 --> 00:21:06,639
Speaker 2: vowed to know henceforth before I moved where I was

406
00:21:06,680 --> 00:21:08,120
Speaker 2: going and by what roads.

407
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Speaker 3: No delegator.

408
00:21:10,040 --> 00:21:12,280
Speaker 2: This guy, he is not. He does a lot on

409
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Speaker 2: his own, like he. I think part of it is

410
00:21:14,400 --> 00:21:17,560
Speaker 2: that he can't really make these plans unless he feels

411
00:21:17,720 --> 00:21:20,440
Speaker 2: the ground beneath him, right, Like, that's just the kind

412
00:21:20,480 --> 00:21:24,240
Speaker 2: of thinker he is. I think he just also likes

413
00:21:24,240 --> 00:21:28,080
Speaker 2: it too, Yeah, totally. The purpose of this recon campaign

414
00:21:28,119 --> 00:21:30,000
Speaker 2: was to help Lawrence figure out how to build what

415
00:21:30,040 --> 00:21:34,040
Speaker 2: he called a ladder of tribes across Syria, eventually leading

416
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Speaker 2: from Akaba to Damascus. Describing this plan, James Schneider writes

417
00:21:38,560 --> 00:21:41,480
Speaker 2: the nature of the operations would be like naval war

418
00:21:41,560 --> 00:21:46,119
Speaker 2: in mobility, ubiquity, independence of bases and communications, ignoring of

419
00:21:46,200 --> 00:21:50,600
Speaker 2: ground features, of strategic areas, of fixed locations of fixed points.

420
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Speaker 2: Lawrence would command the desert camel raiding parties, self contained

421
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Speaker 2: like ships, might cruise confidently along the enemy's cultivation frontier,

422
00:21:58,840 --> 00:22:01,520
Speaker 2: sure of an unhindered retreat into their desert element which

423
00:22:01,560 --> 00:22:04,399
Speaker 2: the Turks could not explore. That's so interesting to be

424
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Speaker 2: that he's thinking about this like a naval war. Each

425
00:22:06,280 --> 00:22:09,760
Speaker 2: of these small insurgent squads is like a ship right

426
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Speaker 2: independent alone on the sea.

427
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Speaker 1: You know.

428
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Speaker 2: Yeah, it's so fluid and you have to think the

429
00:22:15,760 --> 00:22:18,920
Speaker 2: mind it takes to keep track of this as well

430
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Speaker 2: as he does. Yeah, not that he doesn't fuck up.

431
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Speaker 2: He's got after Akaba. There's a major defeat that like

432
00:22:24,880 --> 00:22:28,600
Speaker 2: he has kind of when he overstretches his his forces.

433
00:22:28,640 --> 00:22:31,159
Speaker 2: But like you know, for for the most part, this

434
00:22:31,240 --> 00:22:35,880
Speaker 2: is an extremely successful campaign. So during the ride into Akaba,

435
00:22:36,000 --> 00:22:38,720
Speaker 2: he had worked out exactly how far a unit of

436
00:22:38,760 --> 00:22:42,080
Speaker 2: camel riders could operate with a forty five pound bag

437
00:22:42,119 --> 00:22:44,880
Speaker 2: of flour and a pint of water. They could operate

438
00:22:44,920 --> 00:22:48,000
Speaker 2: alone for like six weeks, right, that's his assuming.

439
00:22:47,680 --> 00:22:49,320
Speaker 3: That I guess they're at getting water.

440
00:22:49,359 --> 00:22:51,720
Speaker 2: So yes, yes, they know where there are like places

441
00:22:51,720 --> 00:22:55,760
Speaker 2: to get water. And so these forces, these small straw, yeah,

442
00:22:55,920 --> 00:22:59,439
Speaker 2: life straw. These tiny units of camel riders just just

443
00:22:59,520 --> 00:23:02,560
Speaker 2: powered by flower and water have an operational range of

444
00:23:02,560 --> 00:23:05,800
Speaker 2: two thousand miles without re supply, right, that's how far

445
00:23:05,880 --> 00:23:06,440
Speaker 2: they can.

446
00:23:06,320 --> 00:23:07,960
Speaker 3: Go and rules.

447
00:23:08,080 --> 00:23:10,320
Speaker 2: Yeah, it's fucking cool. And when you look at that

448
00:23:10,440 --> 00:23:12,679
Speaker 2: range and you compare it to like an automan company

449
00:23:12,720 --> 00:23:15,439
Speaker 2: of infantry on foot can handle, which is like a

450
00:23:15,520 --> 00:23:18,439
Speaker 2: couple of miles past the railway, you see what a

451
00:23:18,560 --> 00:23:25,280
Speaker 2: nightmare he's created for the automance at these little rating parts. Absolutely, yeah, yeah,

452
00:23:25,480 --> 00:23:28,160
Speaker 2: it's like you are trying to fight a naval war

453
00:23:28,800 --> 00:23:32,000
Speaker 2: with infantry treading in the water, right, And that's what

454
00:23:32,040 --> 00:23:34,440
Speaker 2: the Turks are trying to do. Yeah, I'm going to

455
00:23:34,560 --> 00:23:37,800
Speaker 2: quote from Schneider again. Because of long standing feuds and jealousies,

456
00:23:37,840 --> 00:23:41,880
Speaker 2: it became virtually impossible to integrate or amalgamate the various tribes,

457
00:23:42,320 --> 00:23:45,359
Speaker 2: nor could one antithetic tribe operate in the territory of

458
00:23:45,359 --> 00:23:49,439
Speaker 2: another to overcome this organizational constraint, Lawrence operated in the

459
00:23:49,440 --> 00:23:53,200
Speaker 2: greatest dispersion possible, which contributed greatly to his agility, fluidity,

460
00:23:53,240 --> 00:23:58,439
Speaker 2: and mobility. Maximum disorganization created maximum articulation. As with a

461
00:23:58,480 --> 00:24:02,080
Speaker 2: box of legos, Lawrence could any organization and function as

462
00:24:02,160 --> 00:24:04,720
Speaker 2: unique as the new task at hand, for each mission

463
00:24:04,800 --> 00:24:07,200
Speaker 2: was unlike any other and had to be considered afresh.

464
00:24:07,520 --> 00:24:10,520
Speaker 2: The lego like articulation meant that the enemy response could

465
00:24:10,600 --> 00:24:13,359
Speaker 2: never develop a classic order of battle, for there was

466
00:24:13,440 --> 00:24:17,520
Speaker 2: no order, only disorder. His system was unsystematic.

467
00:24:18,760 --> 00:24:20,960
Speaker 3: That's cool. One of the things I'm really obsessed with

468
00:24:21,040 --> 00:24:27,040
Speaker 3: strategically is how chaotic forces can integrate into traditional war

469
00:24:27,200 --> 00:24:32,240
Speaker 3: and like, yeah, and how yeah, Like I think we

470
00:24:32,280 --> 00:24:34,080
Speaker 3: see this in activism all the time, is people try

471
00:24:34,119 --> 00:24:35,680
Speaker 3: to get all of these groups to be like, oh,

472
00:24:35,680 --> 00:24:38,000
Speaker 3: if only they were all under one command, and you're like,

473
00:24:38,240 --> 00:24:41,000
Speaker 3: you're not playing to your strengths at that point. Yeah, Like,

474
00:24:41,080 --> 00:24:44,920
Speaker 3: having diverse movements is stronger if you do it right.

475
00:24:45,280 --> 00:24:47,840
Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean because kind of the difficulty and the

476
00:24:48,160 --> 00:24:50,720
Speaker 2: trouble with you know, the kind of activist we know

477
00:24:50,880 --> 00:24:55,840
Speaker 2: is you need both, you need this maximum articulation rights.

478
00:24:55,960 --> 00:24:59,479
Speaker 2: As Schneider describes it, But you also do need a vision,

479
00:24:59,720 --> 00:25:04,360
Speaker 2: a central vision, because you have you have this ultimate disorganization,

480
00:25:04,480 --> 00:25:07,760
Speaker 2: this incredibly flat hierarchy compared to the other militaries of

481
00:25:07,800 --> 00:25:10,359
Speaker 2: the day, but you also have Lawrence at the center

482
00:25:10,400 --> 00:25:14,240
Speaker 2: of this spider web, pulling in each direction, right, like

483
00:25:14,359 --> 00:25:19,359
Speaker 2: making the actual like polls, which is is very tough.

484
00:25:19,400 --> 00:25:21,000
Speaker 2: There's not a lot of Lawrences out there.

485
00:25:21,359 --> 00:25:21,560
Speaker 3: Now.

486
00:25:22,200 --> 00:25:26,280
Speaker 2: I do love that line. Maximum disorganization created maximum articulation.

487
00:25:26,480 --> 00:25:30,040
Speaker 2: I think there's a lot of wisdom in that. So

488
00:25:30,080 --> 00:25:32,639
Speaker 2: a big part of why these forces work is that

489
00:25:32,760 --> 00:25:36,159
Speaker 2: unlike the vast conscript armies of the Western Front, Lawrence's

490
00:25:36,200 --> 00:25:40,080
Speaker 2: soldiers are all either believers or at least at least

491
00:25:40,119 --> 00:25:44,000
Speaker 2: there willingly for the money, right because like some of

492
00:25:44,000 --> 00:25:46,679
Speaker 2: these Lawrence kind of Lawrence talks them up. You know,

493
00:25:46,840 --> 00:25:49,879
Speaker 2: he has a line their only contract was honor, which

494
00:25:49,920 --> 00:25:53,000
Speaker 2: is debatably true. Like Auta, who we've been talking about,

495
00:25:53,320 --> 00:25:55,720
Speaker 2: is going to make an approach to the Turks and

496
00:25:55,800 --> 00:25:58,320
Speaker 2: like be like, hey, if you bribe me, I'll switch sides.

