The Team House - Eeben Barlow: Executive Outcomes is back , Ep. 71

Episode Date: December 5, 2020

Eeben Barlow served in the South African military and in his government's covert action branch called Civil Cooperation Bureau. After his service he founded Executive Outcomes, a private security company hired by the governments of Angola and Sierra Leone to fight terrorists. After coming under immense political pressure, Eeben attempted retirement but as heard here this turned out to be something he was not very good at. In the 2000's Eeben became the chairman of a new private military company called STTEP which hunted for Joseph Kony in Uganda and beat back the terrorist forces of Boko Haram in Nigeria. Today, Eeben has restarted Executive Outcomes. Eeben's new book can be found at: https://www.warbooks.co.za/products/the-war-for-africa-conflict-crime-corruption-and-foreign-interests-eeben-barlow Get access to bonus segments with our guests: https://www.patreon.com/m/TheTeamHouse NEW! Team House merch: https://teespring.com/stores/my-store-10474963 Team House Discord: https://discord.gg/wHFHYM6 SubReddit: https://www.reddit.com/r/TheTeamHouse/ Jack Murphy's memoir "Murphy's Law" can be found here: https://www.amazon.com/Murphys-Law-Journey-Investigative-Journalist/dp/1501191241 The Team Room Reading Room (Amazon Affiliate links): https://jackmurphywrites.com/the-team-room-reading-room/Become a supporter of this podcast: https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/the-team-house--5960890/support.

Being a parent can be really challenging. Child and Family Resource Network focuses on connecting pregnant parents and those with kids under the age of five with free support services to help them on their parenting journey. Everyone deserves someone they can turn to for help with parenting. Visit child and family resource network.org today. Being a parent can be really challenging. It's normal to feel uncertain about whether you're doing the right things

to raise healthy and happy children. That's why Child and Family Resource Network focuses on connecting pregnant parents, and those with kids under the age of five, with free support services to help them build confidence in their parenting journey. Everyone deserves to have someone they can turn to for support with parenting. Visit child and family resource network.org today. Good evening, folks, or good morning if you're watching us in an African time zone, as our guest is tonight.

I'm Jack Murphy, here with co-host Dave Park. Our guest today is Ibn Barlow. Eben is the founder and CEO of executive outcomes. And he was also the chairman of a company called Step. He is written about, proselytized about, in many different ways in the press, much of it not so positive. But he has all done, I think, a big service in writing a couple books here. This is his first one, executive outcomes against all odds, which it talks about his life as a soldier in the South African Defense Forces, and then in a covert action branch called Civil Cooperation

Bureau. This is a must-read, in my opinion. He has also authored composite warfare. This is a book on strategy and doctrine for the practitioners out there. And tonight we're going to be talking mostly about his new book, The War for Africa. And this covers this time primarily with the company's step, which is what we're going to get into tonight and some of the work that he did, particularly in Uganda and also Nigeria. So, Eben, thank you so much for joining us tonight. Thank you very much, Jack, for having me on your show again. It's always a pleasure.

And, you know, there's so much to talk about. I'm going to try to focus on just a few topics. And I know it's very late where you are. It's what like it. It's early. Very early. It's like 3 a.m. So, I think right off the bat, could you just take a few minutes to tell us kind of who you are and how you got your, I mean, why this world of private military companies, or as a mercenary, as some people would use the pejorative term, how did you find yourself into this life and this line of work? In a way, by accident, born in Zambia, which was then known as Northern Rhodesia, my dad eventually moved south, over reasons, and I ended up in South Africa, went into the South African army, a very proud Sapper. And I ended up at a unit called 3-2 Battalion and was the second in command of their reconnaissance wing.

later in the CCB as you've mentioned, which was a covert group of the South African Special Forces, and then suddenly found myself without work. But every door that closes a new one opens, and I was asked if we could help a oil company protect and recover assets in a little town in northwestern Angola and Oversoya, which we did. That led to a contract to train the Angola. golden army ironically an enemy we'd fought several years prior to that which we did and I'd like to think the unit we'd trained for them was instrumental in

ending at war until it got to a point that foreign interests intervened again and and the rebels were allowed to rearm in full knowledge of everyone and then they went back to war but by then we left really so but that just in brief is how I ended up doing what I'm sorry I'm just my coffee I just want it put closer to me thanks very much that's basically the story Jack that was here was started initially the company executive outcomes to train South African special forces and that was what was what I was doing until such time as the Angolan contract came along which of course it's interesting that many people have claimed they were the founders they were this

they were the directors they're all lying and i've always said it's a simple matter to check at companies house who established the company and of course that led into follow-on work fighting the r uf in ceil lione there's a hostage rescue effort that your employees participated in in indonesia And again, I mean, this is like a 600-page book here. We can't unfortunately get into all of it tonight. But this is an incredible, incredible memoir. Also talks about his time in Civil Cooperation Bureau. A lot of terrific stuff there to take a look at that's going to interest readers.

But you close down executive outcomes at a certain point. And your second book here, it starts off with your attempt at retirement. And I just had to note that you were not so good at retirement. This turned out to be something that your skills just did not lend itself to. You try to retire, you have a very strong interest in horses. I was wondering if you could tell us about your initial attempt to retire and how that went for you. First of all, I left executive outcomes because I'd actually become totally burned out. You know, I was fighting a war in several fronts.

There was not only the wars in the countries we were engaged in, But there was a huge war going on with the domestic media, domestic and foreign intelligence services, and that type of thing just eventually became a little bit much because I was hardly sleeping. And I was always having to defend what we were doing for governments. And it was just almost unbelievable to me that the South Africans who were actually supporting rebel movements, they were never discussed. It was almost as though it was fine to support them. And that goes from, you know, the pre-1994 government to the post-1994 government. So there was this whole thing that just got a bit much from the end. You know, what went wrong in the company later after I left?

I cannot discuss. But the company did close its doors in 1998. But having said that all, you know, the media stories that it was because of South Africa, legislation that's all lies it's clear and again all people have to do is go to with the relevant state department in South Africa and they'll see that we had a license daughter but you know it's much better to sort of intimate that we were operating illegally what is to actually write the damn truth which a lot of these journalists have a problem doing and so how did it go after you you tried to step away

from this line of work and enjoy your life. It wasn't very successful. I tried and, you know, before long, certain embassies came knocking on the door and said they'd like me to act as an advisor to them, which I started doing and I became an advisor, trusted advisor to the Angolan government in the 2000s and to several other embassies that I didn't write about because of the fact that I still have contact with these people.

