Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:05):
Ah boy, welcome to it could happen here a podcast
about things falling apart and sometimes stuff that's less depressing
than that. This is gonna be a mix of both
of those things. I'm Robert Evans. My co hosts for
today are James Stout and Mia Wong. How are we both?
(00:26):
How are we all? How's everybody? How's everybody feeling?
Speaker 2 (00:30):
I'm anticipating eagerly the topic of today's episode, So I'm
excited like a kid Christmas.
Speaker 3 (00:37):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (00:38):
So, James, that answers my question for you. But Mia,
have you ever heard of Lord Miles Rutledge.
Speaker 4 (00:44):
I have seen him on Twitter and I cannot express
how excited I.
Speaker 5 (00:49):
Am for this.
Speaker 1 (00:50):
So we are talking about a real piece of shit today.
This is kind of relevant to our I try to
always justify, you know, our purview is broadly speaking, collapse,
you know what we call the crumbles, and Miles Rutledge
is a perfect example of the kind of grifters and
conmen who sort of sort of seep in at the
(01:12):
edges of war and disaster and calamity and have for forever.
You know, they're in behind the bastards. We've done a
couple episodes on, like different white people who tried at
various points to like conquer Latin American nations, and like
the seventeen and eighteen hundreds, just kind of during these
periods of there would be a bunch of rebellions going on,
(01:33):
and so like some group of mercenaries would be like,
I bet we can like steal Nicaragua, right, let's Goways
wear the shot. You know, you get these kind of
like these kind of people, and Lord Myles Rutledge is
sort of the lower body count end of that, but
in some ways a lot more frustrating because at least, look,
(01:53):
there's there's something respectable about trying to violently conquer another
country and then getting yourself. There's at least like a
degree of honesty there. This guy, Miles Rutledge is like
purely but like doing war tourism in order to like
pump his his TikTok and his Instagram and his YouTube.
(02:14):
And I find that worse than like, I don't know,
those guys who tried to overthrow Venezuela and got captured
by fishermen, so they were great, yeah, and then laid
in their own piss on camera. Beautiful story, perfect.
Speaker 5 (02:28):
Story, took a be begun with them.
Speaker 1 (02:33):
Such a good story, and this one has a similar
this story, thankfully, Miles the story has has a is
an ending almost that satisfying. So Miles Rutledge was born
on James. Actually, I'm gonna I'm gonna bring you in
for a second. How do I spell this last name
r O U T l E d g E.
Speaker 2 (02:50):
He's British age Routledge on believe if it's the same
as the academic publisher which which is spelled the same,
and then it's Routledge. And look, I don't give a
fuck about I Skyfields, so let's just say, how have
we won?
Speaker 1 (03:04):
Yeah? Okay, So Miles Routledge was born on September fourteenth,
nineteen ninety nine, probably somewhere near Birmingham. Uh, I don't
think we have like like it's just kind of based
on shit, he said. But yeah, I don't see why
he'd probably he'd lie about that. I don't think people
brag about coming from Birmingham.
Speaker 5 (03:23):
Yeah. Wow, it's wonder like. Yeah. Yeah.
Speaker 1 (03:30):
So unfortunately, thanks to generations of medical advancements, he survived
to adulthood. Because he does strike me as the kind
of person who wouldn't have done that in like the
eighteen hundreds. He got into the University of I'm gonna
need your help here again, James Lowborough, Luffborough, Luffbrough. Unbelievable.
Speaker 4 (03:50):
That sounds like an incredibly obscure World War two German
aerial division or something.
Speaker 1 (03:55):
Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, that's like the every bro each
section of the LUFTWAFFA. So he gets into the University
of luft Bro as a fucking physics student, or so
he says, And sometime within the last two years he
got an internship at an investment banking firm.
Speaker 5 (04:18):
So a kind of guy.
Speaker 1 (04:21):
He's laser targeted on a career as a giant piece
of shit. But I haven't found much in my casual
research about his financial situation or how much money he
was born into. But I think he was, like I'm
gonna guess his parents were at least comfortable, because as
a young man still in college, he had the funds
to travel pretty extensively, starting in twenty nineteen when he
(04:43):
visited the Chernobyl Exclusion Zone. Now, this is one of
the most popular destinations in the world for what is
called dark tourism, and this is largely this is people
who live kind of boring lives otherwise traveling to places
that sound scary in order to impress people on like
TikTok or whatever. Now I just said that, but like,
I don't think there's anything wrong. Now there's like a
(05:05):
lot of problems with getting to Chernobyle because of the war,
but like prior to the expand innovation, I don't think
there's anything wrong with wanting to like see Chernobyle. Mike
thinking on like the ethics of going somewhere dangerous or
whatever is like, are you increasing the odds of like
causing a problem that diverts medical resources or other resources
(05:26):
in a way that like harms people who have no
choice in being there? Right, and visiting Chernobyl whatever, You're
not really putting anyone at risk, So that's fine. But
in May of twenty twenty one, though, Miles Rutledge made
the decision to plan a trip to somewhere that was
distinctly not fine to visit as a tourist, Afghanistan. Now
(05:48):
he decided to head over there during kind of the
end stages of the war. Although if you guys can
remember back that far, the collapse of the Afghan government
that the United States had backed happened more rapidly than
most people had predicted, so it was kind of like
less clear. I think when he booked his trip that
thinks we're going to fall apart quite that quickly.
