Cleared Hot Episode 216 - Toby Harnden
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- čas přidán 7. 09. 2024
- Toby Harnden is an accomplished author and veteran foreign correspondent. His latest book is First Casualty: The Untold Story of the CIA Mission to Avenge 9/11.
Toby also wrote Dead Men Risen, which won the Orwell Prize, and Bandit Country, one of the most acclaimed books about the Irish Troubles. A former foreign correspondent, he reported from 33 countries while based in London, Belfast, Jerusalem, Baghdad, and Washington DC for The Daily Telegraph and The Sunday Times of London. He was imprisoned in Zimbabwe and faced prosecution in Northern Ireland for his work, A dual U.S. and British citizen and former Royal Navy officer, he lives in McLean, Virginia.
A brief overview of the topics discussed in this podcast
0:00 Intro to the Podcast and the Guest
4:10 Toby Harndens Family Background
12:30 Different Roles in the Military
23:25 Getting out of the Military
30:45 Getting into Journalism
38:25 Northern Ireland Correspondent
42:15 Journalism Today
1:04:30 Beeing jailed in Simbabwe
1:23:45 Arrested in Irak by the Mahdi-Army
1:34:00 Afghanistan
1:46:55 First Casualties in Afghanistan
1:57:45 Paramilitaries
2:04:10 CIA Leading in Afghanistan
2:11:15 Battle of Qala-i-Jangi
2:28:10 Resumé of Afgahnistan
2:34:10 What's next for Toby?
After listening to this podcast I listened to the book. What an awesome book I can't say enough good things about it. It almost stricks me as required reading for high school and college students. If not for people going into the military.
Toby harnden wrote an excellent book on the IRA called bandit country . Well worth a read
"Sniper at Work"
Thank you - can't believe I wrote that almost 23 years ago!
@@hughmac13 Oh yes - there's an entire chapter on that!
This guy said “Prince Andrew’s ship 🛳 so there was a higher class off females at the cocktail parties 🎊 “ this is pretty ruthless 😂
Served with the British royal air force for 3 yrs, a real great thing to me as a U.S.Navy man...great memories, great video also !!!
Great podcast with Toby who seems to be the go to guest at the moment but you managed to extract more from him than others Andy 🤙🏼 Now all you need to do is get a Brit SF operator on to warrant 10/10 😜
Thank you Douglas - I greatly enjoyed being on Andy's podcast
@@tobyharnden
A pleasure Shipmate, just got First Casualty hardback as a birthday present which once read will find a space next to Bandit Country hardback 👍🏼
@@douglaswallace9770 Great to hear!
So glad to see more of my countrymen on the podcast, and with such interesting stories too! My absolute favourite podcast, keep it going!
Sweet i love that you release these podcasts early. Gives me something to listen to getting ready for work.
Same
One of my favorite episodes thus far! 2.5 hours and left wanting more. Keep up the great interviews!
After getting to the story of his book makes me believe that this gentleman and Evan Hafer could have a great conversation. Would make a great BRCC Podcast episode.
Yeah - I'd really like to talk to Evan and in fact asked Andy if he'd be kind enough to do an intro
Totally agree with everything you said at the beginning Andy about wishing we could better understand those periods of warfare, I'm reading a book on WW1 and can only imagine how horrible it had to have been.
Love the show and especially Andy's shirt. #fieldcraft. Excellent interview!!!!
Thank you gentlemen. Fabulous interview! Andy, thank you for including the conversation with your dad. Being of same era, have similar thoughts. Godspeed.
Would you please have real journalists like this man on the show, more often?
War Correspondents and Investigative Journalists seem to be the last bastion of an American Institution.
Great guest mate. Keep ‘em coming. Loving the podcast. J from Sydney Australia.
Thank you John
I think your sarcastic wit and your laugh puts your guests at ease and makes for a good interview. I had read Horse Soldiers just a month ago and was interested to hear what he had to say. Nice job Andy.
That's true - Andy makes it a conversation. Horse Soldiers is really good on the Green Berets of ODA 595 (and was the basis for the 12 Strong movie). First Casualty tells the story of the CIA's Team Alpha, who were flown in as the pathfinders for ODA 595, as well as the Green Berets and relates it to the strategy after 9/11 and the CIA experience in Afghanistan.
Quite revealing episode. Thank you Andy.
Going to look for the book and Tyson.
As Winston Churchill said ,'Americans always do the right thing after trying everything else first'. Or words to that effect.
Thanks Andy! The book is great. Thank you for the opportunity to listen to this conversation!
Took me all day to listen to but another great 👍 podcast. Thank you Andy and Toby. A lot of great talking points. ✌️
Thank you Chris
One of your best, thoughtful, contextual (to your experience as described) guests. Good stuff. Carry on sir.
Fantastic podcast. 5 out of 5
Just ordered his book 1st casualty can't waite to read, great Podcast
Cheers John
Thank you Sirs, shared!
Happy monday everyone! Hope you all have a kickass week!
