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- [00:00]
Ben Anderson
Foreign.
- [00:10]
Chris Hedges
Hi, I'm Chris Hedges. This is the Chris Hedges Report. We're interviewing Ben Anderson, one of the most noted journalists and documentary filmmakers of his generation in New York City. Ben's films, this is what winning looks like. Taking on the Taliban. The paddle for Marja are gritty up close reports from the front lines in Afghanistan that expose the debacle of the occupation, the vast disconnect between the rhetoric used in Washington and London to describe the war and its sordid reality. He's made 60 films. He first started traveling to southern Afghanistan in the summer of 2007, spent many weeks with British, Afghan and American combat units, also with combat units in Iraq fighting isis, endured firefights, mortar attacks, the detonation of improvised explosive devices, as well as attacks by suicide bombers. And he did not, like most of our colleagues, confine his reporting to the safety of military bases. He refused to take part in the choreographed dog and pony shows arranged by military minders. His fierce independence, unflinching honesty and courage make him the heir of other great war reporters such as Bernard Fall, Michael Herr, Robert Fisk and John Pilger. Ben has worked for the BBC, Channel 4 in Britain, HBO, Vice, and the Discovery Channel. He's also written for the Times, gq, Esquire and the London Review of Books. And he's the author of no Worse, the Inside Story of the Chaotic Struggle for Afghanistan. Let's just begin with motivation. You had a kind of hunger to be a war reporter very young. You had done undercover reporting, quite, was quite successful undercover reporting. I think your first film was going into a mortuary or a funeral home and they kind of abused the dead bodies and stuff. But what is it that made you want to go to war?
- [02:26]
Ben Anderson
I mean, I grew up in a fairly non political household and at the time there wasn't much interest in the rest of the world. And When I was 17, 18, I started reading about Palestine, Iraq, Congo, East Timor, and often my government, at the time, the government of Margaret Thatcher, was backing what to me was obviously the wrong side in all of those conflicts. And I just as a kid, I had this very innocent view of why is this not front page news every day? Why are we not talking about this every day? This is so obviously the most important story in the world. And then years later I saw John Pilger's film about East Timor and this will make me sound like a lunatic, but he profiled an Australian reporter there. His name was Shackleton, I think I forget his first name. And as the Indonesians were invading he'd become very close to a family in East Timor. And he said, look, all the other press have fled. I'm gonna stay. And maybe my presence will mean that this family at least, or this village at least survives. And they didn't. They were all killed. He was killed. He was killed in a horrific way. But weirdly, I think that story showed me that, A, you can cover these big stories as a job. I wasn't even aware that was a job when I was 17. My aspirations were very low when I was. When I was a kid, it was get a trade, get a salary that you can survive on. That was it. And B, for some reason, I just knew that I could stick it out like he did. I just knew that when all the others had fled, I might be the one that can hang around and as a result, maybe do something useful. And actually, looking back now, I didn't really think it through because I really thought that if I stuck it out somewhere tough and got memorable footage from people that I cared about that the viewers would care about, I really thought that would help in some way. And now, 25, 30 years later, like, I'm really not sure. Like, it's. I've come to question the value of raising awareness. You know, it's. I mean, Gaza right now, we're very aware of what's happening in Gaza every single day. Does that help the situation? Has it helped the situation? But I think back then I really believed that if I went to these places, got this shocking footage, like something would happen to help the people that you were actually. And, you know, John Pilger's film, it felt like half the country would pause and watch his films when they came out. So as a result, questions were asked in Parliament. Perceptions would change. Maybe that's less so now. And news and documentary doesn't have the power it used to have. But that was my motivation when I was young. I just thought, this is obviously the most important story in the world, and here is something I can do just by having a bit of endurance, I can stick it out and get footage that might make a difference in some way.
- [05:01]
Chris Hedges
Well, I think that's what drove me to Central America over the war in Salvador. But we both did it for a very long time. And you come to that realization that in the end, whatever the rhetorical, and you hear the rhetoric about Gaza, in the end, it doesn't have that much effect. But I think one of the things that you've done quite successfully is document the reality, because what the United States government or what the British government was saying about Afghanistan was almost diametrically opposed to the reality which you did document.
- [05:35]
Ben Anderson
Yeah. And I think actually when you ask about motivating factors, that was one of the main ones, that the situation in Afghanistan was clearly the exact opposite of what we were being told. The situation in Palestine is clearly the exact opposite of what we're often being told here. I think, I think that just exposing liars is still a major. Still to this day when I see, I read two days ago a report about how starvation isn't really a thing in Gaza and it's a myth and the babies we're seeing images of had pre existing conditions. That still gets me riled up enough to be a motivating factor. And also I remember when the Internet became widely available and I naively thought, oh, it's gonna be great, we're all gonna be educated about everything and people are gonna hear about something going on and spend half an hour on Wikipedia and get to the truth. Like I thought there'd be universal truth that would be accepted. And actually I feel like I'm dealing with more conspiracy theories now than I ever did before. All this stuff was widely available.
- [06:31]
Chris Hedges
And what did I mean, you open your book, which is a wonderful, a really great book, and you open it in a prologue. You write, you knew this was going to happen one day. You're going to die in the cold mud of a ditch in Afghanistan because you chose to join a bunch of American marines as they were dropped like kittens into the middle of a perfect ambush. You deserve to die for just floating along again, not thinking, not making a decision, just stumbling slowly forwards until you couldn't turn back. It was so bad. I imagined a tiny black eyed dormouse frozen with terror in the corner of a glass tank, half filled with a huge languid gray and black snake, its tongue and eyes gradually moving closer, so slow and arrogant it was repellent. I had other strange visions. Nothing peaceful. But I want to talk about that. Once you get into that war zone, much of the work you did. I've watched several of your films and of course read your book. You were in exceedingly dangerous situations. But I remember at one point, I think in the book you were writing about, even though you understood how hazardous it was, you couldn't extract yourself from it. You had to see what was happening next. What is it that kept you in the war zone? Even though, I mean, when I covered the war in Salvador, I did it for five years, I came to the conclusion I was just going to Die there. You. I know from the book, you want to play a game of soccer with your friends while you still have your legs. What is it that kept you there? Was it inertia or what was that?
- [08:13]
Ben Anderson
It was inertia. Later on, in the earlier days, I think my curiosity was greater than my fear. And also I couldn't allow myself to think this is too tough or difficult for you because you compare yourself to the people in the countries that you're covering and you've got it easy. You're a vip, You've got a return ticket in your pocket. You know that if you get badly hurt, there are going to be people making a great effort to get you out and get you help. So I would just never allow myself the option of saying, this is too much, this is too intense, this is too dangerous, this. You've got to do it. I think it's a very English thing as well, where you could just never. You could never admit that something was too difficult. You had to just keep on going to the point where you didn't have any option but to do the thing.
- [08:55]
Chris Hedges
Afghanistan was the first war you covered.
- [08:58]
Ben Anderson
I'd covered other wars before, but Liberia was the first war I really covered, but hadn't really been in the thick of horrible situations. Most of the time when you cover war, what you're seeing is the aftermath of things happening and you're talking to people who are actually in the middle of an airstrike or a drone strike or an ambush. Afghanistan was the first one where I was actually in the middle of serious gunfights and IED explosions and all of that.
