Adam Curtis - Bitter Lake

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"Events come and go like waves of a fever, leaving us confused and uncertain. Those in power tell stories to help us make sense of the complexity of reality, but those stories are increasingly unconvincing and hollow. This is a film about why those stories have stopped making sense, and how that led us in the West to become a dangerous and destructive force in the world. It is told through the prism of a country at the center of the world: Afghanistan." - Adam Curtis

http://spikethenews.blogspot.com/2015/02/adam-curtis-bitter-lake.html

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Spike1138,
Minister of Information,
The League Against NATO Aggression

Increasingly, we live in a world
where nothing makes any sense.

Events come and go like waves of a
fever,

leaving us confused and uncertain.

Those in power tell stories to help
us make sense

of the complexity of reality.

But those stories are increasingly
unconvincing and hollow.

# Excuse me, I'm lost... #

This is a film about why those
stories have stopped making sense.

And how that led us in the West to
become a dangerous and destructive

force in the world.

It is told
through the prism of a country

at the centre of the world.
Afghanistan.

# Who are you? #

MUSIC: Come Down To Us by Burial

# Here we are

# I'm tired

# Break it down

# Break it down, to my eyes

# Baby, come on, come on

# And, girl, I know

# I know you want it

# I'm trusting you, I'm going

# Going

# Tonight, do you feel alive?

# Tonight, do you feel alive?

# Come down to us

# Come down

# Down... #

In 1946, American engineers, along
with their wives and families,

began to arrive at a dusty
airstrip in Helmand

in southern Afghanistan.

They worked for the
biggest construction company

in the world - called Morrison
Knudsen -

and the King of Afghanistan had
brought them there

to build a giant planned new world -

a complex of dams, canals, roads,
and even a new model city.

The king's aim was to harness
the power of the giant Helmand river

and turn his country into a modern
society - just like in the West.

ARCHIVE: 'The Asiatic kingdom
of Afghanistan is located

'roughly 10,000 miles from either
coastline of the United States.

'Almost directly on the opposite side
of the globe, westward from China,

'beyond the Himalayas.

'It is a landlocked country, bordered
on the north by the Soviet Union,

'and on the east by Pakistan,
and on the west by Iran.'

The King was called Zahir Shah, and
he often came to visit the project.

Afghanistan was a deeply
conservative country and he was

determined to modernise it.

What the King was trying to create
in Helmand was a copy of what

President Roosevelt had done in
America in the 1930s.

And the company
he had hired - Morrison Knudsen -

had worked back
then for Roosevelt,

building a new world of dams and
power stations across America.

Now they were going
to do the same for Afghanistan.

The engineers and their families
lived in a complex of houses

around the King's country palace
in Helmand.

It became known as Little America.

INDISTINCT VOICES

You got everything you need?

Quite a lot of stuff lying around.
There is a dead insurgent lying here.

A man in his early 20s.

Come on, let's go. Let's go.

DIALOGUE IN THEIR OWN LANGUAGE

ALL SHOUTING AT ONCE

OK, I'll follow you in. Off you go.

OK.

Good morning.

Stand up.

How are you?
WOMEN: I'm fine, thanks.

You are very good.

How are your families?

What will it take to stop
the fighting?

TRANSLATOR REPEATS

HE ANSWERS IN HIS OWN LANGUAGE

MOBILE PHONE PLAYS SONG AS RINGTONE

RINGTONE STOPS

INDISTINCT VOICES MIX WITH MUSIC

How long have you been with the
Taliban, if you don't mind me asking?

Chris, what's going on?

All right, wow!

LAUGHTER

Wow. You look creepy up close.

A little creepy from far away too!

Yeah, that's true.

What's going on? How are you feeling?

I'm feeling pretty good right now.

It's been a pretty exciting day.

Yeah, getting kills out here.

Today, just for documentation,

today was the day we went
against order and we shot anyway.

We killed, like, a whole bunch
of people.

24 unapproved rounds.

24 unapproved high-explosive
mortar rounds.

That's about 40,000 pounds of death
right there.

Yo. Yo.

Fuck it, looks like a rave
in here, almost.

All I got to say... Actually, I do
have something to say.

Let's hear it.

I love the fucking Marine Corp.
LAUGHTER

- I know many of you...
- We got you on camera saying it!

I know, I know many of you don't,
but what we did today...

Yeah, we need born killers, like you.

Oh, we're all born killers.

INDISTINCT VOICES

At the end of the Second World War,
President Roosevelt travelled to

the Great Bitter Lake
in the middle of the Suez Canal.

At the same time, he sent
another American warship

to pick up the King of Saudi Arabia,
King Abdulaziz.

The meeting of King and President was
to have powerful - and disastrous -

consequences both for the West and,
in a strange way, for Afghanistan.

Roosevelt was dying,
but over the last 13 years

he had used his power on an epic
scale to transform the world.

After the Wall Street crash and the
terrible depression that followed,

Roosevelt had taken charge.

He had passed laws that broke up
the banks

so they would never run out
of control again.

And he had rebuilt
America with a series of giant dams

that brought electrical power and
employment to millions of people.

And he had planned and fought a
world war against Germany and Japan.

Now, as Roosevelt sat waiting for
Abdulaziz,

no-one could possibly have imagined
the consequences of this meeting.

For it was going to
unleash forces that in the future

would undermine everything that
Roosevelt had worked for -

his belief that politicians should
use their power in a planned way

to reshape the world.

But Roosevelt knew that to keep that
power, America needed oil.

And he wanted to forge an alliance
with the King to make sure

the vast Saudi oilfields remained
under American control.

In their conversation, the two men
laid the foundations for an alliance

that continues to the present day.

America would get its oil - and in
return, Saudi Arabia would receive

wealth and security from America.

But the King was well aware of the
dangers of opening up his country

to the influence of the modern West.

And in the negotiations that
followed, he laid down a condition.

We will take your technology
and your money, he said -

but you must
leave our faith alone.

The Saudi faith was called Wahhabism.

It was a radical, violent and
extremely puritanical form of Islam,

and its followers among the Bedouin
tribes hated the modern world.

Wahhabism was part of a wider
movement in Islam

that had risen up
in reaction to the European empires.

Another was the Deobandi movement
in India.

They all believed that modern
imperialism was corrupting

the true nature of Islam,
and wanted to go back to a world

based on the original teachings
of the Islamic texts.

Abdulaziz had harnessed this force
in the 1920s to seize power.

But he had unleashed something that
didn't want to stop.

The Wahhabists wanted to go on
and create a caliphate

across the whole of the Arab world -

and to stop them, in 1929,
Abdulaziz machine-gunned them.

He ruthlessly killed the warriors
who had made him King.

But their belief - a violent,
intolerant and, above all,

backward-looking version of Islam -

remained at the heart of
Saudi Arabian society.

And the deal made that day on
the Great Bitter Lake

meant that America would get
its oil

but it would also be protecting
Wahhabism -

a force that
had its own global ambitions.

Ambitions that were very
different from America's.

HARP PLAYS

Who's the turban job on the throne?

You mean the Khasi.

That's Randy Lal.

Who?

Randy Lal, the Khasi of Kalabar.

Ooh!

How do you know he is, then?

- How do I know he's what?
- Randy.

- That's his name!
- Ooh!

He's very good looking, isn't he?

Yes, only the most richest
and powerful rajah in northern India,

that's all.

- He's smiling at us.
- Smile back.

Coo-ee!

You don't have to go raving mad.

My father, who are those people?

That, light of my darkness,
is Sir Sidney Rough Diamond,

a British governor
whose benevolent rule

and wise guidance
we could well do without.

By the mid-1950s,
the American engineers had built

the giant dams that were going to
create what they called

"a new wonderland of vegetation
and power" in Helmand.

But the project was running into
problems

and it was beginning
to lose its innocence.

As the giant dams were completed,
they had an unexpected effect.

They raised the
level of the water table

and started to bring salt
to the surface.