And then in 2009, I was approached by three guys who'd spent time in Chickaubi prison and who had been Zimbabwe, who had been part of the so-called coup attempt in Equatorial Guinea. While they were in prison, they decided to create a company, which the acronym step is, special tasks, training equipment, and protection. And in 2009, they asked me if I would be their chairman, which I said, okay, I'd do that. Because I, you know, I just couldn't sit on my bum doing nothing. And I would just point out that these three gentlemen who are cooling their heels in a

prison in Zimbabwe at the time, one of whom was named in your book as well, Mr. Loki Horn, who, people who watched the previous episode of ours that we did with Shane Willard, who was with the South African Special Task Force, he mentions Loki several times during the interview and in his book. So that's just a familiar person that people might recognize. Yeah, it was very interesting because I was at Shane's book launch. And my late brother was Task Force member number two. So, you know, I had a sort of a,

a loose link with the task was guys, and I still know many of them. So that was your attempt at retirement, you got approached by these three gents to become the chairman of the company. There's a lot in this book. I don't think we're going to have time to talk about some adventures and misadventures in Madagascar, Libya, Sudan, a few other places, some other familiar names that came up in the book that I had to chuckle a little bit as I didn't know everything that those individuals were a part of until I read your book. But I'd like to first talk about Uganda a little bit. And in the United States, something happened here, which was, of course, the Coney 2012 documentary that was made, which kind of brought a longstanding issue in Uganda to the forefront.

And I was wondering if you could tell us how you were initially approached by Mr. Warren Poole and brought into this project in Uganda. Well, first of all, I think the production and showing of the documentary about Coney I think was very, very important because it made the world aware of a really bad person running around doing exactly what he wants to do. But you know, prior to that, the LRA had become a thorn in the side of several governments. you might have read in the book about the Guatemalan misadventure that were trained by your special forces who went into on a UN mission to sort of stop the LRA and had the heads chopped off

and that sort of thing was forever there everyone knew about it but no one really spoke about it so when the video came out on the Coney I think it was Coney 2012 or something, I think you just mentioned it. It was very interesting because it did make the world aware of one of the bad characters running around in Africa. I was then approached by Laren Poole, as you might have read in the book, heck of a nice young guy, and asked whether we would consider looking at training a specific unit for the Ugandan army in order to actually go after Coney and hunt Coney and get rid of him.

And he's Cabal. Part of the problem was that a lot of these people with Coney are children. Their kids who have been kidnapped. They're five, six years old when they're kidnapped. They brutalized. They're forced to do things. So, you know, they're really very traumatized by what's going on. And the problem then is to distinguish between who are the legitimate bad guys

and which are the kids because Lauren Poole and his group wanted to actually get these kids out and rehabilitate them and actually make them something in society. So that was really where it all started. And so then from that point, how did you merge with Lauren's efforts and then it turned out that there was a benefactor behind him, I believe, and then making contact with the Ugandan military and government And how did all these forces get brought together? Prior to Laron even approaching me, I'd been in Uganda working with the Ugandan defense force on the development of doctrine. So I knew a lot of the senior offices in the Ugandan people's defense force. And I said to Larry that regardless, the Ugandans have a buying on this.

and I would discuss it with them and if they were okay with it, then we would be willing to assist them. I contacted several general officers of the Ugandan military and they were amenable to the idea and, you know, everything started happening from there. I think that's kind of an important point to highlight because a lot of people, when they think of what you do, even, they think about these wild off-the-wall mercenary operations. but this was also with a cooperation and invitation of the Ugandan government. It wasn't a rogue operation. No, not at all. And this is just to me the short-sightedness which people have that right about this. We cannot, 10 or 12 of us, as well as the case with Uganda, go in there on our own and suddenly decide what we're going to be doing.

They're the professional military. How on earth can 10 people go in and dictate what an army must do? You know, so it's just the idiocy of it, and it really just shows total lack of understanding, not only of Africa, but of how armies in Africa work. Could you talk to us a little bit about Shannon Sedgwick Davis? I thought she was a fascinating person in your book, and the way that you and Loki made contact with her, and just she had it struck me the passion and the will to try to do something positive in Uganda.

But even you and your men were the ones who kind of made it happen on the ground, or at least began to make it happen. It could never have happened without her. I mean, that's the reality of it. I think she is a fascinating person in that she was very passionate about what Lernerner and then wanted to achieve. and she was very focused on what she wanted us to achieve. And she insisted on always being kept up to date. It wasn't a matter of looking over our shoulders.

She said, you know, what are you going to be doing? We told her this is what we're going to be doing. So she was really there to, she was really the fire or the spark that lit the fire in terms of counter LRA operations. Unfortunately, when word got out and it wasn't through us, what was happening in Uganda, she became, she was approached by your authorities and told to shut down and get rid of us. And that was really what happened in brief. I mean, there's a lot, there's a back story too all of that.

But she was really the driving force behind everything. Could you just explain who this person was? I mean, she wasn't just some random person. I mean, she had a sizable organization that she was running to support these efforts. Yes, well, she works for people who deal with money. She's a highly qualified, educated person. She's worked in dangerous areas before, mainly regards to child trafficking in the Far East. And she's not a person who will, you know,

buckle down to anyone demanding something unless it's very, very serious. But yes, there's a big organization behind her, and they were quite willing to donate their money in order to end what was happening in Uganda, and, of course, obviously with Uganda and the whole entire operation. So then what's the next step from there to operate? You had to create a plan and then operationalize it in Uganda. As I say, I knew the Ugandan generals, some of them. And striking to me was that when I told them what I envisaged,

they were quite happy to go along with it. And be in mind, they'd known me from the 90s already some of these generals. So it wasn't a matter of they didn't know me at all. The strategy was developed, and as you know, the strategy is what leads to the the structure of an organization. You don't design an organization and then try and build a strategy around what you have. You actually have your ends and ends

leads to the organizational hierarchy. So speaking to the Ugandans, I said to them that I did not think the current way of fighting the LRA or any such type of movement is relevant. World War II sections, platoons, companies, battalions don't work. And we would like to structure differently. And the chief of the army said, fine, go ahead and do it and prove the concept.

Which also told me that the Ugandans were very open-minded about it. They were willing to debate issues they felt weren't properly carried across or that they felt were wrong. and it was really a great way in which to build a unit and those were known as as special operations groups in fact two of them were trained and these guys did very very well in the field so proved the concept could you talk a little bit about the training camp that your men established and just the like what struck me was the incredibly austere conditions that these guys were working in it wasn't the typical private security contractor job where these guys are staying in hotels like they were out in the bush the entire time.

Jack, we've always believed if we train troops we live as they live. We eat what they eat. We are from Africa. We don't need a Kentucky fried chicken or a McDonald's outlet close to us. You know, if they eat rice and beans, that's what we eat. We eat rice and beans. If they live under trees and under babies, we live under trees and under babies. That's one way. in which you get troops to understand that you are there to actually be with them, that you are willing to share the tough times with them, and equally that you're willing to share good times with them. So we had, you know, the guys lived, they went and bought themselves pub tents eventually.

You know, these were small one-man tents and they lived in these tents for three, four months at a stretch. And that was home. We had some tents the Ugandan military gave us. With them had pretty big holes in, but we used what we had. Because our philosophy is we use what a government gives us. And obviously the tents we needed, because when rains came, it rains out there. Where the training was, was close to the DRC Sudan border.

