how does Gaza compare to all the other humanitarian nightmares you've covered you've had to tackle people are nowhere to flee they're just waiting for their turn to be killed is the media doing better or worse in covering Trump this is same man Donald Trump who accused all of us in this ecosystem as being the enemy of the people that's Stalin's words right the simple logic of eight years ago put Trump on TV and more people will watch we've moved past that he's become boring who do you blame for the way in which the United States left Afghanistan Trump or Biden the US administrations before 2001 ignored Afghanistan for a decade and we saw 911 once again they're ignoring Afghanistan this time it's going to be much worse welcome to Medi unfiltered here in Washington DC I'm Medi Hassen on today's show we bring Afghanistan back into the spotlight as I speak to one of the key figures in the anti-taliban resistance movement we'll also debate why the US media is so IL equipped to cover the Donald Trump phenomenon again but first in an exclusive interview I'll speak with Ana Chief Philip lazarini about Israel's attacks on the Palestinians and on his own un organization so what are we waiting for let's go Israel does not discriminate in its bombing of Gaza men women children hospitals mosques churches but their attacks in the last few months do seem to be showing a preference schools last week at least four people were killed and 18 were injured as a result of an Israeli strike on the Saladin School in Gaza City but that wasn't the first school attack this month it was the ninth with one of those attacks killing more than a hundred people and this isn't uncommon for the most moral army in the world that has bombed more than 500 schools since the War Began many of them run by the same organization the United Nations relief and works agent or unro since the start of the war 70% of unro schools in Gaza have been hit 539 people Sheltering in them have been killed and more than 289 Aid workers 207 of whom worked for Ana have also lost their lives to Israeli bombardment now Israel's attacks on unra aren't limited to its staff or its infrastructure or the people they shelter Israel also attacks un's credibility again and again in January the Israeli government alleged that 12 out of un's 13,000 staff members in Gaza participated in the October the 7th attack and despite providing little to no proof the allegations prompted 16 UN member states to cut their funding to the main relief Agency for 2 million people living in the Gaza Strip during an ongoing genocide seven months later Israel is still adding names to that list its Ministry of Foreign Affairs sent un's Chief Philip lazarini the names of 108 un employees employ es it alleges to be working as quote unquote terrorist operatives and demanded that those employees be terminated immediately the Israeli government even adds that plenty more names from anrea will be shared in the future joining me to discuss Israel's accusations and the humanitarian crisis they are causing in Gaza is Ana's commissioner General Philip lazarini Philip lazarini thank you for joining me on Medi unfiltered uh before we get into all of this I want to ask you about the current Humanity Arian situation in Gaza you commented on last week's attacks on one of unr's schools by tweeting Gaza is no place for children anymore how bad have things gotten as we approach the one-year Mark for this ugly War well I believe Gaza is just becoming unlivable I mean you heard since last week that they have been again a new number of evacuation order um basically people are just pinballs they mov from one place to the other one depending on the advancement of the military operation and basically in Gaza people are just daily facing either death or disease or hunger um I don't know how much worse it can become I have to say we we are losing and we we are lacking wordss to describe uh the situation in the past and many times said that uh Gaza is war of all the superlative when you look at the level of Destruction number of people having been killed the number of people being moved the artificial hunger which has also been created there and now you look at uh the uh disease spreading into Gaza Street and the UN Secretary General released a statement last week on the polio outbreak in Gaza that threatens the lives the health of more than 640,000 children under the the age of 10 there he said that without a ceasefire at least a pause in the fighting a successful vaccination campaign is impossible how do you vaccinate 600,000 children while Israeli bombs are falling well as a Secretary General said we need an humanitarian pause we need a vaccination a poo pause to make sure that we can cover all the children under the age of 10 um otherwise as you said it will extraordinary challenging to reach them out and that would also mean to take the risk to fail our campaign and that would be a disaster not only for the people in Gaza but as you know this is a communic disease which doesn't know any border and could also spread in the entire region including in Israel um you haven't been allowed into Gaza for several months now by the Israelis why do you think that is allowed to go to Gaza since January and I do not have a visa to go to my headquarter in Jerusalem since the end of June I believe that one of the reason behind this is to put pressure uh on the agency you know that there are a lot of calls from the Israeli authorities to dismantle un and this is certainly one way to put also pressure on the organization Philip lazarini last month Israel accused 108 of your staff members at Ana of being quote terrorist operatives what does that mean exactly and what evidence if any did they present to you well Med as you know already in January we had uh 12 staff who have been accused to participate to the October 7 Massacre uh since we had an internal investigation conducted by an independent body of the united nation which concluded its work at the end of July for which basically half of the people have been proven without evidence and other people basically it was say that if we would be in a situation to corroborate and authentify the information we might be in a situation where they might have participated to the October 7 regarding the list of the 100 this is one allegation among others we take them all very seriously and basically we are asking the Israeli authorities to share uh information with the organization in order to assess if yes or not we can undertake an investigation were you aware that Israel was gathering this new list that they were planning to share it the same week as your pledging conference for funds in New York do you think the timing was intentional perhaps to try and undermine your organization well I do believe that uh you know there there are a lot of coordinated uh action most of the time when the agency has a donor conference we have a new allegation being made public but the one you are referring to uh basically came out already in February if I remember well uh at the