- [09:21]
Chris Hedges
So El Salvador is the first war I covered. And in some way, although I ended up covering other wars, it's almost like having a first love. Maybe that's a really bad analogy, but there's something about. There's something special about the first conflict that you're in. Did you have that experience? You were in Iraq, you were in other places. You've been to Ukraine.
- [09:43]
Ben Anderson
I mean, I went to Gaza and the West Bank. And in some ways, that's still the one that I get most passionate about, because in my home country of the UK or my adopted home country of the us you hear so much propaganda about the Israelis isn't deliberately killing civilians or journalists. I think that's probably my first love. That's the issue that still motivates me the most. Liberia was kind of the opposite, because Liberia, I was finally covering a war which I'd always wanted to do. And I walked into, you know, as you know, there's always one hotel, one bar, where all of the foreign correspondents hang out and they get drunk on expenses and they have affairs and they exchange information rather than actually going out and getting information. And I thought, finally, I'm amongst my heroes. This is where I've wanted to be for years. And then me and the cameraman I was with, who knew the rebels very well, he took us out for about three weeks, I think, with the rebels. And we came back to Monrovia, and the guys in the bar, in the hotel said, oh, where have you been? We thought you'd gone home. And we said, well, we went out to cover the war. Isn't that our job? Isn't that what you're supposed to do? And so, actually, Liberia was the opposite of what you asked, just because the romantic view I had of foreign correspondence was suddenly destroyed in Liberia. And I thought, actually, a lot of these guys are full of shit. They're not even willing to leave the hotel, let alone leave the safety of the capital and actually do some reporting.
- [10:59]
Chris Hedges
But that's true in every war. I mean, I think that's a huge percentage of the press are poseurs. They want to pretend to be war correspondents. That was true in every conflict I covered, including El Salvador. It was true in the first Gulf War, where there were heavy restrictions on the press. I did not abide by the pool system and went out on my own. But the actual administration of the pool system was not run by the military. It was run by journalists. And it was run by journalists because they didn't want to go out. You're. You're a writer, but you're, you know, you're a documentary filmmaker. The camera people are more honest because you can't get it unless you go out. And then, having been in those situations, I'm a print reporter, and when the shooting starts, I'm, you know, in the deepest ditch I can find. You guys have to stand up. So that does separate the men from the boys, I will fully admit. But I think that's what you had discovered in Liberia is true in every war. And I actually don't fault the reporters for not wanting to go out. I just think I'm angry that they're there pretending.
- [12:04]
Ben Anderson
And I think it's almost worse than not reporting because they give the impression that they're seeing. I try and report only what I've seen with my own eyes. And don't just, you know, share stories that you've heard as gossip at the bar, which may or may not be true. And, you know, someone with a flak jacket on and a palm tree in the background saying, today in Mosul or Gaza, this, this, and this happened when they haven't actually seen it with their own eyes or captured it with their cameras, I think is dangerous. And that's what a lot of foreign correspondence.
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Chris Hedges
Well, they're fed by the embassy. I mean, if you're an American, the embassy is quite happy to feed them garbage, and they're quite happy to report it. It's all part of the game, but it's actually very destructive for those of us who go out, because what we're reporting is diametrically opposed. So when I covered the war in Salvador, I didn't work for the New York Times, and the woman who did work for the New York Times was tethered to the embassy and hardly ever went out. And so her reporting discredited those of us who were actually doing real reporting.
- [13:02]
Ben Anderson
Yeah, yeah. I mean, now if I'm in that bar or that hotel, I get instantly uncomfortable and just want to leave as quick as possible. You should spend as little time in those places as possible.
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Chris Hedges
I want to talk about the experience of combat. You know, you've been through a lot of it. We'll talk about the after effects. I think we both burned out finally. But. So the first you were in Helmed, which is. I mean, put just a little background and people should watch your films and read your book because it's. I think the Marines you were with said it was worse than Fallujah, if I remember correctly. Talk a little bit about that experience of combat. I thought you captured it very well in the film and the book. And there were two things that correlated with my own experience. One is the tedium. You know, there's. It's. It's not like the movies, you know, it's slow. There's long periods of boredom where nothing happens punctuated. But talk a little bit about the. About your experiences in combat, especially with. Because you'd been there with the British first and then later with the Marines.
- [14:14]
Ben Anderson
Yeah. So with the British, the myth at the time was because the British had so much good counterinsurgence experience in Northern Ireland, they were brilliant at winning hearts and minds, and they even were going out without their helmets on and handing out sweets to kids.
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Chris Hedges
Let's just explain what hearts and minds is a term from Vietnam, but what does it mean?
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Ben Anderson
Yeah, you win the hearts and minds of the local population, and then they will reject the. The insurgents, and hopefully you won't have to fight at all.
- [14:41]
Chris Hedges
And let's be clear, it never works.
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Ben Anderson
I mean, in Afghanistan, there was a period of like three or four years when the COIN strategy, counterinsurgency, as you know, penned by General Petraeus, was followed with like, religious devotion. I was reading one of the COIN manuals when I was in Afghanistan and officers would come up to me, that's how we're going to win the war. That book is amazing. And it was clear an area of the Taliban hold onto that area, because that had never happened before in southern Afghanistan. Build local governments and governance infrastructure, win the hearts and minds of the local population, then transfer to the Afghan government. And actually, there were some places where those first three stages did happen and happened successfully. But the elephant in the room that no one was willing to discuss or even acknowledge was, but what are you transferring to? You're transferring to a predatory, corrupt government force, the army and the police who take civilians hostage for money. They were drug addicts. They were selling the weapons and fuel we were giving them. In some cases, the Afghan police chiefs had shy boys who they would sexually abuse. And this was well known to everyone.
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Chris Hedges
Well, I know it's in the film maybe, but they were quite open about admitting the sexual abuse. They didn't even hide it.
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Ben Anderson
I mean, I went with one Marine who really obviously thought it was his job to expose things like that. And we went to confront this one police chief and in Pashtu, he said, if my men don't the ass of those little boys, what do you expect them to the of their own grandmothers? I had to get that translated like three times to make sure I knew that I'd got it exactly right. But yeah, they were very open about it. And that's what we were handing power to in southern Afghanistan. And actually a lot of them came from the north and were a different ethnic group and spoke a different language to the people in the south.
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Chris Hedges
Right. So only 2% of the Afghan army spoke Pashtun, is that correct?
- [16:27]
Ben Anderson
Yeah.
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Chris Hedges
So if you're asked about it was a complete. So as you liken it to essentially another foreign occupation along with our foreign occupation.
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Ben Anderson
I mean, I saw these Afghan officers give, give briefings to local population. They would just sit there nonplussed, like, we have no idea what this guy's even saying. And so if you're a local, if you know the end game is to give those people power, then of course you're going to favor the Taliban and, you know, the idea of winning over the local population so they would reject the Taliban The Taliban was the local population. That's the problem. So are you going to favor your brother or uncle or father over this effectively foreign northern force who are corrupt and predatory like of course you are. And I think that was so obvious from 2010 onwards, but no one was willing to admit it, so we just continued. And then eventually, obviously, the Taliban took the country with ease.
- [17:17]
Chris Hedges
Well, there was another point you make, and that is that we just never deployed the kinds of. You could take certain areas like Helmet.
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Ben Anderson
Or.
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Chris Hedges
A couple of the towns that you were in, but there was never enough foreign occupation troops to essentially provide the kind of stability or whatever you want to call it throughout the country to make that. So you could do it in tiny pockets, but you really couldn't do it in the country as a whole. And even in the areas that you were where you were with Marines or British troops, the perimeter that they controlled was fairly small. I mean, the Taliban was really just right on the outskirts. Yeah.