Pretty rough country. You know, not unusual for a Mumbai to fall out of a tree on land on top of a tent and slither down the tent and go off on its own. So it was rough country, but the guys did well. Even, so what makes you so successful? What made EO so successful in the early days and then you being able to approach these generals in Uganda and the clout that you have, I mean, could you have taken anybody from the CCB and, I mean, there are a lot of other people that didn't achieve what you did. Is it your ability to organize? Is it your brilliance? Is it your passion? Is it your ability to think outside

the box? Is it the people you know? Like, why are you so successful over the long term against so many organizations? First of all, Dave, I'm unsuccessful in that sense because I have good men with me. Where I'm weak, there are guys that are strong. And I think that's what makes a team really but going back to why was EO successful why was step successful it has to do with a campaign strategy there has to be a focused ends that ends has to be aligned with a national strategy and if those two are aligned you can win and often I watch and I say this with great respect foreign forces coming to Africa they don't understand the operating

environment, they don't understand the area of operations, they don't understand the people, and there's no campaign strategy. So you cannot just train troops to train troops because actually then you're wasting time and money. Troops need to be trained for the mission. And the mission is determined out of the campaign strategy. Being a parent can be really challenging. Child and Family Resource Network focuses on connecting pregnant parents and those with kids under the age of five, with free support, services to help them on their parenting journey. Everyone deserves someone they can turn to for help with parenting.

Visit child and family resource network.org today. So I think that's what's made these companies successful. One of the big mistakes that if I can be so bold to say on the American side, as you know, a former Green Beret myself and kind of covering these things as a journalist, is we come into foreign countries and we try to create mirror images of ourselves. We try to take American military doctrine and train foreign units in very different situations, very different circumstances, and the same tactics that American soldiers use, which of course, as Americans, we're lucky we have F-16 fighter jets that can call in airstrikes, we have all this

medical support, we have all these indirect fire systems. We're training an indigenous military unit. They don't have those things frequently. So I mean, I think that, if I could be so bold even, I think that may also be a part of it, is that you guys are Africans and you understand the operational environment better, and you tailor the training and the campaign strategy to that specific situation, rather than bringing in a big book of doctrine and throw it down on the table and saying, this is what we're going to use.

I think, you know, you touched on a very important point, doctrine. If you go back to doctrine, it started really to develop this doctrine, after World War I and was sort of refined in World War II as we entered new generations of warfare. And these doctrines haven't changed much. If you look at African armies, we're taught doctrine by their colonial masters for want of a better word or their Cold War allies. And those were doctrines designed for the West to fight the East somewhere in bloody Europe. Now you want to take that and best end it so that it suits a specific environment in Africa.

It's not going to work. And as you rightfully say, you know, these are not high-tech wars. We're not calling in airstrikes with F-16s and where we have Apache gunships. We're lucky if we have one MI-24. If we have, you know, two or three helicopters going, we're really excited because then we've got some ability to maneuver. So, you know, you cannot. teach people maneuver warfare, but they don't have the assets with which to do it. Right, right.

Or teach them maneuver warfare and then sell them the crap no one else wants, which is going to break down immediately. And I have a problem with that. And even maybe on that note, this would be a good point to talk about the campaign strategy you had set out for the Special Operations Group in Uganda, and the difficulties that you had with that maneuver piece, helicopters and country. And you talk of a nightmare is when you have, and we had very good Ugandan troops who were

very well trained, very positive, wanted to do something. And I started noticing a problem quite early on because I was asked to deploy into the DRC as a UPDF guy because we become part of their structures. And take over a battalion known as 31 battalion who were busy with counter LRA operations. The problem was that the air assets, which were two or three MI8s, belonged to PAE. And they had subcontracted some Ukrainian guys to fly them. So before any air lift could take place, a request had you go to the Ukrainian guys who would contact PAE you would then contact State Department.

So you had this lengthy line of communications. And eventually, to us, it was the air assets were of more value to the enemy than what they were to the client. People can criticize me for saying that, but that's just the truth. When we called for air support and not in terms of a strike, just for air lift,

we were told, no, it's going to rain. or the pilots are tired or they're servicing the aircraft and it just became a joke you know in troops there was one UPDF platoon that by the time we asked for airlift had already

walked on foot 600 kilometers through jungle they can't get air support and we had to try use an old vehicle to try and position guys when we did determined, you know, the aim is to basically do dummy drops on the side of the enemy and channel

into a specific direction, which we bluffed them into believing. And they went for a specific river crossing point in Central Africa Republic. We still couldn't get air lift capacity. And to me it was, you know, what are these guys being paid for? Are they being paid to just sit around and fly what they think of the... the glory flights? Or are they too scared to fly? Or did they just don't want to fly? And this is something I brought up with our sponsors at that time to say, look, this is only going to work if we control the air assets. It got to a point where I was told

I'm not allowed on board the helicopters. Now my first lift out of the DRC, the Ugandan's brought in a small helicopter to fetch me. It was just myself and my medic a man called Sean who was with me in the DRC because the contracted helicopters paid for by the US government would not fly in to fetch us. But you know this is ridiculous and that type of thing does not win you friends it builds up animosity towards you. You know I'm not the enemy. The Ugandans aren't the enemy unless we are actually secretly the enemy. So it was very, very frustrating. It did seem, as you write about it in your book,

that the United States and the State Department and in the United States Special Forces, we're trying to stymie your efforts over there. I mean, eventually we got off our asses on our side and we started to try to get into Uganda to deal with the LRA. Your guys were already there. What was this friction? Why do you think that existed?

and what did they do to kind of try to push you out? Well, I think, obviously, I can't answer for the US. Number two, the sending in of the 100 special forces guys was under the previous US administration, who suddenly got whatever they needed. I'm not very keen on using the special operations groups that had been trained. In fact, a lot of them were redeployed to Mogadishu as part of the AU force over there.

And to us, this is just unbelievable. These are guys that are trained in jungle warfare. You don't deploy them to Mogadishu. And there was a lot of very negative feedback from the Ugandians concerning the US special forces in Uganda. And then I have to tell you what really got my goat was the very much. misleading article that said four Green Berets had destroyed Coney and I think I included in

the book. Giving no credit to the Ugandans who were the guys who actually did the heavy lifting but number two, Coney wasn't destroyed. He's still out there. And there's no friction between us in the US. I'm talking soldier to soldier

but when foreign interests start actually derailing operations in order to exert influence on an area, I think a problem is bound to happen. It's not going to win your friends ultimately. You know, there's a difference between how the traditional East come and do business in Africa and how the traditional West do business. The traditional West wants to militarise Africa and it creates a huge amount of problems. The traditional East are buying up Africa. So they negating that influence the West thinks it as and which it is steadily losing in Africa.

Where do you think old Joe Coney really was and is? Well, he was in Central Africa Republic. Yeah. But you know, the aim was to clear them out of the DRC into Central Africa Republic. There is a Ugandan or there was in the time we were there, an agreement between the DRC, Central Africa Republic, Southern Sudan and Uganda to conduct cross-border operations. If we could have driven Coney out of the DRC and ultimately into southern Sudan or into the hills in Darfur, we could have wiped them out.