And one of the plants that thrived
in this new soil were poppies.

Some of those leading the project
said they should stop.

But the American government stepped
in and insisted that they should

continue because by now the dams
had become a central part

of the struggle with
the Soviet Union.

All sides in the Cold War began to
compete to offer Afghanistan

bigger and better schemes to
modernise the country.

Afghan politicians exploited
this ruthlessly.

The Prime Minister, Mohammed Daoud,
spent his time travelling the world

playing the countries - Russia,
America and China -

off against each other.

Daoud wanted to use the modernization
as a way of consolidating his power.

Afghanistan was a fragmented country.

Power was divided between
ethnic groups and tribes.

Daoud was a Pashtun and he saw how
the dam project in Helmand

could be used to consolidate the
Pashtun grip on the whole country.

He persuaded the Americans to make
the project even bigger,

to turn it into a giant piece of
social engineering.

Thousands of Pashtun nomads,

who spent their time roaming
the border area with Pakistan,

would be settled in the new farmland
created by the dams.

Daoud presented it as just another
innocent piece of modernisation -

and the Americans happily agreed.

What they didn't realise was that
they were unwittingly being sucked

into Afghan power politics.

Not only was Daoud increasing
Pashtun power, but he

was sowing the seeds of bitter
rivalries

over the division and
ownership of land in Helmand.

UPBEAT DANCE MUSIC PLAYS

TRUMPET PLAYS AFGHAN FOLK MUSIC

CROWD CLAPS ALONG

FOLK DANCE MUSIC PLAYS

BOYS CALL IN THEIR OWN LANGUAGE

GUNSHOTS

BARRAGE OF GUNFIRE

SHOUTING

CAR HORN BEEPS

MAN SHOUTS IN HIS OWN LANGUAGE

ALARM BLARES

MEN TALK QUIETLY

SHIP'S HORN BLARES

CAMEL GRUNTS

The British Board of Trade,

in the booklet it gives out to
visiting British businessmen,

does try to be helpful, but this
is what it says about Arabic time,

and that's only one of them.

"Sunset is taken as zero,
when watches are set to 12.

"A business appointment given for,
say, two o'clock in the evening

"will therefore be
for two hours after sunset

"and for five o'clock in the morning,
seven hours before sunset.

"It's important to remember
that sunset should be regarded

"as midnight. The time
of sunrise is irrelevant."

I don't know about you but I know
sun time is roughly six hours, uh...

plus five, in other words it's either
11 o'clock, morning or evening.

- But which?
- Well, it's 11 o'clock.

But it must have some relevance
to the time of day.

- Yes.
- How do you, as a businessman,

make appointments?

Um... I normally
make them by my watch.

I ask them personally whether they
are conforming to either Arabic time,

sun time or GMT plus three.
They normally say the other two.

I ask them to give me
a time at GMT plus three.

Now, sun time is six hours
after this, roughly.

Six hours after that?

Six hours plus five,
give or take an hour.

Do you know what time it is now?

Not really!

In 1964, King Faisal became
the new leader of Saudi Arabia.

Faisal set out
to modernise the country.

He created western-style
bureaucracies and a welfare system.

He even allowed television
for the first time.

But he faced two threats.

One was from the religious leaders
inside Saudi Arabia.

They were the Wahhabists, who had
brought his family to power

and gave his rule legitimacy.

They distrusted any idea
of modernising Saudi society.

Faisal was also facing
a dangerous situation abroad,

from communism, that was spreading
through the Arab world.

His solution was simple.

Faisal decided to use the religious
leaders and their conservative

beliefs as a force to counter the
international threat of communism.

But he knew that this would also
divert their attention

away from his domestic policies.

Faisal used the growing oil money

to set up hundreds of schools and
institutes across the Islamic world -

some as far away as Pakistan.

Their job was to spread Wahhabist
ideas and help to turn Islam into

a unified international force strong
enough to stand up to communism.

What Faisal was doing
was taking the dangerous

and unstable fanaticism
at the heart of Saudi society

and directing it outwards,
beyond its borders.

It was a ruthless way of creating
stability in his own country.

America gave this tacit approval

because it was part of the global
struggle against communism.

But in 1966, Faisal gave America

a glimpse of how uncontrollable
an ally Saudi Arabia could be.

He went to New York

and publicly attacked
America's support for Israel.

It caused an outrage.

HE SPEAKS IN ARABIC

The reasons are that unfortunately,

the Jews throughout the world
support Israel.

They provide assistance to Israel
and in our present situation,

we consider those who
provide assistance to our enemy

as our own enemy.

HE SPEAKS ARABIC

I'd like to hire a photocopy machine.

- OK.
- For three months.

That's OK.

- Possibly for six months.
- Yes, why not?

Um...

If you like it for one year,
one for...

What I need from you is, how many
conditions and how much it will be.

MAN SPEAKS HIS OWN LANGUAGE

Ho, ho, ho, ho.

Do you have a lot of...
all that toner and the developer?

Yeah, we want you to
maintain it and service it. OK?

MEN SPEAK IN THEIR OWN LANGUAGE

Sir, we buy paper from them,
the colour from them, that's OK?

Yeah. Can you give me a price
for three months,

possibly for six months?

The contract must last
for three months.

OK.

THEY SPEAK IN THEIR OWN LANGUAGE

500 dollar per month.

- 500 dollar per month.
- Per month?

- It's very expensive.
- That is very expensive.

What you have,
if you're bringing in here,

you can set them here,
I will copy for you.

No, no,
we want to take the copier away.

MUSIC: The Bewlay Brothers
by David Bowie

# And so the story goes,
they wore the clothes

# They said the things
to make it seem improbable

# Whale of a lie
like they hope it was

# And the good men tomorrow
had their feet in the wallow

# And their heads of brawn
were nicer shorn

# And how they bought their positions
with saccharin and trust

# And the world was asleep
to our latent fuss

# Sighings swirl through the streets
like the crust of the sun

# The Bewlay Brothers

# In our wings that bark

# Flashing teeth of brass

# Standing tall in the dark

# Oh, and we were gone... #

Your Excellency, your presence
enriches my humble home.

May the benevolence of the god Shivu
bring blessings on your house.

And on yours.

And may his wisdom bring success
in all your undertakings.

And in yours.

And may his radiance
light up your life.

And up yours.

- Do you ever...
- It really angers me.

Do you ever feel frustrated
at perhaps, I mean,

you've spoken about corruption
and certainly in the past

you've made very strong views
against officials, for example,

who are corrupt, but many of those
officials haven't left their jobs,

they haven't obeyed your orders.

No, they have all left their jobs.

Certainly.

In the past few days,
the 28 that you have sacked,

19, our information is that 19 of
them are still in their positions.

No, that's not true.
They have all gone.

They have all gone.

- OK.
- Definitely. Definitely.

So you're confident, then,
that your power is building

in terms of being able to enact,

to make sure that
your orders are obeyed.

I'm... I'm building a new
administration for Afghanistan.

I'm working on a clean,
efficient administration.

Back! Back off! Back the fuck off!

Get the fuck out of the way.
Get the fuck out!

MUSIC RESUMES: The Bewlay Brothers
by David Bowie

# I was stone, he was wax

# So he could scream and still relax,
unbelievable

# And we frightened
the small children away

# And our talk was old
and dust would flow through our veins

# And though it was midnight
back at the kitchen door

# Like the grim face
on the cathedral floor

# The solid book we wrote
cannot be found today

# And it was stalking time for
the moon boys, the Bewlay Brothers

# With our backs on the arch

# And the Devil may be here

# But he can't sing about that

# Oh, and we were gone

# Real cool traders

# We were so turned on... #

MUSIC DISTORTS, FADES

# You thought we were fakers... #

DOG BARKS

The other day, a friend
of Blue Peter's, Angela Mulliner,

invited me to help her groom some
dogs with very shaggy coats indeed,

a pair of Afghan hounds.

This should be a good spot.