Munich security conference there was a full dossier being distributed by the member states talking about basically list of Staff allegedly being a member of the ham the Jihad or list of Staff having sympathy but since then nothing more has been shared last week the Wall Street Journal published a letter from un responding to Israel's allegations from earli earlier this year the ones you mentioned uh accusing first 12 unro employees then seven more a total of 19 of participating in the October 7th Hamas attack the Ana letter from your organization said quote the commissioner general of un terminated at the contracts of employees despite the lack of evidence he did it to protect the agency's ability to deliver humanitarian assistance in Gaza and elsewhere looking back Philip lazarini do you still stand by your decision to terminate the contracts of 10 Aid workers on the UN payroll in Gaza when you didn't have any evidence given to you by the Israelis at the time your critics would say that just made unrea look more guilty than innocent I would disagree and we have been on the heavy critics because of the lack of due diligence and my response at that time was we will undertake due diligence but a reverse due diligence it was in the interest of the agency at that time to terminate the contractor of the staff allegedly having participated to the October 7 attack the allegation were so horrible and if that would have been the case would constitute such a betrayal to the Palestinian in general but also to the agency that I had no other choice than to take such a bold decision but in parallel the Secretary General has initiated an investigation on this allegation and in parallel we have also commission a total review of the risk management system of the agency which is a famous report which has been a delivered by the former Minister of Foreign Affair Kine Kona believe that independent review that you mentioned found that 10 of the 19 staff as Accused by Israel uh between January and April were cleared due to the absence or the lack of evidence against them have any of them been re-employed by unoa since well they have been cleared on this allegation but we still have the allegation that they might be member of the Armed group and before taking a final determination we need also to look into this because as you know un united Nation policies are very clear you cannot be a member of un and at the same time being a member of an armed group review you mentioned from April also found uh that Israel didn't express any concerns around any unor staff uh going back to 2011 these are all very belated concerns that the Israelis are raising but the review did outline several recommendations to address the topic of neutrality within your organization one of the issues they raised and which a lot of people a lot of reports as you know have raised in the past is the issue of the textbooks in Ana schools in Gaza which are not just considered to be biased but have been accused of inciting violence of glorifying martydom do you accept that's an issue and if so what steps are you taking to address that well first of all I'm very proud of our education system here in the region as you know we have more than half a million girls and boys attending our school across the region we are the only one in the region having a proper human right curriculum we are teaching tolerance uh in our school and we have also reached gender parity before anyone else here in the region now as you know also we are living in a region uh deeply divided uh where emotion are very high and basically we have have an Israeli narrative and a Palestinian narrative and obviously as un and un we cannot overcome these two narrative in the absence of a political solution so meanwhile it is true that there are issues in the textbook which by the way are curriculum from the Palestinian authorities for which stories are told through the the Palestinian narrative contested by the is but fortunately as a United Nation organization we have The Narrative of the International Community and the United Nation and this is what is being taught in our schools and on the subject of those schools Israel is bummed a lot of those schools including last week killing a lot of uh family Sheltering within them kids there um how shocked have you been to see how casually is Israel and the United States which is backing Israel has disregarded International humanitarian law when it comes to protected sites like schools I express myself many times is absolutely shocking this routine blatten disregard of the united nation of the international human law if you look at Gaza the number of un staff being killed number of premises having been destroyed number of people killed while in these premises and number of convoys being targeted there is a routine blatant disregard of the human organization and of IHL but beyond that we have also the political attack against the agency the call for the dismantlement of the agency the legislative effort at theet to level the organization as a terrorist organization and uh this would be absolutely unbelievable a UN member states leveling a un organization as a terrorist organization an organization having a mandate from all the other member states member of the general assembly this would be absolutely unprecedented but let's do no mistake it's not just an attack on un it's an attack on the broader un system it's an attack on the multilateral system um it's an attack on all those who are promoting a different narrative all those supporting in fact the pass the political pass of a two-state solution here in the region you mentioned the attempt to uh label unra a terrorist organization at least three bills are in the knesset in the Israeli Parliament aiming to shut down your organization in Israel as a terrorist group um to your knowledge does Israel have an alternative for anra if those bill would have pass if they succeeded in shutting you down if unra didn't exist what would be happening to the Palestinians in Gaza right now what is the alternative well the real question is uh who would take over for example the education of the girls and boys live deeply traumatized living in the rebel in Gaza today we talk about 600,000 girls and boys uh uh from the primary and secondary uh School age there is no one else beside un except a functioning government functioning Administration which can provide education at scale to such a number of children now the more we wait uh the more we will be sewing the seeds for more hatred revenge and violence in the future so now I do not see who else can step in and take over the um activities of the agency Philip lazarini I think it was 16 countries that cut funding to your organization when Israel made those accusations against your staffers back in January all of them have resumed their funding I believe except the United States what is your message to President Biden and to vice president Carla Harris who is currently running to succeed him well the United States has been a long-standing partner of