In New Zealand, we've just had the report of the Hit and Run inquiry, which found that a New Zealand led raid had accidentally killed civilians, including a child. meanwhile, around the same time, the British SAS was conducting its own raids in Afghanistan, and theirs were a hell of a lot more suspicious. Civilians - all of them male, all of them "military-aged" (a military euphemism deliberately chosen to make people sound suspicious and cast doubt upon their civilian status) kept being shot and killed after being detained, supposedly after having grabbed weapons. But the stories were so eerily similar that even UK officers were forced to admit that this was probably a deliberate policy of murder:
An internal email requests a copy of the OPSUM within hours of the killings and asks: "Is this about [redacted] latest massacre!"
The reply includes a summary of the unlikely events in the official report and concludes by saying: "You couldn't MAKE IT UP!"
It looks as if the soldiers reading these reports had concerns that they were being falsified using near-identical cover stories.
A formal briefing note was passed up the chain of command by a senior member of the UK Special Forces, demanding an investigation to "put a stop to criminal behaviour". Naturally, the British Army dismissed it. Now they've been accused by a judge of withholding evidence from the courts - AKA perversion of the course of justice - and ordered to turn over evidence to their victims. As for the government, it plans to grant impunity to British soldiers for war crimes specifically to prevent people seeking justice through the courts. Its a classic case of the establishment protecting itself and its servants. But if people can't get justice through UK courts, they will simply have to seek it in The Hague. And by granting impunity, British Ministers will have given themselves a place in the dock next to their pet murderers.
Meanwhile, this is another reason why we should not let the NZDF cooperate with the UK or US militaries: because these sorts of habits spread. If we don't want kiwi soldiers to become murderers, we need to quarantine them from foreign killers to prevent memetic infection.