'You need plenty of space
to groom dogs this size,

'so we picked the park.

'Their names were Kingsley and Cleo
and I said I'd do Cleo.'

How often is one supposed to do this?

- Very frequently.
- Oh, gosh.

Don't sit down, Cleo,
there's a good girl.

'Angela and I wanted the dogs
to look their very best

'because we were taking them out
on a special assignment.

'We were all going off to The Mall

'and we had to be there
by 12 o'clock.'

- Come on, then, dogs.
- Come on.

'We felt very proud of Kingsley and
Cleo because they had been invited

'to join a guard of honour.'

'Afghan hounds were going to
salute their king, because

'for the first time ever, the King of
Afghanistan was coming to London.'

MARCHING BAND PLAYS

'About 20 members of
the Southern Afghan Hound Society

'had brought their dogs along
to line the route

'and there were Afghans
of all colours and sizes.'

'And when the Queen pointed us out,

'the King of Afghanistan
seemed delighted to see us.

CHEERING

'For the first time in their lives,

'British Afghan hounds were seeing
people from their own country

'because in the carriages
that followed the Queen,

'there were more people from
the Royal Court of Afghanistan.'

ADAM CURTIS: But the ordered world,
where kings and queens ruled

and dogs behaved obediently,
was about to collapse.

In 1971, the King of Afghanistan

had come on his first ever
state visit to Britain

but it was also his last,

because his ambitious
Prime Minister, Mohammed Daoud,

was already plotting against him.

And in 1973,
Daoud took power in a coup.

He declared Afghanistan a republic,
and sent the King into exile.

DOGS BARK

Two months later,
Egypt attacked Israel

and a Middle East war started.

To begin with, it looked
as though Israel would be defeated.

But the American government came
to its rescue, airlifting arms

on a massive scale to prevent
the Israelis from being overwhelmed.

The Israelis counterattacked
and the Arabs faced a disaster.

But then Saudi Arabia
came to the rescue

because King Faisal realised

that his country had a weapon
that could stop Israel.

Overnight, Faisal raised
the price of oil five times

and threatened a complete embargo

unless America
forced Israel to pull back.

It worked. A ceasefire was agreed.

And everyone realised that
the balance of power in the world

had suddenly changed.

What we want is the complete
withdrawal of the Israeli forces

from the occupied Arab territories

and then you will have the oil

at the same level of September '73.

Is this demand absolute and rigid or
is this just a negotiating position?

Definitely. Definitely.

We won't give up any inch
of these lands.

Doesn't this new massive increase
in the price of oil

mean a change in
the world balance of power

between the developing nations
like you, the producers,

and us, the developed
industrialised nations?

Yes, it will.

And what do you think
arises from that?

Well, a new type of relationship.

You have to adjust yourself to
the new circumstances

and I think you have to sit down
and talk seriously with us

about this new era.

When Saudi Arabia
raised the price of oil,

they did it to change the political
balance of power in the world.

But it also had
another, unexpected, effect

because it allowed the men who ran
the banks and the financial system

in America and Britain to begin to
break free of political control.

Billions of dollars flooded
from the West into Saudi Arabia -

most of which the Saudis
didn't know what to do with.

So they gave them to
the Western banks to invest.

The banks then made a crucial
decision - they kept many

of those dollars free from
control by the American government

and they became a vast pool of
wealth, known as petrodollars,

that could be lent and traded
anywhere around the world

without political control.

As western politicians struggled
to deal with the economic

and social chaos that had been
created by the oil price rise,

their bankers were building
a new global financial system

based on recycling
the Saudi billions.

And the banks began to become
rich and powerful again.

DISTANT MUFFLED SHOUTING

Does he know where the Taliban are?

The biggest Taliban shelter...
Taliban...

THEY SPEAK IN THEIR OWN LANGUAGE

- Marjah?
- Marjah.

He said Taliban is in Marjah.

LAUGHING: Uh-huh, Marjah. Marjah.

THEY SPEAK THEIR OWN LANGUAGE

They use his compound as...
MAN SPEAKS HIS OWN LANGUAGE

- Assalamu alaikum.
- Assalamu alaikum.

Right. Are we in Kushal Kalay
just now?

Is this Kushal Kalay? What is
the name of this village?

MAN TRANSLATES

This is the edge of Kushal Kalay.

Have the Taliban gone now or
are they still in Kushal Kalay?

HE TRANSLATES

OK. Where... Sh, sh, sh.

Where has he seen Taliban? Where?

THEY SPEAK OWN LANGUAGE

Sure, sure.

HE SPEAKS OWN LANGUAGE

How far?

HE SPEAKS OWN LANGUAGE

Here, the Taliban?

HE SPEAKS OWN LANGUAGE

There, there, there!
Right, sir - sir!

THEY SPEAK OWN LANGUAGE

This guy's ID-ing these here
and saying they're Taliban.

HE SPEAKS OWN LANGUAGE
Yeah. Two men.

HE SPEAKS OWN LANGUAGE
Yeah, there.

Taliban, yeah?

HE SPEAKS OWN LANGUAGE

KIDS SHOUT

THEY SPEAK OWN LANGUAGE

WIND HOWLS

As western countries collapsed
economically in the 1970s,

students from Europe and America
fled from the chaos.

They came to Afghanistan
as a land of dreams.

A different, innocent world,

free of the corruption of politics
and money in the West.

MAN: Then you see some Afghan
come dozing out of the sand,

hardly give you a look,
and carry on past.

You long to ask, "Where are you
going? Where have you come from?"

But he just disappears into the murk,

going about his everyday business.

A traveller is someone

who proceeds through a country

under his own initiative,

with a certain internal drive
to learn,

to find out something more
than the superficial.

To me, an Afghan was some
figure from a woodblock print

in a book about India.

The reality of an Afghan
was so beyond that,

their strength of character
which comes through

in their most simple action.

This is a long jacket. For men.

For generation.
It goes from mother to daughter.

A possum.

This is antelope.

Look at this coat.

But Afghan students still believed
in the idea of revolution.

Back in the 1960s, many students
from Kabul University had been sent

to universities in America.

It had been part of the
modernisation project.

And they brought back with them
radical ideas

from the American student left.

Back in Kabul,

those ideas then got mixed up
with other left-wing theories

that the Afghan students found in
badly-translated Russian books

about Marxism.

And in 1978 they decided
to have a revolution.

One of the leaders was
Hafizullah Amin,

and after the revolution
he ordered a film to be made

about the role he had played.

Amin also starred in the film,
playing himself.

It shows policemen coming to Amin's
house to arrest him.

He tries to hide some secret papers.

But the policemen take him to jail,
leaving his wife and daughter.

Amin is then shown directing the
revolution from his prison cell.

And then riding on a tank
to the president's palace.

REPORTER: Tanks loyal to young
communist army officers

now guard the palace
where President Daoud ruled.

Inside, he and his family,
including his young grandchildren,

are shot dead when his palace guard
lost their courageous battle

to defend him.

Men from the different tribes
who live in this backward country

swarm all over tanks
knocked out in the battle.

They seem pleased to see the end
of the old, feudal regime.

ADAM CURTIS: The revolutionaries
gave a press conference.

Amin, it was announced,
would become Foreign Minister.

And the president of the
revolutionary council

was another ex-student -
Mohammed Taraki.

Our relationship with all the
countries, including Soviet Union,

and all our neighbours and
throughout the world will be peace,

will depend on the amount of their
support to our government

in political, economical field.

Does this mean, Mr President,

that you will be following a
strict policy of non-alignment?

This is quite correct.

The aim of the revolution was
to create a new Afghanistan,

and parades were held in Kabul
to celebrate the radical vision.

One of the main aims was to
redistribute land fairly,

to get rid of a feudal system
of landowners and peasants.

Every farmer was to be allowed
to own their own land.

And young revolutionaries from Kabul

were filmed going out
into the countryside

to measure out the new plots,

followed by the grateful farmers
kissing their new land certificates.