But it didn't work that way simply because we had to do the walking because helicopters weren't available to actually implement the plan that was put into place. What was it like for you going out on ops with these guys? I mean, no offense even, but you're not a 20-year-old lieutenant in the SADF anymore. But you're still going out on patrol with these guys a few times out in the bush. Joe, Jack, we have a belief that if you train troops, you don't train them and send them off to go and do something on their own. And if you can't go with them, don't train them. It was bloody tough. As you say, I'm no longer a 20-year-old second lieutenant.

I'm a 25 year old lieutenant now. Every step I take, the kid gets heavier. If anyone kept those troops, if anyone broke their speed, it was probably me. I like to think that we have such good relations with these guys that they overlook hampering of their operational tempo. But you know, every morning, despite these guys being heavily weighed down with equipment, and ammunition, come to me every single morning and ask if they could carry my kit for me. And to me, that's a sign that we've earned their trust and we've earned their respect

by being willing to put in the hard yards with them, eat the same what they eat, live as they live, and actually fight as they fight. Even it must have been very frustrating when you say that if you would have just had air support that you could have, you know, accomplished these goals and whatnot. How was Uganda and the military not in the position to like purchase airframes, train up air crews and develop that capability without contracting it out? You have to remember, Dave, that Uganda has a very large contingent in Mogadishu. that is actually one of their prime operations that they at that stage were busy with.

So in many ways the LRA was sort of a side show in a sense. Still a very important side show, but a sideshow in comparison with Mogadishu. The air assets that Ugandan's had were primarily deployed into Mogadishu and Somalia area. I also think that the contracting of airlift capability was really primarily done to support and sustain the 4th Infantry Division's base in southern Sudan. And I think that's how the contract has ended up there. But it didn't help much in terms of operational airlift. Right.

I didn't help it. And so what operations, before things, before that friction got so bad that you guys were kind of forced out of the country, what sorts of operations did the special operations group and some of your men are run in Uganda in the surrounding countries? The first special operations group that deployed was initially sent off to force infantry at Nazara in southern Sudan. And my medic and I, we deployed with them. So we were the only two pale faces with the Ugandan's in the DRC.

And there it was mainly, you know, locate the LRA and annihilate them. A lot of ambushes were laid. But again, you know, if the enemy is moving at a speed through terrain that he knows and you don't know, the ability to leapfrog your men ahead of him and to the sides of him is critically important. We couldn't do that. So we had to try and bluff and use vehicles to drop

one vehicle, didn't have vehicles, to drop guys off, and those vehicles had problems. So it became an exercise. In fact, I wrote to Shannon to say that, you know, we actually cannot, if we carry on like this,

we're just wasting money and time. And we're not in the game of wasting people's money. It just has the air assets and we'll end these guys. But obviously there's only a certain amount that they could donate to the UPDF. It ultimately then became what we got paid to do our training because that was the agreement. You know, let me just say that the UPDF through no fault of these just didn't have that air support. It was just wasn't available because primarily they bogged down in Mogadish.

And then how did the, how did that finally happen that the whole Uganda mission kind of got shut down for you guys? And I remember you wrote in the book about there's also an accident with a Dishka machine gun and some of your guys got hurt pretty badly. That wasn't the reason for us leaving Uganda. The Dishka training was going to be done on it. The guys stripped the gun down, cleaned it, took it to the range. I think it was a Sunday. Drew ammunition from the store and a faulty round exploded in the chamber. A couple of guys got pretty badly hurt.

One of two of them said they're staying up there. They're seeing the end of the contract. But guys who were really badly hurt were brought back to South Africa. I was told that there was a visit by US authorities to Shannon, and that certain files were taken and certain instructions were given to shut down the operation. And she discussed it with us. And I have to also appreciate that, you know, she's approached by the US government, she's a US citizen,

and she has to comply with whatever he has to comply with whatever he's. told you. The end result was, is that Kennedy is still around. Whereas had we been able to finish what we started, had we had the A acids, we could have ended this. But that wasn't destined for us. It was such a successful track record in Africa, in different parts of Africa. Do you know why the US didn't approach you or didn't try to onboard you or even ask you for training area fam you know indoctrination those sorts of things I have no idea Dave it's having you know we can speculate about it but I am told I'm not exactly

gonna get a Christmas card from the US we'll send you one that's that's a strange thing you know we're not enemies of the US we we see ourselves as as fighting the same enemy right but unfortunately for some reasons we're the bad guys and everything. Yeah. Which is kind of silly if you think about it because if our government was a little bit smarter about it, they would use you guys as essentially proxies to do these things, to take care of some of these bad actors out there.

And, you know, from our government's perspective, if things go wrong, you know what they're going to do. Ah, well, it's a South African. It's nothing we can do. Right. I mean, really, that's how that would go down. I understand that. I think also part of the problem is we're not controlled by a sponsor.

Yeah. We go to a country to work with that country's government and that country's armed forces. What we do aligns with what they ends on. We're not going to come in and throw our way to ground and say, no, you can't do this or you're going to do that or we're going to withhold funding from you. You know, we're not in that game. Besides, we don't have the money with which we've left in this anyway.

Ultimately, I think what is becoming a problem is a clash of domestic interests, with foreign interests. And governments have allowed that to happen. And when a country's domestic interest clash with the foreign interests of a superpower, the country is going to lose

unless they stand up with themselves. I want to kind of shift gears a little bit to get into Nigeria and Boko Haram. But before moving on, just something I wanted to say about your book even is that I thought it did a terrific job at shedding light on what's considered a very dark and shadowy world. And you know as well as I do all the things that are published about yourself and about private military companies that make it seem very sinister. In your book, you talk about writing out the table of organization. and equipment for this unit in Uganda.

And you're writing it out on your kitchen table because your desk is such a mess. And it's like, you know, this is just a guy trying to do something to be helpful. I mean, this is not the dark, shadowy, sinister thing that it's been made out to be. And I think people will be quite surprised when they read your book.

No, Jack, they have to make it sinister because they've lied so much in the past and they have to stick with their narrative. They can't change it now and say everything we wrote previously was about the lies and we were secretly paid for it. I think if anyone moves in a dark secret world and some people in the media, you know, we're transparent with what we do, but we're only transparent with that government that we are under contract to or working with. And if there's an external sponsor, we transparent with that person.

Other than that, it's got nothing to do with the media. Besides, all these people writing these stories, stories. What if they contributed toward Africa? Let's be quite honest. A big fat zero. They have lied, tried to create division, so discord, misled and misdirected people. They have the final say on what's going to happen in Africa and actually have the goal to criticize African governments for calling on Africans to help. It's like, you know, are they living in a different bloody dimension or what's going on? Even, you know, in the press they sometimes refer to you as some sort of a rabid dog of war,

but for my part, I always found you to be a nice guy. I don't believe them. Yeah, that's their problem, Jack. I was wondering then, could you tell us about the Chai Bok schoolgirls in your entry into the conflict in Nigeria? protect and grow everything you've worked so hard to build. We are AccraShore. Okay, well, I think everyone knows about the Shibok girls who were kidnapped from the school they were at and taken hostage by Abokarum. As you mentioned earlier, is an internationally recognized terrorist movement that has its roots in Islam.

