Despite the mega-commentary about the Israel-Iran war, and especially the United States’ participation in that war, almost nothing is being debated about how the war is being funded.

I’ll make some comments about Iran later. But we need to focus on the United States, which is by far the most profligate party to this war. And Israel is being funded, like a charismatic and entitled teenage brat, by its (American) sugar daddy.

Most of us should have noticed that, with the exception of new tariffs which are not a significant source of United States government revenue, there has been no move to raise taxes. (The President has clearly invoked the use of tariffs as means of leverage through extortion; though he doesn’t properly appreciate that these taxes are paid by American residents.) Nor has any explicit ‘war loan’ or ‘war bond’ been floated in Wall Street.

The United States is ‘printing money’ to fund the war. This expression is both pejorative and a misnomer. Because printing money is an unmentionable, it’s hardly ever mentioned! Though it should be, because it’s an important financial mechanism, and it is not as sinful as it’s made to sound.

‘Printing money’ is not a literal expression; actually printed (or photocopied) money, counterfeit money, is illegal. Printing money, a figurative moniker, is in fact the day-to-day business of banking, with billions of dollars printed every day (and a near-similar number of dollars unprinted). The technology of printing money is that of double-entry-bookkeeping. Money is a social technology, as is double-entry bookkeeping.

What matters most to us is the role of the central bank – the Reserve Bank – in creating new money. And in particular the relationship between the Reserve Bank and its privileged customers, most of which are governments’ Treasuries and commercial banks. Even more particularly, we are interested in the most highly privileged relationship of all, that between the United States Federal Treasury and the United States Federal Reserve Bank. This exceptional relationship arises because the United States Dollar is the world’s reserve currency.

The War

Here are two quotes from Al Jazeera’s This is America: War on Iran: Cost of weapons and shift in the nature of warfare, 1 April 2026

Richard Gaisford: “It’s a significant contribution being made to the US economy by the defence industries. The last figures we have were for 2024, and that showed that it generated [?] something near one trillion dollars …”.

This comment reflects a wide belief that money is made by economic activity, and that the United States makes money by making, among other things, military hardware and software. The reality, of course, is that the money is made first, and is then used to purchase such hardware and software.

Interviewer: ‘Who has got the means to keep fighting at those levels the longest?’ Kenneth Katzman (a former senior analyst on Iran at the US Congressional Research Service): “The US Dollar is the main reserve currency of the globe, which means that the United States basically has the capability to manufacture money. Your viewers may not understand the mechanics of it, but basically the United States can print money.” (Actually, not only the United States.)

He goes on to address the military asymmetry between Iran and the United States: “The United States is a 28-trillion-dollar economy; Iran is a 400-billion-dollar economy”. Here he is talking about each country’s capacity to produce goods and services; not its capacity to manufacture money. Any amount of money can be made by any country’s banking-government nexus, and at trivial cost.

The interviewer (New Zealand’s Anna Burns Francis), and the other panellist did not respond to that seemingly provocative comment about printing money; there was no further discussion about how the war is being financed, only about how much it is costing. Discussion about the mechanics (and constraints) of printing money would go against the grain that most of us are fed. The public is not supposed to know – and generally does not know – that money is itself costless and can be manufactured, at will, in smaller or larger quantities.

Kenneth Katzman’s comments are not controversial; they are a statement of fact that no economist would disagree with. All countries’ banking systems (of which the central government is a component) have the capacity to print money; indeed, the New Zealand system (and other countries’ systems) necessarily did so in 2020.

The United States has fewer constraints on printing money than do other countries, but not zero constraints.

We note that money, like all financial and financialised assets, is not wealth; it is claims on wealth. So, the affordability of money – in practice – is measured by the ability of the economy to meet those claims, in the event that those claims are presented. (Indeed, the world can afford an octillion dollars’ worth of financial claims if it can be 100% certain that those claims will not be exercised; will not be spent on goods or services. The current world is awash with massive private holdings of financialised assets which, for the most part will not be spent on anything other than other financial assets. In technical language, such money has a very low ‘velocity’.)

We note also that newly printed United States’ dollars permeate into New Zealand through exports, including New Zealand made supplies to America’s war industry; to the United States’ military/industrial complex, which includes the space industry.

How does a country fund a war by printing money?

There are two key issues: rationing, and responsiveness.