But in reality, the land reforms
set the seeds for a bitter conflict

in Helmand. It made the divisions

that had begun with President Daoud's
reforms in the 1960s much worse.

As the land was parcelled out,

families accused each other
of stealing the best bits.

And all sorts of hatreds
and rivalries

were born in Afghan rural society,

rivalries that would set village
against village, tribe against tribe.

And in Kabul, the revolutionaries
started to hate each other, too.

Hafizullah Amin decided
that he should be in charge,

and he arranged for his rival,
Taraki, to be killed.

Taraki was smothered with a cushion.

Amin ordered that anyone
who opposed the reforms

should be thrown in jail or killed.

In Helmand, 100 political prisoners
were taken up in a plane

and thrown into the giant lake
created by the American dam.

The Soviet leaders in Moscow became
terrified that Afghanistan

was falling apart and
they decided to intervene.

They rang Amin to tell him that
they were sending Russian troops

to help his revolution.

And at the end of 1979, the troops
began to arrive at Kabul Airport.

What the Russians didn't tell Amin

was that the troops were also
coming to kill him.

The Russians put a sniper
on one of the main roads in Kabul.

But Amin's convoy drove too fast
and the sniper missed.

GUNSHOT

THEY SPEAK OWN LANGUAGE

They tried again.

This time they put poison
in Amin's can of Pepsi

in the presidential palace.

But his nephew drank it instead...

and died.

Amin gave a banquet
in a palace outside Kabul.

The Soviets smuggled in a chef
who poisoned the food.

This time it worked -

all the guests, and Amin, fell
on the floor, writhing in agony.

But the Afghan servants
rang for help

and two Russian doctors turned up
who knew nothing of the plot.

They pumped Amin's stomach
and he revived.

So the Russian troops attacked
the palace, threw a grenade at Amin,

and shot him.

SHOUTING IN OWN LANGUAGE

INDISTINCT VOICES ON RADIO

INDISTINCT VOICES ON RADIO

Couldn't be happier. And I'm
particularly happy today.

Why?

We had a very good election
last night

and the people came out
in huge numbers to vote.

And voted a new president,
which is the people's choice,

and that's democracy in action.

And I'm very proud of the people
of the United States.

Oh, I was thrilled.

I think the stock market will go up,
everyone will be happy,

the economy is going to level off,

our international relations
will become much more stable.

I've worked very, very hard on the
election in some of the phone banks

and all of my friends did.
Thrilled to pieces about it.

I, uh, always have voted,
uh, Democrat.

So, you know, times have changed
now so, I'm not a baby any more

so I had to make a change
and I made a change.

And so the right man won.

President Reagan simplified
everything for America.

For ten years, the country had been
battered and torn apart

by waves of economic
and social chaos.

Reagan set out to give the country
a new sense of purpose.

He took all the problems,
even the most complex,

and turned them into
reassuring moral fables.

And abroad, the world
he depicted was one where,

although good might struggle
with evil for a while,

in the end, goodness and innocence
would triumph.

We have it in our power

to begin the world over again.

APPLAUSE

It was a vision of the world
that, over the next 20 years,

would rise up to possess all of us
in the West, both left and right.

Conflicts that, in the past, would
have been seen as political struggles

were redefined. They became instead
battles against dark, demonic forces

that threatened innocent people.

And the role of we,
the good people of the West,

was to intervene to save
those innocents.

One of the places this dream began
was Afghanistan.

America was already
helping the rebels

who were fighting the Russians, but
Reagan increased the aid massively

and made it the symbol
of his new vision.

He even dedicated the space shuttle
to the Afghan freedom fighters.

Just as the Columbia we think
represents man's finest aspirations

in the field of science
and technology,

so, too, does the struggle of the
Afghan people represent man's

highest aspirations for freedom.

Accordingly, I am dedicating,
on behalf of the American people,

the March 22nd launch of the Columbia

to the people of Afghanistan.

But right from the beginning
there was a dangerous,

destructive force at the very
heart of this project.

This was because Reagan's partner
in the battle to bring freedom

to Afghanistan was Saudi Arabia.

The Saudi intelligence agencies
worked with the CIA to ship arms

and money to the Afghan rebels.

On the surface, the Saudis did this
because a fellow Muslim country

had been invaded by communists.

But it was also part of their attempt
to export the dangerous

fundamentalism at the heart
of their own society.

In 1979, a group of Saudi radicals

had taken over the Grand Mosque in
Mecca.

For two weeks, the authorities
had fought running battles

with the insurgents.

They discovered that a number
of the attackers had been taught

by the most senior religious leader
in the country.

It made the ruling family
realise just how fragile

their grip on power was.

So as well as sending
the money and the weapons,

they encouraged young radicals
to go and fight in Afghanistan.

One of them was a young
Osama bin Laden.

The aim was to divert their anger.

But it meant that with the arms
would also come the pessimistic

and intolerant version
of Islam - Wahhabism.

To begin with, these ideas would have
little influence in Afghanistan.

But they would take hold there and
mutate into a dark and violent force

that was completely at odds
with Reagan's vision of freedom.

At the beginning, though, no-one
knew who to give the weapons to,

and an odd group of adventurers
went into Afghanistan to find out.

One of the first was a Texan
socialite called Joanne Herring.

When I went in to Afghanistan -
I don't even know how I got in -

the president of Pakistan flew me
to the border, you know,

the no man's land that the
British created - very wisely -

between Afghanistan and Pakistan.

And we boarded a truck -
I put on men's clothing -

and we got on this truck
and went somewhere.

And we went into these camps

and there would be these men

with beards and turbans...
in rags, really.

They had nothing.

And with their 1918 Enfield rifles,

they would stand there
and they'd say,

"To the last drop of blood!"

And your heart would just burst.
But I thought,

"What will they do with an unveiled
woman coming in here?"

And I thought, you know,
they really may kill me

because they might not understand
why I'm here. But they did.

They were so grateful. So grateful.

They said, "The world doesn't know.
Thank you for coming."

PLANES PASS OVERHEAD

EXPLOSION

My...heart was given
immediately to these people

who believed so much in their god,

and I think it's the same god...

..as I worship.

Just in another way.

And they would come back and, of
course, completely exhausted

and almost dead - those
who were still alive -

and then this new group would say,

"I can't wait to go out
and kill Russians."

MAN: 'This is Radio Afghanistan
calling Europe.'

This is Radio Afghanistan,
Kabul, and here is the news.

43 cases of bullets
for 300 3-bore guns,

an Egyptian Kalashnikov,

11,300 other bullets
of various types,

including rocket launchers and mines,

and 170 various types of weapons,

45 mortar shells,

light and heavy machine guns,
typewriters and cameras,

have recently been seized from
the counter revolutionary bandits...

MALE REPORTER: Ask him
to speak to the daughter.

MAN TRANSLATES

FEMALE REPORTER: Can he give her
the flower? Give her the flower.

MEN SPEAK OWN LANGUAGE

MALE REPORTER: Karen, please.

It is better if he gives her flower
than if Karen gives her the flower.

MEN TALK OWN LANGUAGE

Sorry. Can you do it? Ask him
to do it while I'm filming.

Just ask him to put it down...

MAN SPEAKS OWN LANGUAGE

Yeah, yeah, yeah, OK.

MAN SPEAKS OWN LANGUAGE

EXPLOSION

MAN COUGHS

GUITAR PLAYS

MAN SINGS IN OWN LANGUAGE

In the early 1980s, the Soviet Union
was falling apart.

The attempt to create a planned
socialist society had failed.

It had become a stagnant world
where the shops were half empty,

criminal gangs looted the factories,

and no-one believed
in the system any longer.

The ageing Soviet leaders knew
that Russian society was collapsing

but they had no idea what to do.

And in the face of this, Afghanistan
became, for them, a last desperate

attempt to create a model version
of their original communist ideal.

Faced with a growing rebellion
in the countryside,

the Russians took over Afghanistan

and installed another student
revolutionary as president.

