Press release from Nicky Hager

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Location confusion must not detract from civilian casualties, a dead girl and serious breaches of defence force rules

We have been receiving media calls about our statement today and add these specific comments:

There has been confusion over the location of the events in our book Hit and Run. We have the right villages but it seems the slightly wrong location; the defence force has the wrong village name but the right location. This is unfortunately not surprising in an isolated area of mountains with no roads or detailed maps.

However, we are absolutely certain about the details at the heart of the story – which we got from both SAS members on the raid and the villagers – which ismost of the casualties were woman and children, that civilian houses were destroyed and that later a prisoner was beaten and tortured.

The defence force and government have come up with nothing that addresses these central allegations. They are just being tricky if they try to use the confusion over the location to avoid facing up to the awful things that happened on the SAS raid.

21 COMMENTS

  1. Yes and it is clear that the PM Bill English has been more evasive and tricky than anyone else now, as he was spouting out that he had seen nothing that convinces him the need for a “Independent enquiry”.

    He has clearly lost his credibility entirely now and should apologise to the nation or resign for attempting to “subvert the course of justice” and falsely attempt to ruin the long standing public respect career’s of two of our finest journalist’s and patriotic NZ citizens.

    If I was Nicky and John I would place a defamation case against the PM Bill English tomorrow!!!!!!

    • With respect the only people who has lost credibility at the moment are Hager and Stephenson. If they can’t get a key fact right (the location of the alleged incident) then what other facts have they also got wrong?

      I’d like to see an inquiry as much as the next person, but there needs to be a basis for it (in law) and so far Hager hasn’t produced any witnesses, evidence or testimony (their book is only hearsay) to back it up.

      They need to put up or shut up and it needs to be the former!

      • Paul Buchanan, a hard boiled ex CIA analyst and respected commentator on security matters, said this morning on National radio, that of all the characters, NZDF, Minister for defence, PM,, Hager, and Stephenson, Jon Stephenson has absolutely the greatest credibility.He has a track record of being accurate and honest, whereas the politicised NZDF, and govt officials have a record of spin and weasel words
        Making a song and dance over whether , to use an analogy , there was a murder at no 20 or no.21 Tirgiran street is the mark of a laughably schoolboy attempt to evade the truth

      • “I’d like to see an inquiry as much as the next person, but there needs to be a basis for it”… That’s just a variation on “I’m not a racist but……”, and about as credible…. it’s a sad day for us watching this from overseas as we see there are still far too many people back home who refuse to see the reality of what the current government has done to their own people, NZ’s international reputation (laughing stock), and it’s credibility as a truly egalitarian, successful democracy…
        Wake up NZ…!!! Johnny Sparkles, and the rabble of self interested, corrupt spongers have openly supported, and willingly indulged in murder for political, and personal economic gain…
        Are we to believe now that the electorate endorses the destruction of what made NZ such a successful country???
        The answer is a depressing one indeed for those of us who worry for their families back home..

      • It seems the NZDF can’t get the facts right either. H&S right village, wrong location – NZDF wrong village, right location.

        Just because someone holds a gun doesn’t make them an insurgent. Given that civilian protection is non-existent, ordinary people have to protect themselves from other factions and tribes – and the latter seem to spread disinformation for their own advantage.

        Villagers never know who is attacking them until it’s too late – all they can do is protect themselves with what they have and hope for the best.

      • A “key fact” is to your mind an minor error of 2km in a poorly mapped area.. but the NZ Defence name a village that does not exist (Tirgiran is the valley, not a village, according to those who live there).
        Is that not a key fact?
        Stephenson (Hager is not the main guy in this case, but you pick on his name anyway) has already given a damn sight more evidence than NZ Defence has. And in the last law case against NZ Defence, Stephenson won.

        It is NZ Defence that needs to put up facts and evidence to support its bombastic claims. But the military have a long record of denial and obfuscation of the truth. The Military are dumb enough to think that modification of the truth is one of their weapons. Instead, when the truth emerges, the Miiltary look as dumb as their lies were. This is happening once again…

        mil

  2. The more I hear from the NZDF the more I’m sickened by the obvious lies we’re being told. As Paul Buchanan said this morning on radio New Zealand, the defence force is spinning lies and confusion to protect itself.

    Truly, we live in a corrupt age.