Speaker 5 (06:10):
Yeah, humor to feel the same way about that.
Speaker 1 (06:13):
Yeah, yeah, yeah, So yeah, it's one of those things where,
like Miles, you know, his plan to go there was
again not as like he's not heading there as a journalist.
There's not like a story he wants to tell. He's
not traveling there for kind of a practical purpose, Like
he really does frame this as just he wanted to
go on vacation, and he wanted to go on vacation
(06:35):
specifically for what I think is probably like the dumbest
reason I've ever heard of anyone choosing of a vacation location,
especially choosing fucking Afghanistan as a vacation location. I'm going
to play a clip from one of his YouTube videos.
Speaker 5 (06:50):
Now, why am I in Afghanistan? Well, that's a really
good question.
Speaker 6 (06:54):
During COVID lockdowns, Afghanistan was the only country open round
of vaccine mandate.
Speaker 5 (06:58):
So I just think I've never heard his voice before.
I'm more angry.
Speaker 1 (07:03):
Now he gives to Afghanistan because they don't have a
fucking vaccine mandate.
Speaker 5 (07:11):
Oh my fucking god, real warrior for freedom.
Speaker 1 (07:17):
Yeah, just the just the dumbest idiot. I hate him
so anyway, as a result of wanting to avoid the
vaccine mandate, Miles joined the long and historic line of
young British men who have gone out to Afghanistan on
a lark. Unfortunately, unlike many of them, Miles would survive
(07:38):
his adventure. He does not seem to have a regular
Wikipedia yet, but he does have an entry on something
called everybody Wiki, which yeah, yeah, which I hadn't heard
it that one before, but it's it very hilariously lists
his occupation as quote, posting online during the twenty twenty
one seeche of Kabul.
Speaker 3 (08:03):
That's great.
Speaker 5 (08:04):
That's that's actually Tim Kennedy. That's great.
Speaker 1 (08:09):
So for obvious reasons, he encountered difficulties.
Speaker 7 (08:13):
Uh.
Speaker 1 (08:13):
He wind wound up sleeping by the side of the
road one night he was taken into Taliban custody. While
he makes a big deal out of this, I actually
don't think he was ever in serious danger, particularly not
compared to, for example, the people fighting and dying or
the civilians and said he's taken by the Taliban, who
had to endure an often violent change of regime when
the Taliban was taking over here. And lets you know,
(08:34):
obviously there's the danger of like accidents on the road,
which is always a significant danger in a place called
like Afghanistan. There's the danger of you know, being caught
up in a fight or something potentially, But the Taliban
in this kind of late stage of their takeover, had
no desire to harm a British citizen like Miles, or
to harm like, you know, Americans who were in the country.
(08:55):
And in fact, we're working kind of in the later
stages of the US evacuation to try to make sure
it happened and peacefully. Not because the Taliban are such
good guys, but because like there's no geopolitical benefit to
them from like a random British traveler dying. It's just
gonna cause problems for them.
Speaker 5 (09:10):
Yeah, it's just stress and the.
Speaker 1 (09:13):
Yeah, like they didn't have like I don't believe they
were the Taliban was ever like threatened his life in
any way. Miles, though, posted through it, reporting that he
was stuck in a pickle and giving details of his
experience to fans on four Chan and Twitch, he started
using the name James. You had asked about this, he
started using the name Lord Miles due to the fact
(09:35):
that he had purchased a fifteen pound lordship certificate as a.
Speaker 8 (09:38):
Bit I knew it.
Speaker 1 (09:41):
Yeah, yeah, yeah, not that surprising. Huh.
Speaker 5 (09:43):
What can't say that?
Speaker 2 (09:46):
Sorry, no, you can You're you're You're British. It's fine, okay, Daniel, Yeah,
I leave that one in. That is my conviction. I
what a twat, Sorry, what an absolute prick because he's
what's really fun frustra with everything about his existence is
frustrating right now.
Speaker 9 (10:03):
So it's what's so annoying is he's playing this fucking
twee parochial version of Britishness for an exclusively in American audience. Right,
if you're born near fucking Birmingham, we're not all we
are not all pride and prejudice people.
Speaker 2 (10:17):
And if you've moved to another country, you will constantly
encounter people thinking you grew up in Harry Potterland. But like,
we're not all turfs either, But like he's fucking doing
it like and he's doing it like a naive America
like there are like the Scottish Parliament has made statements
about not buying these stupid Scottish titles.
Speaker 5 (10:38):
Yeah, here's a prayer.