497
00:25:58,800 --> 00:26:01,919
Speaker 2: And he may have been considering switching sides, but he

498
00:26:01,960 --> 00:26:05,040
Speaker 2: also just robs the Turkish guy with the money. But

499
00:26:05,080 --> 00:26:07,399
Speaker 2: it's unclear because of when everyone else finds out what

500
00:26:07,440 --> 00:26:09,640
Speaker 2: he's done. It's unclear was his plan from the beginning

501
00:26:09,760 --> 00:26:13,280
Speaker 2: just to rob, just to rob the Ottomans, or did

502
00:26:13,320 --> 00:26:14,879
Speaker 2: he move? Did he decide, well, I guess I'll just

503
00:26:14,960 --> 00:26:16,840
Speaker 2: rob this guy once he got caught because he didn't

504
00:26:16,840 --> 00:26:18,480
Speaker 2: want to. He didn't want to get like, you know,

505
00:26:19,280 --> 00:26:22,600
Speaker 2: murdered or whatever. Right, Like, was he actually trying to

506
00:26:22,640 --> 00:26:24,880
Speaker 2: beat turned trader? Or did he just was his plan

507
00:26:24,920 --> 00:26:27,320
Speaker 2: from the beginning, Hey, I bet these guys are dumb

508
00:26:27,400 --> 00:26:29,080
Speaker 2: enough to send a bunch of money my way and

509
00:26:29,080 --> 00:26:30,600
Speaker 2: then I just have to kill the guy bring it,

510
00:26:30,600 --> 00:26:32,800
Speaker 2: And I don't give a fuck. I am a sand pirate,

511
00:26:33,040 --> 00:26:33,280
Speaker 2: you know.

512
00:26:34,119 --> 00:26:38,960
Speaker 3: Yeah, totally, totally. The honor among thieves question is one, yeah.

513
00:26:38,760 --> 00:26:40,960
Speaker 2: Yeah, and and Ouda is not the kind of guy

514
00:26:41,000 --> 00:26:43,840
Speaker 2: who gives a shit about your conceptions of honor. He

515
00:26:44,359 --> 00:26:47,840
Speaker 2: has his own code for sure, But I don't I

516
00:26:47,880 --> 00:26:52,400
Speaker 2: don't think anyone else really fully understands it. Lawrence wrote, quote,

517
00:26:52,440 --> 00:26:55,679
Speaker 2: irregular war was far more intellectual than a bayonet charge,

518
00:26:55,680 --> 00:26:59,040
Speaker 2: far more exhausting than service, and the comfortable imitative obedience

519
00:26:59,040 --> 00:27:02,240
Speaker 2: of an ordered army. Gorillas must be a loud liberal

520
00:27:02,280 --> 00:27:04,840
Speaker 2: work room in a regular war of two men together.

521
00:27:05,000 --> 00:27:07,920
Speaker 2: One was being wasted. Our ideals should be to make

522
00:27:07,920 --> 00:27:11,080
Speaker 2: our battle a series of single combats, our ranks a

523
00:27:11,160 --> 00:27:13,760
Speaker 2: happy alliance of agile commanders in chief.

524
00:27:16,320 --> 00:27:18,040
Speaker 3: Yeah, no, I like it.

525
00:27:18,119 --> 00:27:21,560
Speaker 2: I like that too. So one of the key points

526
00:27:21,600 --> 00:27:24,840
Speaker 2: here is that, unlike most European officers in similar situations,

527
00:27:25,200 --> 00:27:28,120
Speaker 2: Lawrence had not taken Well, I said, he's taken nothing

528
00:27:28,160 --> 00:27:30,560
Speaker 2: of Western military doctrine. That's not really true. He's just

529
00:27:30,640 --> 00:27:34,440
Speaker 2: taken He's taken some Western doctrine that is not popular

530
00:27:34,720 --> 00:27:38,480
Speaker 2: with other people, because that Austrian disachs is kind of

531
00:27:38,680 --> 00:27:41,159
Speaker 2: someone who had been writing a lot of the same things.

532
00:27:41,200 --> 00:27:44,280
Speaker 2: And Lawrence is very influenced by Desaks, but Dessaks is

533
00:27:44,320 --> 00:27:48,720
Speaker 2: certainly not influencing like British strategy at the sam You know, right,

534
00:27:48,840 --> 00:27:52,120
Speaker 2: nothing but machine guns are really influencing that, right, It's

535
00:27:52,119 --> 00:27:54,200
Speaker 2: all these guys who want to be Hannibal but can't

536
00:27:54,240 --> 00:27:56,680
Speaker 2: think of anything more creative than throwing their men into

537
00:27:56,760 --> 00:28:01,280
Speaker 2: the teeth of a bunch of German guns. What's interesting

538
00:28:01,320 --> 00:28:03,359
Speaker 2: about Lawrence is that, you know, for all that he

539
00:28:03,440 --> 00:28:06,320
Speaker 2: is an imperialist, he does not fall to the temptation

540
00:28:06,480 --> 00:28:10,560
Speaker 2: of imposing British standards on these Bedouin fighters. His only

541
00:28:10,600 --> 00:28:13,040
Speaker 2: thought is to give them modern English guns so that

542
00:28:13,080 --> 00:28:15,840
Speaker 2: they can fight their way. And he's writing the whole

543
00:28:15,880 --> 00:28:18,040
Speaker 2: time he's got to try it. He's trying to argue

544
00:28:18,359 --> 00:28:21,639
Speaker 2: to his superiors as to why this is how they

545
00:28:21,680 --> 00:28:24,240
Speaker 2: should handle the whole era of revolt. He writes a

546
00:28:24,280 --> 00:28:27,400
Speaker 2: series of twenty seven articles meant for publication among British

547
00:28:27,400 --> 00:28:31,040
Speaker 2: officers stationed in Arabia. Now these are part propaganda. Some

548
00:28:31,080 --> 00:28:34,240
Speaker 2: of what's in these is Lawrence lying about the strength

549
00:28:34,240 --> 00:28:36,639
Speaker 2: of the Bedouins to make a case, you know, as

550
00:28:36,680 --> 00:28:40,240
Speaker 2: to why they should be supported. But he also includes

551
00:28:40,240 --> 00:28:43,040
Speaker 2: a lot of very good advice on how European officers

552
00:28:43,040 --> 00:28:46,560
Speaker 2: should change their thinking to avoid bringing Western Front problems

553
00:28:46,600 --> 00:28:48,640
Speaker 2: to this new war zone. Like he is trying to

554
00:28:48,640 --> 00:28:51,880
Speaker 2: explain like why they ought to respect the Bedouin, and

555
00:28:51,920 --> 00:28:54,040
Speaker 2: how to respect the Bedouin, how to kind of let

556
00:28:54,120 --> 00:28:58,040
Speaker 2: these people do what works. The next phase of the

557
00:28:58,040 --> 00:29:00,800
Speaker 2: war sees Faisals raiders launched this bl lizard of attacks

558
00:29:00,800 --> 00:29:04,440
Speaker 2: against Ottoman positions around the Jjah's railway, destroying sections of

559
00:29:04,480 --> 00:29:07,080
Speaker 2: track and bridges, but also things like watering holes that

560
00:29:07,160 --> 00:29:10,960
Speaker 2: train operators relied upon for coolant. Lawrence again leads many

561
00:29:11,000 --> 00:29:13,480
Speaker 2: of these raids from the front. He counted that during

562
00:29:13,520 --> 00:29:17,360
Speaker 2: this period he personally destroyed seventy nine bridges, which is

563
00:29:18,760 --> 00:29:21,040
Speaker 2: that's like hurricane level of bridge destruction.

564
00:29:21,360 --> 00:29:26,360
Speaker 3: Lawrence is done, Hurricane Lawrence.

565
00:29:26,520 --> 00:29:30,440
Speaker 2: Hurricane Lawrence. Yeah, Lawrence often would set the charge himself,

566
00:29:30,440 --> 00:29:32,320
Speaker 2: and he became something of an innovator in the field

567
00:29:32,360 --> 00:29:36,320
Speaker 2: of explosives by helping to develop this technique that he

568
00:29:36,440 --> 00:29:40,040
Speaker 2: called scientific shattering. Now, the point of this, this is

569
00:29:40,120 --> 00:29:43,080
Speaker 2: very interesting, was to ruin the bridge, making it unfit

570
00:29:43,160 --> 00:29:46,920
Speaker 2: for transit, but to leave it standing right. And the

571
00:29:47,000 --> 00:29:51,000
Speaker 2: logic here is that a standing bridge that's ruined can't

572
00:29:51,040 --> 00:29:54,240
Speaker 2: just be repaired first. You have to destroy it before

573
00:29:54,280 --> 00:29:56,520
Speaker 2: you can rebuild it. Whereas it just blow it up.

574
00:29:56,560 --> 00:29:59,440
Speaker 2: Then all they have to do is like clear records are.

575
00:29:59,400 --> 00:30:01,800
Speaker 3: Way right, He doesn't have to work for him, right.

576
00:30:01,880 --> 00:30:04,760
Speaker 2: This extends the time. If you fuck the bridge up scientifically,

577
00:30:04,760 --> 00:30:07,640
Speaker 2: they have to spend even more time destroying it the

578
00:30:07,680 --> 00:30:10,240
Speaker 2: rest of the way before they can rebuild it. Now,

579
00:30:10,240 --> 00:30:12,120
Speaker 2: I know all of you listeners at home are taking notes.

580
00:30:12,160 --> 00:30:15,720
Speaker 2: How do I scientifically shatter a bridge? I've never blown

581
00:30:15,760 --> 00:30:17,800
Speaker 2: up a bridge yet, But I can read a quote

582
00:30:17,800 --> 00:30:20,560
Speaker 2: from Lawrence's book to describe how he did it. Yet. Hey,

583
00:30:20,640 --> 00:30:23,320
Speaker 2: what do you mean yet? Yeah, I haven't yet, So

584
00:30:23,800 --> 00:30:27,760
Speaker 2: that's just a factual statement. I haven't destroyed any bridges yet.