The liberal critique against governments’ printing money is a general claim that governments are untrustworthy and spendthrift. In the eighteenth century when the liberal critique emerged, one principal concern was government adventurism in the form of warfare. This classical liberal critique presents one consequence of such government largesse as inflation (extra spending coming up against finite resources), and also presents any instance of general price increases as a consequence of government largesse. When governments consume relatively more resources, then – through the catalyst of inflation – private households and businesses consume relatively less.

The classical liberal critique emphasises this rationing issue, known as crowding out; in doing so, that critique presumes that private spending on goods and services is, per se, more efficient than public sector spending and redistributive transfers. There are two parts to this rationing argument: first, private parties are deemed to better assess (compared to bureaucrats and politicians) which items of spending translate to greater utility (ie happiness); second that relatively more private spending can be classified as ‘investing’, meaning spending for future rather than for present happiness. (Neither of these two propositions is generally true.)

The second issue, less emphasised by classical liberals, is responsiveness or ‘supply elasticity’. Classical liberals tend to assume that spending enabled by printed money does not elicit new production; ie does not bring-about a supply response. While this is true by definition for a hyper-taut economy, for the most part, economies are not hyper-taut and are indeed responsive to additional spending.

In the present case of the United States, the Israel-Iran War – on the pro-Israel side – is being funded substantially by new money printed for the United States government by the United States federal banking system; in the public accounts, this shows up directly as a huge increase in the United States’ fiscal deficit.

While prices are rising faster in the United States than before, this increase in general prices would appear to be substantially due to the supply-side cost-impact of the war itself, and not by increased aggregate demand inside the United States and the countries the United States imports goods and services from.

The United States domestic economy is not as supply-elastic as it might have been, given what ICE is doing to that country’s labour force. Nevertheless, the United States’ economy has been sufficiently depressed that it is now able to increase output without much difficulty. Hence, extra United States’s government spending has not in itself caused consumer prices in the United States to rise. The present chokehold on imports – a result of the war – is however causing CPI-inflation in the United States and the rest of the world. Prior domestic underemployment is one reason why money-printing may not be inflationary.

The second component of a country’s economic responsiveness to wads of newly printed money is that much production can be outsourced to the rest of the world. Thus, United States’ imports increase, the United States’ current account deficit increases, and the rest of the underemployed world gets to benefit from this as an economic stimulus. So, if the New Zealand banking-government nexus refuses to print money as a form of stimulus, the present Trump-printed money does create an alternative stimulus in New Zealand.

Certainly, New Zealand has very high visible and hidden unemployment, so (at present) is easily able to respond to the Trump stimulus. On that basis, New Zealand’s economic growth this year may not be as slow as is widely anticipated; though domestic confidence – in itself, a form of stimulus – may be countering the stimulus coming from the United States. In New Zealand too, any rise in CPI-inflation will be almost entirely due to the global supply chokeholds, and not to the American president’s money printing largesse.

Essentially, the United States is funding its war through its twin deficits: the United States fiscal deficit, and the United States current account deficit. The war is being funded through increased utilisation of underemployed resources throughout the world. In New Zealand’s case, we can see this easily and directly, by observing New Zealand’s increased exports to the United States.

How easily can other countries print money?

Technically, it’s as easy to print money in New Zealand as it is for the United States. However, the New Zealand dollar is not a global reserve currency, so a flood of new New Zealand dollars into the global economy is likely to generate financial risk; or at least perceptions of financial risk. ‘Investors’ – that is, financial traders – out there most likely would be more cautious about holding large quantities of New Zealand dollars (or $NZ assets) than they would be about holding large quantities of United States dollars. That caution generates an exchange rate risk; a risk that would be communicated to financial-asset-holders by the New York based rating agencies such as Standard and Poors.

When the exchange-rate risk is not widely seen as a matter of concern, New Zealand benefits mainly through its routinely-high current account deficit; that is, just the same way as the United States is able to benefit from printing money and enjoying the economic bounty of the world.

If the exchange rate risk becomes a concern however, the world would discount New Zealand dollar assets, and New Zealand would experience high levels of domestic inflation; that is, higher inflation than most other countries. The resulting low New Zealand dollar would confer a ‘competitive advantage’ on New Zealand; the current account deficit would close, exports increase, and reduced imports would create an increased demand for New Zealand- made goods and services.