Speaker 1 (10:40):
Yeah, it's it's very silly. He justified this by saying,
because I think he buys it while he's in Afghanistan,
he explained to his followers, the Taliban may see that
as a reason to keep me alive some negotiating powder power,
as they'll think I'm important. They don't care. They don't
want any fucking Westerners dying in the country because that
will fuck up their chances of, like you know, they
(11:02):
want to get integrated to the like fucking global economy.
They want to qualify for like loans and ship like
they don't want to. They don't want the problems that
you dying bring, like you being a lord has not
going to impact this in anyway.
Speaker 4 (11:15):
Yeah, and they don't. I don't want like the British
government deciding like, oh, ship, they killed someone, now we
need to just bomb like cobble for eight months or whatever.
Speaker 5 (11:24):
Now.
Speaker 2 (11:26):
I don't want to say in his defense because I
would not like to speak in his defense, but I
will say that the one person who might be conned
by a lordship you bought online is Boris Johnson?
Speaker 1 (11:34):
Yeah, have an impact on Bojo, yah, but it is
It is not defense.
Speaker 4 (11:42):
It's not like Bojo's gonna be sticking around for very long.
Speaker 3 (11:45):
Right.
Speaker 4 (11:45):
You have to like you every every every like seven weeks,
you are rolling a dice as to whether the Conservative
PM is someone you can con with the lordship title.
Speaker 5 (11:53):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (11:54):
Well, none of them in the last few years have
been what I would call intellectual titans.
Speaker 5 (12:00):
That's true.
Speaker 4 (12:01):
But but but Hope springs a turtle, Rishi sud acts
in trouble too, so they might I don't know, a
brave shot.
Speaker 2 (12:11):
You just really go down the fast road.
Speaker 1 (12:14):
I really I feel sorry for you all across the pond.
I can't imagine what it would be like to have
your politicians be national laughing stocks. I mean, that's just
gotta be that's just got to be hard. No American,
we know, we'll ever know what that's like.
Speaker 4 (12:28):
We are ruled by the hero of Ireland.
Speaker 1 (12:32):
Oh I I was gonna talk about you know, my hero,
the governor of Florida and his best friend, the pedophile
who just committed suicide. This a different pedophile, No, this
is the pedophile who like backed Santus's like early political
rise and now just killed himself after he got exposed.
Speaker 4 (12:49):
Oh so it's Alexander.
Speaker 5 (12:51):
Okay, never mind, this is a different pedophile. I'm every
day there's a new one. I can't it's not Mike Gates.
Who's other friend who's also a pedophile.
Speaker 1 (13:15):
Now you know who I cannot prove at this point
is a pedophile, Miles Rutledge.
Speaker 5 (13:20):
So let's get back to his story, please.
Speaker 1 (13:24):
So he also claimed during this period where he's kind
of like quote unquote on the run, that the four
Chan users he was posting with kept him alive by
giving him updates on Taliban progress through Osent as they
advanced through Kabul. That's broadly speaking not impossible. So the
idea that Miles again, I don't believe he was ever
(13:46):
threatened by the Taliban. They're again not nice people, but
they're not like unhinted, they're not isis you know, they
they are a government. They don't have a benefit in
something bad happening to someone like him. So Miles, though,
played up the idea that he was something between a tourist,
a journalist, and a philanthropist. Building his trip to Afghanistan
(14:06):
is a quote little charity thing. At the same time,
as he said that he was prepared for death when
he couldn't immediately secure a way out of the country.
Eventually a United Nations safe house took him in and
he was given a seat on one of the last
planes out of the country. Now this is an actual actor. Yeah,
that's frustrating because like there are people in danger from
(14:29):
the Taliban who had couldn't leave, right, Like he took
one of their spaces. Somebody didn't get out who is
in danger because of him.
Speaker 2 (14:38):
Yeah, like very good friends of mine, like I spent
much of that time, like I've written about Afghanistan, I've
worked with translators and like good friends of mine sometimes
and left Afghanistan, but many of them still have their
families there, right, and every single day they have anxiety
about whether their faunilies are okay, if something terrible has
happened to them. Yeah, and this twat is just like
(14:59):
sitting on a plane posting on four chaney Like that
makes me properly angry.
Speaker 1 (15:03):
Yeah, it's it's and that's again what I was talking about, Like,
if you're going to if you're gonna go to a
place that is that is beset by conflict, you know,
by civil war, by violence or anything like that. Number One,
you have responsibility to like have a reason to go beyond.
I wonder what it's like. And you have a responsibility
to not make things worse for people who don't have
(15:26):
a choice about being there.
Speaker 5 (15:28):
And he did.
Speaker 1 (15:28):
You know, that's like fundamentally why I hate this guy
is he absolutely took an opportunity to escape from I
don't know, some woman's rights activist or something, you know,
some somebody who was some turp or something, somebody who
didn't have a choice about fucking being stuck in Afghanistan.
Speaker 2 (15:44):
Yeah, just some fuck you wanted a fair cracket life.
And and yeah there's a prick. Yeah yeah, I mean
it's yeah. And he could have stayed. I have friends
who stayed through that time and covered it, like your
concern is for your sources, not yourself.