the agency has been until now the first uh um Financial provider uh to the agency and I really hope that in the absence of a political solution support to un will continue because otherwise it will be perceived by the Palestinian as a disinterest or an International Community turning its back to a proper lasting political solution do you agree with the chief prosecutor of the international criminal court who like many humanitarian Aid agencies has accused Israel of blocking Aid going into Gaza he's also said Israel is using starvation as a method of War well clearly the assistant is not commencer to the need we are daily struggling to bring assistance into the Gaza Strip and I have been on record more than once we have been in a situation where hunger has been created artificially in the Gaza Strip This is a region which before this war never really encountered hunger except in war situation or in situation where Siege was imposed on the street you say hunger has been artificially created at the start of this interview you said Israel has made Gaza unlivable is what we are seeing in Gaza then in your view a genocide well this will leave the ICC and the icg to determine the the qualification of what happened but what I can say is that there have been unprecedented suffering inflicted to the population as I said this has been the war of all the superlative look at the number of people killed the number of children killed the level of displacement constant displacement the hunger Philip lazarini if it's not genocide do you agree that attacking undera schools is a war crime I I do believe we need an investig and indeed it would constit constitute as a war crime I am not the legal or the judge who will level it as War crime but I do believe that this blatten uh violation of IHL might constitute a war crime Philip lazarini prior to heading up undera in 2020 you worked I believe at the Red Cross at the UN office for the coordination of humanitarian Affairs uh at the UN development program you've spent decades in this field in Conflict zones around the world how does Gaza compare to all the other humanitarian nightmares you've covered you've had to tackle well first of all it's a war taking place in an area where people are nowhere to flee and this is quite exceptional there is a no border to crush and people are constantly on the Move traditionally when you are in a conflict situation you might be pushed once moved once or twice cross a border but you are settled until the end of the war this has not been the case in Gaza if you listen to the people up there people have been displaced 15 up to 20 times they have absolutely nowhere to go but the other element which struck me is the absence of international a media how is it possible after 10 months to be in such a high mediatized uh context that International media are not allowed to see by themselves what is really going on and that means in this world there is also a very strong element of uh uh propaganda it's a good point you make about propaganda and about the the lack of international media and even though there are many Brave Palestinian journalists reporting on the ground getting killed doing so uh obviously one of the big claims against unor aside from the the fact that some of your staffers may have taken part in October the 7th even though the evidence hasn't really been provided the other claim the Israelis make is that Hamas are hiding under your schools that they've built tunnels under your schools under your refugee camps under your office buildings they also claim that you knew about it what is your response to that claim first of all whenever we had a suspicion in the past that that there might be a tunnel nearby a premise of the agencies we systematically constantly informed both the uh de facto Authority in Gaza being the hamash but also the Kat being the Israeli Authority so we have been always extremely transparent in whatever we were able to observe or to witness secondly I mean as a human development organization or humanit organization I do not have the military expertise to look at what underneath the entire Gaza Strip and we have obviously discovered or heard about t if not hundreds of kilometers of a tel in in in Gaza uh very few uh underneath if non uh our school um they were always nearby at least the allegation I have heard until uh until now so my point here is to say all this allegation needs to be investigated first we need to investigate the killing of the UN staff we need to investigate all the damages which have been caused on people who have been killed in our premises but we need also to investigate all this allegation and this is the reason why I'm calling also for the setting up of a board of inquiry last question Philip lazarini you haven't been able to enter Gaza this year as you said when you speak to your staff on the ground in Gaza the ones who haven't been killed both Palestinian and non-p Palestinian what do they tell you about what life is like right now for them in Gaza at un locations that are supposedly protected but already the last time I went which was in January I was struck on how people were just living in Pilot automatic mode and also the absence of light in in their highes um it seems the situation has gone even much wor though it was difficult to comprehend that it could get worse and uh today when I talk to my staff they are saying that in reality people today are so resignated that they are just waiting for their turn to be killed in in the Gaza Strip and this is absolutely heartbreaking because people have lost face of a possible better future yes they have it's a tragedy Philip lazarini commissioner general of Ona thank you for taking time out from he unfiltered today appreciate it thank you m it was my pleasure I've said it before and I'll say it again our both sides media in this country is just not ready and able to cover Donald Trump's Third campaign for president of the United States it's just not up to the task it's not fit for purpose it's broken and I'm not just talking about the softball questions that he and his acolytes get from reporters and TV anchors or the ridiculous oped that the new times published this week headlined Trump can win on character and no that's not a headline from the onion it's real but I'm also referring to the way in which fact Checkers from our major media Outlets are basically acting like apologists and excuse makers for Trump and the Trump campaign because they so desperately want to look fair and balanced even though one side are serial liars and the other side are not when Joe Biden at the DNC said Trump as president had quote created the largest debt any president had in four years the New York Times called it misleading because Barack Obama created more debt in eight years so Joe Biden was right because he said four years The Washington Post had to correct its own fact check after it tried to suggest KLA Harris was wrong to say Trump exchanged love letters with Kim Jong-un I mean we all heard him say it the media as I say is