Thursday, March 23, 2017



We need an inquiry

I read Hit & Run last night. And having read it, I'm deeply disturbed. Several of Hager and Stephenson's SAS sources openly admit perpetrating war crimes - specifically, the destruction of civilian property for no military purpose. No-one admits to being responsible for the murder of civilians, but there's serious questions about who ordered the US helicopters to fire on the village and villagers, who fired the shots that killed Islamuddin and Abdul Qayoom, and why the SAS troops refused to provided medical care to obviously injured civilians. And while people can claim that all that happened "in the heat of battle" (as if that justifies anything), there's no such excuse for the subsequent raid ten days later which seemed to have the sole purpose of demolishing the houses of those the SAS believed to be insurgents. This was planned, pre-meditated, and had no military purpose. Again, Hager and Stephenson's SAS sources admit it was done purely for revenge.

And then there's the torture. Not just turning over a man to the Afghan NDS, but beating him first. The SAS need to answer questions about that too.

And the coverup. The SAS and NZDF appear to have lied systematicly about the raids, both to the New Zealand public and seemingly their Minister. They knew within 48 hours that civilians, including a child, had been killed. But Wayne Mapp, who was Defence Minister at the time, is saying that he only found out about it when he saw Stephenson's Collateral Damage documentary in 2014. There are real questions about who bullshat who here - did NZDF bullshit the Minister, or did SAS bullshit their superiors? - which only an inquiry can get to the bottom of.

Finally, there's the matter of the SAS itself. A secret military organisation which effectively runs its own foreign policy, lobbying foreign governments to get involved in other people's wars so they can prove how important and vital they are, is not acceptable in a democracy. Neither, obviously, is one that systematically lies to the public and to its superiors. The SAS needs to be inquired into and tamed, and its disproportionate influence on the wider NZDF tamed.

We can not trust NZDF to do any of this. They've proven repeatedly that they're a closed shop, hostile to civilian oversight. We need a truly independent inquiry to get to the bottom of things. And if the government refuses to provide such an inquiry, we should elect one that will.