He was called Babrak Karmal

and he did what he was told.

And as well as the Russian troops,
thousands of teachers and doctors

came to set up programmes and
hospitals that were going to

transform the lives
of the Afghan people.

SHE SINGS IN OWN LANGUAGE

..it was 151...in the right
arm in sitting position.

Why did you come to Afghanistan?

Was it compulsory posting or
was it of your own free choice?

Why...I did come to Afghanistan?

OK, I will tell you.

I'm doctor.

I want to help people.

Patient. It is the main reason
I come to Afghanistan.

Do you say this right?

But it was your free choice that you
came here, you were not sent here?

Only free choice.
Only free choice.

And Afghan women were taught
to be independent

so they could free themselves
from the repression

of what the Soviets saw
as a backward religion.

You know, after the revolution,

the woman in Afghanistan will be
same, like man, yes?

They're the same.

You know what I mean?

You know, in society

and also in economy and everything.

But outside the cities,
the mujaheddin rebels

increased their attacks.

They were becoming more confident
and powerful.

Using weapons supplied by the
Americans and the Saudis,

they ambushed Russian convoys.

GUNFIRE AND EXPLOSIONS

The mujaheddin treatment
of their Russian prisoners

was ruthless and cruel.

..and we captured two Russians alive.

Then we took them to our commander.

And then the commander told us
to stone them into death.

And we took them and we
stoned them into death.

- They stoned them to death?
Yes.

Have many people here stoned Russians
or Afghan communists to death?

MAN TRANSLATES

MURMURS OF AGREEMENT

In response, the Russians launched
search and destroy missions,

often bombing whole villages,

massacring hundreds of civilians.

The war became a vicious struggle,

with the mujaheddin using
equally brutal tactics.

And any idea of transforming
Afghanistan began to slip away,

and the Russians retreated
into the cities.

INDISTINCT RADIO CHATTER

Comrade General, what is the military
situation in the country?

But the rebels came into the cities

and began to kill
the Russian civilians.

They hid bombs in everyday objects

that exploded the moment
anyone used them.

Everything around the Russians
became frightening and unstable.

The forces that they had unleashed
were pursuing them

and as they did so they began to eat
away at the very foundations

of Soviet communism.

One of the bravest and most honest
of the Russian journalists

in Afghanistan was Artyom Borovik.

He wrote, "We thought that we were
civilising a backwards country

"by exposing it to television,
to modern bombers, to schools,

"to the latest models of tanks,

"to books, to long-range artillery,

"to newspapers, to economic aid,
to AK-47s.

"But we rarely stopped to think
how Afghanistan would influence us,

"despite the hundreds of thousands
of Soviet soldiers, diplomats,

"journalists and political advisers
who passed through it.

"They were thrown into a country
where bribery, corruption,

"profiteering and drugs
were no less common

"than the long lines
in Soviet stores.

"These diseases can be far more
infectious and dangerous

"than hepatitis, particularly when
they reach epidemic proportions."

HE LAUGHS

Borovik said the Russians
resembled the astronauts

in a famous Soviet science fiction
film called Solaris.

The astronauts find a planet
covered with a giant ocean

that seems to be conscious.

And to try and influence the ocean,

they bombard it with X-rays.

What they don't realise is that
the ocean is irradiating them.

It is playing back,
in the astronauts' minds,

memories of the past,

but in such a vivid way that they
begin not to trust anything

that they think or believe.

Afghanistan, Borovik said,

was doing the same to the Russians.

It had led them to distrust the very
basis of everything they believed in.

And they were taking that
distrust back with them

into the heart of Russia.

APPLAUSE ON TV

'Could Labour have managed
a rally like this?'

AUDIENCE: 'No!'

'In the old days, perhaps,
but not now.

'For they are the party of yesterday,

'and tomorrow is ours.'

APPLAUSE ON TV

The massive increase in the price
of oil imposed by the Saudis

had caused economic and
social chaos in the West.

Governments had struggled to deal
with it, but they had failed.

And in the 1980s, right-wing
governments came to power in Britain

and America who turned to radical
new ways to create economic growth.

To begin with, the new
policies seemed to work.

Inflation was squeezed
out of the system

and the economies began to stabilise.

But then there were other
unexpected consequences.

Interest rates had risen massively -

and this decimated manufacturing
industry in both Britain and America.

Factory after factory closed.

High-paid skilled jobs
were replaced by low-wage jobs

in the service industries,

and living standards began to fall.

But then the politicians
found a solution.

If you couldn't make wages
grow any longer,

instead you would get the banks
to lend people money.

And in the mid-1980s, governments
removed the restrictions

on the banks' lending,

and a wave of borrowing spread
through Britain and America.

Even if their wages were static,
people felt wealthier,

and had the money to buy things
and keep the economy working.

And the power to manage society began
to move even more from politics

to the financial system.

Weapons free, battle stations.

Weapons free, weapons free.

But there was one industry
in Britain that had survived

and, in fact, was growing.

It was the arms industry and
its vast trade with Saudi Arabia.

But rather than strengthening
the politicians' power,

it undermined it further,
through corruption.

REPORTER: The King's train
was 20 minutes late

arriving at Victoria Station.

It was delayed while a suspicious
box on a bridge over the track

was checked, and found
to be harmless.

When he eventually stepped
on to the platform,

it was to a full royal welcome.

ADAM CURTIS: Through the 1970s,
British arms companies had signed

more and more contracts
with the Saudis,

and they became a central
part of a new industry

that was run from the very
heart of the British government.

We're in the Ministry of Defence
in Whitehall.

Behind these doors there's a room.

A room which few people
apart from Arab Sheiks

and other potential foreign customers
have ever set eyes on before.

This way, please.

This is it, the permanent
Defence Equipment Exhibition,

the supermarket of the sales
organisation which this year

will sell nearly ÂŁ600 million
worth of British military hardware

to foreign governments.

Week in, week out, overseas service
chiefs come here discreetly

to shop for anything from guided
missile destroyers and aircraft

to a pair of army boots.

And they've got quite a choice.

There are hundreds of individual
British manufacturers

in this business. Glossy coloured
brochures in every language,

including, of course, Arabic.

Everywhere in this amazing exhibition
there are models showing

the hardware in action,
showing what the hardware can do.

Big missiles, little missiles -

here's the short blowpipe
surface-to-air missile with which

one soldier can bring
an aircraft out of the sky,

straight from the shoulder.

More missiles here,
the short Tigercat missile,

simple in operation, recommended
for its high lethality at low cost.

Aircraft are very expensive
these days

and so you don't want them
to have just one...

ADAM CURTIS: By the 1980s, the giant
orders from Saudi Arabia

had become essential to Britain.

While much of British
industry had closed,

the arms business kept growing.

..from air to ground.

No, no, no, I'm the Prime Minister.

I have to see the super
saleswomen do their job.

ADAM CURTIS: And in 1985 Mrs Thatcher
announced what was going to be

the biggest arms deal in history.

The extraordinary arms deal,

which has impressed military experts
throughout the world.

It emerged today that Britain
and Saudi Arabia have signed

what's thought to be one of
the biggest arms agreements.

The deal will mean Saudi Arabia
will get many more combat planes,

training aircraft, new mine hunters,
two new airbases,

and much training and support.

It means Britain is pulling
level with, if not overtaking,

the United States as the biggest
military supplier to the Saudis.

ADAM CURTIS: The Al-Yamamah deal
was presented as a triumph

of British ingenuity and skill.

But ever since, there have been
allegations that really it was

secured by vast bribes to key members
of the Saudi establishment.

British Aerospace admit
that there were payments,

but insist they were not bribes.

But then, in 1990,

it became clear that all the
arms trade with Saudi Arabia

had been a complete charade.

Saddam Hussein invaded Kuwait

and the leaders of Saudi Arabia
realised that,

despite all this hardware -
all the planes, the missiles,

the bombs and the radar systems -

that their country was incapable of
using it properly to defend itself

against Saddam Hussein.