So our contract was, and we were a subcontractor to the entire end. was to train a hostage rescue team to rescue the Shibok girls. That was the initial mission. The time frame given to us was three months. The initial plan was we're going to select a group of guys from the Nigerian army. Who, by the way, I must tell you, are very nice guys. They're good troops. They're keen to learn.

and as soon as they realize they're not being bullshitted as they have been for many years by foreign trainers, they are very keen to actually do their job. So, you know, had to those guys, those Nigerians we worked with. But anyway, we started whittling them down to get a sizable team for a hostage rescue operation. Shortly after that, probably about three weeks after we started there, we were asked to change the mission because 7 Division up at Madagui was about to be overrun by Boko Haram

and could we suddenly change now we're training guys for hostage rescue suddenly we have to train people to become a lot more offensive and in hostage rescue you're looking for a specific type of guy who's not going to just shoot whatever pops up out the bush

he's going to identify and then fire now we have to choose change this and take these guys and say, no, no, no, wait, now we're going to change the way you're going to go to war. So we structured a new unit called the 72nd Mobile Strike Force. And again, with very little equipment. You know, the media claimed we'd arrived with tanks and fighter aircraft and helicopters, all lies. What we did get were MRAPs from South Africa, and we asked for South African ones because we know them and we trust them. Helicopter-wise, we had MI24, one, we had two civilian gazelles that had modified by our own people with 12.7mm guns mounted in the doors.

Three UH helicopters, and we had one puma, and that was basically it. So we structured this force, rushed off to my degree, met. the commander of the division and said to him, look, you know, we understand your situation. We understand that a lot of your guys have actually suffered at the bad end of the enemy, and we need to fix this. So would you allow us to develop a strategy, a campaign strategy? We, as this mobile strike force, will act as the spear of your division. We will take the enemy on, and your division follows behind or your units of the division and start holding the ground which the strike force has taken

and the division commander hell of a nice guy just give an example we used to have our meetings at two o'clock in the morning and he was busy throughout the day so it wasn't that this guy was sitting doing nothing So we'd have our meetings and we'd discuss these things and throw around ideas and how we can best achieve things. Then we started, the first phase of our operation was to drive a wedge right through terrain so-called held by Boko Haram. The division would stabilize it and hold it.

And then phase two is we'd move south and clear them out the south. In phase three, clear them out the north. Unfortunately, it never turned out that way because even the division commander had certain political obstacles to overcome. And I remember the moment where it broke in the media that there were South African military contractors in Nigeria. And I was like, oh my gosh, and then I started poking around a little bit and I realized you were over there.

And we started talking a little bit about it. But what was that? pressure like on you and your men at that point that suddenly there was a tremendous amount of public pressure or should I say attention at least on what you guys were doing over there? Well I think the pressure started when the prime contractor, and I say again, we were subcontractors to this, gave the story to the media. The media added their own take on it. And whether he did it for the right or the wrong reasons is irrelevant. He shouldn't have done it as far as I'm concerned. But yes, there was suddenly huge pressure. And once again, just the hypocrisy of it all.

Everyone shouting, Nigeria do something about Boko Haram when they do it, but they do it with South Africans. It's an international disaster in terms of media reportage. And you know, we integrate with these armies we were. So we wear their uniforms, we dress them by their ranks, them by our ranks, and their structure to this. This isn't, you know, some lunatic force put together that just goes and does what it wants to do. There's a huge amount of discipline in this and very much awareness as to who is the enemy and who isn't the enemy. So it's always interesting for us to sit back and, you know, read the rubbish that's written about us. It got so bad that the South African Minister of Defense wanted us arrested when we came back to South Africa for daring to help the Nigerians.

To me, this is just once again the madness of what sometimes goes on. Be that as it made, we finished our three-month term. But as we were nearing the end of our three months, we were told that there will be a change in the time. government and that that new government will make sure that we will no longer be in Nigeria. You know, as I've said before, we're not going to get into a pissing contest with anyone. They want to come and do it, let them come and do it. Just a pity that the seven years prior to us getting there, you know, window dressing training. I had never seen an AK blank before, Jack, until I got to Nigeria.

So what sort of training are these guys being given? And to be it's sad, because the Nigerian soldier is a bloody good soldier if he's properly trained and laid. Right. And probably the way it was being reported and spread out as almost as if you had your own French Foreign Legion there. You know, this whole army of mercenaries. Well, yeah, they made it seem like it was Mike Horr and Five Commando back in the old days. And it just wasn't. And I was mentioning to you before we got started even that, at the time, just as I think you guys were just in the process of leaving Nigeria, I had written

an article where I quoted you and you were disputing some of the things in the press that were saying that you and your men were these sort of South African apartheid era relics, these racists that just, you know, kind of revel in killing black people. And you were very much disputing that fact. And I remember I published that article and within like maybe 12 hours the Guardian had published like a full rebuttal to it. It was clear that they were responding to what I had published. And they were quoting these academics and these professors. And they were, what they were saying was because you had served as soldiers under the apartheid government in South Africa back in the 1980s and early 90s, they were making it like, none of you could ever contribute anything positive to the world,

that you would be forever these apartheid racists and that's it, full stop. I thought it was just incredible to see see the way that they painted all of you in that light. Jack, the interesting thing is that journalists who write that type of thing seldom leave their offices. Right. If you really think about it, the guys of EO and the guys of step, we're not only South Africans, we're not only white. We had guys from the SADF, yes.

We had guys from the ANC, which was their military wing, the Contrawe Seaswe. We had guys from Namibia. We had Angolan's with us. We had some Ugandans with us. Now, in any right-thinking person these minds think that we're going to go into Nigeria and act

as though we are colonizing Nigeria, do you think they're going to put up with that? Do you think they are going to allow us to arm a single Nigerian? I'm serious. I ask us a question. Do you think that the Nigerians will allow 20 whites

to come in there and start killing Nigerians. And they will hack us to death with machetes. But this has to be fed to people. The narrative must be driven that

all the problems in Africa really are caused by whites or caused by blacks. And that no white and no black can contribute anything meaningful. to this continent. And it's almost this desire of people in the media to try and suppress the people of this continent. I will tell you that I will fight with a black soldier

any day of the week if he's properly trained and properly led. No doubt about it. And sadly, I cannot say that for many white soldiers. I'm an African. I might be a bloody pale face. But this is where I live. This is where I've contributed to this. continent and if people don't like that that's their problem not mine of all these journalists who wrote about it how many of them came out and visited you how many of them reported from on the ground you know from the front line as it were well that that was challenging because i tried excuse me jack um in the time of executive outcomes day there was one

and that was a guy called jim hooper um who came out to Sierra Leone and spent time with us in Sierra Leone. There were journalists that we took up to Angola. We were more interested in seeing how much they could drink at night. And I'm serious. They sometimes had to be put in bed by the guys they were going to come back and write rubbish about. But there was one journalist, Jim Rupert. And that was it. And Jim wrote what he perceive happening on the ground. And look, Jim is critical of us when he has to be critical and we accept it.