The issue then becomes how responsive (ie supply elastic) the New Zealand economy is. If the domestic economy is able to respond to these new circumstances (which is the more common experience of other countries), then New Zealand would recover and soon prosper. The alternative is that New Zealand would go into an inflationary tailspin; that is, if its productive system is so hamstrung that it cannot respond to the stimulus of a low dollar exchange rate. One bad sign is over-dependence (as distinct from over-reliance) on imports. A dependent economy cannot switch away from imports. A country which relies on imports by choice, because imports are easily funded by exports, can usually pivot – if required to do so – towards more ‘tradable production’.

So, New Zealand can print money too, though printing in the proportion that the United States does certainly would be unadvisable. However, if a country overprints money, the normal situation is that the extra money just sits there in the banking system. (The brief real estate boom of 2021/22 has been widely attributed to excessive printed money stimulating a process of real estate speculation; though the unique circumstances of that few months – including labour and capital pandemic lockdowns – have not been properly researched. The government could easily have borrowed and then parked that money, but chose not to.)

Generally, the rest of the world is accommodating when some countries print more money (though not when all countries print too much money). The world has been very responsive to the United States for the entirety of post-WW2 history; it was American spending of new money that drove the economic growth of the capitalist world for 80 years.

The present US money printing to fund a globally-significant regional-war can be expected, sooner or later, to encounter an inflationary wall of its own making. The consequences of this war are to make the world economy much less responsive (ie are breaking the world’s economy) just as the American military-industrial complex – indeed the world’s expanding military-industrial complexes – are placing so many extra demands on the world’s economic environments.

War funding under pressure

Countries’ invaded or otherwise attacked on the perception that they are ‘easy meat’ tend to be much more capable of defending themselves than is widely understood. Their monetary systems are not integrated into the orthodox channels of the wider capitalist system; but their domestic monies work to keep domestic economies fully employed while on a war-footing. Yes, Iran will be printing money, and Iranians will be facing substantial visible and suppressed inflation. For Iran, that monetary process is a necessary part of its own defence. Money printing facilitates both necessary rationing in favour of the public sector, and also necessarily pushes the production system to its limits.

War times, historically, have shown that our economic systems are generally much more responsive than we presume them to be. Surprisingly often, the bullies neither win nor even achieve a limited range of objectives. Syria may be coming right today, despite rather than because of the nation which set off that 2010s’ war; a war which cruelly sandwiched the Syrian people between foreign bullies and a consequently more oppressive domestic tyranny.

We note that, when the United Kingdom was under threat during the first years of World War Two, it was able to import much on credit – especially from the United States, which was then a neutral country. China has played a large role in facilitating the United States’ more recent wars, through its current account surpluses. This time China will be helping to fund Iran’s war; as well as accommodating the United States through its ongoing – almost infamous – trade relationship with that country.

Indeed, when the Israel-US-Iran War is eventually over, it will be China’s version of the Marshall Plan which will revive the degraded world economy; part of that revival will be to write-off war debts, just as the United States – through plenty of printed money – eventually accommodated Germany’s reparations bill after World War One, and the West’s war debts after World War Two.

————-

Keith Rankin (keith at rankin dot nz), trained as an economic historian, is a retired lecturer in Economics and Statistics. He lives in Auckland, New Zealand.

Palestinian advocate Issa Amro has been nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize this year for his decades of work advocating for peaceful resistance against Israel’s illegal settlements in the occupied West Bank.

The settlements are illegal under international law — and a record 45 were established last year under cover of the war on Gaza,

Advocacy against the settlements has seen Amro become a target.

He is based in the occupied West Bank, in Hebron — a city of about 250,000 mostly Palestinian people. He founded Youth Against Settlements.

He paints a picture about what daily life is like.

“Our life in West Bank was very hard and difficult before October 7 [2023 – the date of the Hamas resistance movement attack on southern Israel]. And after October 7, life became much harder. . . .

‘Daily harassment, violence’
“So there are hard conditions. No jobs. No work. No movement in the West Bank. Schools are affected . . . There is daily harassment and violence — they attack the Palestinian villages, they attack the Palestinian cities, they attack the Palestinian roads.

“In my city Hebron, it has got much, much harder. People are not able to leave their homes because of the closure of the checkpoints. The [Israeli] soldiers are very mean and adversarial . . .

“The soldiers close the checkpoints whenever they want. In fact, the soldiers act like militia, not like a regular army.