So they had to turn to America
and its military might for help.

At my direction, elements
of the 82nd Airborne Division,

as well as key units of the
United States Air Force,

are arriving today to take up
defensive positions in Saudi Arabia.

I took this action to assist
the Saudi Arabian government

in the defence of its homeland.

Osama bin Laden had
returned from Afghanistan

and he went to see the Saudi Defence
Minister and pleaded with him

not to let the Americans come.

He offered to raise a force of
mujaheddin fighters in Afghanistan

and bring them to defend
Saudi Arabia instead.

But the Defence Minister
turned him down.

And within weeks, over
half a million American soldiers

had arrived in Saudi Arabia.

Bin Laden saw it as the corrupt
takeover by the West

of the very heart of Islam.

Cameraman, please show them
what's going on, if you could.

Show the street, if nothing else.

ADAM CURTIS: And he decided that
America, although it had been

his ally in Afghanistan,
was the real enemy.

Show them the sky, if you could.

GENTLE CLASSICAL MUSIC PLAYS

No, wait, what strange noise is that?

MUSIC CONTINUES

What trickery is this?

You, up there, what is this noise?
Can you see what is happening?

Oh, yes, they are sitting down
to dinner.

Sitting down to dinner?
Are they stark raving bonkers?

These people, sometimes,
they infuriate me!

Oh, they come out here
with their starched uniforms

and their stiff upper lips and their
dirty great flags hanging out.

- Think they own the place!
- They do.

Well, they won't much longer.
Start the attack!

By the time I've finished with them,
their stiff upper lips will be

so limp they'll be hanging down
to their navels.

I will kill the pigs! Fire!

GUNFIRE AND EXPLOSIONS

INDISTINCT SHOUTING

Fuckin' hell!

GUNFIRE

INDISTINCT SHOUTING

EXPLOSION

- Jesus, fucking target...
- Right!

GUNFIRE CONTINUES

SHOUTING CONTINUES

I'm not denying that I'm not a
mullah, I'm a mullah in a mosque.

- Not with the Taliban.
- Right, yeah.

So, I mean, they arrest me
and they brought me here...

Did he say they were...
Did he say they beat him?

Beat him and electrocution, yeah.

Signed a false confession?

Does he say they forced him
to sign a confession?

No, no, he didn't say that.

THEY SPEAK OWN LANGUAGE

TRANSLATOR: Yeah, I mean, they
force me, they beat me

and they put my stamp,

saying that you are talib.

Does he know... Does he know - are
there lots of Taliban here?

HE SPEAKS OWN LANGUAGE

TRANSLATOR: Well, I mean,
as I have told you before,

it's 90% of the people who are here,

they came by the name of Taliban here
but they are not actually Taliban.

They arrest them
and they brought them here.

When the Russians left Afghanistan,

the different mujaheddin groups
turned on each other

and began a vicious struggle
for power.

Kabul was completely destroyed
as the different groups fired

thousands of rockets indiscriminately
into the heart of the city.

And Kabul became a living hell.

PEOPLE SHOUT

SHE SHOUTS IN OWN LANGUAGE

EXPLOSION

MAN: Jesus Christ.

The mujaheddin leaders transformed.

They became brutal warlords,
tearing the country apart.

The Americans had stopped
sending any money or arms,

so to fund themselves, the warlords
turned to the heroin trade,

and they began to export more
and more opium to the West.

The poppy fields of Helmand

became the centre of a
multimillion-dollar business,

irrigated by the dams and canals

built 40 years before
by the American government.

Out of the chaos came two extreme
and violent reactions.

Both ruthlessly simplified the world

and both, although they were
completely contradictory,

were rooted in Wahhabism,

the intolerant fundamentalism
that came from Saudi Arabia.

One was the Taliban.

They started as a group of students
in religious schools in Pakistan

called madrassas, where many Afghan
children had gone to study.

They became the core of a revolution

that spread rapidly through
Afghanistan.

Although they were in Pakistan, most
of the madrassas had been created

over the previous 20 years
by money from Saudi Arabia.

They were part of the massive effort
that had been started by King Faisal

to spread fundamentalism
throughout the Islamic world.

And the ideas that
the madrassas taught

were very close to
Saudi Wahhabism.

When the Taliban swept into Kabul,
they went to the Presidential Palace

and tore out all painted images
of living things,

even removing the faces
off the stone lions.

The society the Taliban built
was based on an imagined idea

of the past, a re-creation of how
they thought Islamic society

had been run in the 7th century.

All modernization was swept away.

Women were not to be educated,

and all film and music was banned.

And even the bodies of dead
communists were dug up and burnt -

to cleanse and purify the land.

The other reaction came from
Osama bin Laden.

Bin Laden had come back to
Afghanistan

determined to lead
an Islamist revolution.

But his ideas were very
different from the Taliban.

He wanted to use Islamic principles
in a new way -

to make it a revolutionary force
in the modern world,

to go forwards, not backwards.

But the problem was that these ideas

had failed to capture
the public imagination,

not just in Afghanistan

but throughout most of
the Islamic world.

Bin Laden was convinced that what was
stopping this revolution

was America.

He had seen how American money
had corrupted Saudi Arabia.

Now he believed that America was
corrupting the minds of Muslim people

everywhere, and preventing them from
rising up and liberating themselves.

HE SPEAKS OWN LANGUAGE

Bin Laden's Islamist ideas
began to mutate

and become mixed with the intolerant

and anti-modern anger of Wahhabism.

Out of it came a dark
and apocalyptic jihadism.

It said that the only way
to create a revolution

would be to attack what he called
"the far enemy" directly.

The dramatic shock would somehow
liberate the masses,

but all discussion of what kind of
society would result dropped away,

and was replaced by stark vision
of the coming battle

between good and evil.

CHEERING AND APPLAUSE

CROWD CHANTS

America and the coalition forces
invaded Afghanistan

not just to find those behind
the attacks on America

but also to transform Afghanistan

into a modern democracy.

It was a grand plan

but the logic behind it was simple.

If the innocent people of Afghanistan
could be liberated

from the evil forces
that had terrorised them,

then they would become
free individuals.

And out of that, a democracy,

like those in the West,
would grow naturally.

Tens of thousands of Americans
and Europeans would pass through

the country over the next ten years -

soldiers, diplomats, experts,

political advisers and journalists.

All of them trying to
build this new society.

But few of them stopped to think
whether what had happened

to the Russians 20 years before

might also happen to them.

That, in a strange way, Afghanistan
has revealed to us the emptiness

and hypocrisy of many our beliefs.

And that we may be
returning from there

also haunted by mujaheddin ghosts,

knowing that, underneath,
we believe in nothing.

After the shock of the attacks in
September 2001, the greatest fear

was that the American economy
might collapse as well.

In response, the politicians,
advised by their economic experts,

cut interest rates to almost zero.

This allowed cheap money
to flood through the system

and avoid disaster.

The banks lent money
to anyone and everyone.

It was the politicians looking to
the financial system

to stabilise the country.

SHE TALKS IN OWN LANGUAGE

At the same time, thousands
of experts and advisers

flooded into Afghanistan.

Their aim was to transform the
country into a modern democracy.

This optimistic vision
of a future Afghanistan

was celebrated in the Kabul Stadium.

It was the same stadium where the
Russians had celebrated

their new model for Afghanistan
20 years before.

Last year we think that we can never
can be alive again, we will die.

But now we are...we are thinking
that we are alive again,

and we are too happy.

And also, from America,
that they help a lot,

we are very appreciative of them.
Thanks a lot.

I think now everything is normal.

The man and woman
can work in one place

and no any different between them,

and I think everything is going
to...good day by day.

- And this is our school...
- That's your school board.

- Yeah.
- OK.

Actually, can I just... Hello? Hello?

ADAM CURTIS: All kinds of groups
came to Kabul to help the project.

It was like a snapshot of what those
in power in America and Britain

believed made democracy work.