    • No I do not agree with Paul Buchanan on this. i think Henry Kissinger was right in backing Pincohet and the Indonesian Generals. Chris Hitchens and Chris Boyce have a rather one eyed view and Hitchens was a permanent drunk and bisexual and a very serious former Marxist of the Tariq era, whose prominence was really due as with many notables and media people in the UK is that his ancestors were noted military immortals. Nial Ferguson the Harvard Professor of History ( they will have a hundred history profs at any one time of course) was fullsome in his praise for the Chicago Boys economic reform in Chile. Allende was about the establishment of an East German communist state and many in NZ in 1984 probably had the same ideea, certainly today half the doctorfs think a Cuban medical system desirable and the priority. If your that stupid you sdeserve the attention of the US Marines.
      Obama did unlimited damage to the US military the FFg-7s have been replaced by useless LCS speedboats and the Cruisers and Destroyers are poorly manned and senselessly used throught the Dardnelles and Bosphorous on ABM missions in the Black Sea. Given the far tighter rules imposed by Obama on not causing collateral damage far exceeding the restrictions imposed by LBJ in Vietnam, it is inevitable and the effective reality that any closely targeted miliatry response in Afghanistan is intended to cause damage on a wider area and target on a basis that is somewhat random. The same philosophy has governed tthe western response since the emergence of Hitler and the SS in 1933. The response of Wingate who was backed by Churchill even in his wilderness days was that the future Isreali force would be built on the model and tactical doctrine of the Nazi SS. If your facing the SS you have to become the SS. Pretty much the policy of Stalin and Zurkov so that by 1943 Russian army was jsut another elite army idnistinughishable from the German Army and SS, even in appearance and selection. Mountbatten probably came to much the same approach. Even the Britsh Army Hearts and minds in Malaysia and Kenya dosen’t mean gentle education and persuasion, it means percentage murder on a unfair basis to change minds. Britains most liberal Colonies minister Iain McLeod who recommended to MacMillan totatal denial in relation to the Keeler/ Castle accusations against War Minister and Profumo and destruction of all evidence in relation to the evidence of Brtains concentration camp at Hola, Kenya was probably correct. The same policy should be taken in relation to this minor affair in Afgansitan in which we were. minor auxillaries to the US coalition operation. Attacking at night running red tailight first ( to be appear to be moving away) and eliminate and hit the stabalisng families and those who will be concieved in the opposition community to be the unfairest most unjustified targets. Encourage the worst and stupidist among the enemy communisty. McArthur immediately despatched a number of the leading US military leaders of WW2 to the Nazi Army war Colleges. My own view is that the much more ruthles nature of the Western response in Kenya and Chile was the correct one. In Iran and Iraq wre dealing with irretrivable states that were under Soviet occupation during the ley periods of utopian Russian rev level communism in 1917-1922 and 1942-46. In pakistan we are dealing with a state in which the army and government is aminly on the side of the Taliban, Osma and ISIS. Even chris Hitchens regarded Pakistan an Islamic joint of undescribable evil and criminality, violating every human right on earth. My own view is the correct response in the case of the Taliban, Isis and Iran is that which le May, Churchull and Bomber Harris would have. delivered. smash them in on a wide basis from the air and if there is a follow up deal with the localsls the way the indians were dealt to in Californai in 1849. Iran is probably the third most serious military industrial complex threatening the west after Russia and China.
      an Inquiry wont change anybody’s opinion on the issue, but will waste time and confuse the issue and is likely to mislead the oublic into more support for Jacinda,Meagan and Duncan Webb and support for the Chinese miltiary dictatiorship. The Army should not be an issue this year the priority is major first class requipment for the Navy and RNZAF. The army has been proved less than useless suffering lack of men, money and resources yes but the real problem is we are an extension of the UK which defene sich 1919 has been the light and dark blue with the Army largley a waste of time and land war is savage close up percentage attrition and an ability to take it the way no democracy can. RM – expect tag ripped as usual

  3. The New Zealand Army is allied with the following: any surprises? :
    US accused of war crimes in air strikes on Iraqi city of Mosul
    Amnesty International issued a report Tuesday charging the US-led coalition besieging Mosul, Iraq’s second-largest city, with war crimes involving the “disproportionate and indiscriminate” bombing of residential areas that has slaughtered hundreds of civilian men, women and children.

    The report by the human rights group, which chronicles bloody incidents that took place in eastern Mosul during the end of 2016 and the beginning of this year, has been released amid mounting evidence that the Pentagon carried out one of its worst atrocities in decades in the March 17 bombing of the Jadida neighborhood in the densely populated western sector of the city.