Speaker 3 (16:00):
Yeah yeah.
Speaker 4 (16:01):
Or he could have done the thing that his ancestors didn't,
just walk across the border Pakistan like.
Speaker 5 (16:06):
Your ancestors did this.
Speaker 3 (16:08):
This is the one thing like hell.
Speaker 1 (16:12):
Through the Kyber Pass and then becomes Sherlock Holmes his
best friend. You know, that's a proud tradition, which.
Speaker 2 (16:21):
I thought you were gonna go with dying man, which
would have also been a very well.
Speaker 5 (16:24):
That's another proud tradition.
Speaker 1 (16:26):
Getting sniped by a jizil in the fucking uh Kaiber Pass.
Absolutely so. He had a marvelous time in Afghanistan and
immediately pivoted because he built up a big social media
following around his posts there, pivoted to a career as
a dark tourist influencer. He traveled next to an ireland,
(16:46):
not an Ireland. He traveled next to an island in Brazil.
There's this island off the coast of Brazil that like,
like you're not allowed to go to because there's so
many fucking snakes. Like it's just it's extremely dangerous to
go there because it's covered in fucking snakes. And he
like went there where armor, but he didn't actually run
into any snakes because snakes don't, like you know, they're
not generally aggressive, most of them. He got arrested in
(17:09):
Kenya for as best as I can tell, being a
prick nearer refugee camp, and then he traveled to Ukraine
right after the expanded invasion to Ukraine to try to
make the suffering of hundreds of thousands of.
Speaker 5 (17:23):
People about him.
Speaker 1 (17:25):
The highlight of that trip was he claims that he
drove a woman and her kid out of the country
and rescued them and also brought people snacks whatever. Miles
has always been two things. He's deeply enmeshed in right
wing meme culture, and he is at least superficially committed
to Christian extremism. He is like kind of at least
(17:46):
it like signals as a fundamentalist Christian. He's like, he's
super fashy right, but this is not like a hidden
thing within his videos and stuff. I found one write
up of him on a right wing religious news website
that gives you an idea of how he builds himself
to his ideal audience. Miles Routledge is a self described Catholic,
independent war journalist and charity on the ground. At just
(18:09):
twenty one, he had to do Afghanistan when the Taliban
seized control, and now he's in Ukraine giving refreshing updates
that are peppered with humor, reality, and a little naivete.
In the past, Routledge went to war torn countries and
into areas no NGO or charity dared to go according
to his GoFundMe Paige, so he can hand out bibles, food,
medicine and money.
Speaker 2 (18:28):
Well, there's a special place in hell for some time
giving a stopping person a bible.
Speaker 1 (18:33):
Yeah, And also like he never went to places other
people wouldn't dare to go. I will guarantee you everywhere
he went, there were already like people like the Freeburmer
rangers or even medicine sands, frontiers or journalists without borders,
like there were there were people there. Because he's not
He's not like I've seen his videos, He's not going
anywhere special.
Speaker 4 (18:53):
Yea, there how many people are recallable, like ten million people?
Speaker 5 (18:57):
Yes, these are big cities. He's before million people.
Speaker 1 (19:00):
Sure, playing off of kind of the provincialism of his
audience and the fact that most people in the West
when they hear Afghanistan or now Ukraine when they hear it,
or like even like a place like Kenya which is
like a massive country with major cities and all sorts
of stuff like that, like oh, these places are just
death traps and you don't go there, and like no
man even like I would get this when I'd go
(19:21):
to I've spent a lot, visited Arax seven or eight times,
and it's like, no, man, it's like most of it's
just a country. Like, yeah, there's specific things you have
to keep in mind that are dangerous, but like it's
just a place, like millions of people live there and
don't die every day.
Speaker 2 (19:36):
Yeah, this is ludicrous to suggest that he was in
any Yeah, like you could go to all these places
and stay in a five star hotel and yeah, like
you're not in any danger, especially as a.
Speaker 5 (19:47):
Rich white British guy parading ground by.
Speaker 1 (19:48):
Yeah, to the extent that he's like in Ukraine and
traveling near the front where there's like random missiles and shelling,
Yeah there's some danger, but again it's danger that he
is exposed, using himself to unnecessarily and then creating a
situation whereby if he is injured, that's a bunch of
morphine and antibiotics that can't go to a fucking civilian
(20:11):
who had no choice because they were raised in Constantinifa
or whatever, you know, Like, yeah, fucking yeah, he's a
praise Yeah, yeah, so I mentioned a little earlier, he's
definitely a fascist. And you know when I say that,
sometimes people do the whole ou lefties will call anything
a fascist. Don't worry, I have some receipts on this one.
(20:35):
So shortly after his famous trip to Afghanistan, he published
a book about his very brief time in the country.
This book included some interesting claims, like that he was
the last person to enter the country on a tourist
visa before the fall of Kabul, and that his visa
had required a personal statement explaining his reasons for visiting.
