Political Roundup: Is something rotten in the New Zealand government and military?

Is something rotten in the New Zealand defence forces? Is something rotten with our political leaders? These are questions that should be asked by the public in the wake of revelations about possible war crimes, allegedly not only carried out by New Zealand, but apparently covered up afterwards.

New Zealanders have been misled. There's no other way to view the allegations and information coming out following Nicky Hager and Jon Stephenson's Hit and Run book. The question now seems to be who has been doing the deceiving? Is it the National Government, or the Defence Force? And why is there so little accountability?

The alarming "Hit and run" cover-up

The tragic events and details of the SAS's botched 2010 operation in Afghanistan are at the core of the "Hit and Run" controversy dominating the news this week. But it's the subsequent "cover up" that is now becoming a big part of the story, as it becomes ever more apparent that authorities have been deceptive about the events and continue to play an obtuse role in the debate.

This raises important issues about the nature of power in the New Zealand state, and the military in particular. There seem to be so many lies surrounding this case that this aspect will likely become a focus of public discontent.

Ever since 2011, the NZ Defence Force's position has been that no New Zealanders have been involved in any killings of civilians in the SAS raid on the Afghan villages. Of course that line keeps changing, as the official position of the government and military becomes untenable with new information becoming available.

The latest evidence suggesting that the accounts given by the authorities are incorrect is covered in today's front-page Herald story by David Fisher - see: Exclusive interview: NZSAS says civilians were killed in fatal raid, including two by Kiwi sniper fire. In this, a SAS soldier confirms "civilians were killed in a 2010 raid carried out by the unit and says the truth is widely known among the elite military group. The soldier told the Herald the two people found shot dead were killed by NZSAS marksmen".

Furthermore, according to this account "the other four people killed died in a barrage of fire from United States aircraft called in by a New Zealander operating as the joint terminal air controller - the person responsible for directing air support." And the soldier is reported as expressing uncertainty as to why the civilian deaths were kept from the public: "Whatever decision was made to suppress that was made higher."

Calls for an inquiry want to know why a cover-up has occurred

The long-list of those lending weight to the need for an inquiry now almost makes it inevitable that the Government will announce something soon. But such an investigation will need to focus not just on what happened militarily on that night in 2010, but also on what happened subsequently at the political level.

As yesterday's Dominion Post editorial says, "If the book is right that the Defence Force and leading politicians obscured a botched and fatal SAS raid for years, then that is just as troubling" - see: The public deserves to know what happened in SAS raid.

The editorial takes a hard line against any prospect of the defence forces running such an inquiry: "Of course some people will be inclined to trust the Defence Force without hesitation. But its record on this incident and others in Afghanistan is no reassurance. It never deigned to reveal New Zealand's involvement in the raid even as the American-led coalition confirmed and investigated it, and overseas media raised questions about civilian casualties."

And the National Government also "has a consistency problem. After years of maintaining that no civilians died in the raid, it abruptly shifted to saying only that New Zealanders had not killed civilians. So did someone else kill them? Under whose direction? Were the families compensated? What did the military tell the political leadership? And why should the public feel they are being told everything now?"

The Press newspaper also favours an inquiry, saying "Nothing less than the integrity of our defence forces is at stake" - see: SAS claims require full investigation.

Today's Herald editorial makes some strong points about the need to deal with the deceptions that have arisen due to western intervention in Afghanistan and the Middle East. It says the latest deception is merely one in a long list that has "undermined the moral claim Western democracies have held to as their purpose for a conflict" - see: Now is our chance to do right thing. The newspaper says that "Inquiries are a health check on our democracy and the War on Terror has infected some of the principles which underpin the democracies of allied nations."

For the strongest questions, see No Right Turn's We need an inquiry. This is worth quoting at length: "The SAS need to answer questions about that too. And the coverup. The SAS and NZDF appear to have lied systematically 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."

The blogger also says that the SAS and defence forces have clearly become too powerful: "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."

Another leftwing commentator expands on the problem of accountability in the military - see Gordon Campbell's very good article, On war crimes and the Afghan insurgency, in which he argues that the previous investigations have been "a total whitewash."

He raises important questions about accountability mechanisms in the military: "When great power is vested in any arm of the state, the oversight role has to not only be independent and rigorous, but needs to be seen by the public to be so. Perception matters. When it comes to the operations of the security and intelligence services, the watchdog is the SIS Inspector-General. When it comes to the Police, there is the Independent Police Conduct Authority. In both cases, you can debate whether those watchdogs get given sufficient resources and investigative powers to their job properly. Still, at least the need for their existence has been acknowledged by Parliament. However, there is no equivalent, independent oversight body for the military, with respect to the compliance of our troops with this country's international human rights commitments and UN conventions. Almost all the existing NZDF accountability mechanisms are in-house.