585
00:30:28,440 --> 00:30:35,280
Speaker 3: Before we do this, I once was hitchhiking and into Louisville, Kentucky,

586
00:30:35,320 --> 00:30:37,840
Speaker 3: and the trucker who picked me up was this older

587
00:30:38,440 --> 00:30:41,400
Speaker 3: I think Vietnam vet. He's pretty quiet the whole drive,

588
00:30:41,440 --> 00:30:42,920
Speaker 3: and he's like dropping us off in the middle of

589
00:30:42,960 --> 00:30:44,640
Speaker 3: the night, and he like does the trucker thing where

590
00:30:44,680 --> 00:30:47,400
Speaker 3: he just like stops the entire like when he wants

591
00:30:47,440 --> 00:30:49,479
Speaker 3: to do something, he just stops the truck in al traffic,

592
00:30:49,520 --> 00:30:51,400
Speaker 3: just has to deal with it, you know. And before

593
00:30:51,440 --> 00:30:53,920
Speaker 3: we get out, he turns to us and goes, you,

594
00:30:54,000 --> 00:30:55,440
Speaker 3: kid's ever blown up a bridge?

595
00:30:56,880 --> 00:31:01,880
Speaker 2: Amazing stuff? No, sir, oh no, we're children.

596
00:31:02,200 --> 00:31:05,120
Speaker 3: Yeah.

597
00:31:05,160 --> 00:31:07,760
Speaker 2: So here's how Lawrence describes to blow up a bridge.

598
00:31:08,440 --> 00:31:10,960
Speaker 2: Hastily we set about the bridge, a pleasant little work

599
00:31:11,040 --> 00:31:13,760
Speaker 2: eighty feet long and fifteen feet high, honored with a

600
00:31:13,800 --> 00:31:16,720
Speaker 2: shining slab of white marble bearing the name and titles

601
00:31:16,720 --> 00:31:19,760
Speaker 2: of Sultan Abd el Hamide. In the drainage holes of

602
00:31:19,760 --> 00:31:22,920
Speaker 2: the spandrel six small charges were inserted zigzag and with

603
00:31:22,960 --> 00:31:27,280
Speaker 2: their explosion all the arches were scientifically shattered. So there

604
00:31:27,280 --> 00:31:29,880
Speaker 2: you go, guys, put some dynamite in the drainage holes

605
00:31:29,880 --> 00:31:32,760
Speaker 2: and let her rip. You know, Now you can go

606
00:31:32,800 --> 00:31:35,280
Speaker 2: take out bridges, which you shouldn't.

607
00:31:34,840 --> 00:31:38,840
Speaker 3: Do, especially not with someone that you meet at food

608
00:31:38,880 --> 00:31:41,280
Speaker 3: not bombs, or some activist circle.

609
00:31:42,160 --> 00:31:46,200
Speaker 2: That's kind of go badly for everyone. Don't destroy any

610
00:31:46,200 --> 00:31:49,120
Speaker 2: bridges unless you find yourself taking part in an Arab

611
00:31:49,560 --> 00:31:52,080
Speaker 2: revolt against Ottoman power. If that's the case, you know,

612
00:31:52,080 --> 00:31:54,960
Speaker 2: if you get transported back in time to nineteen sixteen

613
00:31:55,360 --> 00:31:58,080
Speaker 2: and you have to help the Bedouins fight for their

614
00:31:58,120 --> 00:32:00,520
Speaker 2: independence from the Ottomans, then it's probably okay to blow

615
00:32:00,600 --> 00:32:02,880
Speaker 2: up some bridges. Or if it's your bridge, you know,

616
00:32:03,000 --> 00:32:04,520
Speaker 2: or if it's your bridge, if you make a bridge

617
00:32:04,600 --> 00:32:07,520
Speaker 2: used to stop you, right, maybe someone owns a demolition

618
00:32:07,600 --> 00:32:09,920
Speaker 2: company out there. There's lots of legal reasons to destroy

619
00:32:09,960 --> 00:32:14,280
Speaker 2: a bridge right now. The bulk of the insurgent work

620
00:32:14,320 --> 00:32:17,160
Speaker 2: that Lawrence does in this period is done by Camelback,

621
00:32:17,440 --> 00:32:19,680
Speaker 2: but for his own team of raiders. Lawrence is going

622
00:32:19,680 --> 00:32:22,080
Speaker 2: to eventually settle on a different mode of transportation, which

623
00:32:22,120 --> 00:32:26,880
Speaker 2: is these armored Rolls Royce cars. They do get they do.

624
00:32:27,040 --> 00:32:29,200
Speaker 2: They are by the end of this like cruising around

625
00:32:29,280 --> 00:32:32,920
Speaker 2: and Rolls Royce as blowing up bridges, which is pretty gangster.

626
00:32:33,520 --> 00:32:36,120
Speaker 3: Is it the same level of luxury car that it's

627
00:32:36,120 --> 00:32:36,840
Speaker 3: seen as now?

628
00:32:37,240 --> 00:32:39,920
Speaker 2: No, I mean I don't think so. At this point.

629
00:32:39,960 --> 00:32:44,040
Speaker 2: These are armored cars. So these sturdy vehicles allow the

630
00:32:44,120 --> 00:32:46,280
Speaker 2: nine man team that he preferred for commando work to

631
00:32:46,320 --> 00:32:49,120
Speaker 2: carry hundreds of pounds of gun caught and explosives and

632
00:32:49,200 --> 00:32:52,680
Speaker 2: move rapidly from target to target. Well, Lawrence was helping

633
00:32:52,680 --> 00:32:56,640
Speaker 2: to execute a successful insurgency in the heart of Ottoman territory.

634
00:32:56,880 --> 00:32:59,160
Speaker 2: The powers that be in the British Empire had started

635
00:32:59,200 --> 00:33:01,000
Speaker 2: to see the light at the end of the tunnel.

636
00:33:01,240 --> 00:33:03,400
Speaker 2: The Americans were almost to the Western Front, and with

637
00:33:03,440 --> 00:33:06,440
Speaker 2: the possibility of victory came the sweet prospect of carving

638
00:33:06,480 --> 00:33:10,200
Speaker 2: up the Ottoman world for European consumption. If you spend

639
00:33:10,320 --> 00:33:12,720
Speaker 2: literally any length of time talking to people in the

640
00:33:12,760 --> 00:33:15,400
Speaker 2: Arab world today and asking them, in brief why is

641
00:33:15,440 --> 00:33:18,720
Speaker 2: everything so fucked up? Every conversation will at some point

642
00:33:18,760 --> 00:33:22,240
Speaker 2: circle back to Sykes be Go. During the fighting against isis.

643
00:33:22,240 --> 00:33:25,160
Speaker 2: I talked about Sykes Pico with like twelve year old boys, right,

644
00:33:26,000 --> 00:33:28,080
Speaker 2: people know it over there, and it's the thing I

645
00:33:28,120 --> 00:33:31,160
Speaker 2: think a lot of Americans don't really know much about.

646
00:33:31,880 --> 00:33:34,520
Speaker 2: It is, as one New Yorker article aptly described it,

647
00:33:34,600 --> 00:33:36,640
Speaker 2: the curse that still haunts the Middle East.

648
00:33:37,240 --> 00:33:37,400
Speaker 1: Now.

649
00:33:37,440 --> 00:33:39,800
Speaker 2: The first of the men that Sykes Pico was named

650
00:33:39,800 --> 00:33:43,760
Speaker 2: after was essentially a dark mirror of Lawrence. Sir Mark

651
00:33:43,880 --> 00:33:47,000
Speaker 2: Sykes was the son of Sir Tetan Sikes, who married

652
00:33:47,040 --> 00:33:49,120
Speaker 2: an eighteen year old girl at age forty eight and

653
00:33:49,160 --> 00:33:51,560
Speaker 2: then disowned her publicly in the newspaper when she spent

654
00:33:51,640 --> 00:33:56,840
Speaker 2: too much of his Money's that's Mark's dad, Yeah, a

655
00:33:56,840 --> 00:34:00,240
Speaker 2: lot of pieces of shit in the British nobility. Dark

656
00:34:00,360 --> 00:34:02,760
Speaker 2: was their only child, and he spent his childhood moving

657
00:34:02,760 --> 00:34:05,360
Speaker 2: between his father's thirty four thousand acre estate and his

658
00:34:05,400 --> 00:34:08,920
Speaker 2: mother's London home. He traveled the Ottoman Empire regularly as

659
00:34:08,960 --> 00:34:11,920
Speaker 2: a tourist with his dad, and then when he became

660
00:34:12,040 --> 00:34:14,600
Speaker 2: a young man, he joined the military and participated in

661
00:34:14,640 --> 00:34:17,760
Speaker 2: the Boer War. He became a Conservative member of Parliament

662
00:34:17,800 --> 00:34:21,279
Speaker 2: and he writes books about like the Ottoman Empire and

663
00:34:21,320 --> 00:34:24,399
Speaker 2: the you know and kind of the Islamic world right,

664
00:34:24,840 --> 00:34:27,239
Speaker 2: and he is during the First World War kind of

665
00:34:27,239 --> 00:34:29,920
Speaker 2: one of the first major at He's a major advocate

666
00:34:29,960 --> 00:34:33,920
Speaker 2: within the British government for the independence of Arabs, Armenians,

667
00:34:34,000 --> 00:34:37,480
Speaker 2: Jews and Turks, right, so long as that independence existed

668
00:34:37,560 --> 00:34:40,279
Speaker 2: under European control and profit. And his thinking here is

669
00:34:40,640 --> 00:34:43,840
Speaker 2: less these people deserve their independence, and more if we

670
00:34:43,920 --> 00:34:48,520
Speaker 2: cut them up into individual little like quasi states under

671
00:34:48,560 --> 00:34:51,279
Speaker 2: our control, it's going to be a lot easier to

672
00:34:51,360 --> 00:34:56,439
Speaker 2: keep everyone dominated, right, Oh shit, uh huh yeah. Over

673
00:34:56,480 --> 00:34:59,040
Speaker 2: the last for a few pre war years, Sykes had

674
00:34:59,040 --> 00:35:01,000
Speaker 2: become the Empire's red is it an expert on the

675
00:35:01,239 --> 00:35:03,400
Speaker 2: Arab world based on the strength of him like vacationing

676
00:35:03,440 --> 00:35:05,640
Speaker 2: there a bunch, right, and the fact that he was

677
00:35:05,680 --> 00:35:06,360
Speaker 2: a baronet.