He wrote, quote, my response was simply an a four
(20:56):
sheet of paper with only the word fun written on it.
It was accepted without quest. I was ready for my
very own white boy summer. He also notes that the
last right, which was at the time kind of like
a meme and you know, fashy online Nazi circles, It
was all over telegram.
Speaker 3 (21:15):
He also.
Speaker 5 (21:19):
Very problematic child.
Speaker 1 (21:21):
Yeah, although not problematic in this sense. Chet did not,
I think mean for that to happen. He's just problematic
in other ways. So he also notes that the last
thing he did before leaving was rewatch American Psycho, which
he described as a sacred male experience. I will remind
you all that that is a movie directed by a woman.
(21:41):
He also writes about the fact that he ordered a
meal at the airport before leaving, but decided not to
eat it because it was likely filled with soy. He
goes on like a whole diatribe about how Afghanistan is
probably safer for him because there's no soy in the food,
just so. The weird wing memes and signaling, all of
(22:01):
which are like he's always like a year or two
out of date on his like far right signaling and
stuff too, which is weird. All of it makes a
little more sense when you realize that the book that
he wrote about Afghanistan was published with Antelope Hill Publishing.
Speaker 5 (22:15):
Oh yeah, yeah, James, he recognized that, didn't you. Yeah,
yeah yeah.
Speaker 1 (22:24):
It is an explicitly fascist publisher. So on the Antelope
Pill page for his stupid book, the recommended books beneath it,
you know you've got the main book and is like,
this is record. If you like this book, read these
books are a collection of One of the books is
a collection of speech speeches from Kai Murros, who is
a Finnish right wing activist who was formerly a maoist
but is now a white nationalist revolutionary advocate who suppose
(22:47):
supports total racial war against asylum seekers and immigrants. He
advocates for an uprising in the UK in which all
university staff will be executed by debt squads.
Speaker 4 (22:57):
So he hasn't gone that far from the maw is.
Speaker 1 (23:00):
So not that far, but like, look, there's still pieces
of it. So the next book that's recommended if you're
interested in Miles's book is The Death Company, which is
a first hand account of the Italian Arditi in World
War One that was very influential among early fascists. And
then there's Let Them Look West by Marty Phillips. I
found a review of this book on a website called
(23:21):
the White Art Collective, and I'm going to read a quote.
Speaker 3 (23:24):
From that now.
Speaker 1 (23:25):
So this is a Nazi reviewing this book by a Nazi, Right,
good stuff. Yeah, here's him describing the book. Rob Cohen
is a big city writer sent on assignment to interview
James Alexander, the governor of Wyoming, a fundamentalist Christian who
has revived his state with, among other things, a Christian
themed public works program and Mount Calvary, an artificial mountain
(23:46):
which villagers climb up and pass the stations of the Cross,
then view a live action recreation of the Crucifixion with
music by a live choir. The first few chapters until
Rob meets Alexander feel like a dead pan satire of apocalypse.
Speaker 6 (23:58):
Now.
Speaker 1 (23:58):
Rob didn't want a mission, but for sins he was
given one. He's a fish out of water who has
to navigate and improvise his way to the goal. There's
a magical realism vibe of the book despite nothing overly
supernatural occurring, and maybe this is why Phillips calls it
a mundane fantasy. But it's also a mundane fantasy for
the simple reason that the America and Wyoming described in
the book are so far beyond what is possible that
suspension of disbelief is required. Even the Nazi seems like
(24:23):
to think it's kind of a shit book, which is
very funny to me. So again, if you publish your
book with Antelope Pill like you are comfortable, at the
very least comfortable with having your book advertised next to
explicitly Nazi power fantasies.
Speaker 2 (24:38):
Yeah, you know, going to Antler Pill. You know, look,
we've both published books like. Yeah, it wouldn't have occurred
to me to even try.
Speaker 1 (24:47):
Yeah, they are the Nazi one of the Nazist publishers
out there. In April of twenty twenty two, Miles attempted
to re enter Afghanistan. He claimed in videos that his
goal was to rest thank you a tour guide and
his family who were threatened by the Taliban, but he
wound up stuck in Pakistan, claiming that this guide had
lied to him and claimed that the border was closed
(25:09):
to British people.
Speaker 4 (25:11):
He was like, to be fair, I have no issues
with this.
Speaker 1 (25:14):
No, that would be fine, and he gets like he
starts like freaking out in the video, he's like a
near tears and stuff. He claims that he'd spent fifteen
thousand pounds on the trip and now he was broke,
so obviously he uses that he has to beg for
money from his followers, which I kind of wonder if
that was just the whole point of the trip. He
also pointed posted whiney status updates, claiming his life had
(25:35):
been ruined by the failed trip. Quote this means I
can't go on a date with a girl I really liked.
It means I can't sponsor a joint adventure with my friend.
I will go home to an empty room. I am
at my end but I know, big baby.
Speaker 4 (25:49):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (25:50):
Despite his failure, he did not give up on his
dreams of stumbling through Afghanistan again. For the sake of content,
he put together another trip for the start of twenty
twenty three. In late February, as he geared up to go,
he made some tweets to his followers that give us
more unfortunate context as to the sort of person he is.