As well as the obvious lessons
in how to organise elections

and conferences on how to stop
the narcotics trade,

young Afghan students
were also given lessons

in how to make conceptual art.

So, this is, in some ways,

often called the first
piece of conceptual art.

MAN TRANSLATES

Does anyone know what it is?

MAN TRANSLATES

I don't expect the ladies to know.

MAN TRANSLATES

MAN: Toilets.
- Exactly.

An artist called Marcel Duchamp,

who's very important in Western art,

put this toilet in an art gallery

about 100 years ago.

It was a huge revolution.

Are you ready to see how it is used?

Underlying it all was a belief
that the battle

was to create a good society,

one that would be strong enough
to stand against the bad,

anti-democratic forces that had
overwhelmed Afghanistan.

But then it began
to get confusing.

The Americans discovered that was it
was very difficult to know exactly

who was good and who was bad.

When they had invaded, they had
been helped by Afghans

who were already
fighting the Taliban.

The Americans had assumed they would
help to create the new democracy,

and appointed many of them
to run the country.

But now it turned out that many of
them were actually the very same

corrupt and violent warlords
who the Taliban had overthrown.

And they were using their new power

to terrorise the country
all over again.

Gul Agha Sherzai had been made
Governor of Kandahar.

But he was also alleged to be
making a million dollars a week

from running the opium trade,

while at the same time siphoning
off millions from the Americans

in inflated contracts.

When President Karzai was persuaded
to remove Sherzai,

he simply made him governor
of another province.

But he was not alone.

Throughout much of Afghanistan,
the warlords had returned to power.

But this time it was worse.

The massive influx of American money
allowed them to extend their networks

of bribery and corruption to every
corner of Afghan society.

But the money was not just
corrupting individuals.

It was undermining the whole
structure of society,

above all the police.

Rather than enforcing the law,

the police had become transformed
into violent militias

who worked for the warlords.

They organised a massive
expansion of the drug trade.

And they also terrorised
the local people.

Ordinary Afghans came to
hate the police

and they saw them as the enemy.

And the Americans also weren't
as good as they appeared.

Jack Idema had been
portrayed as a hero,

working with the US Special Forces
to hunt down bin Laden.

He had arrived in Kabul three years
before and become a legendary figure.

CBS television had made an hour-long
special about the secret world

of terror that Idema had
discovered in the mountains.

It showed a tape that he said he had
found of the Al-Qaeda group training.

But then Idema was arrested.

The Americans said
that he was a fake.

He had nothing to do with them,
and had conned CBS.

They alleged that
Idema had a dungeon,

hidden underneath his house in Kabul,

where he tortured innocent Afghans.

Tell him, basically I'm tired
of the lies. Where's his village?

In three minutes...he'll be dead.

MAN SPEAKS OWN LANGUAGE

Idema was put on trial in Kabul.

He insisted, though, he had been
working with the highest levels

of the US military and government.

I know what's wrong with you...

Jack, who are you working for?

Uh, we were working for the
US Counter-Terrorist Group

and working with the Pentagon
and some other federal agencies.

So you were working with
US knowledge,

with US government knowledge?

We were in touch with the Pentagon
sometimes five times a day,

at the highest level, every day.

How do you feel about being
sort of let go by the Americans?

Fucked.

You can't use that quote.

Well, there you go,
that's the quote, my dear.

This government and our government

knew every single thing
we were doing.

ADAM CURTIS: Jack Idema was found
guilty and sent to jail.

But then it got even more confusing.

Because reports emerged that
the real American military

had been doing exactly
the same as Jack Idema.

They had set up a special torture
centre in an old Soviet hangar

at Bagram Air Base.

Ordinary Afghans were
shackled to the ceiling

and subjected to all
kinds of violent abuse.

But they went further
than Jack Idema.

The reports said that two of the
victims had been tortured to death.

Of course, it was very provocative.

People were very angry, and I think
it's important to understand

that when this kind of art emerged

it was partly political.

It was to fight against
the system and say,

"What is art is what I think it is."

One of the biggest concerns
we have is about the casualties

that took place because of
the result of cluster bombs.

OK, that's fine.

- OK, is that fly going to...?
- That fly.

- You can hear it, actually.
- You can, can't you?

FLY BUZZES
It's a blowie.

- It'll land.
- It's a blowie. Fuck off.

It's a bug.

Ah...

THUMP!

LAUGHING: This is an interview
about casualties.

There's going to be one more.

Ah! Jesus.

On the whole, I think everyone
finds it a very important event

and even more so,
the fact we're abroad

and not able to celebrate it at home.

Hence we're very happy to, uh,

do some small token towards
the Queen's celebrations.

And why, why a beacon here in Kabul?

I have absolutely no idea.

By 2006, the British and the
Americans realised that their project

to bring democracy to Afghanistan
was failing,

and large parts of the country
were descending into anarchy.

In Helmand, in Southern Afghanistan,
armed groups had risen up

and there was constant fighting.

The coalition were convinced that
this was the return of the Taliban,

and British troops were sent there
to restore order

and to help protect
the regional government.

But when the British commanders
asked the Ministry of Defence

for information about what was
happening in Helmand,

there was none.

There weren't even any
satellites looking at it.

They had all been moved
to look at Iraq.

The one thing they did know was that
they were going to the very heartland

of the tribe that had decisively
defeated the British

125 years before

at the Battle of Maiwand.

The British commander called
a meeting with the local elders.

It was in the very same town that
the American engineers had built,

50 years before, when they
were constructing the dam

across the Helmand River.

All three of us, the security,

governance, and for development.

We are the three who work
together as the British.

I know you've seen many foreigners
arriving in your country.

ADAM CURTIS: The commander
reassured the elders

that the British were there
to defeat the Taliban

and support the regional government.

COMMANDER: ..my forefathers
were even here before.

ADAM CURTIS: Next door, his officers
were preparing to entertain

the elders with a showing of
David Attenborough's series

The Blue Planet.

But the elders thought that the
British had completely misunderstood

the problem.

The real enemy was not the Taliban,

but the corrupt and vicious
government that President Karzai

had installed in Helmand
and was doing nothing to stop.

HE SPEAKS OWN LANGUAGE

And tell Mr President Karzai

if he bring a good governance,

the security situation
will be the same.

If you are here for 100 years,
it will be not good.

Once he brought good governance,

good people to the government,

then we have hope that the security
will be change.

The elders left without
watching The Blue Planet.

Before they came to Helmand,

the British had forced President
Karzai to get rid of its governor.

But they didn't realise that
he had left behind him

a completely corrupted society.

And nothing was what it seemed.

When the British
went into towns like Sangin,

they tried to support the police.

But the police were really the armed
militia for the sacked governor.

To the locals, this meant
that the western troops

were supporting their oppressors.

So they started to attack
the British.

Get inside!

Shit the bed.

That's close, that one,
out the back there.

It was.

Right, mate, get under it.

- Shit.
- Shit.

- They're overshooting on us.
- Stay down, lads, stay down.

- Is that incoming or outcoming?
- Fucking incoming now.

ADAM CURTIS: The British thought that
this must mean they were Taliban.

So in response they dropped
giant bombs on them.

Fuckin' hell.

MAN LAUGHS

- Did you get that, did you?
- Yes, I did. Fucking hell.

MAN LAUGHS

LAUGHING: Holy shit.

But this then devastated
the town centres,

which made even more local people
join in the attacks.

Seeing their chance,

the real ideological Taliban,
who were now based in Pakistan,

flooded back in and they started
attacking the British, too.

GUNFIRE

At the same time the corrupt militias
who worked for the local government

also turned against the British.

Faced by the chaos, the British still
clung to their simple narrative

of good and evil.

They - the Western forces -
were good.

And all the different groups who were
attacking them were Taliban,

and were bad.

But this extraordinary simplification
had terrible consequences.

Because if you were an Afghan
and wanted to kill a rival,

all you had to do
was go to the British

and tell them that he was a Taliban

and the British would
obediently wipe him out.