“My house was attacked in the last 20 months . . . ”

• At least 55,104 people, including at least 17,400 children, have been killed in Israel’s war on Gaza. At least 943 Palestinians, more than 200 of them minors, have been killed in the occupied West Bank.

This article is republished under a community partnership agreement with RNZ.

Article by AsiaPacificReport.nz

Listen to the audio from 3:00 minutes in.

Over the last 24 hours, the atomic control agency IAEA (International Atomic Energy Agency) formed a view at its UN Geneva meeting, that there was so-called evidence that Iran had ‘undisclosed sites’ where uranium was identified.

Iran disputes this, and suggested today that the IAEA members were wrong.

It appears Israel identified a window of opportunity where it can strike Iran’s nuclear power generation infrastructure, assassinate its nuclear scientists, and destroy other sites that it insists are covert nuclear-development-sites.

But let’s be clear at this moment, it is not proven that Iran has or had a covert uranium enrichment operation in play.

ISRAEL CLAIMS:

Israel claims its attacks on Iran are justified as preemptive defence operations – but we need to understand here… preemptive defence in itself is not legal.

The problem on this aspect is Israel has arguably, long ago, crossed the Rubicon regarding International Law – especially in Gaza and the West Bank. So it’s reasonable to suggest; Israel is not deterred by the possibility of any future recourse being brought upon it by the international community.

CONTEXT:

Iran is believed to be not war-ready. But, Iran will respond. Its Supreme Leader stated it will respond. It remains to be seen how it will respond.

At this moment, there are reports in Israel that over 100 missiles are incoming from Iran to Israel.

We also know, Israel has weakened Hezbollah, especially within Lebanon. The strikes on Beirut earlier this month and prior were designed to weaken Hezbollah.

Further, Syria is in a state of transition.

This is the backdrop to Israel’s window of opportunity.

THE UNITED STATES:

The United States obviously knew a strike was imminent. It pulled non-essential personnel out of neighbouring Iraq and from the general region.

United States President Donald Trump has confirmed that there was communication on this offensive between Israel and the US, in the context of no-surprises.

Trump added that the US would help defend Israel, but it’s unclear what ‘defend’ actually means. The US appears to be waiting to see exactly how Iran responds.

The Trump Administration insists Israel’s decision to strike Iran was unilateral. United States Secretary of State Marco Rubio said today: “We are not involved in strikes against Iran, and our top priority is protecting American forces in the region.”

IRAN’S POSITION:

Last Sunday, the Iranian President said Iran was “ready for inspections” but added it is “unacceptable to deprive peoples of access to knowledge, technology and scientific achievements”.

*** Only yesterday Iran’s foreign minister stated that Iran and the US were close to a deal on its nuclear energy ambitions. In a statement he said: “Trump took office saying that Iran should not have nuclear weapons. In fact, this is in line with our own doctrine and could be the main basis for the deal.”

Perhaps Israel saw its window of opportunity narrowing.

Iran insists its nuclear energy programme has been transparent.

BACK-STORY:

In negotiations with United States envoys, Iran has been insisting that it has the right to enrich its uranium but insists this is for efficient energy generation.

Back in May Iran’s foreign minister said: To claim that any country that wants to enrich uranium has non-peaceful purposes is a “deliberate misconception”

He stressed. “There are states that enrich uranium but do not possess nuclear weapons.”

LEAKS ISRAEL GOVERNMENT INTELLIGENCE:

On June 7, Iran’s Intelligence Minister claimed Iran had acquired trove of Israel Government documents that detailed Israel’s nuclear program.

Iran described the intelligence as “sensitive and strategic” and one of the most significant intelligence leaks in Israel’s history.

The intelligence documents also detailed communications between Israel and the United States, Europe and other countries.

OTHER CONTEXT:

The Russian Federation announced this week that it was willing to assist Iran with its nuclear energy ambitions.

Forty years on from my 1985 Fulbright Grant, my disquiet over the war in Gaza evoked some troubling questions.

The answer to my first question – What is the primary purpose of the Fulbright Programme? – was on the Fulbright NZ website. It says:

The Fulbright programme was established in 1946 as an initiative of US Senator J. William Fulbright, to promote mutual understanding through educational and cultural exchanges between the US and other countries. Informed by his own exchange experience as a Rhodes Scholar, Senator Fulbright believed the programme could play an important role in building a lasting world peace in the aftermath of World War II.