broken so how bad is the coverage could it affect the election result and how do we fix it joining me now are two of the media's most eloquent critics in my view journalist and author wad Ali who now publishes the left hook substat newsletter and Veteran reporter and author James Fallows who is Chief speech writer to President Jimmy Carter and publishes the breaking the news substack newsletter thank you both for joining me on May unfiltered and Veteran as a compliment of course um I took it that way of course Jim is the media doing better or worse in covering Trump than it did in 2016 and 2020 I think grading on the curve you have to say they're doing worse because eight years ago was the first time you know Donald Trump would have been around forever in the media but he' never run for president before now we are seeing just the same things in just the same way in any if anything with more of an air of defensiveness and you know just you know we're not going to change and and if it were a matter of somebody pointing out to them the error of their ways uh you know the times pitchot would have done the job over the last couple of years they know what they're doing and the times in particular keeps doing it I think it is worse this time W what do you make of these fact checks that the times and the PO and USA Today and PolitiFact uh were doing during the DNC were they running cover for Trump and if so why uh I think it's time for fact Checkers to retire for this election cycle I agree with you you said uh the current media system I would say the corporate media system is broken and I would add they're not built for this fight and made for this moment and I want to stress this moment in particular is a moment where those of us however flawed we may be try our best to promote democracy you should be biased in favor of democracy in a democracy where you have the freedom of the press to ask the tough questions what we're up against is a right-wing authoritarian movement that has openly said that we don't care about the rule of law this the same man Donald Trump who accused all of us in this ecosystem as being the enemy of the people that's Stalin's words right he accuses of being fake news and so you would think the people that he's attacking would say you know what if this guy wins maybe life won't be good for us but instead they go up to him they cozy you up to him they create this both sides false equivalence where yeah 32,000 lies and misleading statements of Donald Trump and they're like but we have to create balance yeah it's a it's a deliberate creation of balance what they're doing at the DN complete asymmetry and that there that's why you have like you said this hilarious fact Texs where we had a a one hour press conference with Trump and maralago where he repeats lies after lies where Democrats are apparently killing babies in the ninth month they're not what can we find with kamla Harris and Tim Waltz oh he wasn't a coach he was an assistant coach and the rest of the world to pet a different dog it's not his dog you're making yesterday that's yesterday um Jim back in 2016 the then CEO of CBS W mentioned corporate media CEO of CBS Les mudes famously said about the Trump campaign it may not be good for America but it's damn good for CBS is that still the attitude do you think from corporate media bosses today to Trump and a third presidential campaign more views more clicks more ratings or is that too simplistic um I think it is still a factor but I think there are in a way worse aspects than that now because the simple logic of eight years ago put Trump on TV and more people will watch we've moved past that he's become boring and many people in his team thinking may actually backfire on him to show these things at full length so it's other sort of cultural things I I think the the structural issue about the major media now that is really problematic is their entire defensiveness and non-transparency remember back when the New York Times had a public editor at least that person could ask people who are writing these headlines writing these social cells that usually have more influence than the story itself and say why did you do this um you know why back in the uh the 16 campaign did you devote the entire front page a week before the election to James Comey and Hillary Clinton's emails why are you portraying what Trump says in an insane literally insane press conference with a platform from kamla Harris and saying both sides present clear economic Visions there's a bias towards normalizing things that are objectively crazy and being afraid to say this is crazy this is outside the normal bounds and also and also the fact that you're talking about the emails all of them published the emails yes they decide not to publish Trump I was about to say you know that's the big question right now you have for a New York Times Public editor what's the reason you're not publishing any of these emails I mean you have to Mass dump them but you must have found something interesting in there that's not related to hacking that's of public interest that you could have shared by now uh about the you know the great man that is JD can I just give a a a point there that that Beck it is true that when the earlier emails came out they were released publicly by Wikipedia and so people could findak not Wikipedia sorry sorry sorry yes wik Wikileaks uh so thank you for realtime fact checking in the spirit of of uh Dale who's that you know Daniel Danel who is a good fact Checker can we all defend Daniel the other the CNN fact Checker so what made that the the Wikileaks email so powerful was that all the newspapers adopted them as major stories they did heury did takeouts over the next couple of weeks that has not happened at all in the Other Extreme with I would most Americans probably don't know these emails even exist that there are these JD Gordon JD Gordon JD vs they all getting names released uh two um Politico New York Times and I believe Washington Post are three who who are sitting on them um W Jim mentioned earlier the idea that it's worse now because they know better right they know and he's talked about non-transparency you have been a contributor to the New York Times to CNN you've sat in those studios in those green rooms you've had conversations with uh print editors at quote unquote liberal media out do they just have no selfawareness that they're effectively giving a I'm just wondering is it is it a lack I want to be generous here is it a lack of self-awareness they just don't realize they're being played or is it a deliberate fake contrarianism I would say both but I would say regardless I'm be both let me put this way let me put this way I'm not God so I don't know what's in their hearts but it's been N9 years SM it's almost a decade you have to learn you have to be agile you have to adapt you have to meet the moment and what we have seen by their deliberate actions is they refuse to meet the moment they refuse to be agile they seem they seem the reason why I say both is number one I