INCOMING ROCKET

- Fuck!
- Fuckin' hell!

- Yeah!
- Whoo!

The British were being used.

The terrible truth was that
the British presence

did not contain the war.

It did the very opposite.

It escalated it so much
that it ran out of control.

And the bodies - Afghan and British -
piled up.

The dynamic was one of manipulation.

They understood how we saw
the conflict.

They presented their local
group conflict,

their civil war between groups that
had been going on for 35 years.

They presented everything
in that dynamic.

So they came to us and said, "Those
people over there are Taliban."

And we went, "OK." And we went off
and dealt with them.

But, actually, we were dealing
with their previous enemies.

So we were just creating more
enemies for ourselves.

And you ended up in
a downward spiral where,

because everyone was manipulating us,

we ended up fighting everyone.

And then, in return, everyone who
fought us immediately became Taliban.

The way that we decided whether
you were Taliban or not

was whether you were firing at us.

SPORADIC GUNFIRE

Post 2001, whereas we've understood
the conflict as good/bad,

black/white, government/Taliban,

they've understood it as a shifting
mosaic of different groups

and leaders fighting each other,
effectively over power.

And the currency of power
in Helmand is opium.

That's largely what the
conflict's about.

So what you're saying is that
the...what we thought were

the Taliban was actually an allergic
reaction to us turning up

into the middle of
a complex civil war?

Correct.

- We made things worse?
- Yes.

EXPLOSION

- Where was that?
- That's over there on the left.

Oh, for fuck's sakes.

But then the British and the
Americans had to face up to the fact

that they might not be as good and
innocent as they thought they were.

HE SPEAKS OWN LANGUAGE

In 2009, the Presidential elections
were held.

Hamid Karzai stood and allied himself

with some of the most
powerful warlords.

But there were allegations that
the warlords rigged the vote

on a massive scale.

This was backed up with videos
that seemed to show

the warlords' followers
stuffing the ballot boxes

with hundreds of fake voting papers.

The coalition tried to
rerun the election.

But Karzai's main opponent refused

because he said it would be
even more corrupt.

So the British and Americans
had no choice

but to abandon their great dream
of a real democracy in Afghanistan.

They gave in and allowed Karzai
to become president again.

I still don't trust that fella.

Things look rather bad, sir.
What are we going to do?

Do, Captain? We're British,
we won't do anything.

- Till it's too late.
- Precisely.

That's the first sensible thing
you've said today.

- Thank you, sir.
- No, gentlemen, as always,

we will carry on as if nothing
was going to happen.

This morning...

the Federal Reserve, with support
of the Treasury Department,

took additional actions to mitigate
disruptions to our financial markets.

Today's events are fast moving.

But the chairman of the Federal
Reserve and the secretary

of the Treasury are on top of them,
and will take the appropriate steps

to promote stability in our markets.

ADAM CURTIS: And at
the very same time

as their simple plan was falling
apart in Afghanistan,

the politicians had to face
a crisis at home.

They had given power to the banks

because the bankers and the financial
technocrats had promised

that they could hold
the economy stable.

But in 2008, the whole intricate
system of credit and loans

that the banks had
created collapsed,

and there was growing panic as
giant financial institutions

faced bankruptcy.

The politicians in America
and Britain stepped in

and rescued the banks.

As they did so, they began to
discover that most of the major

financial institutions were also
riddled with corruption.

But unlike President Roosevelt
in the 1930s,

they didn't then try
and reform the system.

Instead they simply propped it up

by literally pouring billions more
pounds and dollars into the banks,

hoping that this would somehow
spread through the economies.

They had no other idea.

GUNFIRE

CHILDREN CRY

And, faced by disaster
in Afghanistan,

the politicians did exactly
the same there, too.

The Americans knew that the
idea of democracy was failing.

In desperation, they poured even more
money into the Afghan economy.

The idea was that this would somehow
create a simpler,

economic form of democracy

and that the free market
would liberate people.

They would become model consumers

following their own
rational self-interest,

just like in the economies
of the west.

And in an odd way, it worked.

Many of those in charge of the money

did behave in their own
rational self-interest.

They simply stole the money,

smuggled it out through
Kabul Airport,

and used it to buy
luxury properties in Dubai.

During this period it was estimated
that 10 million a day

was being taken out
of Afghanistan this way.

SHOUTING IN OWN LANGUAGE

The scandal seemed to
confirm for many Afghans

that the United States had not
brought democracy or free markets

to their country,

but instead a corrupt crony
capitalism that had taken over

Afghanistan and its government.

Which was the very same allegation

that as being made against
politicians at home,

in America and in Britain.

At the end of 2014,

British soldiers left Afghanistan.

All the bases were wiped out
as if nothing had been there.

Even the war memorials were packed up
and taken back to Staffordshire.

But they weren't the only fighters
who had left Afghanistan.

Abu Musab al-Zarqawi
had gone to Afghanistan

to fight the Soviets
back in the 1980s.

Then he had stayed on
to work with Osama bin Laden.

And in 2003 he went to Iraq

and set up a jihadist group
called Al-Qaeda in Iraq

to fight the American invasion.

Allahu Akbar!

Allahu Akbar!

Al Zarqawi was powerfully
influenced by bin Laden's ideas.

But he took them much further.

He and his group killed anyone
who they decided did not believe

in their fundamentalist ideas
and deserved to die.

Even the original founders
of Al-Qaeda were shocked,

and they sent him a letter telling
him to stop killing civilians.

But al-Zarqawi ignored them.

He was convinced that
the insurgency in Iraq

could be used to spread an Islamist
revolution throughout the Arab world.

HE SPEAKS OWN LANGUAGE

But before he could do this,

the Americans found al-Zarqawi
and dropped a large bomb on him.

But it didn't stop
the spread of the idea.

Despite al-Zarqarwi's death

his organisation survived,

and began to mutate into something
even more ferocious and ambitious.

But as it did so, it was possessed
by ghosts from the past.

What re-emerged was the fierce,
intolerant vision of Wahhabism

that had survived from the 1920s.

It had spread outwards through
Afghanistan in the 1980s and '90s

where it had become mixed
with modern Islamist ideas.

But now, faced by the nihilistic
horror in post-invasion Iraq,

any ideas of building a new
revolutionary future disappeared,

and, instead, the conservative
and backward-looking Wahhabism

became the dominating influence,

with its desire to retreat
to an imagined past.

In 2013, the Islamic State of Iraq
and the Levant was formed.

Known as ISIS in the West.

Its aim is to create
a unified caliphate

throughout the Islamic world.

And although it uses the techniques
of modern media

it is, at heart, the same violent
dream that had driven the Bedouins

who had created the Kingdom
of Saudi Arabia in the 1920s.

Back then, the King of Saudi Arabia
had found it necessary

to try and exterminate them

because they, too, wanted
to go on and conquer

the whole of the Islamic world.

He machine-gunned them in the bleak
sands of the Arabian Peninsula.

And now the Saudis, along with
the British and Americans,

are trying to do
the same thing again -

to kill the jihadists and their ideas

in the sand dunes of
Northern Iraq and Syria.

But it is an uncertain war.

Western politicians are having
to accept that the simple division

between good and evil doesn't exist.

By bombing ISIS, they are helping
the evil President Assad

to remain in power.

And those in charge don't even know
how big a threat ISIS really is.

Is it a dark, existential threat?

Or is it really a front,

being used in an ongoing complex
power struggle inside Iraq?

We just don't know.

At the end of the Soviet
science fiction film Solaris,

the astronaut returns home.

Everything seems real and normal.

But somehow he doesn't trust
in anything any longer.

Although we have the returned
from Afghanistan,

our leaders also seem to have
lost faith in anything.

And the simple stories they tell us
don't make sense any longer.

The experience of Afghanistan

has made us begin to realise that
there is something else out there

but we just don't have
the apparatus to see it.

What is needed is a new story.

And one that we can believe in.