- [17:58]
Ben Anderson
And at one point, the threat of IEDs was so bad that you literally had to step in the boot print of the guy in front of you so they would see you coming from a mile off and set up an ambush or flee. But I also, I think you're right about the footprint, but I also think by the time we came to decide we actually wanted to help the country and rebuild the country, it was far too late. That wasn't the policy until 2008, 2009. If that had been the policy from day one, there's a chance they could have pulled it off because the Taliban were willing to do a deal, the Taliban were willing to cooperate with the new government, maybe then it would have worked. And if we'd have given 0.1% of the military budget to amazing Afghan NGOs that provided education, health care, that would have done enormous good. But, you know, George Bush said, we don't do nation building. They thought they'd invented a new form of warfare and defeated the Taliban, and in record time, with something like 250 special forces on the ground when the Taliban were actually overthrown. And then of course, all of the resources and manpower got diverted to Iraq.
- [18:58]
Chris Hedges
So didn't they. It wasn't a lot of money, too. Didn't they just buy them off?
- [19:01]
Ben Anderson
Oh, garbage bags full of cash they just used to pay people off. Yeah. And the Taliban, a lot of them went back to their villages or went back to Pakistan. Some of them even became taxi drivers or mechanics, and they just waited to see what was going to happen next. And in Many cases, the Northern alliance, who we put back into power, just hunted them down and terrorized them. So I think we persuaded a lot of the Taliban to go back to the battlefield because they had no other option.
- [19:24]
Chris Hedges
It's a point you make that I think it's in the book where you talk about how the raison d' etre for the war liberating the women of Afghanistan democracy. Very quickly they realize these goals are unachievable and they change the whole focus talk about that shift.
- [19:41]
Ben Anderson
Yeah, I mean, publicly to this day, you hear people say that. What about all the progress we made with women's rights in Afghanistan? One of the great myths of the Afghan war is that our allies had any disagreements with the Taliban whatsoever about how to treat women. I mean, I think to this day the majority of women girls are married off, underage to a 60, 65 year old uncle. Apart from Herat and Kabul, like, very little progress was made for, for women's rights. And in Helmand, certainly, which is very conservative. You know, I would go to places where supposedly schools were getting rebuilt and operating and women's rights were spreading and you wouldn't, you'd see kids. And then by the time the girls got to 11, 12, 13 years old, they literally vanished because they'd been, you know, forced to marry someone in an arranged marriage. And anytime anyone was around, they were just put in a secret room in their compounds and not allowed out. Even when we went to houses to see people, the women would be hidden in a secret room. So in the rural Afghanistan, certainly I saw no progress on women's rights whatsoever.
- [20:42]
Chris Hedges
I want to talk about combat. One of the things that you captured, I think really well, both in the films and the book is the chaos. I mean, my experience with firefights is I spend all my time trying to figure out what's going on. And the other point that. So I was five years in Salvador. I only remember seeing someone from the FMLN shoot at me once. That's even though it's a low intensity conflict. And you also write about that. I think you're with the Marines and they're writing about how they never see the people who are shooting at them. Almost never.
- [21:13]
Ben Anderson
Although the one surprise of Afghanistan was the snipers and how good the Taliban snipers were. I mean, there's a story in the battle for Marjor, I think it is, where one sniper took four shots over the course of the first five or six days and hit three, three Marines. Right, right there. The Taliban were very good, but yeah, in Actual firefights. It was absolute chaos. And of course, the Taliban could drop their weapons and walk in a half circle.
- [21:39]
Chris Hedges
Well, there was a point. I think it's in the book or the film. Maybe it's in both. They actually have. Because the rules of engagement are they're not supposed to shoot somebody who's unarmed, but they have a weapon here, then they shoot there, and then they walk over behind a tree or something. There's another weapon.
- [21:56]
Ben Anderson
Yeah, I mean, the preface to the book that you quoted. I landed with a group of Marines. I think it was like 4am in the morning, pitch black, dark. And as the sun came up, the loudspeakers in all the mosques said, the infidels are arriving.
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Chris Hedges
Yeah, that's a great.
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Ben Anderson
Grab your weapons. But we were standing next to a field, and we could see Taliban fighters getting dropped off in buildings all around us, but their weapons were wrapped in blankets. And the Stanley McChrystal policy was called courageous restraint. You're not allowed to shoot unless someone's actively preparing to attack you. And the Taliban used this to their advantage, and they set up this perfect ambush over the course of, like, two or three hours. And then finally the Marines said, well, let's just walk across the field and see what happens. And immediately, one of them was shot dead. We sprinted back and dived into a ditch. And the ambush in that ditch lasted something like seven hours and was probably the most intense combat experience of my life. And that's when I was absolutely convinced I was going to die. I mean, there were. You could hear bullets zipping over our heads for hours on end. And an RPG came over and exploded on the wall behind the ditch. And the Marines, either side of me, got their legs. One got their leg very badly smashed up and was spraying blood everywhere. So that was absolute chaos.
- [23:11]
Chris Hedges
Let's talk. I had a few moments where I was in a firefight where people were being shot next to me, and I was very scared. I mean, maybe terror is the right word. I'm embarrassed to admit it to this day. But you had a similar experience, I read where I actually. And I don't really believe in the power of divine intervention, but I actually prayed and said, if you get me out of here, I will never do this again. I mean, of course, at the bar that night, it was a big cosmic joke. But you. You also had. I think there was a moment in the book, I remember, where you also had a very similar kind of.
- [23:49]
Ben Anderson
I think it was in that ditch. And I think I swore that if I survived Which I was sure I wouldn't. You should never go out with, with these Marines ever again. And the next day, they were clearing buildings and throwing grenades over walls. And, yeah, I went out with them, you know, exactly the same as I'd done the day before.
- [24:03]
Chris Hedges
What is it that kept you going? I mean, let's go back to that. So there's a. There was a moment where, I think it's in the book, where you were, You. You'd been on a series of operations with them, but you couldn't. You couldn't extract yourself. You couldn't pull yourself away. Why?
- [24:21]
Ben Anderson
I think it's the only thing I've ever done in my entire life where I felt somewhat useful. And that's when I still had the belief that if I got this dramatic, amazing footage and then it was shown in America or the uk, like it would somehow lead to some good being done that would lead to this war being stopped. I think it was that. And it was, it was. You know, even as that diminished over the years, and I wondered what value there is to raising awareness, I still thought, this is the only thing I can do that might contribute in some tiny way. And then towards the end, I remember telling myself, okay, you alone maybe can't help, but you're one tiny piece of a huge team of good journalists and writers and photographers. And collectively, if you cover this war well enough and get enough shocking footage and testimony, then maybe something will be done to stop this war. But again, I mean, the journalists of Gaza are doing an unbelievable job of covering what's happening there. We're probably more aware of what's happening in Gaza than any other war in the history of the planet, and yet very little actual action.
- [25:24]
Chris Hedges
200 have been murdered, often in targeted assassinations.
- [25:28]
Ben Anderson
I mean, and often getting phone calls a few days before saying it's happening, and their families getting killed as well.
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Chris Hedges
And yet they keep doing it. I think both of us reached a point where we realized we probably weren't going to change much, but we kept doing it. Why? Why did you.