678
00:35:06,640 --> 00:35:08,960
Speaker 3: He was writing his picture of this character so easily.

679
00:35:09,520 --> 00:35:14,680
Speaker 2: Daddy, Daddi, daddi. He was referred to as the mad

680
00:35:14,760 --> 00:35:17,920
Speaker 2: Mulla as he watched rush around London building support for

681
00:35:17,960 --> 00:35:20,560
Speaker 2: this Arab revolt against the Ottomans, who he hated for

682
00:35:20,560 --> 00:35:24,200
Speaker 2: the squalor and poverty that he saw in cities like Damascus. Now,

683
00:35:24,200 --> 00:35:26,400
Speaker 2: he's not entirely misguided here, because the Ottomans are not

684
00:35:26,440 --> 00:35:29,440
Speaker 2: good rulers, but his feeling that the way to improve

685
00:35:29,520 --> 00:35:33,160
Speaker 2: things was to set Europeans up over the poor bumbling Mohammedans.

686
00:35:33,880 --> 00:35:37,880
Speaker 2: Sykes was paired with Francois George Picot, a French diplomat,

687
00:35:37,920 --> 00:35:40,440
Speaker 2: to portion out the Ottoman Empire into little bits to

688
00:35:40,520 --> 00:35:43,640
Speaker 2: various powers. As the war worked towards a close, there

689
00:35:43,640 --> 00:35:47,360
Speaker 2: were a lot of hopeful claims. Italy wanted the Aegean Islands,

690
00:35:47,600 --> 00:35:51,680
Speaker 2: Greece wanted traditional Byzantine territory in modern Turkey. Russia wanted

691
00:35:51,719 --> 00:35:54,160
Speaker 2: that some good some of that good Asia minor shit

692
00:35:54,200 --> 00:35:56,560
Speaker 2: as well, although they're not going to be, you know,

693
00:35:56,640 --> 00:35:58,719
Speaker 2: at the table for very long here because of that

694
00:35:58,760 --> 00:36:02,480
Speaker 2: whole Bolshevik revolution. And of course the Zionists wanted a

695
00:36:02,560 --> 00:36:05,759
Speaker 2: Jewish homeland in Palestine. And it's interesting one of the

696
00:36:05,760 --> 00:36:07,960
Speaker 2: big I was actually kind of unaware of this, one

697
00:36:08,040 --> 00:36:10,839
Speaker 2: of the big like, one of the reasons why there's

698
00:36:10,880 --> 00:36:14,600
Speaker 2: a support for the Zionists is people who are is

699
00:36:14,680 --> 00:36:18,640
Speaker 2: like people in the British government who are scared that

700
00:36:18,760 --> 00:36:22,680
Speaker 2: Russia is going to collapse under a socialist revolution and

701
00:36:22,760 --> 00:36:25,320
Speaker 2: are like, well, if we give the Jews a homeland, obviously,

702
00:36:25,360 --> 00:36:27,520
Speaker 2: all socialists are Jews, right, so if you give them

703
00:36:27,560 --> 00:36:31,279
Speaker 2: a homeland, you know, in Palestine, then maybe they'll leave

704
00:36:31,360 --> 00:36:34,040
Speaker 2: Russia and they won't destroy Russia, right like that. That's

705
00:36:34,120 --> 00:36:36,320
Speaker 2: literally why a lot there's a lot of early support

706
00:36:36,320 --> 00:36:40,920
Speaker 2: for Zionism among the British government. It's like this super

707
00:36:41,000 --> 00:36:42,400
Speaker 2: concentrated racism.

708
00:36:42,560 --> 00:36:46,600
Speaker 3: God, I love how Schrodinger's jew where you're either a

709
00:36:46,600 --> 00:36:49,000
Speaker 3: capitalist or a communist or something both at once.

710
00:36:49,160 --> 00:36:51,120
Speaker 2: Yes. No, yes, you control all the money and are

711
00:36:51,120 --> 00:36:52,399
Speaker 2: a left wing radical yes.

712
00:36:52,640 --> 00:36:54,920
Speaker 3: Yeah.

713
00:36:55,200 --> 00:36:58,480
Speaker 2: So this was to put mildly if you are people

714
00:36:58,560 --> 00:37:00,480
Speaker 2: like Sykes and Pico, any of the people you know

715
00:37:00,520 --> 00:37:02,839
Speaker 2: in the British government above Lawrence's level, who are trying

716
00:37:02,880 --> 00:37:04,759
Speaker 2: to figure out what the post war is going to

717
00:37:04,760 --> 00:37:07,080
Speaker 2: look like for this region, there's a lot to keep

718
00:37:07,080 --> 00:37:09,759
Speaker 2: in mind, right, there's a lot of competing claims. There's

719
00:37:09,760 --> 00:37:12,400
Speaker 2: a lot of different you know, national groups that are

720
00:37:12,440 --> 00:37:14,759
Speaker 2: kind of agitating for independence too.

721
00:37:15,239 --> 00:37:17,080
Speaker 3: They're just gonna ignore it at all and just cut

722
00:37:17,080 --> 00:37:17,839
Speaker 3: it up, willy nilly.

723
00:37:18,000 --> 00:37:19,440
Speaker 2: Yeah, that's more or less what Sykes is going to

724
00:37:19,520 --> 00:37:22,000
Speaker 2: do because he's British, right, so he's only focused on

725
00:37:22,400 --> 00:37:26,760
Speaker 2: mostly yeah, yeah, he's mostly focused on his country's closest

726
00:37:26,800 --> 00:37:31,120
Speaker 2: ally France, right, and France wants something they called greater Syria. Right,

727
00:37:31,200 --> 00:37:39,120
Speaker 2: they think, obviously this is natural French territory. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

728
00:37:39,239 --> 00:37:41,400
Speaker 2: In deference to the large number of young men that

729
00:37:41,440 --> 00:37:43,840
Speaker 2: France had thrown into the woodshippers on the Western Front,

730
00:37:43,880 --> 00:37:46,319
Speaker 2: they got most of what they wanted. The fact that

731
00:37:46,320 --> 00:37:49,080
Speaker 2: they were doing a fifty to fifty genocide ratio in

732
00:37:49,880 --> 00:37:53,160
Speaker 2: the Muslim majority areas that they had governed in the

733
00:37:53,200 --> 00:37:55,680
Speaker 2: past should have been a warning that, like, this is

734
00:37:55,719 --> 00:37:58,600
Speaker 2: not going to go well. But no one anywhere has

735
00:37:58,640 --> 00:38:01,600
Speaker 2: ever learned a lesson ever. Know, that's the primary lesson

736
00:38:01,600 --> 00:38:03,680
Speaker 2: of history is that no one learns lessons, and no

737
00:38:04,239 --> 00:38:07,160
Speaker 2: one has learned any lessons from France fucking around in Algeria.

738
00:38:07,320 --> 00:38:08,840
Speaker 3: So I haven't even learned this lesson.

739
00:38:10,360 --> 00:38:12,879
Speaker 2: Now. It would have been obvious at the time that

740
00:38:13,080 --> 00:38:15,480
Speaker 2: what you know, the planning going into sykes Pico was

741
00:38:15,520 --> 00:38:19,200
Speaker 2: would lead to catastrophe. The Ottoman Empire had been collapsing

742
00:38:19,239 --> 00:38:22,080
Speaker 2: for some time. In eighteen thirty, France had taken Algeria

743
00:38:22,120 --> 00:38:24,719
Speaker 2: and immediately done a genocide to put down the rebels there.

744
00:38:25,080 --> 00:38:27,520
Speaker 2: They had gained control of Tunisia in eighteen eighty one,

745
00:38:27,560 --> 00:38:30,399
Speaker 2: and they actually waited until nineteen fifty eight and before

746
00:38:30,440 --> 00:38:32,640
Speaker 2: they did a genocide in Tunisia. So really, I mean

747
00:38:32,719 --> 00:38:35,719
Speaker 2: like it's kind of impressive they've got you know, they

748
00:38:35,760 --> 00:38:38,759
Speaker 2: got more responsible.

749
00:38:38,840 --> 00:38:41,400
Speaker 3: That's nice for French patients, you know, the Friz.