From February twenty seventh, a flat mate saw my Bible
(26:12):
and said that book is a fairy tale. So I
threw my empty mug at his head, broke on the
wall behind him. This isn't the first instance. And after
a while you have to stop playing nis and to
fend your faith.
Speaker 4 (26:23):
Yeah, so great is the tweet that I remember seeing.
Speaker 3 (26:26):
Yeah, that was a great one.
Speaker 1 (26:29):
Now people used to send me his shit so often.
He's infuriating. Yeah, there's a worse one. The most infuriating
tweet I found from this guy came a bit further
down and it's it's a picture of him. I thinking
it might be Dubai. I think it's Dubai. So he's
like got his back to the skyline and he's just
kind of like looking off into the distance pensively, and
(26:51):
it says, friends say, I space out all the time.
My mind is having visions of North Sentinel Island. Now,
if you don't remember, the Sentinel Island is the Forbidden
Island and the Andamans which is part of India, where
in twenty eighteen, an idiot Christian missionary broke quarantine and
endangered the lives of an entire tribe so he could
(27:12):
satisfy his narcissistic evangelical fetish. He was thankfully shot to
death by them via arrow before he could get too close,
and hopefully did not spread any diseases to them. I
wish mild success in reaching the island and meeting his
similar fate. But if he gets anywhere close to them,
there's just such a high chance that he will spread
deadly disease to the people there that I hope the
(27:33):
Indian government keeps him away, even though it would be
very funny if he got shot to death by.
Speaker 5 (27:39):
That would be quite a laugh. Yeah, truly living out
the dreams of being a British lord.
Speaker 1 (27:45):
Yeah, yeah, continue a real time on our tradition getting
fucking mrked by the natives on an island. So the
(28:05):
good news is that friends of the pod, the Taliban
may have taken care of you know this guy for us.
Shortly after making those posts, he re entered Afghanistan and
a video posted several days later he bragged about entering.
While he's in Afghanistan, he brags that he made a
fake visa in order to get himself into the country.
So he breaks Taliban law entering the country in a
(28:28):
fake video and then posts a video while he's in
Kabul bragging about it. So, first off, genius brain, unbelievable
smarts there. So this the first video that he posts
back is it's titled something like Shooting Guns with the Taliban,
and it's all about him just like going to Jalalabad
(28:48):
to see what kind of guns are available. He talks
a lot about how all these US guns and gear
are available, but he doesn't actually really show any of it.
Like most of the video he's in like this fucking
I'll show you. He's in like this fucking gun bazaar
and he's like really odd by this giant ar style
Turkish shotgun.
Speaker 5 (29:08):
We've seen some of them.
Speaker 3 (29:09):
We have seen some of those.
Speaker 1 (29:11):
They're terrible weapons. They are definitely obviously the Taliban got
a hold of a shitload of us. Hear nobody's questioning
that these shitty Turkish shotguns are not American weaponry.
Speaker 4 (29:21):
Yeah, well that that's that's probably why it's in the
bizarre and not like in someone's like.
Speaker 3 (29:28):
Or something. Yeah.
Speaker 1 (29:30):
Yeah, the Taliban have access to a lot of American gear.
He is kind of just like looking at I don't know,
like a mix of like old Soviet weapons and like
trash guns. So I'm gonna show you a first clip
from this video here.
Speaker 6 (29:46):
Sometimes a little bit dangerous, so there's a lot of
if you don't know who diesh is, it's basically isis
now is you know, I'll number the Taliban. However, the
weapons market and maybe in some areas could be quite
bad at the me so I'll have to be a
little bit cam If you've seen this footage ended up, Okay,
I'm gonna take a moment to tell you guys about
my sponsor tend What.
Speaker 3 (30:05):
The fuck.
Speaker 5 (30:11):
This is not official medium, but Jesus, that.
Speaker 1 (30:18):
Is one of the most jarring ad Like if you're
not watching this, he's like standing in the desert and
like talking. There's that brief clip of like a picture
of some isis guys. But then he's like back in
the desert talking and then suddenly a shot like it
cuts very harshly to him in his hotel room doing
like a fucking ad for an investment banking app. It's
(30:39):
so fucking or like a stock trading app.
Speaker 5 (30:42):
It's so funny.
Speaker 2 (30:43):
And then yes, yeah, don't see uh have you got
the shahata written on it?
Speaker 3 (30:52):
Yeah?
Speaker 1 (30:52):
Yeah, yeah, it sure does.
Speaker 8 (30:54):
Oh yeah, I was gonna say people, she was, but
to spare yourself, like god, yeah he's he's wearing his
white headband.
Speaker 2 (31:07):
I can't see it anymore. But you see something you're
in and Arabic on it, I guess, and doing it
as much for something called tends.