Campbell also asks lots of good questions, such as "if US and Afghan allied troops were responsible, what level of overall responsibility does New Zealand retain, given the SAS role in the motivation, planning and execution of the raid?"; "Were these politicians told that the raid would capture and/or kill the insurgents responsible for the death of Lt Tim O'Donnell?"; and "What apology and compensation should now be made by New Zealand to the innocent casualties of our action?"

The extraordinary case of Wayne Mapp

The Defence Minister at the time of the 2010 SAS operation, Wayne Mapp, has turned out to be a crucial part of the story so far. This is because he has publicly contradicted both the Government and the Defence Forces - see the Herald's Former Defence Minister Wayne Mapp confirms he called SAS raid a 'fiasco' and 'disastrous'.

This is best covered by Patrick Gower, who says: Wayne Mapp's openness shames Government's stonewalling. Gower also draws attention to Mapp's alleged statement that while he was the minister, "The Defence Force was doing too much I didn't know about". Gower says: "When asked about that quote today, he didn't back away - there was no denial."

Mapp's candid statements that he didn't know much at all about the outcome of the SAS raid have surprised many. Toby Manhire writes today: "He is not some casual observer. He was the minister of defence. The minister of defence has the statutory "power of control of the New Zealand Defence Force". It is inexcusable, to put it mildly, if information of this gravity was withheld from him" - see: Books damning claims demand inquiry.

Most of the media coverage is quite positive about Mapp's subsequent statements. As Vernon Small says, "make no mistake. Former defence minister Wayne Mapp emerges well from the book Hit and Run about the actions of SAS troops in Afghanistan" - see: Bill English can take his time, but must reassure public about NZ role in raids.

Is the military establishment to blame?

In Patrick Gower's Newshub item, former Defence Forces head, Jerry Mateparae, says he won't accept media requests for interviews: "If you want to talk about the just released Nicky Hager - Jon Stephenson book then I will decline." Mateparae elaborates in a text message: "As far as I can see all that needs to be said has been said and anything further should be addressed by the people in New Zealand who have access to the relevant information."

Many will question whether that approach is good enough. Others are, in fact, more accusatory of Mateparae. John Minto says "If any New Zealander has blood on their hands from Afghanistan it is Jerry Mateparae." After all, he "never had the courage to insist on Geneva Convention treatment for people they handed over to the US" earlier in the war - see: Helen Clark and John Key share the blame for the fiasco in Afghanistan.

In his blog post, Minto also looks at the many lies that have been "used to justify the longest ever deployment of New Zealand troops overseas (12 years) by successive Labour and National governments."

But it's not just leftwing radicals who are alarmed by the Defence Forces lack of response to the controversy. RNZ's Jane Patterson has written a very strong online piece, saying "It is untenable for the Defence Force to refuse to answer specific questions about New Zealand's involvement in alleged attacks on civilians in Afghanistan in 2010" - see: Defence must front up on Hit & Run's claims.

Patterson asks: "how much information has the Defence Force been passing on to the responsible ministers about the specific details of the operation - was it aware there had been civilian deaths and, if so, at what point did it inform ministers?" And she makes the point that this degree of obtuseness by the military has coincided with greater levels of propaganda in recent years: "under both the Clark and Key administrations the New Zealand Defence Force has run a public relations campaign throughout New Zealand's deployments to Afghanistan and now Iraq, painting the picture of benign, humanitarian or training missions with little conflict or exposure to combat."

Of course, there's an argument to be made that the New Zealand military has a long history of deceit. As Martyn Bradbury argues, "This is the exact same NZDF who co-ordinated a disinformation campaign against Jon Stephenson to discredit him after he published articles highlighting the SAS role in handing civilians over to known torture units. That smear attempt was the subject of Stephenson's defamation case" - see: List of lies NZ Defence Force have used to deceive NZers about Afghanistan.

And of course, there are many more historical examples of rather bloody deceit by New Zealand armies - see Chris Trotter's New Zealand's First "Revenge Raid" - Surafend, Palestine, 1918.

Finally, Mike Hosking has a very different view to many of the items linked to above and his video really is a must-watch account of what Hager and Stephenson's opponents argue - see Mike's Minute: Let's put Hager saga to rest. Of course, for a response to this - albeit, actually published in anticipation of Hosking's pronouncements - see Felix Geiringer's Hit and Run is not 'war as usual'.