The Fulbright Programme has been described as one of the largest and most significant movements of scholars across the face of the earth and now operates in over 155 countries, funding around 8,000 exchanges per year for participants to study, research, teach or present their work in another country.

In Senator Fulbright’s words, the programme aims “to bring a little more knowledge, a little more reason, and a little more compassion into world affairs and thereby to increase the chance that nations will learn at last to live in peace and friendship.” This goal has always been as important to the programme as individual scholarship. (ref. https://fulbright.org.nz/ )

My next question was: If Senator Fulbright really did say that, why isn’t the international Fulbright community in an uproar over the anti-Palestinian war-mongering being pursued by the USA, Israel, Germany and the UK? They’re all Fulbright countries, but instead of working for peace they’re faciliating genocide by supplying arms and ammunition for the war in Gaza.

After finding no answer to that question, my inner protester told me to speak out, and my inner editor told me to check my sources first. So after scrolling through scores of unsourced quotes, I took my search for reliable sources to Dunedin second hand bookshops – and found a treasure.

The Arrogance of Power by J. William Fulbright, Chairman of the US Senate Foreign Relations Committee, was published by Jonathan Cape in 1967. Here are some quotes:

Having done so much and succeeded so well, America is now at that historical point at which a great nation is in danger of losing its perspective on what exactly is within the realm of its power and what is beyond it. Other great nations, reaching this critical juncture, have aspired to too much, and by overextention of effort have declined and then fallen.

The causes of the malady are not entirely clear but its recurrence is one of the uniformities of history: power tends to confuse itself with virtue and a great nation is peculiarly susceptible to the idea that it’s power is a sign of God’s favour, conferring upon it a special responsibility for other nations — to make them richer and happier and wiser, to remake them, that is, in its own shining image. Power confuses itself with virtue and tends also to take itself for omnipotence. Once imbued with the idea of a mission, a great nation easily assumes that it has the means as well as the duty to do God’s work. The Lord, after all, surely would not choose you as His agent and then deny you the sword with which to work His will. German soldiers in the First World War wore belt buckles imprinted with the words “Gutt mit uns [God is with us].” It was approximately under this kind of infatuation — an exaggerated sense of power and an imaginary sense of mission — that the Athenians attacked Syracuse and Napoleon and then Hitler invaded Russia. In plain words, they overextended their commitments and they came to grief.

The stakes are high indeed: they include not only America’s continued greatness but nothing less than the survival of the human race in an era when, for the first in history, a living generation has the power of veto over the survival of the next.

When the abstractions and subtleties of political science have been exhausted, there remains the most basic unanswered questions about war and peace and why nations contest the issues they contest and why they even care about them. As Aldous Huxley has written:

There may be arguments about the best way of raising wheat in a cold climate or of reafforesting a denuded mountain. But such arguments never lead to organised slaught. Organised slaughter is the result of arguments about such questions as the following: Which is the best nation? The best religion? The best political theory? The best form of government? Why are other people so stupid and wicked? Why can’t they see how good and intelligent we are? Why do they resist our beneficent efforts to bring them under our control and make them like ourselves?

Many of the wars fought by man — I am tempted to say most — have been fought over such abstraction. The more I puzzle over the great wars of history, the more I am inclined to the view that the causes attributed to them — territory, markets, resources, the defence or perpetuation of great principles — were not the root cause at all but rather explanations or excuses for certain unfathomable drives of human nature. For lack of a clear and precise understanding of exactly what these motives are, I refer to them as the “arrogance of power”— as a psychological need that nations seem to have in order to prove that they are bigger, better, or stronger than other nations. Implicit in this drive is the assumption, even on the part of normally peaceful nations, that force is the ultimate proof of superiority — that when a nation shows that it has the stronger army, it is also proving that is has better people, better institutions, better priciples, and in general, a better civilisation.

Evidence for my proposition is found in the remarkable discrepancy between apparent and hidden causes of some modern wars…

The United States went to war in 1898 for the stated purpose of liberating Cuba from Spanish tyranny, but after winning the war — a war which Spain had been willing to pay a high price to avoid — the United States brought the liberated Cubans under an American protectorate and incidentally annexed the Philippines, because, according to President McKinley, the Lord told him it was America’s duty “to educate the Filipinos and uplift and civilize and Cristianize them, and by God’s grace do the very best we could by them, as fellowmen for who Christ also died.”