750
00:38:41,600 --> 00:38:44,160
Speaker 2: Yeah, they have patients. They waited almost a whole century

751
00:38:44,239 --> 00:38:48,239
Speaker 2: before they did a genocide in Tunisia. Now, under the

752
00:38:48,280 --> 00:38:52,160
Speaker 2: final agreement between France and England, a large region of

753
00:38:52,160 --> 00:38:55,440
Speaker 2: the Ottoman heartland directly above Syria would be under direct

754
00:38:55,440 --> 00:38:59,000
Speaker 2: French control, while a triangle that included a Leppo, Damascus

755
00:38:59,000 --> 00:39:01,919
Speaker 2: and Mosel would be like kind of independent but under

756
00:39:02,000 --> 00:39:06,000
Speaker 2: heavy French influence, whereas the British would have an area

757
00:39:06,040 --> 00:39:08,400
Speaker 2: of influence that was like this large chunk of the

758
00:39:08,440 --> 00:39:11,520
Speaker 2: desert on the peninsula south of the French mandate, and

759
00:39:11,560 --> 00:39:14,600
Speaker 2: they would hold direct control over much of modern Iraq

760
00:39:14,680 --> 00:39:18,120
Speaker 2: stretching to the Arabian Gulf. Sykes would go on to

761
00:39:18,160 --> 00:39:20,640
Speaker 2: solidify his role as one of the most harmful dudes

762
00:39:20,640 --> 00:39:23,640
Speaker 2: to ever cause harm by also pushing the Balfour Declaration

763
00:39:23,719 --> 00:39:26,920
Speaker 2: to the British Cabinet in November of nineteen seventeen. He's

764
00:39:26,960 --> 00:39:29,920
Speaker 2: like one of the forces behind the Balfour Declaration.

765
00:39:29,719 --> 00:39:32,360
Speaker 3: And this is like the early Zionists.

766
00:39:32,520 --> 00:39:35,879
Speaker 2: Yes, yes, although the actual declaration itself spends more time

767
00:39:35,920 --> 00:39:40,319
Speaker 2: talking about like Jewish populations in European countries, right because

768
00:39:40,360 --> 00:39:43,200
Speaker 2: a lot of in the chaos in Russia, a lot

769
00:39:43,239 --> 00:39:46,200
Speaker 2: of like Jewish people had fled Russia and like wound

770
00:39:46,280 --> 00:39:48,600
Speaker 2: up in England, wound up in other European like that

771
00:39:48,680 --> 00:39:50,880
Speaker 2: is actually more of what the declaration is. But kind

772
00:39:50,920 --> 00:39:53,760
Speaker 2: of the outcome of the declaration, is this the first

773
00:39:53,760 --> 00:39:57,360
Speaker 2: time that there's official British government support behind the Zionist

774
00:39:57,400 --> 00:40:01,360
Speaker 2: desire for a homeland in Palestine. The actual text of

775
00:40:01,440 --> 00:40:04,480
Speaker 2: the declaration, like of the agreement being made, is like that,

776
00:40:04,840 --> 00:40:06,840
Speaker 2: of course, no one will be displaced, none of the

777
00:40:06,960 --> 00:40:09,640
Speaker 2: none of the current like inhabitants of Palestine will be

778
00:40:09,680 --> 00:40:10,960
Speaker 2: displaced as result of this.

779
00:40:11,360 --> 00:40:13,480
Speaker 3: Yea in tgic.

780
00:40:14,000 --> 00:40:18,240
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, through magic in true imperial fashion. Sikes's primary

781
00:40:18,400 --> 00:40:22,680
Speaker 2: justification for supporting the Balfour Declaration was his own rampant

782
00:40:22,680 --> 00:40:26,719
Speaker 2: anti Semitism. He believed that if Great Jewry was against us,

783
00:40:27,239 --> 00:40:30,280
Speaker 2: the Allies had no hope for final victory. Right, because again,

784
00:40:30,560 --> 00:40:33,640
Speaker 2: these guys are both communists and they control all the money, right, Yeah,

785
00:40:33,640 --> 00:40:34,040
Speaker 2: And they're.

786
00:40:33,920 --> 00:40:37,799
Speaker 3: Also both incredibly strong and are they're they're weak, sniveling,

787
00:40:38,080 --> 00:40:40,960
Speaker 3: effeminate people who will absolutely destroy us if they get

788
00:40:40,960 --> 00:40:41,279
Speaker 3: the chance.

789
00:40:41,760 --> 00:40:44,960
Speaker 2: Right. It's it's the common like proto fascist bullshit.

790
00:40:45,120 --> 00:40:48,200
Speaker 3: Which we're dealing with right now in America about the left. Sure,

791
00:40:48,239 --> 00:40:49,560
Speaker 3: anti fun stuff, Yes.

792
00:40:49,560 --> 00:40:51,759
Speaker 2: Yes, it's it's it's I mean, it's just kind of

793
00:40:52,600 --> 00:40:55,120
Speaker 2: these people, right, Sikes Is Sykes is the kind of

794
00:40:55,120 --> 00:40:57,600
Speaker 2: guy you see all throughout history, and in this case

795
00:40:57,840 --> 00:41:01,680
Speaker 2: he's anti semitically talking himself for Desionism, which is a

796
00:41:01,719 --> 00:41:04,080
Speaker 2: fascinating part of the history of this whole of this

797
00:41:04,160 --> 00:41:04,720
Speaker 2: whole moment.

798
00:41:05,000 --> 00:41:09,279
Speaker 3: Yeah, very common, Yes, of encouraging Zionism at this time.

799
00:41:09,400 --> 00:41:09,760
Speaker 1: Yeah.

800
00:41:10,080 --> 00:41:12,720
Speaker 2: Now, after setting up like a third of the twentieth

801
00:41:12,760 --> 00:41:16,600
Speaker 2: and twenty first centuries worst dominoes, Sikes lives happily until,

802
00:41:16,680 --> 00:41:19,440
Speaker 2: in a rare wind for humanity, he dies a flu in

803
00:41:19,520 --> 00:41:23,359
Speaker 2: nineteen nineteen. So again I have to keep going back to, like,

804
00:41:23,520 --> 00:41:25,080
Speaker 2: is influenza so bad?

805
00:41:25,320 --> 00:41:25,520
Speaker 1: You know?

806
00:41:25,960 --> 00:41:28,600
Speaker 3: Yeah, Spanish flu got somebody.

807
00:41:28,200 --> 00:41:30,560
Speaker 2: It took out Sykes. That's not the worst, you know.

808
00:41:32,400 --> 00:41:34,439
Speaker 2: So back to our boy t E. Lawrence. We don't

809
00:41:34,480 --> 00:41:36,880
Speaker 2: know precisely when he found out that sykes Pico was

810
00:41:36,920 --> 00:41:40,520
Speaker 2: a thing. The agreement first entered public awareness in late

811
00:41:40,640 --> 00:41:44,040
Speaker 2: nineteen seventeen, after the October Revolution led to the overthrow

812
00:41:44,080 --> 00:41:46,520
Speaker 2: of the Czar. The Bolsheviks get a hold of a

813
00:41:46,560 --> 00:41:49,399
Speaker 2: bunch of different like paperwork, right that you know, had

814
00:41:49,440 --> 00:41:52,319
Speaker 2: been in the hands of the Tzar's government, and some

815
00:41:52,480 --> 00:41:57,040
Speaker 2: of that is the sikes Pico agreement, and yeah, later

816
00:41:57,560 --> 00:42:00,680
Speaker 2: government you get the Yeah, Trotzky actually seeks a copy

817
00:42:00,719 --> 00:42:02,920
Speaker 2: of sykes Pico to a newspaper, right, and then The

818
00:42:02,960 --> 00:42:05,680
Speaker 2: Guardian publishes the details in English media for the first

819
00:42:05,680 --> 00:42:09,160
Speaker 2: time after this In early reporting on the manner, Lennon

820
00:42:09,280 --> 00:42:12,759
Speaker 2: called sikes Pico quote the agreement of colonial theeves. And

821
00:42:13,120 --> 00:42:16,040
Speaker 2: there's really no fact based argument against that. Yeah, that's

822
00:42:16,080 --> 00:42:19,000
Speaker 2: that he was just right. He was just correct on that.

823
00:42:19,600 --> 00:42:22,719
Speaker 3: Well, didn't they weren't these the like I think they

824
00:42:22,719 --> 00:42:25,080
Speaker 3: were called protectorates or something. There was like a different word.

825
00:42:25,120 --> 00:42:27,440
Speaker 3: They were like, oh, we don't, we don't know this.

826
00:42:28,000 --> 00:42:30,080
Speaker 2: We're just gonna get a lot of these are spheres

827
00:42:30,120 --> 00:42:35,799
Speaker 2: of influence, right, yeah, yeah, So when and again, this

828
00:42:35,920 --> 00:42:38,920
Speaker 2: is not sex becou is not what actually happened, specifically

829
00:42:39,000 --> 00:42:41,120
Speaker 2: because like they get carved up, you get like a rack,

830
00:42:41,200 --> 00:42:42,840
Speaker 2: you get Jordan, and right that none of that's in

831
00:42:42,920 --> 00:42:45,680
Speaker 2: sychs Pico. That all comes later, but six Picot is

832
00:42:45,760 --> 00:42:49,600
Speaker 2: kind of evidence of what they've agreed to, basically, right,

833
00:42:49,640 --> 00:42:53,640
Speaker 2: it's the broad strokes of what's going to happen. So

834
00:42:53,920 --> 00:42:56,600
Speaker 2: when Lawrence had left Cairo, this had not all been

835
00:42:56,640 --> 00:42:59,320
Speaker 2: as settled as it was by November. The British government's

836
00:42:59,360 --> 00:43:01,600
Speaker 2: official line and still was that it was inciting an

837
00:43:01,640 --> 00:43:06,279
Speaker 2: Arab revolt to secure their total independence. Lawrence clearly knew

838
00:43:06,280 --> 00:43:08,280
Speaker 2: that there was some extent to which this was bogus

839
00:43:08,320 --> 00:43:10,760
Speaker 2: from the beginning, which is why he wrote in Seven Pillars,

840
00:43:11,120 --> 00:43:14,120
Speaker 2: hardly one day in Arabia passed without a physical ache

841
00:43:14,160 --> 00:43:18,160
Speaker 2: to increase the corroding sense of my accessory deceitfulness towards

842
00:43:18,239 --> 00:43:22,560
Speaker 2: the Arabs and the legitimate fatigue of responsible command. Right.