feel like that had a moment in 2020 where they were and now we've regressed to 2016 well because well I'll I'll tell you why I said both is because they they I think are incapable of breaking this mold of both sides where sometimes you literally are sitting there and like this person is lying they're like but we like it's like a robot like Terminator like Arnold Scher just breaking down we must do both sides and I always say you don't have to do both sides if one side is lying profusely you have to just be committed towards the truth be biased towards the truth the second thing I would say and I'm so glad you mentioned that Les moones quote because that shows you the north star of corporate media which I know might be too cynical so there's really good journalists me really good people we've worked there before but the North Star is not truth the North Star is ratings power access to power and money and that trumps at the end of the day and what they're betting on is this man Trump might actually win and if he WI wins we have to be on his good side because we need to book those guests yeah and I got to ask this question about the New York Times yeah which gets a lot of you know hate on social media from liberals uh but you know it's a paper of record and does seem to be running some really odd stuff I mentioned the intro the Trump can win on character which is not an onion headline a lot of headlines both sides in and as you say normalizing the the abnormal how come the New York Times in your view Jim sorry to ask you to be God like wi and get into their heads how come it was so obsessed with Joe Biden's age and mental Fitness and yet we have not seen even 10% of the same coverage and intensity given to Donald Trump's manifest mental unfitness for and I think this is centers in the times but is true of all the major media that we had over the last year or two stories about Biden whether where in his cognitive Fitness to govern and of course after the disastrous debate that went went way up to my we have seen either zero or close to zero of those serious stories about Trump where the framing is not how is this affecting his staying on message you know is this getting in the way of his appealing to this this or that BL but block but what would this mean for Fitness to govern which was the frame for everything about Biden um the I'm going to give one other comparison about the times itself recall think back to the days of the Iraq War and you recall what the New York Times is doing in the buildup to the Iraq war after that to his credit bill Keller who was then the executive editor ran a kind of Truth Squad of what happened here how did we get that so wrong after the butt about her emails what about her emails Fiasco eight years ago Dean Bay of the New York Times would not entertain any questions whatsoever they were just following the news and that seems to have been the Instinct that has prevailed that just uh we're covering the news we're we don't want to get involved in this active politicking that is so destructive and Jim just a follow up on the times someone like Michael Cohen not Trump's lawyer the MSNBC columnist former State Department speech I often notice he often berates his fellow liberals online saying why are you all obsessing over the times it doesn't matter it's not like Trump voters read the Times none of this matters what would you say in response I would say o Contra in uh in two two layers one is I still think that 95% of what's in the times is the best journalism there is their coverage of science or technology or the rest of the world if they covered us Politics the way they cover everything else we'd be a lot better situation number two there is still an enormous legitimizing and normalizing and framing power that New York Times had it mattered in the 2016 election that you know 10 days before the election the New York Times devoted its entire front page with some little exception at the bottom to Hillary Clinton's emails and what James Comey has said they still even Steve Bannon checks them out even you know everybody checks them out it's a sort of it is an indicator of which way things are going so very few people read it but a lot of people are influenced by it wonder if Bannon gets a physical copy in his prison cell um W you and I are brown people who have joked for a while turned brown we turned brown we used to be black we turned brown we're revers of carel Harris uh we have joked for a long time you and I going back a decade that you know at some point Trump's going to be power long enough to build the camps and uh we'll be in those camps do you think our fellow white liberal journalists at the post at CNN at the times at NBC do they understand as you mentioned earlier that they are the enemy for Donald Trump that he is going to come after them probably before he comes after any other group he loathes uh parts of the liberal media calls them scum calls them enemies of people his his bag carrier cash patella said openly we will come after you criminally or civil it is not going to be a good life for journalists under a second Trump ter I have a very dark uh basically dystopian joke I keep telling for the past nine years that when Trump wins again he's there's going to be a camp the first people that'll go in are the immigrants then Muslims then black folks then Republicans Mike Pence and then journalists and we'll all be sitting there in the camps and the journalists this the white liberal journalist from The Establishment they'll have their uh microphone out from the gates talking to the guards like can you give us a scoop and then the guard will say yeah you're going to die tomorrow can I give can I have the exclusive he's like sure and I feel like that they have not evolved they think that they are necessary they are needed Trump loves them we'll be okay and I keep telling them you won't be okay and and you only have to look at oran's Hungary or modi's India or all the places that Trump looks for inspiration to see how the media FS Jim one last question to you you've written about this stuff you've thought about this stuff for a long time how do we fix our quote unquote liberal media is there an obvious way to write the wrongs that we've been discussing uh short answer no uh longer answer is is it's the same thing they say about saving local news nothing might work but everything might work and so I think the matter of people continuing to speak up and just to return to your previous point for a second speaking as the old white guy here I think there is a failure of imagination which will equate to how I felt the years I was living in China that most foreigners most Americans most white Americans felt that however dark things got there it wasn't going to affect us the worst that would happen is they'd kick us out I think that same failure of American failure of imagination applies for many liberal white journalists now that it's hard to sort of make the leap of Oh you mean us the jaguar eating jaguar or the face eating Jaguar is coming for us but