Isn’t it interesting that the voice was the voice of the Lord but the words were those of Theordore Roosevelt, Henry Cabot Lodge, and Admiral Mahan, those “imperialists of 1898” who wanted America to have an empire just because a big powerful country like America ought to have an empire? The spirit of the times was expressed by Albert Beveridge, soon thereafter elected to the United States Senate, who proclaimed Americans to be “a conquering race;” “We must obey our blood and occupy new markets and if necessary new lands,” he said, because “In the Almighty’s infinite plan . . . debased civilisations and decaying races” must disappear “before the higher civilisations of the nobler and more virile type of man.”

In this the tenth episode of A View from Afar for 2023 political scientist Dr Paul Buchanan and journalist/analyst Selwyn Manning will examine the current Israel-Palestine Atrocities.

As we prepare for this podcast, representatives of Arab states have presented a united front at the United Nations, criticising the UN Security Council of doing nothing to protect civilians from Israeli bombing and missile attacks on Gazan civilians and locations.

These civilian facilities include Hospitals, schools, residential areas. The targeting of civilians has resulted in the deaths of thousands of people – around one-third of those deaths are children.

Additional to this, Israel has sealed the borders of Gaza while it prevents food, water and medical supplies from reaching civilians – in breach of international law requirements and laws of conflict.

Israel ordered Gazan civilians, who wish to get to safety, to get out of North Gaza and move toward the south, to the border with Egypt. But as people fled south toward what appeared to be safety, Israel bombed the southern Gaza region killing more civilians and sealing off that corridor for others who sought refuge.

As a consequence of the bombing, Egypt responded by sealing the Gaza-Egypt border. Humanitarian aid now sits on trucks, waiting, on the Egypt side of the border, while United Nations officials implore Israel and Egypt to allow medical supplies, food and water to get through to those who are injured and dying.

The Israel Defence Force strikes followed a surprise-attack on Israeli citizens by soldiers operating under the Hamas banner. Civilians were slaughtered and others taken hostage, only to be used as bargaining chips in and leverage against their enemies.

Even Palestinian advocacy groups like the Palestine Solidarity Network Aotearoa suggested that breaches of international humanitarian Law, crimes against civilians, have been committed by those Hamas-aligned fighters. But they are clear, as others are too, that crimes against humanity, war crimes, have been committed by Israel, without consequence, as we all give witness to its response which is disproportionate, brutal, and disregarding of the thousands of Palestinian lives that have already been taken.

That’s the current situation. It is likely to get much worse.

In this episode, our questions will include:

What are the world’s leaders doing to stop the carnage?

Are the world’s nations being drawn into what will be an ever-expanding war?

Are we witnessing the beginning of a war where on one side authoritarian-led states like Russia, Iran, the wider Arab states, and possibly China stand unified against the United States, Britain, Germany, and other so-called liberal democratic allies representing the old world order?

Is what we are witnessing, what happens when a global rules-based order, multilateralism and institutions like the United Nations no longer have influence to prevent war, or restore peace and stability, or assert principles of international justice and enforce the rights of victims to see recourse to the law?

Why has this slaughter become an opportunity for the US and Russia to square-off against each other at the UN Security Council – a body that was once designed to advocate and achieve peace, but has now become a geopolitically divided entity of stalemate and mediocrity?

Eventually, will humanitarianism prevail? Will the world recognise that all people, the elderly, women, children, people of all ethnicities and religions, that they all bleed and die irrespective of their state of origin, when leaders of all sides, while sitting back in their bunkers, unleash weapons designed to kill as many people as is possible?

In this episode, Paul and Selwyn will examine this most grave situation from a geopolitical vantage point. It may appear as dispassionate, and as so even disturbing, but we will take this approach in an attempt to aide an understanding of why this is happening in Gaza and why it is happening now.

INTERACTION WHILE LIVE:

Paul and Selwyn encourage their live audience to interact while they are live with questions and comments.

To interact during the live recording of this podcast, go to Youtube.com/c/EveningReport/

Remember to subscribe to the channel.

For the on-demand audience, you can also keep the conversation going on this debate by clicking on one of the social media channels below:

• Youtube.com/c/EveningReport/
• Facebook.com/selwyn.manning
• Twitter.com/Selwyn_Manning

RECOGNITION: The MIL Network’s podcast A View from Afar was Nominated as a Top Defence Security Podcast by Threat.Technology – a London-based cyber security news publication. Threat.Technology placed A View from Afar at 9th in its 20 Best Defence Security Podcasts of 2021 category.