Speaker 1 (31:14):
Yeah, something which is like, yeah, some sort of like
stock trading app for I'm going to guess people to
get their life savings scammed from them. Yeah yeah, yeah,
that's my apologies Tends if I'm getting you wrong, but
you're you're spider. Yeah, ah damn, it's okay. We've got
(31:35):
enough sports betting companies to that. Well we'll be okay.
Run Regu Jesus right, yeah, Runald Reagan gold coins or
silver coins will take care of us. So again, one
of the things that's very funny about this is the
amount of time he spends flipping out over this dog
shit AR style shotgun. For those of you who aren't
gun people, the Turks make a number of different shotguns
(31:58):
that kind of look like AR fifteen. They're all very
impressive looking to people who don't know anything about guns,
they're terrible weapons. One of the reasons they're terrible is
that shotgun shells do not work well in magazines. The
reason most shotguns are tube fed because like, shot shells
are plastic and they have a weird shape to them,
and if you stick them in a magazine like a
normal bullet, they just tend to like jam and misfeed
(32:20):
a lot. It's just not a good way for it. Yeah, exactly.
Speaker 2 (32:25):
Yeah, it's the one gun, the one actually like produced
in a factory gun that I'm aware of that the
folks in me and R are like, naw, fuck, it
will just three, like we.
Speaker 1 (32:37):
Are desperate, but these are just and he like, he
spends a lot of time like talking about how cheap
guns are. You can get guns here cheaper than you
can anywhere else, because like this AR shotgun is two
hundred bucks like, man, I can get an ar shotgun
for two hundred bucks in Portland, Oregon. They're terrible, nobody
wants them. So he does eventually go out with what
(32:58):
he claims is the talent ban. As far as I
can tell, it's a guy who has an M sixteen
that he probably paid like a hundred bucks to go
shooting with.
Speaker 7 (33:07):
Right.
Speaker 1 (33:08):
Maybe the guy, like a lot of people in Afghanistan
are technically the Taliban, but that doesn't mean like much, right, Like,
at this point, they're the government, like you know, you
get like your uncle, you know, gets you a fucking
gig or something, watching a road or whatever. I don't know.
I don't know anything about this guy. He claims he's
the Taliban. So I'm gonna play you a clip of
(33:28):
him shooting this guy's M sixteen.
Speaker 6 (33:31):
Yeah, oh yeah, another one.
Speaker 1 (33:38):
No hearing protection sweeping people.
Speaker 3 (33:43):
Just sweeps him again, thank you.
Speaker 1 (33:55):
The Taliban guy is visibly nervous about him as the guy.
Speaker 5 (34:02):
He's not. He got that vacuum one. Yeah, he's backing away.
Speaker 3 (34:14):
He's just like.
Speaker 1 (34:16):
Shooting into the air. I love how like visibly nervous.
The Taliban guy is his legs with the gun like
points the barrel at that guy's legs like three different times,
shoots up into the air. He's just an incompetent asshole
with it.
Speaker 4 (34:35):
He's doing all of these like like eighties action movie poses.
Speaker 1 (34:39):
Yeah, touch, it's it's very stupid. He has no hearing
protection and so he like hurts his ears like yeah,
it's it's It's just comprehensively stupid and sad. So this
video was dumb. Shortly after filming it, Miles met up
with two other UK citizens who were in the country,
(34:59):
one of whom was he's described in most of the
news articles I read it's just a charity medic and
it's this is all a little unclear. It seems like
this guy was in possession of a firearm without a
proper permit. He claims that he has a permit, but
that was lost or something whatever. At any rate, Miles
goes missing in early March, and after several days, the
(35:20):
Taliban announces that they've taken him and these two other
British guys and also two Polish guys into custody. And
it's a little unclear why, but it seems to be
due to like them breaking some laws with guns. It
also may have something to do with the fact that
Miles broke the law entering the country. He seems to
be being treated reasonably well at present, it's unclear what's
(35:42):
going to happen to him. I hope, I mean honestly, like,
of all the people who deserve to be in a
Taliban prison, Miles Rutledge is the one that's amazing, Like, yeah,
keep that, go ahead and keep that guy Taliban, like.
Speaker 4 (36:00):
Solid, very excited for whoever is in the Prime Minister's
chair next week to like maybe get around to start
negotiating with a Tealipan.
Speaker 5 (36:10):
They don't. The British.
Speaker 2 (36:13):
The British far and off is just don't give a
fuck anymore. Like I've had to contact them with when
colleagues have been detained.
Speaker 5 (36:18):
Et cetera.
Speaker 2 (36:19):
Like they'll literally be like now computer says no and
and just like tight funk off like so hopefully they
do the same for him.
Speaker 3 (36:27):
Yeah, it doesn't.
Speaker 1 (36:28):
I haven't seen anything like the late most recent news
stories about him were like more than a week ago.
It looks like, uh, yeah, I'm not saying anything recently,
So it doesn't look like I'm guessing we would have
there'd be some coverage if he'd been freed. The Daily
Mail talked to his mom, who apparently was like, yeah,
he was. He was there to try to find himself. Yeah,
(36:52):
it's very funny, he says. He claims at one point, like, yo,
guy has been taken by the by Afghan intel diligence
for taking like a thousand dollars out of Western Union
suss amount, no internet, no idea when this will end.