- [25:42]
Ben Anderson
I mean, if my belief that by doing this you might actually help the people in those countries, if that went away, maybe I consoled myself by saying, well, if it's, if it's on the record, maybe at least someone will be held responsible one day. Again, I'm not sure if I even believe that anymore. I mean, Assad is living a lovely life in Moscow by the sounds of it right now. I don't think these ICC arrest warrants are going to amount to anything. Whatsoever, I don't know. But again, that's the tiny hope you have is maybe if it's on the record, maybe something will happen. Not now and not a few years from now, but maybe one day someone will be forced to face justice.
- [26:22]
Chris Hedges
Well, when they brought Milosevic and when they dragged all these people to the Hague, they did use work that, I mean, some of my work, but they used work that journalists did because we had documented, especially on Srebrenica and in my case the camps with, you know, the names of the perpetrators and the names of the victims. And I mean, that's a small kind of contribution towards justice. I think all of us hope for justice. And of course I work quite a bit in Gaza and it's just a live streamed genocide. I mean, there's just no excuse not to know what's going on.
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Ben Anderson
I think the scary thing about Gaza is I think the Israelis have reached a point where they'll take the bad PR in the short term because they know that America, if it's Biden, Obama, Bush, Trump, they know they've got their unconditional support militarily, diplomatically. So they'll continue and they'll get everything they want. I think that's the real tough pill to swallow with Gaza.
- [27:23]
Chris Hedges
I want to talk about the culture of war. You have a moment? I think you're on a float somewhere.
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Ben Anderson
And.
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Chris Hedges
The Marines, even though they're on the ship, are running six miles a day. And when I was on floats, they actually lifted weights in cages. I don't know if that was. They had weights in a cage on an aircraft carry. I mean, it was insane. Everything's going up and down. And you ask the Marines what department of the Navy they're in and they say the men's department. And you say, that's it. I want to go, let's talk about that. Because I think, you know, that hyper masculinity which is part of being a war correspondent is there, but it can be very toxic. But let's talk about the culture, that culture. I mean, every other word is true. Even for us as reporters, every other word was fuck. Every other word in a Marine, every third word is fuck. I mean, you have a point. I think it's in the book where you have the Afghan translators, you have a nice film on how we betrayed the translators who worked for American forces and then are denied visas to the United States. But even they're like translating from Afghans because they hear the word fuck so much into the. I think it's finally an Officer says, just drop it. You don't have to.
- [28:43]
Ben Anderson
I first came across the Marines on a mew on an aircraft carrier that was going around the Persian Gulf. And it was one of the most boring trips of my entire life. But these Marines were doing like MMA style wrestling on the deck. They were running six miles, like you said. They were playing Call of Duty. And I could just tell they were kind of gonzo. And I have the same loathing you have for the public affairs officers who try and control everything that journalists do. And I thought, these guys seem like they wouldn't actually care.
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Chris Hedges
Well, no, I was with three months with the Marines. No, they tell you exactly what they think. I mean, that's what. Which you won't get from the Army.
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Ben Anderson
No, no. And I think because they do the more intense stuff, I think they're allowed to get away with things like that. And also some of the even really young Marines who'd never left the country before, they understood freedom of the press and they understood that they were obliged to let me tag along and let me see everything. And I'm sure I didn't film what I filmed. Wasn't exactly what would have happened had I not have been there, but I think it was pretty close, you know, I think. I mean, one of my favorite stories is the Marines I was with who landed in the middle of Marja. They had to just fight their way out. But then other Marines were coming from outside of Marja, and as they did, one of them shelled the wrong house and they killed a woman and three kids. And I knew that when that happened, there's a meeting the next day with the family where money is handed over, a condition, and they apologize. And I said, can I film that meeting? Fully expecting them to, you know, divert me or have the meeting in secret somewhere else. And they came and got me at like 6am and they led me in and let me film this entire meeting of them apologizing for killing a woman and three kids by mistake. And you wouldn't get that kind of openness from many other people. I mean, I filmed a similar meeting with the British soldiers once. And I had to literally wrestle my way into the room because the minder, the press minder, was trying to force me out of that room. And the Marines were very open about that. I think as long as you showed how tough and intense it was for them, they really didn't care about the politics and exposing how unlikely the overall goals of the mission were actually likely to be.
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Chris Hedges
It changes. I mean, there's Always a distrust when you come from the outside as a reporter. But I found a huge change. Once you went through an experience of combat with them, once you went through a firefight, once you were under fire with them, everything changed. That was my experience.
- [31:00]
Ben Anderson
We talked about how bad a lot of the foreign reporters are. Especially I found foreign TV news teams were often terrible. So I used that to my advantage with the Marines. And I turned up with just a backpack. I was alone, and I said, I want to spend two months with you guys. I'm going to sleep where you sleep. I'm going to eat what you eat. I'm going to go through whatever you go through. And I think they thought, oh, he's different to the rest, so we're actually going to let him in. And, you know, I got a respect. I got a bit of respect for not being as bad as many of my colleagues, and that got me a lot of access that I wouldn't have otherwise got.
- [31:30]
Chris Hedges
Well, because, let's be clear, the press, that the majority of the press that doesn't actually want to get anywhere near combat and that allows themselves to have a ring put through their nose and taken out by minors, essentially produce lies. They produce propaganda. They don't produce what's true.
- [31:48]
Ben Anderson
I mean, if they're on the main base where nothing ever happens, interviewing the.
- [31:52]
Chris Hedges
Agenda, or if they're driven out with miners, I know they're all prepped. Here's what you're going to say. You have an experience at one point with minder, and these people do everything humanly possible to block real reporting.
- [32:10]
Ben Anderson
Yeah, I mean, I can't remember the experience with the minder I tended.
- [32:15]
Chris Hedges
He was the one who kept you trapped for like 10 days somewhere. And then you finally, I think, went out with a bomb disposal unit or something. Yeah, I didn't write the book, Ben. You did.
- [32:27]
Ben Anderson
I can't remember. I mean, the main base is. Once I got out to the cause, you go from the main base to the forward operating base, and from there you go to the patrol base. And the public affairs officers were nowhere to be seen there. So I didn't know.
- [32:38]
Chris Hedges
If you go far out, they're not there. But you got stuck at one point.
- [32:41]
Ben Anderson
Yeah, I honestly can't remember. I need to reread. I can't remember what that story is.
- [32:45]
Chris Hedges
Well, that's what they're there for. They're there essentially to block reporting. And their greatest allies is the majority of the press.
- [32:52]
Ben Anderson
Yeah, because they have no. I mean, I remember I was with the great Serbian Photographer Goran Tomasiewicz in Marjorie it was just me and him and one other journalist were there, you know, from day one. And after five or six weeks we were like exhausted. We were skinny, he was, he was a smoker and had run out of cigarettes and we would walk around trying to find cigarette butts for him. And we finally got back to the Ford operating base and the BBC Kabul correspondent was there and he was like literally kicking things in the tent because he wasn't going to fly back to Kabul the same day that he'd arrived. And we had arrived in this tent which was air conditioned with these Starbucks instant coffee sachets. And for us it was the Ritz. And he said, where have you guys come from? We were out there for five weeks doing what we were supposed to do. And I think he was actually slightly embarrassed that he was acting like such a spoiled brat.