843
00:43:22,600 --> 00:43:24,120
Speaker 2: So the fact that this is all a lie is

844
00:43:24,200 --> 00:43:27,520
Speaker 2: wearing on Lawrence, especially since the greater part of his

845
00:43:27,680 --> 00:43:31,960
Speaker 2: job was to personally negotiate deals with various Arab tribes

846
00:43:31,960 --> 00:43:34,359
Speaker 2: to fight the Ottomans with the promise of independence after

847
00:43:34,400 --> 00:43:38,200
Speaker 2: the war. In letters back to his superiors. Lawrence protested

848
00:43:38,360 --> 00:43:41,719
Speaker 2: what became Sykes Pico. Anthony Satin describes this for an

849
00:43:41,800 --> 00:43:45,120
Speaker 2: article in Al Jazeera. He objected loudly to the agreement

850
00:43:45,160 --> 00:43:47,120
Speaker 2: for several reasons. He thought that the French should be

851
00:43:47,160 --> 00:43:50,440
Speaker 2: allowed nothing, having behaved so badly in Algeria and elsewhere

852
00:43:50,480 --> 00:43:53,440
Speaker 2: in Northwest Africa. He thought a post war commonwealth of

853
00:43:53,440 --> 00:43:57,200
Speaker 2: Arab states under British tutelage might work, and he protested

854
00:43:57,239 --> 00:43:59,360
Speaker 2: it having to ask Arab forces to fight on what

855
00:43:59,400 --> 00:44:02,320
Speaker 2: he called a lie. I can't stand it, he insisted.

856
00:44:02,560 --> 00:44:06,000
Speaker 2: And yet he continued. And if we're looking for like

857
00:44:06,360 --> 00:44:08,960
Speaker 2: Lawrence as a bastard, this is this is getting into

858
00:44:09,000 --> 00:44:11,200
Speaker 2: some of the better cases for it, right because, like

859
00:44:11,280 --> 00:44:13,319
Speaker 2: he talks about how much he hates this, he is

860
00:44:13,440 --> 00:44:18,280
Speaker 2: trying to like trying to work against Sykespico on the ground,

861
00:44:18,719 --> 00:44:22,680
Speaker 2: but he also knows what his government is planning, and

862
00:44:22,719 --> 00:44:26,239
Speaker 2: he's he's kind of being a pied piper to these

863
00:44:26,239 --> 00:44:28,799
Speaker 2: guys that he cares about as it goes on.

864
00:44:29,560 --> 00:44:32,959
Speaker 3: Oh that's wild, because he's also overall he's someone who's

865
00:44:32,960 --> 00:44:37,120
Speaker 3: trying to act based on morality rather than like cold strategy.

866
00:44:37,239 --> 00:44:40,560
Speaker 3: He's obviously strategic thinker, right, but he's like, yeah, he's thinking,

867
00:44:41,600 --> 00:44:44,840
Speaker 3: you know, because geopolitically you have to give the French something,

868
00:44:44,920 --> 00:44:47,759
Speaker 3: And he's like, no, I don't deserve anything because they're terrible.

869
00:44:47,480 --> 00:44:48,719
Speaker 2: But they're dicks, fuck up.

870
00:44:48,800 --> 00:44:51,840
Speaker 3: Yeah yeah, yeah, Like, whereas he's able to sell himself

871
00:44:51,880 --> 00:44:54,160
Speaker 3: on the idea that the British protectorate or sphere of

872
00:44:54,160 --> 00:44:58,359
Speaker 3: influence won't be as bad. Yeah, and some of that

873
00:44:58,440 --> 00:45:00,520
Speaker 3: might be even some of his own like show from

874
00:45:00,560 --> 00:45:03,799
Speaker 3: being from that culture, but also it might have been

875
00:45:03,800 --> 00:45:07,279
Speaker 3: an honest appraisal of the situation. But then yeah, like

876
00:45:07,320 --> 00:45:10,920
Speaker 3: he's like trying to act more from a moral position,

877
00:45:11,040 --> 00:45:14,080
Speaker 3: but he knows he can't. Oh that's so right.

878
00:45:14,160 --> 00:45:15,799
Speaker 2: I mean, yeah he could have.

879
00:45:15,840 --> 00:45:17,600
Speaker 3: He could have just been like I have been tired.

880
00:45:17,640 --> 00:45:23,759
Speaker 2: Abound and you know, yeah, but he doesn't. Yeah, so

881
00:45:24,360 --> 00:45:27,640
Speaker 2: uh so he's canceled. So he's canceled. Yes, we're canceling

882
00:45:27,680 --> 00:45:31,120
Speaker 2: t E. Lawrence. We've decided. The fight against sikes Peco

883
00:45:31,280 --> 00:45:33,400
Speaker 2: was to dominate the next years of Lawrence's life. But

884
00:45:33,400 --> 00:45:36,000
Speaker 2: he would have missed the public reveal of sikes Pico

885
00:45:36,160 --> 00:45:39,200
Speaker 2: in November for a very unfortunate reason, which is that

886
00:45:39,200 --> 00:45:43,160
Speaker 2: that month he was captured by the Ottomans. If it now,

887
00:45:43,160 --> 00:45:45,680
Speaker 2: we're this is actually one of those ifs, because we

888
00:45:45,800 --> 00:45:48,360
Speaker 2: this may be something he lied about, but if it happened,

889
00:45:48,680 --> 00:45:50,640
Speaker 2: this happened while he was conducting one of his many

890
00:45:50,719 --> 00:45:53,680
Speaker 2: recon missions. He describes in Seven Pillars of Islam that

891
00:45:53,719 --> 00:45:56,720
Speaker 2: he was hiding himself as a circassian in the city

892
00:45:56,800 --> 00:46:00,319
Speaker 2: of Derah when he was drafted. Basically, like they see

893
00:46:00,360 --> 00:46:02,719
Speaker 2: a young man walking around and they're like, you're in

894
00:46:02,719 --> 00:46:05,920
Speaker 2: the army now, buddy, right, because he's good, he's good

895
00:46:06,000 --> 00:46:08,480
Speaker 2: enough at hiding that he's like a circassian, right that

896
00:46:08,520 --> 00:46:10,360
Speaker 2: they think, okay, well, we got a time for you

897
00:46:10,400 --> 00:46:14,040
Speaker 2: to be a member of the army that you're fighting now.

898
00:46:14,239 --> 00:46:16,600
Speaker 2: Lawrence says, basically, like the draft was just kind of

899
00:46:16,640 --> 00:46:18,680
Speaker 2: an excuse to take me in the custody. What happened

900
00:46:18,719 --> 00:46:22,200
Speaker 2: really is the governor wanted to fuck me, right, And

901
00:46:22,360 --> 00:46:26,279
Speaker 2: he describes lengthily how he was beaten and tortured and

902
00:46:26,320 --> 00:46:29,080
Speaker 2: then gang raped by the governor and his guards in

903
00:46:29,160 --> 00:46:32,239
Speaker 2: Seven Pillars. This is like and it's interesting because like

904
00:46:32,600 --> 00:46:35,440
Speaker 2: this is a page is long description of like torture

905
00:46:35,560 --> 00:46:39,359
Speaker 2: and rape. He doesn't quite describe openly sexual penetration but

906
00:46:39,400 --> 00:46:43,080
Speaker 2: basically everything else, right, And it is ultimately published in

907
00:46:43,160 --> 00:46:46,440
Speaker 2: nineteen twenty two. I don't know if Lawrence was the

908
00:46:46,480 --> 00:46:49,360
Speaker 2: first famous man of the twentieth century to write publicly

909
00:46:49,360 --> 00:46:52,080
Speaker 2: about being raped, but the list ahead of him can't

910
00:46:52,080 --> 00:46:55,000
Speaker 2: have been long, right, Like, there can't be a lot

911
00:46:55,000 --> 00:46:58,800
Speaker 2: of competition for that role you were.

912
00:46:58,719 --> 00:47:03,480
Speaker 3: Really really into, like, and then the curtains are drawn, yeah,

913
00:47:03,640 --> 00:47:04,760
Speaker 3: historically with their writings.

914
00:47:04,840 --> 00:47:07,319
Speaker 2: Yeah, And he does that a bit, right, Like he's

915
00:47:07,320 --> 00:47:10,120
Speaker 2: not as open about like he doesn't describe it in

916
00:47:11,239 --> 00:47:15,640
Speaker 2: but he's like, this is like it's a very detailed

917
00:47:15,680 --> 00:47:18,200
Speaker 2: description of like the torture and stuff, to the point

918
00:47:18,200 --> 00:47:20,480
Speaker 2: that the people who think this is faked is kind

919
00:47:20,480 --> 00:47:23,040
Speaker 2: of like Lawrence is sort of like writing his own

920
00:47:23,520 --> 00:47:24,600
Speaker 2: sexy fan fiction.

921
00:47:24,719 --> 00:47:28,720
Speaker 3: Oh, because he's a masochist maybe, right, you know, maybe

922
00:47:28,960 --> 00:47:30,719
Speaker 3: or this is why he's a masochist. It's to try

923
00:47:30,800 --> 00:47:31,760
Speaker 3: this is right, he's.

924
00:47:31,600 --> 00:47:33,959
Speaker 2: A masochist because he's raped and tortured.

925
00:47:33,680 --> 00:47:36,160
Speaker 3: Yes, yeah, as a way to you know, experience the

926
00:47:36,160 --> 00:47:38,000
Speaker 3: same thing, but under his own control.

927
00:47:38,040 --> 00:47:41,920
Speaker 2: Right right, And you know, I'm gonna tell you right

928
00:47:41,920 --> 00:47:45,160
Speaker 2: now what actually happened here was unknowable to us right

929
00:47:45,560 --> 00:47:48,320
Speaker 2: now there. I am going to give the best arguments

930
00:47:48,440 --> 00:47:50,279
Speaker 2: as to like why this is fake, because I think

931
00:47:50,320 --> 00:47:53,040
Speaker 2: that's responsible. I tend to think it was probably real.