But at least he writes facts and he doesn't embroider it with innuendos and little stories that he makes. Right. Could you then talk us through some of the battles that the 72nd Mobile Strike Force and your guys participated in? To confess that I didn't partake in many battles, but then I was. I was during phase one of what was initially the campaign strategy was to drive a wedge between the area Southport control by Bargarra. I was in the force that took a town called Martha and suddenly we were told to stop. There was pressure being put on the Nigerians and we had to withdraw back to Madaguri.

At that stage I then had to leave because I was on my wife. way to Garamba National Park in the DRC with one of my guys. But the force went on, there were several isolated ambushes they drove into and a little attacks they did. But probably the big one was a town called Balma, which was a very large Bokharan concentration and sort of safe zone, which they took along with members of the 7th Division. isolated skirmishes that took place. And there was also

that unfortunate blue-on-blue incident with the Nigerian military, and not to belabor this point, but I thought it was interesting. You point out in your book as well that one of your men a white South African was lost, but also a black African was lost

in that contact. Really only one was focused on internationally, sadly. Yeah, no. I know. I know. And there were Nigerian guys wounded in the back of that vehicle as well. And it's almost as though they were all glossed over. They don't matter. Which is in a way, I had to laugh when the Black Lives Matter movement started because all

of this was about a white life that had been lost. And no one spoke of the black guys that had died or the black guy that had died or the locals that are being slaughtered on a daily basis out there. No one makes anything of that. And when you try and stop it, you are suddenly the bad guy. There's this great hypocrisy that drains. But as I said you earlier, Orwell taught us in a time of universal deceit, the truth is a revolutionary act. And in your book, I mean, I think that you're incredibly candid in it about mistakes, things that went wrong, frictions, even between your own men. And the fallout from that particular incident that blew on blue contact was a veteran

who you appeared to greatly admire and respect. He ended up leaving the company because he got blamed for that incident, whether rightly or wrongly. Well, you know, I have to ultimately be held accountable for that because I had made an assumption. I was on my way to the DRC to a place called Garamba National Park.

There was going to be a link-up operation and I asked, are you guys happy with how you've planned the link-up operation? And they said yes. And I should have questioned in more depth, but I didn't. And there were many factors

that led up to that problem. You know, there was a lack of communication. Timings weren't adhered to. by forces. There was a host of problems. The end result was that, and it still the belief that there were members of the division that purposely fired at the strike force entering, or coming close to the division's logger area for the night. It was a tank that shot out one of the MRRAPs. The story is horrifying that you relate in the book where the T-72 tank rolls into the middle of the street and elevates its gun turret on him.

And they're like, he's yelling. Turn off the headlights. Turn off the headlights. Jack, this wasn't even in the street. This is going cross-country. You know, there are very few roads there. But they saw him. And they actually switched on their lights to warn the division's logger area that they're approaching.

But again, you know, I've said it before. we suffered from a lack of equipment. We suffered from a lack of communications. And communications with the division logger area was by a satellite phone to my degree and then relayed back to the division's logger area. You know, it's very difficult to work like that. And for our American viewers out there, just have to dispel you from some of the ideas that you might have about military operations.

these guys did not have night vision goggles they did not have high-tech radios they did not have any of the things that we would be used to using in the united states military um as even said these are very low-tech battles that are being fought out there well and even with all of our high-tech resources we still have blue-un-blue i mean we you know during the opening phase with iraq war we had a a tank fire on on a u.s vehicle uh you know that they were in the same they're in the same movement they just got separated in the tank fire. So even with all the high end and high tech stuff, it's very easy to get confused in that sort of fog of war environment. That is true. It happens and it happens all over the world that you get these. I'm not blaming the Nigerians per se for what happened. What I am saying is ultimately I am accountable for that

because I never questioned. So I should carry the blame for that. I was, an aircraft was waiting to uplift me. And if they didn't uplift me, I would have to wait a week. Which has a huge knock-on effect all across all the other operations and things happening. Yeah, there's no night vision equipment. You know, one of the problems we had in Uganda as well. We don't have thermal imaging.

We don't have drones. We don't have air support on call. we have to make do with what there is. So was it disappointing? Was it disappointing after the presidential elections that you had not yet completed the mission and yet Step was being asked to leave the country? And you guys, of course, you did the right thing, you left the country, you're not there to launch a coup or anything of this nature. But it must have been disappointing that the mission had not been completed.

Well, the disappointment started a bit earlier than that, Jack. that the campaign strategy, which I write about in the book, I know would have worked. It would have cleared out the enemy in the division operational area of operations that we were working in. We knew the contract was three months. Initially told it is going to be extended to allow us to finish what we started. But then it became apparent that it is a political thing. And remember, we're guests in a country.

We don't arrive there with a division or a brigade or anything. We arrive with very few people, relatively speaking. We are guests in that country. And if that government says, you know what, you have to leave or the military tells us you have to leave because it's becoming a clash of foreign interest going on over here, we'll leave. You know, we're not there to, as I said earlier,

getting to a missing contest with anyone. The government says leave, we leave. We need to do a job. If we're not allowed to finish the job, the comeback on that is not on us. It's on that government. We have some pretty big issues to get into, but I'm going to hit some viewer questions first.

Alex asks, is there going to be an audio version of your books? I'm aware of. I don't know who will read it. I mean, there's a lot of interest, I think. Mike. Ian asks, if you can weigh in on the Chibok girls, you already talked about that. It fell out of the news here shortly after the hashtag activism failed. Were they freed? What was the ultimate fate of those schoolgirls? A lot of them are still being held captive. Some of them were released, some escaped, but there were still some of those girls with Bokhara.

And obviously the way it works is a lot of them are forced into marriage and to have children. There's a question right underneath that that I just happen to see it. It just says from Rysgaard. Can you please tell Eben Barlow that he is a great inspiration for me? So I just want to pass. That's nice. Thank you very much. One gentleman here, DJD, asks, what are Evan's thoughts about the recent changes as the

Ethiopian government shifts from the TPLF government that has been in power for the past 30 years? And how might that affect all of Africa? First of all, I don't have particular thoughts on Ethiopia simply because it's never been an area we've really looked at. The internal dynamics within the country itself are really for Ethiopia to resolve. But I think part of the very long-running tensions between Ethiopia and Eritrea could become a problem as well as the dam that's being built in the most of the most of the very long-running tensions between Ethiopia and Eritrea, River and I think there could be some tension developing over there but you know

what we currently seeing unfolding in Tigra area and that I cannot comment on it because I haven't really studied the origins the origins of the problem and therefore you know I'm not qualified to talk on it and Jurewain just want to say thank you to you man so there are some other bigger things I wanted to get into but I think one of the ones, one of the bigger ones that people are asking about is you wrote on social media recently that you are reviving executive outcomes, that you stepped down as the chairman of step several years ago and that you're reviving executive outcomes. I mean, after so much drama and mellow drama surrounding executive outcomes, what inspired you to do this? What's going through your mind right now that you decided to take this course of action? First of all, I left step for reasons I write in the book. I don't know if you've completed the book yet, Jack, but there comes a time where I say I cannot accept what happened,

and therefore I stepped down as your chairman. I was never a shareholder of the company, so I could leave. As soon as it became known that I'd left, there were governments that approached me through their people, yeah, in Pretoria and by phone, to say, look, we understand you've left, please restart executive outcomes. And to me, it was, I didn't want to restart the company, but it was really pressure from a few governments that said, okay, I'll do it then.