- [33:41]
Chris Hedges
Let's talk about the disconnect. I mean anytime you have. I mean I just find it remarkable when they on Gaza they will interview Israelis who will tell you what Palestinians are thinking. It's patently absurd. They have no idea, trust me, of what Palestinians are thinking. But you have the same thing in every conflict. I mean if you were cheerleading. Although I spent seven years in the Middle east in the buildup to the war in Iraq, I was nowhere to be seen and I'm an Arabic speaker and they were putting on these idiots David from and others who don't couldn't find these countries on a map. But they're repeating the dominant narrative. They're buttressing what it is, the effect. These officials and most journalists are careerists, they are very cynical, they understand what's good for their career and they will essentially do what is going to promote them. But let's talk a little bit about the clash of the. I mean this is what I think you did so amazingly because you were right up where it was happening. It really was incontrovertible. I mean you couldn't, you had it there, it was filmed, it was you. And one of the things I love you obviously went back. But you have these scenes where the Afghans are speaking quite frankly and quite openly about how horrible the occupation is and the violence, especially the aerial attacks in these 500 pound bombs, as you know, or hellfire missiles do extensive damage over a wide area and take out all sorts of lives. And the interpreters are not even interpreting, they're just making up. I mean, but that disconnect between what is and this is I think one of the power of your work. And one of the reasons I liked it, both in the films and the books, is that there are a lot of Afghan voices, which is rare. I mean, usually if you're embedded, you're only going to get that military perspective and you're not going to get the perspective of them. This was the problem in Iraq. People would go out with military units, but they never spoke to Iraqis. But there was a fluidity in your work. So talk about that. Even on the ground, the interpreters found it necessary to lie. And these purportedly contacts with Afghans, they in fact had no idea what they were saying or what they were thinking.
- [36:17]
Ben Anderson
I mean, look, I cut my teeth at the BBC where you were never supposed to let your opinion come into your reporting. And so for me, reporting was very simple. It was, you have to get to the right place and hang around long enough to be there at the right time and witness things actually happening and then you report what actually happened and what locals actually said. Now I don't know if you probably don't watch CNN much these days, but right now it's five or six people around a table who have never been anywhere arguing. I mean, I saw, I think his name is Scott Jennings, the Trump supporter who's always on cnn. He was saying that because the front cover of the New York Times magazine the starving child had a pre existing health condition, the whole thing is a hoax and there is no starvation in Gaza. This is the state of so much news right now is you've even got comedians becoming very prominent pro or anti Israel, pro or anti Assad, Russia. And because they're willing to say outrageous pithy things, they're getting lots of attention and airplay, but they have no idea what they're talking about because they've never been to any of these places and actually reported and actually witnessed things happening. And that I think is one of the most depressing things of the way news is going right now is that that you see people who you'd have thought would have zero credibility, especially as many of them have been caught lying or getting things badly wrong multiple times. And yet a lot of them are getting paid extremely well and seem to be very successful.
- [37:41]
Chris Hedges
And what's happened to our profession, documentary filmmakers, foreign reporters, it's kind of going the way of the dinosaur.
- [37:48]
Ben Anderson
I mean, I think in print there's still some great work being done, but I think it's almost completely upside down right now in that you mentioned earlier that the photographer's often do really good work and are where they need to be. They're the least known, least supported, least well paid. And in the middle you've got the writers, many of whom I do think put in the hard time.
- [38:07]
Chris Hedges
Let me just go back because when I began, those photographers did really well. They were paid really well because of the agencies.
- [38:14]
Ben Anderson
Oh, I know some brilliant photographers who really struggle to make a living now.
- [38:17]
Chris Hedges
But that wasn't true when I.
- [38:19]
Ben Anderson
But then you've got news TV reporters who are getting paid staggering amounts of money and barely spend a day anywhere interesting where they should be. I mean, the cnn, the panel around the table feels like the worst op ed page in history every single night. And this is the news. This is how they're supposed to be trying to get some credibility back or trying to get viewers back. It's very depressing.
- [38:41]
Chris Hedges
And what's happened to the people who do the kind of work that you did? What's happened?
- [38:45]
Ben Anderson
I mean, right now the main people buying documentaries are not their main source of revenue. So Apple, Netflix, Amazon, I think they would prefer not to do a documentary that might offend China or might limit their access to places where they can sell more iPhones. So right now it feels like the toughest time in my adult life to sell documentaries about foreign politics, foreign conflict. I mean, a good friend of mine made the Bibi Files with Alex Gibney and Jigsaw film. Brilliant documentary makers got exclusive access to the Benjamin Netanyahu police interrogation videos for his corruption trial. Couldn't sell it anywhere. They had to put it on a website where you pay $12.99 to watch it. Like no major streamer or broadcaster would buy that documentary made by two of the best documentary makers we have.
- [39:35]
Chris Hedges
Is that because the media has become consolidated with these giant corporations? Why is that?
- [39:43]
Ben Anderson
Because I think the main source of revenue for them is not documentaries. It's other things that might be harmed if they put out a documentary which offends China or Russia or Trump. So I think they're more cautious about covering certainly controversial topics and foreign topics as well. I mean, Shane, the founder of Vice, I think got lots of things very badly wrong. Obviously the whole thing imploded. He always said if you make really good content about foreign conflict and just show young people amazing footage of foreign conflicts, they will watch in droves. They're not stupid. They don't have short attention spanned. If you make good documentaries, they'll watch it in droves. My first film for Vice was a 90 minute documentary about child abuse committed by the Afghan police force and some kid put it on YouTube. And, like, 15 million people watched it. I think there's an extremely patronizing view of viewers, and especially young viewers that you have to give them something snappy, easy to understand and digest. I think that's actually the opposite of the truth. I think that's why so few people are watching documentaries and as a result, buying documentaries.
- [40:53]
Chris Hedges
When you were with military units, I mean, I remember you. So you were with the Brits, you were with the Iraqis. You were with the Afghan army. One of the things you write about the Brits is the. Is the poor quality of the equipment. I mean, what they were riding around in open Land Rovers or something.
- [41:12]
Ben Anderson
Roofless Land Rovers. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I mean, and we used to look at Americans in Humvees, think, oh, my God, it'd be so amazing to drive around in a Humvee. And of course, the Humvees were then getting, you know, blown to smithereens regularly. So then they had the MRAPs and the M ATVs. But, yeah, the early. I mean, this was 2007, when I first went out with the Brits in southern Afghanistan. I think nobody had any idea how bad the fighting was about to become. And by 2009, 2010, no one could even leave the base in a humvee because the IEDs were so good, and the Humvees would just get blown to smithereens.
- [41:46]
Chris Hedges
The Brits took quite a few casualties. I mean, it was pretty bad.
- [41:50]
Ben Anderson
Yeah.
- [41:51]
Chris Hedges
And they had to really retreat it. I mean, because at one point you go back with the Marines, and I think it's 2km away, and it takes you. I can't remember how long, but because of the IEDs, it takes you a very long time to get to this abandoned base and reset it up, which captures the whole futility of the war itself.
- [42:08]
Ben Anderson
Hours and hours to walk a few miles because, I mean, I was with 3, 5 Marines in Sangin, and they were losing a guy, like, every few days. And, you know, we're talking double, triple, sometimes quadruple amputees. I remember waking up on Christmas Day in Sangin with these guys, and they'd found out that one of the Marines they were with had become a quadruple amputee, had somehow pulled the wires out of his life support machine because he just didn't want to continue living. That was happening on a regular basis. And this is Marines who rarely even get to fight just by patrolling around their little bases. They would randomly get blown up by IEDs, which were everywhere. So, yeah, it's impossible to do anything.