932
00:47:53,080 --> 00:47:56,640
Speaker 2: But I'm not a historian. Yeah, So I debated whether

933
00:47:56,719 --> 00:47:58,440
Speaker 2: or not to read some quotes from this portion of

934
00:47:58,480 --> 00:48:01,000
Speaker 2: Seven Pillars. I opted not to because, like it's really

935
00:48:01,120 --> 00:48:05,000
Speaker 2: upsetting stuff like this is a legitimately upsetting description of

936
00:48:05,600 --> 00:48:10,239
Speaker 2: torture and sexual assault. In recent years, some Lawrence biographers,

937
00:48:10,480 --> 00:48:14,400
Speaker 2: namely James Barr, who authored Desert on Fire, have argued

938
00:48:14,400 --> 00:48:16,560
Speaker 2: that Lawrence could not have been in deraw when he

939
00:48:16,600 --> 00:48:19,040
Speaker 2: claimed this happened, and have even found evidence that he

940
00:48:19,120 --> 00:48:22,880
Speaker 2: doctored his notes to further this lie. Barr's argument is

941
00:48:22,920 --> 00:48:25,799
Speaker 2: that Lawrence came up with this story later after the

942
00:48:25,840 --> 00:48:30,640
Speaker 2: war to quote discredit Arab militants in the precarious postwar climate.

943
00:48:31,280 --> 00:48:33,680
Speaker 2: I find this an odd argument, which is not really

944
00:48:33,719 --> 00:48:36,880
Speaker 2: in line with Lawrence's other post war behavior. But in

945
00:48:36,920 --> 00:48:39,080
Speaker 2: my research for this, I did run across a couple

946
00:48:39,120 --> 00:48:41,600
Speaker 2: of pieces of evidence that might be seen as evidence

947
00:48:41,640 --> 00:48:44,640
Speaker 2: that Lawrence's lye continues to work in the present day,

948
00:48:44,880 --> 00:48:48,080
Speaker 2: like discrediting on Arabs. But like these these kind of

949
00:48:48,160 --> 00:48:52,360
Speaker 2: like some of these local fighters. Here's a segment I

950
00:48:52,360 --> 00:48:54,799
Speaker 2: found from the website on the website first World War

951
00:48:54,840 --> 00:48:57,480
Speaker 2: dot com, and this is talking about like the Ottoman

952
00:48:57,560 --> 00:49:00,600
Speaker 2: use of rape as a weapon. This indig was more

953
00:49:00,680 --> 00:49:03,279
Speaker 2: often inflicted on members of the officer class and the

954
00:49:03,280 --> 00:49:05,279
Speaker 2: belief that it robbed them of their authority as a

955
00:49:05,360 --> 00:49:08,759
Speaker 2: leader of men, sometimes resulting in the victim's suicide. The

956
00:49:08,760 --> 00:49:11,399
Speaker 2: Ottoman Turks were infamous for inflicting it throughout the Great

957
00:49:11,400 --> 00:49:15,240
Speaker 2: War on captured Indian troops, beating and gang raping enemy officers.

958
00:49:15,280 --> 00:49:18,160
Speaker 2: Often as a matter of due course. Prisoners and garrisons

959
00:49:18,160 --> 00:49:20,799
Speaker 2: often had personnel who specialized in this abuse, although there

960
00:49:20,840 --> 00:49:24,040
Speaker 2: was nothing homosexual about it. And this is kind of

961
00:49:24,080 --> 00:49:27,279
Speaker 2: contra to Lawrence's description because he does describe this as

962
00:49:27,360 --> 00:49:30,279
Speaker 2: being a very like the the governor and his men

963
00:49:30,480 --> 00:49:35,320
Speaker 2: are homosexual, right, they like they want to fuck Lawrence.

964
00:49:35,680 --> 00:49:37,399
Speaker 2: And that's kind of the result of all this.

965
00:49:37,880 --> 00:49:39,560
Speaker 3: Well, you just get into ideas of like what counts

966
00:49:39,560 --> 00:49:42,760
Speaker 3: as homosexual being like right, in a lot of different places,

967
00:49:43,280 --> 00:49:45,960
Speaker 3: the active person as not the gay person, you know.

968
00:49:46,040 --> 00:49:49,080
Speaker 2: Right, Yeah, and there's a yeah, we'll talk more about this,

969
00:49:49,239 --> 00:49:53,360
Speaker 2: but first, wait, have we done our second ad break. Now, Okay,

970
00:49:53,440 --> 00:50:02,760
Speaker 2: here's some ads. Motherfucker back. So you know we're talking

971
00:50:02,800 --> 00:50:09,080
Speaker 2: about was Lawrence of Arabia gang raped? Uh yeah, light

972
00:50:09,160 --> 00:50:12,440
Speaker 2: dinner topic. Now, when it comes to like the anti

973
00:50:12,600 --> 00:50:14,880
Speaker 2: site of this, bar is joined in doubt by academics

974
00:50:14,920 --> 00:50:18,560
Speaker 2: like Adrian Greeves. Greeves make some points that I find compelling,

975
00:50:18,600 --> 00:50:22,120
Speaker 2: particularly that the Turks were unlikely to have believed for

976
00:50:22,280 --> 00:50:27,160
Speaker 2: days that Lawrence was really an Arab captive or Circassian captive.

977
00:50:27,440 --> 00:50:29,920
Speaker 2: But he also takes issue with the fact that Lawrence

978
00:50:30,120 --> 00:50:33,520
Speaker 2: didn't bring this up until nineteen nineteen. Right, That's one

979
00:50:33,560 --> 00:50:35,879
Speaker 2: of Barr's pieces of evidence that like this is probably fake,

980
00:50:36,080 --> 00:50:38,279
Speaker 2: is that Lawrence didn't talk about it. And I'm like, no,

981
00:50:38,680 --> 00:50:40,800
Speaker 2: it's not really weird that you'd wait, like a couple

982
00:50:40,840 --> 00:50:45,600
Speaker 2: of years to talk about your gang rape. Like, yeah,

983
00:50:45,640 --> 00:50:47,919
Speaker 2: that's not I don't really think that counts the way

984
00:50:47,920 --> 00:50:52,239
Speaker 2: that you seem to think it does. Yeah, And there's

985
00:50:52,239 --> 00:50:55,719
Speaker 2: also some gay panic adjacent stuff in some of these arguments.

986
00:50:55,960 --> 00:50:59,440
Speaker 2: Historian David Fromkin has suggested Lawrence made up the rape

987
00:50:59,440 --> 00:51:03,560
Speaker 2: to explain marks from his alleged sato masochistic kink. I

988
00:51:03,600 --> 00:51:06,239
Speaker 2: don't know who is right here, but I do want

989
00:51:06,280 --> 00:51:09,040
Speaker 2: to read this line from an article on Cleo's Visualizing

990
00:51:09,120 --> 00:51:13,280
Speaker 2: History website. Biographer John E. Mack, however, accepts the story

991
00:51:13,320 --> 00:51:16,120
Speaker 2: and Lawrence's later assertion at that what happened to him

992
00:51:16,120 --> 00:51:20,279
Speaker 2: at Deraw apparently did permanent damage to his psyche, and

993
00:51:20,320 --> 00:51:23,440
Speaker 2: there is compelling evidence for this damage. Although separating what

994
00:51:23,520 --> 00:51:26,359
Speaker 2: might have been caused from the rape, what was PTSD?

995
00:51:26,719 --> 00:51:30,640
Speaker 2: Right because of the war and all of the illness,

996
00:51:30,760 --> 00:51:33,840
Speaker 2: right like you get PTSD from nearly dying repeatedly, a

997
00:51:34,000 --> 00:51:37,799
Speaker 2: various like shit yourself to death illnesses. There's no way

998
00:51:37,840 --> 00:51:41,719
Speaker 2: to separate this, right like Lawrence is after about a

999
00:51:41,800 --> 00:51:44,759
Speaker 2: year or so, because he's really not there all that long.

1000
00:51:44,840 --> 00:51:47,920
Speaker 2: He's there like a like two years. In all, he

1001
00:51:48,080 --> 00:51:51,879
Speaker 2: is just a pile of PTSD stitched together together into

1002
00:51:51,920 --> 00:51:53,160
Speaker 2: the crude image of a man.

1003
00:51:53,360 --> 00:51:55,960
Speaker 3: On one of his best days. He shot his own

1004
00:51:56,000 --> 00:51:58,560
Speaker 3: camel in the head by accident. That was one of

1005
00:51:58,600 --> 00:51:59,520
Speaker 3: the best days.

1006
00:52:00,160 --> 00:52:04,680
Speaker 2: His winds like he is just destroyed as a person.

1007
00:52:04,840 --> 00:52:08,799
Speaker 2: And yeah, it is I think very consistent. Now Barr

1008
00:52:08,840 --> 00:52:10,640
Speaker 2: has a really good point when he kind of pieces

1009
00:52:10,680 --> 00:52:13,360
Speaker 2: out it can't have happened exactly the way Lawrence describes

1010
00:52:13,400 --> 00:52:15,680
Speaker 2: it in the book, right, because we know there's some

1011
00:52:15,760 --> 00:52:17,719
Speaker 2: just some things about the timing of where he was

1012
00:52:17,800 --> 00:52:20,200
Speaker 2: win that don't work out. That doesn't mean he didn't

1013
00:52:20,719 --> 00:52:23,120
Speaker 2: it didn't happen in another city and he Leiden said

1014
00:52:23,120 --> 00:52:25,880
Speaker 2: it was Dera for some reason. There's they're also just

1015
00:52:25,960 --> 00:52:29,320
Speaker 2: like people fuck up, right, Like Lawrence is going.