Governments have long since seen through the deception and the lies and the bullshit about executive outcomes. And a lot of governments admitted it several years ago that they now only then understood how they'd been lied to about executive outcomes. You know, it's not me sitting here saying we did good in Africa and we saved in Africa. That's not what it's about. The company did incredibly good work, saved hundreds of thousands of lives, and governments have now finally understood that, you know, all these backstories added on were just lies. So they wanted the company to be reestablished, which is what I think did. What do you do have any plans for the types of contracts you would like to secure?

What direction you'd like to head on? Are we talking about advisory work? Are you looking to really bring back the types of operations that you did back in the 1990s? Executive Outcomes so its mission to support, assist, train, and mentor government forces. very similar to what step later did. Executive outcomes is going to do exactly what it did in the past, but there are other elements that are going to be added on to it. There's a lot of talk right now,

and I believe some of the former employees of yours are already active in Mozambique. And you wrote about Mozambique a little bit towards the end of your book and the problems that they're having, tremendous hydrocarbon reserves found off the coast of Mozambique, which is no doubt going to lead to all sorts of problems, unfortunately. Is this a part of the world that you're interested in looking at right now? Mozambique's a unique situation in a sense, Jack.

The first warnings were issued to them in 2016. Again in 2017, the warnings were ignored. And the warnings were not specific. And let me point that out. They were very general warnings. Cabo delgado is largely, in many instances, an ungoverned space. You know, yes, there are one or two big towns, several villages, but there's no governance there.

And that in itself creates an environment in which anger and frustration from the populace can grow. The warnings issued had to do with the area being used as an infiltration route. by jihadis. Okay, some of them were on their way to South Africa. Ultimately, in 2018, it was 2018, I was asked to submit a document to the government of Mozambique, which I did. And like two weeks later, the Russians arrived Wagner into Mozambique.

was told my document was shopped around a little bit and ultimately the contract awarded to a counter poaching company you know it's just like wow okay if they want to counter poaching company to fight this I think people are going to suffer casualties then some of the guys of step went across they were recruited by the counter poaching company Dyke advisory group which I don't have problem with if the guys are recruited to go and do something, go and do it then if they're not working. What did disappoint me very much is two directors went without telling me. And I just felt I cannot work in a company where the directors betray them in company. That's why I left

step. Insofar as Mozambique is concerned, no, we're not going to go in there. They've got people in there that's not going very well the advice that was given was ignored to go in now is going to cost double the effort and a hell of a lot more money not because we want to charge more money to fix the problem but because the problem is escalated to a point where your means are going to be a hell of a lot more than what we're required two years ago right on that note Carl asked What does even think about the future of PMCs in Africa? And how will the presence of Chinese and Russian PMCs like Wagner affect the continent?

I think it's going to depend on government to government. You know, the South African government was again sort of browbeaten into formulating a law against PMCs from South Africa. I think if PMCs are honest with the governments, If they actually do what they undertake to do, I think they could have a good future. But I do think we are seeing a very unlevel playing field. You know, Russian, Chinese PMCs coming, as do foreign Western PMCs.

They don't bid for the contracts. They're given the contracts and the money. Whereas we have to go to a government and say, you know what we're going to need X amount of dollars and we need it for the following reasons. Foreign PMCs come in, they claim they're giving all this for free. Well, we all know nothing's for free. But the group just gets tighter and tighter on that government.

Raghman came in to Mozambique. I still think they overestimated their own abilities and underestimated the threat. And probably thought it's a walk in the park, and it didn't actually turn out like a walk in the park. The same has happened elsewhere with him. The Chinese PMCs have been a lot more quiet, haven't really made themselves known, although they are floating around, but there's a lot of intelligence gathering taking place on the continent,

but again, not only from the Chinese, from the West as well. Everyone's jockeying for Africa's resources. And unfortunately, Africans are called in the crossfire. I'm talking broadly speaking. But countries are being caught in this crossfire because these are little proxy wars going on. And the civilians are the victims

of these things. But PFCs, if they come in and do what they undertake to do and actually do it, I think they'll have a very good future. But they have to work with governments. They can't in the days of executive outcomes when we were established, we working with the government, but other companies are working with the rebels.

I mean, you know, that sort of defies belief. Right. But, and it still unfortunately happens. Do you feel as though some of these PMCs from whatever countries that are coming in and offering their service are for free? Do you feel that basically they're just proxies for those countries, you know, moving in and gaining more control? Maybe I'm very cynical, yes, I do believe that. I also believe that a lot of the NGOs running around are really intelligence agencies. And a lot of NGOs use that position to create bad feelings towards governments.

You know, look, there's no government in Africa or in the world that doesn't deserve some criticism. Sure. Let's be very honest about that. But you don't come into a country so-called to do your humanitarian work and then try and get the people to turn against the government. I was like, you know, just hang on guys. What are you trying to do over here? Right. So I think, yes, a lot of foreign companies are punting foreign agendas.

Yeah. Alejandro asked, speaking of Ethiopia building the dam on the Nile, what's the over under that Egypt mycotts? to war with Ethiopia with the river as a life source for them? To be able to answer that, I don't know. You know, we've never really looked at Egypt and Ethiopia, especially the dam. I know that that dam is probably going to result in some problems, but whether it's going to end up in a conflict, I don't know. I can't say. I'm sorry. Tbar asks, does even have any concepts on the ongoing conflict in Libya between terrorism, LNA, NAA,

GNA and the international actors, it seems painfully complex, which there are a couple chapters on Libya in Even's new book here, the War for Africa, that we're probably not going to have time to really get into in depth. But, even, please, we'd love to hear your thoughts. After I got arrested on the airport in Tripoli, I told the Libyans they and their foreign backers deserve one another. And I left and I have no interest in going back there. What we are seeing is a huge fight unfolding for control of resources because of Libya's oil. You know, the sad part about Libya is when I was in Benghazi, I met some people who I think, in retrospect, are really bad guys, but they treated me incredibly well. They showed me where the facility was that weapons were being moved by the US into Syria. They told me that they were going to kill your ambassador.