    While earlier reports spoke of some 160 dead being pulled from the rubble left by the US airstrikes in Mosul’s Jadida district, on Monday the Iraqi Civil Defense Department released a report saying that 531 bodies have been recovered thus far.

    https://www.wsws.org/en/articles/2017/03/29/mosu-m29.html

    • “The War is Worth Waging”: Afghanistan’s Vast Reserves of Minerals and Natural Gas
      The War on Afghanistan is a Profit driven “Resource War”.

      While Afghanistan is acknowledged as a strategic hub in Central Asia, bordering on the former Soviet Union, China and Iran, at the crossroads of pipeline routes and major oil and gas reserves, its huge mineral wealth as well as its untapped natural gas reserves have remained, until June 2010, totally unknown to the American public.

      According to a joint report by the Pentagon, the US Geological Survey (USGS) and USAID, Afghanistan is now said to possess “previously unknown” and untapped mineral reserves, estimated authoritatively to be of the order of one trillion dollars (New York Times, U.S. Identifies Vast Mineral Riches in Afghanistan – NYTimes.com, June 14, 2010, See also BBC, 14 June 2010).

      “The previously unknown deposits — including huge veins of iron, copper, cobalt, gold and critical industrial metals like lithium — are so big and include so many minerals that are essential to modern industry that Afghanistan could eventually be transformed into one of the most important mining centers in the world, the United States officials believe.

      An internal Pentagon memo, for example, states that Afghanistan could become the “Saudi Arabia of lithium,” a key raw material in the manufacture of batteries for laptops and BlackBerrys.

      The vast scale of Afghanistan’s mineral wealth was discovered by a small team of Pentagon officials and American geologists. The Afghan government and President Hamid Karzai were recently briefed, American officials said.

      While it could take many years to develop a mining industry, the potential is so great that officials and executives in the industry believe it could attract heavy investment even before mines are profitable, providing the possibility of jobs that could distract from generations of war.

      “There is stunning potential here,” Gen. David H. Petraeus, commander of the United States Central Command, said… “There are a lot of ifs, of course, but I think potentially it is hugely significant.”

      http://www.globalresearch.ca/the-war-is-worth-waging-afghanistan-s-vast-reserves-of-minerals-and-natural-gas/19769

  4. The design of ‘Onus reversal’ and cover-up is, firstly, to Prevent the inquiry itself. Prevent the presentation and contest of evidence under rules of Law.
    Perception managers will utilize ‘the slightly wrong location’ to help avoid the need for one. It means little for me to say, but I have to anyway : If the actions we are witnessing are what describe investigative and moral needs of NZDF/Govt., in response to war crime evidence, then we as a society are already dead. Suitable amercian[sic]patsy GWOT allies.
    NZDF have primary source footage and data available from USAMO to decide this issue in ten minutes.
    Show it. Prove the SAS didn’t do as Nicky and Jon report.
    Prove it.

    • I think the military are lying and arse covering but I have to point out that …

      “Prove the SAS didn’t do as Nicky and Jon report.”

      …is onus reversal. Jon and Nicky have claimed in their book that certain things happened, so the burden of proof is on them to back up their claims with evidence. I haven’t read the book yet, so I can’t comment on whether they’ve done that or not, but I will note that the previous books of Hagar’s that I have read have been pretty thoroughly referenced. If all the Defence force can come up in response is inaccurate information the exact locations and names of villages in umapped places, that does support the proposal that an independent enquiry is needed to establish the facts.

      Graeme Edgeler makes an interesting arguments that there is a case to answer, but the correct process should be a criminal investigation into allegations of war crimes, not a public enquiry into military conduct:
      https://publicaddress.net/legalbeagle/a-war-crimes-inquiry-or-why-nicky-hager-is/

  5. Amen! The military are in full force “keep it quiet, and the yanks happy” mode. The depth of ignorant carelessness of the yank troops is only comparable to scenes from Apocalypse Now.

  6. It’s pretty obvious the government is relying on the modern short news cycle, and hoping this whole thing just dissipates in the wake of the next “big news” event. Or, you know, The Donald does another outrageous tweet that leaves us all distracted from things that actually matter. This whole media/government coverage tragically reminds me a lot of Hager’s last book… and we all know how much “impact” that ultimately had on, well, anything.

  7. Like so many other things over the past 8 years that have been ‘swept under the carpet’ ( and yes we know you’re doing it ) I truely hope this ‘war crime’ – yes, that’s what it clearly is, isn’t one of them.
    I am over this lying government!

  8. It sometimes seems like the term “war crimes” is only used when European people (aka “white’) people are the target.
    If they are Arab, African or Asian then they are usually referred to by some bland term such “as collateral war damage”.
    Killing people anywhere should be a crime.

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