you one last point to what he said don't you know these folks I know them they're very fickle uh so don't underestimate the power of mockery and pressure I never do without Ellie James Fallows thank you both for your insights appreciate it I hope uh some of our fellow journalists are watching at home thank you both thank you this August has marked three years since the Taliban returned to power in Afghanistan after the US finally withdrew their last troops under President Joe Biden and although an end to the endless war was much needed life for the Afghan people has been far from free or peaceful under the taliban's rule since their takeover the Taliban has forced the courts to return to an eye for an ey justice system ordering over 400 public floggings and executions in 2023 alone of course not only are women back to having no education no freedom to travel and in many cases no access to health care but as of this month the Taliban also issued a ban on women showing their bare faces in public and reading or singing in public this clear oppression of women is only compounding the country's growing economic and humanitarian crisis with nearly half of the population living in poverty and over a third of them suffering from severe food insecurity now of course there was widespread concern for Afghans in the immediate aftermath of the US withdrawal but that conversation has mostly disappeared from mainstream media as the majority of the world has silently accepted what some have deemed to be the taliban's inevitable rule what about all the Afghans who ran that us-backed government the Islamic Republic of Afghanistan have they accepted the Taliban rule after their failed Republic was toppled not quite while many of them quickly surrended to the Taliban back in 2021 others have decided to resist again yes the national resistance front of Afghanistan the NRF made up of several members of that Fallen Republic have been engaging in on again off again battles with the Taliban for the past three years now they even managed to maintain control of Northern Afghanistan's panser Valley a province historically known for acts of resistance for several weeks after the taliban's Takeover the group is led by Ahmed mud son of the legendary anti-soviet mujahedin leader Ahmed sha massud who has called on the west and other countries to support the NRF in their fight against the Taliban oppressive Reign joining me now is someone considered to be Mass's pointman in its dealings with the West Ali mam nazari head of Foreign Relations for the NRF Ali thanks so much for coming on M unfilter today thank you for having me in 2001 after the US withdrawal from from Afghanistan the taliban's Takeover was one of the biggest stories of the year uh people were raising money for Charities uh people were raising money to help people escape Afghanistan um people have moved on from that story sadly why do you think that is and do people just see it as a hopeless situation around the world you travel around the world you speak in different capitals to different governments are people just fatigued by Afghanistan of course one of the reasons is the fatigue that the International Community feels when it comes to Afghanistan after having presence for 20 years um and of course the situation globally there's so many conflicts that they're focused on and Afghanistan has been put aside and as every day passes they're putting Afghanistan aside however the situation within Afghanistan is once again returning to what it was in the 1990s becoming a global uh threat uh with 21 terrorist groups on the ground nurturing being nurtured supported and protected by the Taliban terrorist group while we're the only forces the national resistance front of Afghanistan fighting 21 Regional and international groups today when the world is not paying attention to the rise of international terrorism and extremism inside Afghanistan so I want to come back to the NRF fight on the ground but before we get there just for our viewers just make it clear how bad is the situation for women in Afghanistan right now with the Taliban back in charge in complete control very gri basically what we see today in Afghanistan is gender aperti women have been erased from public life their basic rights have been taken away from them you mentioned the set of laws that came out last week that's just one example but in the past three years we've seen them every few months coming out with new decrees new laws restricting women from partaking in anything even their basic rights look Afghanistan for example just to give you an example most of Afghanistan's houses lack uh uh modern plumbing they don't have a bathroom they can't bathe themselves women can bathe themselves in in their houses they have to go h a few times a week or once a week to the public bath the talban have banned women from taking baths to visiting public baths so they can't fulfill their religious obligations a group that calls themselves so-called an Islamic group uh an Islamic Emirate they're prohibiting women from fulfilling their religious obligations so this is how bad and Bleak their situation is in inside Afghanistan today and the world has turned the Blind Eye and is tolerating the Taliban or are unfortunately engaging with them on a daily basis not just the Blind Eye some people have criticized uh the American government for making things worse in the aftermath of the Taliban takeover the Biden Administration famously froze 7 billion ion Dollar in funds for Afghanistan out of fear that the money would end up in the hands of terrorist groups since then President Biden's allowed for half of that money to be sld out by 911 victims families and the other half to the swiss-based Afghan fund which is yet to be distributed inside of Afghanistan how urgent is it for that money to get to the people of Afghanistan is there a way to get it to the people of Afghanistan without it going through the Taliban and what do you make of this claim by 9/11 families for that money which is Afghan money well un unfortunately um the situation is much more complex since August 2021 of course the United States has sent funds A us taxpayers have been sending funds it amounts to around 21 billion now seagar uh the Inspector General came out with a report uh a few weeks back saying that the amount that the US has sent to Afghanistan is 21 billion however it hasn't reached the people yeah and unfortunately what even seagar acknowledged is that the Taliban and other terrorist groups have been exploiting this us Aid the reason is countries like the United States and others in the International Community they're not paying attention that Afghanistan doesn't have a legitimate government it's in a state of Anarchy a terrorist group made up of different factions have taken over the country they don't know how to rule a country and they haven't put an effort to form a legitimate government based on the will of the people that can represent Afghanistan and that can alleviate the humanitarian crisis that the people people of