- [42:48]
Chris Hedges
Under those Circumstances, I think there was always an assumption among cheerleaders for the war in Afghanistan, because of our technological support superiority, the Taliban would be easily defeated. The same was true in Iraq. That was a terrible mistake or you know, a terrible misunderstanding of the nature of insurgency warfare. I mean, you had a film you went to was Mosul, right. When they, you go with the Iraqi military when they are fighting ISIS in Mosul. And it is interesting the difference in the quality of the Iraqi soldiers and the Afghan national army you have pictures of. I mean, first of all, they're all smoking weed and you go out and there's like a 12 year old afghan at a checkpoint and you have soldiers nodding off on heroin. And of course the leaders of the, especially the Afghan police are all drug dealers. I mean, they're all selling and they're finding staggering amounts of heroin. But let's talk about the nature of counterinsurgency, because it isn't. I was in the first Gulf War, which was largely devoid of civilians, mechanized units in the desert. But counterinsurgency is another animal. And without the support of the local population and the ability of insurgents, because they come from that population, it doesn't in a way matter how many drones you have or how many hellfire missiles. Talk about that and the misunderstanding. I think the hubris of the British army, of the American army, they fail to understand the nature of the conflict they're in.
- [44:31]
Ben Anderson
Yeah, I mean, I think knowing the terrain because you're from there is a big advantage. Knowing the language and who to trust and not trust locally is a big advantage. But I think the most important point, and this seems to be the lesson that nobody learns, is that if people are fighting for their homes, they will never give up. And they might be in sandals with rusty old aks, but you cannot make them give up. I was with the Houthis in Yemen. Literally, guys in sandals with AK47s, they will never give up. Maybe the Israelis realize that and they realize that in Gaza you can't crush them into submission. You have to actually remove them and then destroy their home so there's nothing for them to return to. So maybe they've gone one step further and the final plan is just to, you know, a destroy everybody's home so there's nothing to go back to and then force them to Egypt or Jordan.
- [45:17]
Chris Hedges
Elsewhere, a genocide can work. I mean, it worked, worked quite well in the United States, it worked quite well in Australia. But that's genocide. That's where.
- [45:26]
Ben Anderson
But if you're just willing to try to crush people, then they will never give up unless you can remove them completely. That's the only way that Algeria, Vietnam, it's never worked. People have never been completely crushed.
- [45:39]
Chris Hedges
And yet we keep doing it over and over again.
- [45:42]
Ben Anderson
It seems like such a simple, basic thing. And I always think it's like, take anyone from another country and bring them here and say, fix America in six months. You have no idea about the culture, the language, who to trust. It's an impossible task. Absolutely impossible task.
- [46:00]
Chris Hedges
What did this do to the. Especially the foreign forces, the British and American soldiers you were with? I mean, it seems from your reporting, they figured it out pretty quickly how dirty it was, how messy it was, and the disconnect between the way it was portrayed and the reality on the ground. What did it do to them?
- [46:21]
Ben Anderson
I think a lot of them would think that they lost friends or were maimed for nothing. But I think a lot of them will also console themselves by saying, well, I did the right thing by the guys either side of me, and that's really all I care about. I think a lot of them will tell you that they didn't believe in the overall goals of the Iraq or Afghanistan wars, but they did what their training told them to do. They looked after the guys around them. They didn't quit or show cowardice. And I think that's probably enough for a lot of them.
- [46:53]
Chris Hedges
And yet the suicide rates are high.
- [46:55]
Ben Anderson
But I think I forget the number per day, but I think most of those are actually Vietnam veterans. I think the number of Iraq and Afghanistan veterans is relatively small, But I think also just adjusting to life after that is what's difficult so much later on when their health is failing and elsewhere. I think there's far more of a problem within Vietnam veterans than Iraq and Afghanistan veterans, as bad as it is amongst them. I also think, to be honest, and maybe this isn't the right thing to say, but you have to wonder who becomes an infantry Marine who becomes a war correspondent. Like something's fucked up already for you to choose to do the hardest possible thing. So there's all kinds of other issues probably going on as well.
- [47:33]
Chris Hedges
I mean, did you find. I mean, I did a. Find a kind of similar. A lot of. Kind of similar DNA between people who went into the Marine Corps, for instance, and people who were war reporters.
- [47:47]
Ben Anderson
Yeah, I mean, again, a lot of time I spent the Marines, there weren't that many reporters around. I was literally the only one there many, many times. And I think that really helped me. But when particularly American mail reporters arrived. I would find it slightly odd in the way they would kind of be in love with the Marines or soldiers and they would kind of show off their knowledge of weapons or. I always find that slightly unsettling. And I always thought we're supposed to be. There's supposed to be a separation here where I'm allowed to report whatever I.
- [48:17]
Chris Hedges
See whatever I want. I watch that they melt in front of the. Yeah, because they don't actually go out. I mean, so they, they become almost obsequious in front of these military figures because they would never do what they did and they won't go there. They have no intention of going out and reporting from combat areas.
- [48:40]
Ben Anderson
And I would go out on patrol for days, but I would still never claim to be on anything like the same level as a U.S. marine. I mean, I'm not making decisions that could kill a civilian. I'm not making decisions that could mean my colleague lives or dies. So there was a very weird thing of wanting to be so close to the Marines or soldiers or wanting to get their approval. I think it really did bar some serious reporting in some cases.
- [49:05]
Chris Hedges
Let's talk a little bit about drugs in. I mean, this was a big issue in Afghanistan, especially among the Afghan national army and the police. Why was drug addiction so prevalent?
- [49:26]
Ben Anderson
I mean, I think it's prevalent anyway there amongst the police, the army, it wasn't so prevalent. I mean, there was quite a lot of weed smoking you could see here and there. But it didn't seem to affect them in any negative way. The police. I honestly don't know. I mean, I think a lot of the police that got sent to Helmand, Kandahar really were the dregs who were considered expendable. So maybe they were more prone to that anyway. I mean, I think the bigger issue in Afghanistan was the amount of officials, including government officials and cabinets ministers who were drug dealing. I mean, often you'd talk to counter narcotics teams and they would say, oh yeah, burn those three or four fields over there, but don't touch those three or four fields. I mean, I went to one Afghan police base in Helmand province and normally you would see opium fields around military bases or around police stations. That was very common and quite shocking. I went inside a police base in Gareshk, I think it was in Helmand, and there was an opium field inside the police base. Like that's how prevalent the drug dealing was. And I think that was a far, far bigger issue.
- [50:28]
Chris Hedges
I mean, you had this. The Taliban had actually shut down the heroin Trade. Then of course when the coalition forces invaded Afghanistan, they resurrected it to fund the insurgency.
- [50:41]
Ben Anderson
Yeah. And there's always been a debate about how genuine the Taliban were in shutting down the outcome trade. Like some of them think they shut it down for a few years to make the price go up. You know they've also been involved in opium trafficking as well.
- [50:56]
Chris Hedges
Talk about this, there were all these terms, government in a box was one. But you had all these concepts coming from on high. And of course Obama and everyone else, McChrystal, all claiming Petraeus, you call him King David, claiming this success and this of course again with the kind of reporting on the ground exposed. But talk about those, the concepts and the kind of jargon that was used to which changed. There was a kind of, it had a kind of protean quality in that it, you know, it didn't stay the same. But talk about conceptually how those wars are fought.