We tried to warn your embassy over here, and it appeared nothing was done. So Libya, to me, is a area that they must sort themselves out. Now, we were there, everything we were told or everything we told them. they were told we're lying we don't know what we're talking about so you know and then of course being arrested was the cherry on top of the cake

I was invited there and by that government and then arrested there and that's when I said you know what you deserve one another and one day when you stand in the bloody smouldering ruins of your country then call us and then

we'll consider coming back I wanted to ask you ask you, you're very adamant that Africans have to resolve African problems, that there can't be foreign interlopers cannot come in and fix these things that are happening, you know, these local problems. But I was wondering for the sake of my own edification and maybe some of the Americans who watch this, I would really like to hear your thoughts on how you think American can be more constructive and how it engages with the African continent and the very many different countries and languages and ethnic groups that inhabit the continent.

I cannot comment on how America should conduct itself in Africa. I don't think I'm suitably qualified for that. When it comes to security matters, a huge amount of money has been spent and very little results have been achieved. In fact, and as you'll see in that book, I write that members of the US armed forces threatened a national park, which they used us. All funding would be stopped to them, and they would make sure of that. And it's that type of bully attitude that does not go down well. You know, Africans in general, and people will disagree with me, but in general, African people, want to be left alone and live their lives.

Okay? But long in memory and short on forgiveness and things like that stick in their craw and they're not going to forget about that. And it'll come back one day and it might not come back in a nice way. You know, to me, I believe that the US has sent private military companies into Africa have just made matters worse. Because if I look at how much money has been spent and what the results are, there are no results on the table.

And I'm not being critical. I'm just being honest about it. Being critical doesn't mean I'm being negative. So I believe Africans can solve Africa's problems. One wants to exclude us from the solution. Right. And you know, when I say Africans, I don't have any talk of blacks or whites or whatever.

To me, it's Africans. I'm a pale face, but I'm an African. Right. There's so much to get into, but I mean, I think for the sake of brevity, we'll kind of start to wind it up there. London, thank you so much for chiming in there. I wanted to do the bonus segment. I'll have to give us a second, but I want to do the bonus segment in a few moments. I'm going to ask Evan or even about his meeting with the famous or notorious Mike Hoare of Five Commando fame in the Congo. And then he was present for. for Mr. Horace's 100th birthday party. But even before we cut out on the main segment here, is there anything you think that we failed to talk about, anything we missed that you'd really like to talk about

and get out there for people? Jack, it's so difficult because there are so many invisible wars happening. And you know, people aren't even aware of this, but I would like to say is that it's time someone really had a look at piracy, because that's a bloody business model. It can be ended. but it appears the will to end it is not there.

I also believe that some of these conflicts are business models as they allow foreign interests to expand themselves at the expense of the people who live in those areas. And again, I'm not being critical, but allow me to ask you this. Why the sudden interest in Niger? Is it because of the Tardini Basin? That suddenly the war on terror has transitioned from the North Middle East into Niger.

How did that happen? Because that was bloody fast. So, you know, I'm very cynical about a lot of things. And again, I'm not anti-West or anti-east. I'm pro-Africa. Right. Because people want to make a difference in Africa. Positive difference.

I'm all for it. I don't care who they are. But if they were coming, exploit and create collateral damage. Where do you think it has to start? part, does it start with an awareness amongst the people? Do the politicians have to, I mean, is it a result of corruption in the government that allows these foreign powers to get so involved, sometimes to the, I mean, often to the detriment of the, to the country and to the continent? How do you stop that influence? Or where does that

begin in your opinion? countries really don't have a structured coherent national strategy and I think it all starts rippling down from that and then of course some countries utilize their intelligence services to gather intelligence on the opposition and not really fulfill their mandate which is to provide early warning actionable intelligence and predictive intelligence

and then of course many governments who advised there are certain units they don't mean. I take South Africa as a very good example. In 1994, after the elections, foreign advisors rushed in and advise the government, you don't need these units, you don't need those units, they are danger. And so military units that are effective in combat become politically expedient.

Right. And then when the problem starts, everyone's caught napping because there's been no intelligence. The units that could have done the job no longer exists. And it has a ripple effect because the populace lose confidence in the armed forces. The armed forces say, well, we can't act because we don't have intelligence and we've been,

our teeth have been removed. So there's a whole ripple effect. But to me, it goes back to the national strategy. Right. We had a couple of people chime in. I'll try to get through this real quick. With foreign nations buying up African farmland and other resources, how can it be ensured that the resources of Africa ultimately benefit Africa? I've always said that what we see unfolding, Africans need to take responsibility and be held accountable for these types of things.

You know, there are countries to the north of South Africa where the east virtually own the countries. where they own the harbors and the airports. And these are strategic assets that government should own. Where's it going to end? I don't know. How are you going to control that? Again, I don't know, because I do know that there have been NGOs involved in resource extraction

quietly and resource smuggling. And these are people that come and put on the green that and say, yeah, we're here to save Africa. They need to save their bank accounts. That's what they're there from. Right, right. Ian is asking a tongue-in-cheek joke here, but maybe you actually know the answer from some of your work. What does even think a giraffe sells for on the open market in the U.S., and is he surprised

with the value? No, what a giraffe sells for. Alejandro says, thank you, Mr. Barlow, for your candor in openness, you're a scholar and gentlemen and a soldier soldier I raised my glass to you cheers that's very fine thank you and Alex asks can you please speak on the special relationship South Africa has with Israel also is executive outcomes looking for interns and how can we find EO online again I cannot speak on the relationship between South Africa and Israel because

I'm not a politician I'm not privy to what happens behind those doors I hear but that's about it and we're not looking for interns anyway I have very good men from across Africa but thank you very much we're all and last one just a be piazzi he says like the wings on your hat fellow paratrooper so even thank you so much for joining us tonight please stay with us I'm going to do the bonus segment in one sec for everyone watching thank you so much for joining us live tonight thanks for watching this afterwards wherever you caught us on YouTube or on a podcast or whatever.

Our next episode next Friday is going to be with Clay Hutmacher, who was the commander of 160th Special Operations Aviation Regiment. He was also a helicopter pilot himself. So we'll be talking to him next week. And everybody, please make sure you like, share, and subscribe to the video or the channel or the podcast or whatever it is. Help the channel grow. And there's a link

down in the description to our Patreon. page if you're interested in supporting it yeah we missed one just uh london nagi i think and a guy or nodji yeah i brought it up oh do you say thank you um even where can uh we buy your new book because the first two are on amazon uh but this one is not on amazon u s yet correct It was only released on the 20th, I think, of November. Okay. Or the 13th, 13th of November. It was Friday the 13th.

I remember that. It's available at the moment only through a company known as War Books, Bush War Books, but their web address is www. War Books. That's Whis, Whiskey, Alpha, Romeo, Bravo, Oscar, Kilo. sierra dot co. za. we'll put a link down in the description to make it easy for people to find it um thanks back the link is in the inside cover of the book you are

called so that's awesome again even thank you so much and uh we'll do the bonus segment in two seconds and thank you again everyone who joined us we'll see you next friday oh nice if i paste this i can't okay we're out okay Evan, do you need to take a two, a little, uh...