Smash hit guest
Thank you Franz
This book is fantastic.
Really appreciate that Danny
Fantastic episode!!!
Thank you Frank
9:45 so Andy spent his summer DOING junior life guards huh? Fascinating
He he
haha
Excellent interview. Two thoughtful people giving their opinion on various issues and recent history based on real life experience. I know Toby's done quite a few interviews recently, but he is promoting his book (which I've read and is excellent) which is fair enough.
All Toby's books are well worth a read and If I may say so, Andy's interviewing is excellent and improving. I felt he got a bit more out of Toby than I've heard in other interviews. I may be wrong but they seemed to get on well.
Thank you. You're right!
Good morning y'all have a good day and a great week.
Orienteering is a sport in.some countries (in high school PE) New Zealand, Norway, Ukraine and probably other countries. You get a map and a compass.
I did orienteering at school - knackering!
Great show
Thanks Josh
Anyone else feel like they've heard this excellent pod before?
Am I having deja vu?
I've done quite a few podcasts recently so I'm sure one or two things I said in this one I'd said elsewhere
Stating with Ed Kugler lol. Casual legendary scout sniper name drop
I was in Jerusalem at that time. Pretty sure I was at some of the same parties…. Interesting times.
I can't wait to get his book
When you do, please let me know what you think of it!
@@tobyharnden I will definitely let you know. You and Andy having honest conversations about ,our paths, I wish more people could see outside politics and see the reality of places and people they passing chat about
Reminds me of my military career, 1989-1993. Trained as a medic and marched into my first unit in November 1989. There were about 4-5 senior soldiers who had been to Vietnam and the rest of us much like the Royal Marine said Toby Harnden, “Could do with a war sir.” Australian military at that time very small, old equipment. My entire webbing, issued rifle, packs, water bottles still in use from Vietnam. Very rare live fire exercises, even rarer any helicopter time. We did all our medical aviation training with mock-ups. And even those were sometimes chairs and pieces of furniture. Around the battalions and units the vast majority of my medical experience was ‘off brand’ medical aid there was an incessant and constant flow of drunken fighting injuries. I don’t think I went anywhere with peacetime army where I wasn’t called on to give first aid to drunk and bashed soldiers. There was always a crude atmosphere if physical frustration because you have 60 young blokes who wanted nothing more than to fight anyone and anything. Also in the Australian defence forces the vast majority of any chance of operational service, or military engagement was run almost solely by the SAS. In 1991 I was one of 76 soldiers sent to Iraq to operate on Operation Provide Comfort. But the Australian government (labor at that time) were frightened of sending Australian troops anywhere. The majority of government was filled with baby boomers who in the 1960s were the militant anti-Vietnam students who even if they were conscripted wouldn’t have actually gone to Vietnam. Australia’s effort in Vietnam I think could have been done without conscription. That’s were they fucked up. Thus peacetime Australian Army in my time 1989-1993 was an impoverished and neglected beast that even in the twenty year War on Terror relied mainly on its special forces and experts for the vast majority of the actual fighting.
I heard that Vietnam made your country very scared of mass casualties in war. In the 1980s they tried to give as many jobs as possible to the infantry to justify their existence. Then in 2000 they decided that the regular army would be sent to quiet areas, and any serious fighting would be done by a task force consisting of the SASR and 2 Commando. What is it like with the recent furor over the Bretton Report and Ben Roberts Smith, please?
@@MrPolicekarim the problem with the Bretton report was firstly (and this is my ignorant opinion), the report written by Major General Paul Le Gay Brereton never served in active service, was a lawyer and then a judge. He was also a reserve army officer. He is part of the upper class and his understanding of soldiering is from a very specialist focus in that never having combat command his understanding of what those men went through, including the so called ‘25’ civilians ‘murdered’ and all this in a war where the boundaries of civilian and combatants was invisible. The SAS were deploying I think I on six month tours but they deployed many, many times. Again I would suggest that the majority of those SAD Troopers did that job and were dare I say happy to do their work. Australian Army as a whole played a limited role, however engineers and medics did come under fire and of course IED’s. It’s not that regular soldiers didn’t fight, they did but nothing like the yanks or the Poms. The majority of the war and killing was done by the SAS, and Australian citizens were for the most part kept in the dark. There was t much reporting of their actions. So the report is written by an upper class educated man who is probably influenced (again my opinion) by the culture wars, a lack of experience in leading men in battle, a lack of understanding of dealing with dead and badly wounded comrades in a war and basically not accepting that these men in the SAS were doing a nasty and ugly job and killing and fighting in a fucked up war where the population as a whole knew nothing, we’re told nothing and really couldn’t care less. Also culturally in Australia there is a very powerful anti-gun, anti-military and (anti-truth) movement. The men and women who join the army are generally people who still consider service to the nation as a positive occupation in a country that now is filled with a self promoted and self loathing that results (has resulted) in a total disregard or even against any kind of military service for the country as basically Right Wing. The ABC (Australian Broadcast Corporation) has championed the Bretton Report and the corporate media has followed like lambs. And the denigration of a winner of the Victoria Cross (the highest military honour in Australia) Ben Robert-Smith has been disgusting and based on nothing but the politics of war and the soft and meaningless knowledge of armchair generals and culture war warriors who simply support an agenda where their returning soldiers are treated badly and cowardly. The government, the upper levels of the military and the media have worked tirelessly to defame BRS and make him out to be a murderer. Again this is all just my opinion.