- [51:46]
Ben Anderson
Yeah, they were called the Coindinistas for a long time because they believed so much that the new COIN theory was going to work. But the government in a box, like it really never arrived. Like all the box was completely empty. I think.
- [51:58]
Chris Hedges
Explain what that idea is.
- [52:00]
Ben Anderson
So it's what I said earlier, it's clear, hold, build, transfer. So push the Taliban out, build governance infrastructure and then the people will embrace their new lives so much that that it'll be impossible for the Taliban to operate. I never saw examples of that. I never saw an engineer, a judge, no one like that ever arrived. Had they have arrived very early on, it would have for sure had huge impact. But that job was left to 1920 year old Marines who had no experience of governance, engineering, police, no experience of that whatsoever. So yeah, it was an absolute myth. I think it makes perfect sense on a whiteboard in an office in D somewhere A leads to, B leads to. It makes perfect sense. And again, this is similar to what I said earlier about insurgencies. It's such a simple idea. But if you actually want to help people and if you actually want to rebuild a country, the first thing you do when you arrive is you talk to people who actually live there and you say, what do you need? Who can I trust? How much does a bridge cost? It's so, so simple. I mean there's one story which sounds apocryphal but it sums up perfectly I think what actually happened. And a German NGO allegedly came to Kandahar, I think it was. And they went to a village that had no. Well, they said you've got no. Well it's what we do, we build wells. And, you know, they'd been in this bubble where it had been secured, and so they built this well and they posed for a photograph and everyone felt very good about themselves. And they were. They went back to their air conditioned porter cabins in Kabul and they came back six months later and they went to check on the village and the well. And the well had been blown up. They said, oh, it's terrible. Did the Taliban blow up the well because the infidels had provided it for you? And someone took them to one side and said, no, the women blew up the well because the only way they were allowed to walk to the neighboring village and see their friends was to get water. And you took that away from them. And that's exactly what it was like. Not once did I see people actually sit down with people and say, who's a good guy here, who's a bad guy? Who can we trust? And what do you need? They'd already decided what was needed, and that's why it went so badly wrong so often.
- [54:08]
Chris Hedges
Let's talk about the end of your reporting. You talk about feeling numb. I mean, it's very similar to what I experienced in Kosovo. It just. I didn't get. I mean, maybe we have a different experience with adrenaline hits, but I just didn't get any adrenaline hits any anymore. It was all kind of tawdry. I mean, I did it. I knew how to do it, but it was clearly over after 20 years. Talk about that. Your own kind of that, that experience. I forget where it was. Maybe it was helmet. I can't remember where you were.
- [54:41]
Ben Anderson
I think the one you're referring to is Mosula. I'd had it for a very long time where, you know, in extremely dangerous situations or witnessing horrific suffering, I just would feel absolutely nothing. I actually, I compared it to watching animals play possum. And I always thought when an animal plays possum, it was like a really cunning trick to avoid getting eaten alive. And they'd fake being dead and the predator would run away and then they'd hop back to life. And, you know, I always thought it was quite an amusing, clever thing that animals could do. I actually read about it not that long ago, and the animal's in, like, catatonic shock and freezes and sometimes can't breathe, sometimes, like, shits itself. And when I read it more recently, it was actually. It went from being something you admire as this wily trick to something really awful and almost like heartbreaking to think about. And I think it was more that I was just incapable of feeling anything, certainly fear, certainly curiosity. And I was in Mosul and we were with a very small group of Iraqi soldiers, like I think four very young Iraqi soldiers. And it was house to house fighting and there were dead bodies in every house and there were civilians fleeing in the midst of mad firefights and they got a message on the radio saying there's a gunman and a suicide bomber are about to turn the corner and run down the street and attack you. So we dived into a bombed out shop that was like 6ft by 4ft and just basically a pile of rubble with two concrete walls either side of it. And I sat down on this, this little pile of breeze blocks as one of the Iraqi soldiers tried to shoot the suicide bomber as he ran down the street towards us. And as I sat down, one of the other Iraqi soldiers said, ied, ied. And there was an IED buried in the rubble right next to me. And I looked and I could see some wires and three of our colleagues had been killed two or three days before by an IED buried in the rubble. And I remember it was as if you just said to me, your Uber's going to take 30 minutes to arrive. I was just bored, fed up, sick of the fact that we had to wait in this shop for a little while, even though the Iraqi soldier is trying to shoot down a suicide bomber as he's running down the street towards us. And I thought nothing of it because that's how I'd been for probably almost a decade up until that point. But my colleague Javier Manzano is a brilliant Mexican Pulitzer Prize winning photographer who covered Syria for many years. He took a picture of my face and a few days later when we were somewhere safe, he just showed me a picture of my face and he said, ben, we were in one of the most fucked up situations imaginable and you looked bored. He said, something's wrong, you need to go and talk to someone. And I think I'd known in the back of my mind I did, but just felt too guilty to think that I deserved any kind of care or support. And he wasn't the kind of guy that would say things like that unless it really needed to be said. So then I went to see someone and you get like a 23 question form to fill out and the answer was yes, yes, yes, shit, yes, shit, yes to every single question. I just thought, oh, it's undeniable, you've got something's wrong and you need to take a break. And get some treatment.
- [57:33]
Chris Hedges
So what happened? You had a short little film where you. It's ecstasy, right? You take or something?
- [57:38]
Ben Anderson
Yeah.
- [57:38]
Chris Hedges
So I did work.
- [57:39]
Ben Anderson
I did some straight therapy, and it didn't really get anywhere. I felt like I needed a sledgehammer, basically, to, like, rock me out of the situation I was in. And then a new producer joined Vice, and luckily I happened to be there when he pitched his first few ideas. And he said, I want to do a documentary about how MDMA is helping veterans get cured of ptsd. And my hand just went up and I said, I'll do it with you and I'll do it on camera. Because it was a way for me to get help while still being productive and making a film and maybe helping other people talk about having ptsd. So my hand went up and I did you do four hours of straight talk therapy and then you do your first MDMA session? And that morning when I woke up, we had to go to Portugal to do it, where it was decriminalized. I didn't know what was going to come up, you know, when I was under the influence of mdma. So I was terrified. I was going to cry my eyes out or something. And because it was being filmed, I was. I was probably more scared of that than any experience I had at war for the last 10 years. But I took the MDMA. I resisted it for a very long time, and I was like fists clenched like this. And eventually I just. Just accepted it and let it kind of wash over me, and it didn't cure me. You do three sessions over three months, but it was life changing. And I've spoken to veterans and sexual assault survivors who have done it. I mean, there's one good example is a guy called Tony Macy. He was an Iraq War veteran and he lost several friends in Iraq, and he had survivor's guilt. He was addicted to painkillers. He was drinking, I think half a bottle of vodka every night to get him to sleep. He was booked in to do three MDMA sessions. In the first MDMA session, he imagined being his dead friends. And they said to him, why are you destroying your life? We want you to live your life and enjoy your friends, enjoy your family. Like the way to honor our lives is to enjoy your life. And he said, they gave me permission and that's all I needed was permission to actually live. And he cancelled the other two sessions. He set up an NGO in Cambodia for veterans who wanted to volunteer. And he's now studying leadership and diplomacy at Tufts, and he's doing Great. So I was very skeptical and didn't really believe in a silver bullet fix for ptsd. But even though it didn't actually work on me, I've seen it work in others and I believe it. I'm probably going to do it again at some point as well.
- [59:52]
Chris Hedges
Why do you think it didn't work for you?