Afghanistan are facing this is one thing that we've been pushing that Afghanistan needs a government that represents its diversity that represents every single citizen whether it's men or women and a government that comes out of the will and and and and the uh uh the will of the people and is based on elections free and fair elections we cannot depend on the Taliban to receive 7 billion which belongs to Afghanistan's people and to distribute it we know where that money is going to go to so is the anniversary of the US withdrawal August 2021 um it was a very popular move to end the war in the US but the way it was done was very unpopular it hurt Joe Biden in the polls right now Donald Trump is running for president again he negotiated the withdrawal deal with the Taliban Mike Pompeo famously met with the Taliban leadership in the Middle East um Trump is blaming Biden Biden is blaming Trump who do you blame for the way in which the United States left Afghanistan Trump or Biden of course both the agreement and the withdrawal caused a catastrophe however after January of 2021 the current Administration could have taken a different trajectory they changed so many Trump initiatives after January 2021 they couldn't have changed the agreement that was signed um by the Trump Administration with the Taliban they could have done that President Biden himself from the beginning even before the agreement was signed when he was vice president even before he was vice president when he was a Senator he was against the US intervention in Afghanistan so it was a personal decision that he made it was catastrophic because Afghanistan's government parties like us time after time we warned the implications of a hasty withdrawal from Afghanistan we weren't against a withdraw that's a decision that the United States should have made and we respected that however it should be should have been a dignified withdrawal it should have been minum withdraw that could have protected Afghanistan's government from collapsing yet they took decisions that directly caused the collapse of Afghanistan's Armed Forces caused the collapse of the government and created the conditions that we see today the counterargument to that is that the government was going to collapse no matter how you did the withdrawal and the fact that it collapsed so quickly when even us intelligence US military chiefs were saying it'll take several months for the Taliban to conquer the country they did it in a matter of days that tells you the critics would say that the government was just never had any support any popular base any competent military so whether you go slowly whether you go quickly the end result is the Taliban takes over the country there's a few reasons to counter this one is Afghanistan's Armed Forces has bravely fought for years we lost 880,000 forces from 2014 to 2021 fight in August 2021 they collapsed that's a fact and the reason they collapsed in August 2021 is because the United States withdrew all the support that could have sustained the Armed Forces look the armed forces that were the model that the United States uh intentionally adopted for Afghanistan's Armed Forces two decades ago created dependency between Afghanistan's armed forces and US presence in Afghanistan the United States didn't put guarantees at after its withdrawal for the Armed Forces to survive when the armed forces were dependent on contractors on the United States to maintain its equipment on us uh advisers when all of these pulled out from the country it was it was uh inevitable there's no doubt truth to what you're saying so I wonder doesn't that make it difficult for you now as a member of the national resistance from the NRF to say we want foreign support because we've seen this film before and you yourself are saying it didn't work out the first time so what would what would foreign military support for the NRF look like right now tangible what what is it you're looking for from the American government for example to make something clear on August 2021 August 15 2021 thousands of Afghanistan's Armed Forces came to the Piner Valley in the north and declared the resistance under the banner of the NRF so not everyone abandoned the fight and for the past three years without any external support without a scent going to us we've continued our resistance fighting the Taliban you're here in DC my question is do you want external support for the NRF of course for us to defeat Regional International uh terrorism we need the International Community to wake up and realize there's a threat inside Afghanistan specifics what does that look like you want fighter jets you want troops on the ground you want special what do what do you what do you want when the Taliban and 21 other terrorist groups have 7 billion worth of us arms Munitions and Equipment of course we need support whether it's the United States or any other country to allow us to defeat them militarily with non-lethal and lethal weap here's my question given what you just described wouldn't we are we just repeating the same cycle let's say you defeat them you defeat the Taliban You Take Back Control Taliban doesn't disappear they become the resistance you're back back to square one same American government support same dependency and it we this cycle never ends well if you remember in 2001 2002 of course many mistakes were made in the beginning the Taliban were willing to surrender when they were defeated but the ad Administration back then didn't accept their surrender and we saw the Insurgency for 20 years but what's the truth um Mii is today a it's not an internal conflict within Afghanistan Al-Qaeda is experiencing a Resurgence ISP Regional terrorist groups look the the threat that Pakistan faces to Pakistan was the taliban's number one sponsor and supporter for 30 years but Pakistan are saying the greatest threat today what they're saying is the greatest threat to our security and stability is the Taliban so as long as the Taliban control a country the size of France not only are the people of Afghanistan facing a the T I think we all understand the case against Taliban what I'm asking you though is you mentioned 2001 and there was a surrender offer kazai wanted to do a Power sharing deal with the Taliban that was what was turned down would you guys do a Power sharing deal with the Taliban if they were to if they were to have put down their weapons and say just do a deal is the NRF willing to go into Coalition with the Taliban what's different what we're asking is different than what happened uh after 911 we're not asking for boots on the ground yeah we have capable fighters who have shown their capabilities and their determination the last three years to fight what we need is resources minimal resources enable for us to expand our efforts to conventionally challenge the Taliban and to start liberating the country it's much different than what happened after 911 what about the argument that says Afghanistan is a war torn country all you're offering is more war that in places like the pans