1016
00:52:29,239 --> 00:52:31,880
Speaker 3: Sick thing to remember really well, yeah, we'll talk.

1017
00:52:31,719 --> 00:52:33,600
Speaker 2: About this in the next episode. Lawrence is going to

1018
00:52:33,719 --> 00:52:37,440
Speaker 2: like destroy his notes several times and just and lose

1019
00:52:38,000 --> 00:52:40,880
Speaker 2: drafts of this book and have to rewrite it. So

1020
00:52:41,080 --> 00:52:45,600
Speaker 2: like some errors probably got introduced, but it is now

1021
00:52:45,680 --> 00:52:49,800
Speaker 2: agreed and even and Barr even writes that, like, broadly speaking,

1022
00:52:49,880 --> 00:52:53,200
Speaker 2: Seven Pillars is quite accurate as in its descriptions of

1023
00:52:53,239 --> 00:52:57,680
Speaker 2: what happened in the Arab revolt, right, And I tend

1024
00:52:57,680 --> 00:53:01,759
Speaker 2: to think this probably happened to Lawrence, And part of

1025
00:53:01,760 --> 00:53:06,759
Speaker 2: why is because he has a personality shift after this

1026
00:53:06,840 --> 00:53:09,960
Speaker 2: point and it kind of loses his mind in a

1027
00:53:10,000 --> 00:53:12,799
Speaker 2: way that seems very much like, oh, yeah, I bet

1028
00:53:12,800 --> 00:53:14,920
Speaker 2: if you were gang raped and then suddenly had an

1029
00:53:15,040 --> 00:53:18,960
Speaker 2: army and a bunch of Turkish soldiers surrendering to you,

1030
00:53:19,360 --> 00:53:22,319
Speaker 2: this might be how you'd act, right, is.

1031
00:53:22,360 --> 00:53:23,040
Speaker 3: Where he's gonna go.

1032
00:53:23,760 --> 00:53:26,160
Speaker 2: He is going he is going to kill a lot

1033
00:53:26,160 --> 00:53:29,520
Speaker 2: of people in part four, Margaret, Oh shit, he is

1034
00:53:29,600 --> 00:53:31,320
Speaker 2: going to kill a ton of dudes.

1035
00:53:32,360 --> 00:53:35,480
Speaker 3: Like the bastard's formula is to get you to become

1036
00:53:35,520 --> 00:53:38,840
Speaker 3: sympathetic with a terrible person and then like about halfway through,

1037
00:53:39,160 --> 00:53:41,719
Speaker 3: but you've had me for the first three acts.

1038
00:53:41,640 --> 00:53:44,120
Speaker 2: I don't know. I still he's going to commit war crimes.

1039
00:53:45,960 --> 00:53:48,440
Speaker 2: I still don't know that this makes him a terrible person.

1040
00:53:48,800 --> 00:53:53,160
Speaker 2: Like it's a bad thing to have done, right, But

1041
00:53:55,160 --> 00:53:57,440
Speaker 2: I don't know that anyone who is capable of doing

1042
00:53:57,480 --> 00:54:00,200
Speaker 2: the things that he's done up to this point and

1043
00:54:00,320 --> 00:54:02,960
Speaker 2: in a war, who is capable of the competences that

1044
00:54:03,000 --> 00:54:06,919
Speaker 2: he showed, would by this point be able to have

1045
00:54:07,080 --> 00:54:10,320
Speaker 2: better judgment in this way, right, Which isn't to say

1046
00:54:10,360 --> 00:54:13,200
Speaker 2: like it's fine that he did this. It's just that like, well,

1047
00:54:13,520 --> 00:54:16,360
Speaker 2: anyone in this position would have would be out of

1048
00:54:16,360 --> 00:54:19,560
Speaker 2: their minds by a certain point, because that's just what

1049
00:54:20,440 --> 00:54:25,520
Speaker 2: like personally, like orchestrating an insurgent campaign in the desert

1050
00:54:25,800 --> 00:54:29,120
Speaker 2: while shitting yourself to death and nearly dying every single day,

1051
00:54:29,120 --> 00:54:31,799
Speaker 2: and gunfights like it just ruins, you you know, like

1052
00:54:31,880 --> 00:54:34,920
Speaker 2: he is just shattered as a man, and there's a

1053
00:54:35,040 --> 00:54:37,799
Speaker 2: very good chance part of that science he's tortured and

1054
00:54:37,960 --> 00:54:42,560
Speaker 2: gang raped. Yeah, like who would be doing well after this?

1055
00:54:43,040 --> 00:54:46,839
Speaker 3: Yeah, and blow up the bridge. They just dismantled it.

1056
00:54:47,120 --> 00:54:50,120
Speaker 2: Yeah, they dismantled it, but they left Yeah, they left

1057
00:54:50,160 --> 00:54:53,440
Speaker 2: the shape intact right again. He's just like a bunch

1058
00:54:53,480 --> 00:54:55,960
Speaker 2: of trauma piled into a bag shaped like T. E.

1059
00:54:56,120 --> 00:55:01,160
Speaker 2: Lawrence at this point. Yeah, this man is so fucked up.

1060
00:55:03,560 --> 00:55:06,880
Speaker 2: Speaking of fucked up, Margaret, let's go get fucked up

1061
00:55:06,920 --> 00:55:09,120
Speaker 2: and then come back to record part four. And by

1062
00:55:09,160 --> 00:55:11,160
Speaker 2: fucked up, I mean I'm.

1063
00:55:11,000 --> 00:55:13,480
Speaker 3: Actually gonna I do with sugar. But I've had a

1064
00:55:13,480 --> 00:55:13,960
Speaker 3: lot of it.

1065
00:55:14,239 --> 00:55:18,120
Speaker 2: I'm high on life, Margaret, which is a powerful mix

1066
00:55:18,160 --> 00:55:19,680
Speaker 2: of heroin and uh.

1067
00:55:20,320 --> 00:55:23,600
Speaker 3: That's all life. Yeah, it's it's a new gas station drug.

1068
00:55:23,680 --> 00:55:26,319
Speaker 2: Yeah, it's a new gas station drug. That's what I

1069
00:55:26,360 --> 00:55:29,120
Speaker 2: call it. When I mix Kraton and those yellow Jacket

1070
00:55:29,160 --> 00:55:31,640
Speaker 2: pills and then just a bunch of five hour energy

1071
00:55:31,680 --> 00:55:33,520
Speaker 2: and grind that up into a shake with a little

1072
00:55:33,520 --> 00:55:35,160
Speaker 2: bit of milk, a little bit of old milk, you know,

1073
00:55:35,800 --> 00:55:36,480
Speaker 2: just for flavor.

1074
00:55:36,719 --> 00:55:37,080
Speaker 3: Wow.

1075
00:55:37,960 --> 00:55:41,800
Speaker 1: Yeah, I guess we don't do that. Friends that friends

1076
00:55:41,880 --> 00:55:43,920
Speaker 1: and said, you should purchase Margaret Culture's new.

1077
00:55:43,760 --> 00:55:47,840
Speaker 2: Book if they sell it in Yeah, purchase Margaret's new book,

1078
00:55:48,160 --> 00:55:51,759
Speaker 2: you know, Uh, the Sapling Cage. It's excellent. Uh.

1079
00:55:51,920 --> 00:55:53,840
Speaker 3: And if you're listening to this several weeks ago, you

1080
00:55:53,880 --> 00:55:56,240
Speaker 3: can go see Robert and I talk in Portland.

1081
00:55:56,400 --> 00:56:00,560
Speaker 2: Yes, yes, yeah, this will have happened long before by

1082
00:56:00,560 --> 00:56:03,719
Speaker 2: the time this airs, possibly in a world where we're

1083
00:56:03,719 --> 00:56:07,680
Speaker 2: all preparing for a fascist takeover of the governments world.

1084
00:56:09,560 --> 00:56:11,040
Speaker 1: This will be great.

1085
00:56:11,040 --> 00:56:11,600
Speaker 2: It'll be great.

1086
00:56:11,680 --> 00:56:12,440
Speaker 3: Yeah, it's amazing.

1087
00:56:12,680 --> 00:56:14,520
Speaker 1: Also, I really want to plug something we just did

1088
00:56:14,520 --> 00:56:17,000
Speaker 1: one it could happen here. James Stout, who is a

1089
00:56:17,040 --> 00:56:20,439
Speaker 1: phenomenal journalist that works on the show, just a week

1090
00:56:20,480 --> 00:56:23,520
Speaker 1: long series about the dairy and grap and land migration.

1091
00:56:23,719 --> 00:56:27,759
Speaker 3: So I haven't listened to it yet. I've talked to amazing. Yeah,

1092
00:56:28,200 --> 00:56:32,560
Speaker 3: it's amazing. So please please check that out. Yeah that.

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00:56:36,719 --> 00:56:39,600
Speaker 1: Behind the Bastards is a production of cool Zone Media.

1094
00:56:39,800 --> 00:56:42,399
Speaker 1: For more from cool Zone Media, visit our website cool

1095
00:56:42,480 --> 00:56:46,439
Speaker 1: Zonemedia dot com, or check us out on the iHeartRadio app,

1096
00:56:46,520 --> 00:56:48,200
Speaker 1: Apple Podcasts, or wherever.

1097
00:56:47,920 --> 00:56:49,040
Speaker 3: You get your podcasts.

1098
00:56:49,280 --> 00:56:52,640
Speaker 1: Behind the Bastards is now available on YouTube, new episodes

1099
00:56:52,960 --> 00:56:56,600
Speaker 1: every Wednesday and Friday. Subscribe to our channel YouTube dot

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00:56:56,640 --> 00:57:00,920
Speaker 1: com slash At Behind the Bastards