- [59:54]
Ben Anderson
I think with complex ptsd, so it's many experiences over many years rather than one single incident, it's a lot harder. I think that I'm very typically in English and I'm so resistant even the language of therapy. So I think it will work. I think it just takes. Takes a lot longer.
- [60:12]
Chris Hedges
And talk therapy didn't. I tried. It didn't work for me.
- [60:15]
Ben Anderson
So MDMA therapy is basically talk therapy, but the MDMA just allows you to be in a place where you're open to talk therapy. You know, when I. When I did talk therapy without mdma, I thought the whole thing was ridiculous. I thought the language was ridiculous. I managed to somehow sit really uncomfortably in the big leather easy chair they had in the therapist's office. But, I mean, this is an example of how well the MDMA worked. I don't even think like this, but what I said during the MDMA session was, and this was an absolute revelation to me and didn't know this was the problem that needed to be addressed. I said, I am a human being who can give and receive love. And I didn't know that I wasn't. I didn't know I needed to come to that conclusion. But that helped me come to that conclusion. And I don't think I would have done it without. So I think in that sense, it's just something that allows you very quickly to agree to accept that something is wrong and that you can get help from other humans to fix that thing that's wrong.
- [61:14]
Chris Hedges
And how do you cope now? I mean, weren't you in Ukraine? Didn't you just go to Ukraine?
- [61:18]
Ben Anderson
I did. The only trip to a war zone I've done over the last couple of years is Ukraine, but we didn't do any.
- [61:23]
Chris Hedges
They don't let you get anywhere near the fighting thing?
- [61:26]
Ben Anderson
No, I think they're aware. They're aware it's a PR war. So I think you can get footage of them having great victories or you can visit the aftermath of Russian strikes, but we didn't really try and do that anyway. But no, I think I will continue war reporting. I'll just try not to do it in the way I did it. So it'll be Interesting to see how I react. I just think I reached that burnout phase that you talked about. So I kind of think maybe it's time to let someone who's, who's fully infused and energetic and up for this, like do it instead of, instead of me. Certainly for the time being.
- [61:55]
Chris Hedges
Well, I had three friends. I mean we all quit and they life was just too flat and they went back and they all got killed.
- [62:05]
Ben Anderson
Right? Yeah. Because nothing, nothing. That feeling that you're in exactly the right place at exactly the right time recording historic footage or witnessing historic events that you, you need to share. Like nothing, nothing really matches that feeling. Certainly if your goal is to feel like you're helping in some way, I haven't figured out a way to replace that feeling and that urge.
- [62:26]
Chris Hedges
And how do you look now at the kind of work you've done, the kind of work I've done with the disintegration of these media. How would someone like, you know, where would a 20 year old Ben Anderson go today? What would they do?
- [62:48]
Ben Anderson
I don't know. I mean, you know, Vice was, Vice was great in that every week we were doing stories from all over the world and no issue or country was too obscure. I just don't know where there is that does anything like that right now. I think some of the magazines and newspapers still do good could work, but it's hard to get into those places. And documentaries certainly, I think it's very difficult. If you want to be a, if you want to make documentaries about foreign conflict, I think it's very hard. And certainly the major broadcasters, msnbc, cnn.
- [63:25]
Chris Hedges
Fox, well they don't even do reports anymore. When I did the war in Salvador, they filed three to five minute reports. All the major networks, including cnn, it's all gone.
- [63:33]
Ben Anderson
I can't remember the last one.
- [63:34]
Chris Hedges
They don't even have bureaus.
- [63:36]
Ben Anderson
Yep. And even during Mosul, I think their safety protocols were so strict that they would buy a bit of footage from a freelance photographer and they would cut that in with a piece to camera that their correspondent was doing two or three hours away and there wasn't much.
- [63:48]
Chris Hedges
Or they buy AP footage. Yeah, that's what they do.
- [63:51]
Ben Anderson
Yeah. So I hope it turns around but right now it feels like it's mostly domestic Trump coverage. And even then it's not, it's not good coverage. It's kind of gossipy coverage. Even, you know, the Zelenskyy footage was like, is he gonna wear a suit or not? The Mamdani footage is. Does he, did he condemn the Phrase, globalize the interval strong enough, a phrase he's never even used. You know, it's nonsense like that. It's not, it's not substantive coverage.
- [64:14]
Chris Hedges
What's the trivialization of news really, which.
- [64:19]
Ben Anderson
Is maybe news trying to compete with social media, I don't know. But it's, it's. I feel, I mean, I know everyone always says, like, journalism is dead and, but it really does feel like it's in a bad place right now and people just aren't reading. I mean, there are people I argue with about issues all the time and they'll send me articles and clearly all they've done is read the headline because I'm stupid enough to read the article. And I'll say, well, there's nothing in this article that justifies the headline or your argument. But they've just seen the headline and shared it with me as haha, got you, I won. And that's it. I feel like that's the extent of a lot of people's news digestion. Now.
- [64:51]
Chris Hedges
What do we not understand about Empire because of this?
- [64:58]
Ben Anderson
I mean, you can't reshape cultures, foreign countries, without doing it with and for the people that live there. And you can't make anybody submit and give up unless you eradicate them or remove them completely, which most of us, I think, are unwilling to do. Now, I thought most of us were unwilling to do. Clearly some people are still willing to do that.
- [65:23]
Chris Hedges
I think all the Western governments have signed on for the genocide in Gaza.
- [65:28]
Ben Anderson
And even the things they've said which are considered to be major steps. We might recognize a Palestinian state in September. That's it.
- [65:36]
Chris Hedges
But they don't stop the arms shipments.
- [65:38]
Ben Anderson
No. I hope that history will judge them extremely harshly, but I'm amazed the way they're allowed to get away with that. And the depressing thing in America is I'm not sure it makes any difference who's in office.
- [65:50]
Chris Hedges
Let's just close by talking about our Palestinian colleagues. I mean, they've done tremendous work, I mean, heroic work. Over 200 have been killed, but they've kept this story alive and they are fully aware of the consequences.
- [66:08]
Ben Anderson
Oh, in many cases they're called and, and they're warned if they don't stop broadcasting, they will be killed, and not just killed, but killed with their entire families as well. I mean, the reporters that were killed in the Al Jazeera 10 recently, a lot of them, their parents and siblings, had already been killed in attempts on their lives. And it's shocking how little coverage it's got. It's shocking how little governments have done to condemn it. And I think it's shocking how little Western journalists have done to stand up for them and with them as well.
- [66:38]
Chris Hedges
Well, you have what's his name, Simpson from the BBC talking about how that this just shows why we need real reporters, as if these people aren't real reporters.
- [66:46]
Ben Anderson
I mean, that's definitely true. I think they've done a better job than most of our colleagues would have done. And I'm slightly dreading when Gaza gets opened up to Western reporters because you know what's going to happen. It's going to be a race and a competition to who gets where first. And I'm the first one here. It's the most shocking thing I've ever seen. I think what we should be doing right now is just sharing and supporting our Palestinian colleagues work and nothing else. But you know, they're going to make it about. About them when they're allowed in.
- [67:10]
Chris Hedges
Yeah, great, thanks. Thanks, Ben.
- [67:14]
Ben Anderson
Pleasure.
- [67:14]
Chris Hedges
And I want to thank Thomas, Sophia, Diego and Max who produced the show. You can find me at chrishedges.substack.com.
- [67:28]
Ben Anderson
Sarah.