Valley they don't care about either of you innocent villagers are being killed in this fighting what do you say to that well it our vision matters which is different from the Taliban we're fighting to establish a democratic decentralized pluralistic Afghanistan where every single citizen enjoys equal rights because Afghanistan is a diverse country we have to guarantee equal rights to all ethnic groups religious groups and others that's not what the Taliban are doing what the Taliban are doing is putting Afghanistan on a trajectory of a a vicious cycle of violence and of course on uh unfortunately the trajectory that the Taliban have put Afghanistan is a trajectory where we Face the dismemberment of the country in the future so we are going to see chaos and crisis not only in inside Afghanistan but regionally and internationally because of the existence of the Taliban so but by supporting Democratic forces like us we will allow conditions to come in on the ground to end this vicious cycle Violence by guaranteeing the rights of every citizen inside Afghanistan and guaranteeing the security of the region and International Community you say you are a democratic Force the last Afghan government often said it was a democratic government it was riddled with corruption I think no one can deny the last Afghan government was a pretty corrupt as was predecessor governments um the NRF your group has several members from that former corrupt government who have themselves been accused of corruption um one expert said that your leader massud has turned the NRF into a quote family business wasting hundreds of thousands of dollars on corruption and Family Feud how do you expect the people of Afghanistan to support you to even trust the NRF when your group is both the successor to a corrupt government and right now is being accused of being corrupt well before August 2021 the leader of the NRF myself and the vast majority of our members we were part of the opposition just because of that we were against the corruption of Afghanistan's government we didn't believe that the constitution would have strengthened democracy so we were asking for constitutional reform for a more decentralized uh political system in order for democracy to take root inside the country and to strengthen to go back to the NRF of course those are rumors the vast majority of Afghanistan's people support us today because the leader of the NRF Mr Ahmed mud he wasn't involved in the government in the past 20 years one he's young educated and clean because he doesn't have a corrup you say he's clean but tamin a who's Afghan expert at Kings I'm sure you know him former deputy defense minister he says princeling Ahmed mud and his father-in-law Ahmed W mud have turned the NRF into a family corporate business based out of Tajikistan he says hundreds of thousands of dollars are lost due to corruption I I ask him to bring evidence and proof any he was a government official we should ask him what happened to milons does apply to you as well that you have lot of former government officials people like amale who was the vice president of Afghanistan was the interior Minister on their watch all these officials watch weren't they like fake ghost soldiers weren't there Afghan Army units billing the United States for soldiers that didn't exist all I mean you say clean hands but the legacy of the previous regime is still with the NRF is it not no because we aren't a continuation of the corrupt government the president fled the president fled but didn't Ahmed massud also flee to Tajikistan he he did they both flee no because he went to Piner Valley on August 15th 2021 he had no obligation to start a resistance he wasn't part of the government but he said Ash gandi fled and Ahmed massud fled so in on August 15th 2021 the only person who stayed inside the country part of the political class was Ahmed M understood but since then he's left he left not he didn't flee the country of course he's been moving in and out but right now the conditions are much better since he's the political leader of the NRF it's m much better for him to stay outside of the country but he stayed on he fought against the Taliban conventionally himself inside the panire valley for more than a month and after that it was based on a consensus of the people that he consulted with to other senior members of the NRF and our commanders who are still in the field who operate our bases within Afghanistan that it's best for the leader of the NRF to leave the country to pursue our diplomatic efforts and our political matters okay last question to you you're here in Washington DC what is your message to Joe Biden and the Biden Administration what is your message to Cara Harris vice president who is running to replace Joe Biden could be in charge of Afghan policy in a matter of months well our message to all Americans whoever wins the elections in November and the current Administration is the current policy that the West the International Community has adopted Visa V Afghanistan has failed the Taliban haven't shown any flexibility they haven't changed they're making the lives of every single citizen of Afghanistan much worse as every day passes Afghanistan once again is a hub and Haven for international terrorism when you have the leader of the uh the new leader of al-Qaeda Saad come out with a statement last month saying Afghanistan it was once again safe for us and so all jihadists and terrorists around the globe should migrate to Afghanistan and then facilitate attacks against the West why is the White House quiet why is both campaigns quiet about this they should be Afghanistan shouldn't be a domestic talking point for any campaign right now it should be part of their National Security strategy what is going to happen when one of them are elected after November because Afghanistan look the US administrations before 2001 ignored Afghanistan for a decade and we saw 911 Y and and the warrant ter once again they're ignoring Afghanistan this time it's going to be much worse because Al-Qaeda ISP Taliban have an embolden narrative that we've defeated NATO and the U us they have $7 billion worth of us equipment they have a whole country the size of France in their disposal which they didn't have in the 1990s we controlled 35% of Afghanistan we were the legitimate government of Afghanistan and so this is of course a recipe for for catastrophe so they need a viable policy BAS based on the realities on the ground in order to prevent a catastrophe that will once again create the conditions for a costly War yeah that will create the conditions for the return of boots on the ground to Afghanistan we don't want that they don't want that so let's sit down and discuss a viable policy that can help both the people of Afghanistan and the International Community we'll have to leave it there alari thank you so much for your time appreciate for having thank thank you that's our show May the unfiltered we'll be back next week in the mean time do make sure you subscribe to Zeto for now from me goodbye