@@garydaly Thanks for your insight mate! What do reckon will happen if BRS wins his case? I think there will be changes to your army. Like having lawyers attached to SF bases. No more aggressive actions like raids and ambushes. No raids in heavily held enemy areas. A limit to patrols. Stuff like that you reckon?
@@garydaly Have you heard of a British military forum called ARRSE? They have a couple of threads about both BRS and the Bretton report. I am sure you will love it!
@@MrPolicekarim exactly, for some reason the influential and ‘experts’ in western countries have the mistaken idea that killing, blowing shit up, devastation, horror and grotesque nature of war requires young men and women to do nasty and unpalatable actions. The lawyers and the judges again sit in comfort and security and pass judgment without care or accountability. Can you imagine the absolute horror of what the Russians and Ukrainians are doing to each other. Australia has no idea. Absolutely clueless. The most disgusting and nasty things are done for battlefield wins, and yet, it’s these same bloody political softcoks who will get ordinary men involved in wars. Never changes. If anything the last twenty years has demonstrated to me unequivocally that government and mass corporate media are utterly and totally an arm of government. So the media really just communicates what the government wants the plebs to know.
Toby Harnden is type O blood I bet. That's why the mosquitos preferred biting him. Always bring a type O friend to prison with you.
Great guest!
Thank you!
This guy looks like Eddie Izzard's older brother 😆🤣
Yeah, I've been told that. But you're really twisting the knife with the "older" bit!
This is good because I just finished reading first casualty whc was really good
Great to hear. If you get a chance to do an Amazon rating or review I would be extremely grateful.
@@tobyharnden just rated the book on audible. Will get your book about the welsh guard now.
Dead Men Risen is an excellent book
Thank you Brent
@@tobyharnden You're welcome. I thoroughly enjoyed it and had a surprise in discovering one of my instructors at Pirbright was one of the medics mentioned in the book.
I look forward ro reading your other books.
Andy have a look at "They Shall Not Grow Old" from 2018, its a combo of news/army filming from ww1 and BBC long talks with ppl that were part of ww1.
I watched that - absolutely fantastic and haunting
Just letting you guys know, 90% of English people don't speak the queen's English like this dude. Seems to be what all Americans think we talk like 😑😂
He doesn't sound like has a Manchester accent at all to be honest. Definitely got that RP, but I'm gonna put that down to him being an officer in the RN.
I'm from the UK and I don't have an "accent" so to speak, as i'm in the south. I find that the further north you go, the more broad the accents become.
@@K1ngSix You do have an accent, you just don't realise it
@@K1ngSix Yep you do have an accent, it just isn't obvious to you
My 'Accent' is not what one would consider a 'regional' accent, is more what I meant, akin to say something like Scouse or Brummy. It's more of a "What people that aren't from the UK think Brits sound like" kinda sound. Pretty dull tbh, regional accents are much nicer on the ear.
Also,it's interesting because like Jimmy Kimmel said when he was interviewing Emelia Clarke,I don't think that many of us from North America realize that we DO have an accent. Like the amazingly talented actor Hugh Laurie from the medical drama House(who if you never heard him speak in real life,you would swear was born and raised in the United States)said,everyone who exists,has an accent,whether they realize it or not.I think it's just more pronounced when someone from a foreign country comes to live in the United States.But absolutely,every and anyone from any and everywhere has an accent.
Ahh yes, do you remember when we all used to memorize phone numbers. Now think about it, all the other things we used to memorize but now we just rely on the phone
My father gave me the rank of "boy" well into my 20s 😀
Ha ha
Woooo!!!
Andy you should really try to hook up with John Walker Lindh and when the interview is over leave him in the woods 😉
Cleared Hot #1 🇺🇸👍👍🇺🇸🤙
That would be worth watching
i dont think ive ever heard someone say "so" so many times :)
Hmm. So maybe I should work on that.
@@tobyharnden touché. im available for all media training ;)
@@thesugarlipslove I probably need someone to stand behind me and slap my head every time I say "so"
@@tobyharnden I dread to think how much that would cost in employee medical bills for sore hand claims!
Yellow sclera is probably juandice, he likely had liver disease 1:19:00
“Episode 216 with Toby Harnden” 2:20
Great discussion. For those interested in further info on the jail break that involved SBS, CIA, SF et al, check out this video: czcams.com/video/USYfw_fwwVs/video.html
God bless Trump and Florida!
Knotty pine
Second