Everything is good, but please excuse my lack of communication.
That was like March eighth, something like that, And he
(37:14):
hasn't really been back on in a while, Like he's
kind of been dark for quite a spell, So I
don't know, maybe something terrible has happened to him, or
what happened to him at which point or in which
case like that would be kind of funny fuck him.
Yeah that's where I am officially. Yeah, I mean he
fucked around and found out. Yeah, like you keep again, man,
(37:37):
you want to like, yeah, you keep fucking around. You
like go to a place with like a famously like
dangerous authoritarian government who are actively hurting people and are
like I'm going to brag about breaking the law for
a YouTube video. Yeah, man, maybe they'll get pissed. It's
like the same shit with like, obviously the Romanian government
(37:58):
is not the Taliban, but like it's the same kind
of ship with like Andrew Tate, where you're like, I'm
going to go to this other country and brag about
the fact that they're not stopping me from breaking their laws.
That's a pretty good way to get them to fucking
problems for you.
Speaker 4 (38:12):
Like, anyway, my favorite Miles post. If I'm remembering this right,
I'm pretty sure like two.
Speaker 7 (38:19):
Weeks before he like got arrested, he he he posted
a tweet about how like he's safer in he's safer
in Afghanistan and he is in uh that he would
be in San Francisco in Brooklyn.
Speaker 3 (38:33):
Yeah, yeah, he.
Speaker 1 (38:37):
Spent no two days, he spent forty eight hours quote
unquote homeless in Brooklyn for again for content, and yeah,
it is it is funny that like he is in
a lot of trouble now.
Speaker 3 (38:53):
He tried to go to.
Speaker 5 (38:56):
Mission Texas as well.
Speaker 3 (38:57):
I don't know if he ever went, but he was
going to do so I missed that.
Speaker 2 (39:00):
Yeah, it's gonna be something fucking horrific with people crossing
the Rio Grande.
Speaker 5 (39:04):
Oh god, oh you see the look the lady.
Speaker 1 (39:11):
You're not gonna hear this often from me, but critical
support to the Taliban, like they're they're they're really fighting
the good fight for all of us by keeping this
guy behind bars.
Speaker 2 (39:23):
I was it initially seemed like he had he had
fallen into the hands of like the Islamic State Chorussan Province,
and I'm gonna have to yeah, you rarely have to
hand it to Islamic State, but we may have had
that one occasion that.
Speaker 1 (39:37):
Don't give ice us a lot of credit, but that
that it is, like, you know what, I'll just I'm
gonna go ahead and say this on behalf of the
rest of the world, Taliban, if you keep him locked up,
you know, we will erase one of those big Buddha
statues from like the list of Taliban crimes. We'll all
agree to forget one of the Buddhas. Like feel like
(39:58):
I'm not signing on to this.
Speaker 5 (40:00):
I'm so bad about the Buddhists. I just come on,
we need all the Buddhists.
Speaker 3 (40:11):
Anyway.
Speaker 5 (40:12):
Fuck this guy.
Speaker 1 (40:14):
Yeah, I hope they're feeding him all of the soy
in Afghanistan, like fucking park a soy truck up to
that guy's cell. Anyway, that's a story like there's these
guys are like, especially in the social media. I mean
they've always been a part of war and of conflict.
(40:36):
You know, there's a degree to which like this is
a not a news story, like this is actually kind
of a one of the older stories in human history.
Is like dudes kind of stumbling into war zones in
order to write about it or otherwise like make it
about them. So you know, uh, fuck these people, uh,
(40:59):
and fuck Miles Rutledge in specific. I hope, I hope
he winds up like those Venezuelan merks or not there.
I mean, they weren't Vezela, they were in Venezuela who
are caught on video pissing themselves and then lying in
the piss. That's that's my dream for Miles Rutledge spending
some time lying in piss before he sent back to
(41:20):
the UK. Yeah, that's what I got.
Speaker 5 (41:25):
Nice.
Speaker 2 (41:25):
Hopefully they revoke his fucking citizenship like that they did
to the British people.
Speaker 1 (41:31):
He did make a bunch of posts about how cool
the Taliban were, so I don't know, like, yeah, we
can dream. Look, man, you said you wanted to live there.
Speaker 3 (41:41):
Uh, here you go.
Speaker 1 (41:43):
Yeah, I don't know. I I think he's a dick
and I think this is funny. That's my official stance.
Speaker 4 (41:55):
It Could Happen Here as a production of cool Zone Media.
Speaker 1 (41:57):
For more podcasts from cool Zone Media, visit our website
Coolzonemedia dot com, or check us out on the iHeartRadio app,
Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to podcasts.
Speaker 7 (42:06):
You can find sources for It Could Happen Here, updated
monthly at coolzonmedia dot com slash sources.
Speaker 1 (42:11):
Thanks for listening.