You can follow A View from Afar via our affiliate syndicators.

In this the eighth episode of A View from Afar for 2023, political scientist Dr Paul Buchanan and Selwyn Manning examine the risks of a 21st century nuclear war.

The movie Oppenheimer has renewed interest in the dawn of the nuclear era. Almost 80 years later, are we safer from nuclear war than we were in the years immediately after 1945?

The Bulletin of Atomic Scientists moved its Doomsday Clock hand to 90 seconds before midnight, the highest threat level since the Cuban Missile Crisis.What does that say about contemporary international security affairs?

No new nuclear arms limitation agreements have been signed in over a decade, several have lapsed and most nuclear armed countries are not signatories to them anyway.

Countries like China are rapidly expanding their arsenals and others like North Korea and Iran are seeking to join the nuclear armed club.

Has nuclear arms control failed?

What is the future of the Non-Proliferation Treaty?

Although conventions against the use of chemical and biological weapons are widely recognised, violations of the prohibitions have occurred regularly, most recently in Syria. Weapons like white phosphorus and cluster munitions continue to be used by many states.

The Questions include:

• Has non-nuclear arms control failed as well?

• Russia’s Putin Regime has threatened to use nuclear weapons against Ukraine and NATO. Is the nuclear genie about to come out of the bottle, even in a tactical use?

• Are we seeing the return of weapons of mass destruction (WMD)?

• Are we on the brink of Oppenheimer’s nightmare: nuclear Armageddon?

• And importantly, what are the solutions to this most serious and dangerous threat?

INTERACTION:

Paul and Selwyn encourage their live audience to interact while they are live with questions and comments.

To interact during the live recording of this podcast, go to Youtube.com/c/EveningReport/

Remember to subscribe to the channel.

For the on-demand audience, you can also keep the conversation going on this debate by clicking on one of the social media channels below:

• Youtube.com/c/EveningReport/
• Facebook.com/selwyn.manning
• Twitter.com/Selwyn_Manning

RECOGNITION: The MIL Network’s podcast A View from Afar was Nominated as a Top Defence Security Podcast by Threat.Technology – a London-based cyber security news publication. Threat.Technology placed A View from Afar at 9th in its 20 Best Defence Security Podcasts of 2021 category.

You can follow A View from Afar via our affiliate syndicators.

All wars incur economic costs, and not only to the directly belligerent countries. The biggest costs arise when a war becomes a prolonged stalemate. The present war in Ukraine can be characterised, differently, as a Russian Civil War (that’s the Russian view), as ‘just another’ Eastern European conflict that will go away by Christmas, or as a World War.

Civil War?

The civil war characterisation reflects the medium-long-term history of the lands between the Ural mountains and the Scandinavia/Prussia/Hungary/Romania frontier that historically demarks cultural Russia from western Europe. (And we note that Russia undertook an eastward expansion of settlement in the same years that the United States pursued its westward expansion of settlement. There was a Wild East to match the Wild West. As a result, both Russia and USA have realms that extend to the Pacific Ocean.) This civil war characterisation, which highlights comparisons with the United States’ Civil War, is very useful to help us understand the likely duration, outcome, and cost of the present war.

While the US Civil War officially lasted for four years (1861-65), significant echoes remain today. There is a schism in the political geography of the United States, with the fracture line today very much the same line as in those years. Whatever happens in Ukraine this year or this decade, a similar fracture line is likely to remain into the 22nd century at least.

To understand how useful the US Civil War may be in helping us to assess the present war in Ukraine, we have to see it in the terms of the political and economic assumptions of each time; and also as a purely military event, taking out the ‘goodies versus baddies’ sentiment. The passion in 1860s’ America was on the side of the secessionist south, just as it is on the side of Ukraine today. There was not a passionate abolitionist (ie anti-slavery) mass movement in the north, though there was a passionate and politically significant movement. The question of what motivated the working and farming men of the north to fight was not unlike today’s question of what motivates Russian men to fight in Ukraine today.

Abraham Lincoln, like Vladimir Putin, was passionate about ‘the Union’; willing to pay a huge price to reforge their respective political and cultural Unions. Less passionate contemporaries, in both cases, saw regime change as a possible end-of-the-war scenario.

In the United States the war followed a ‘phony war’ stage that lasted through most of 1861, and then descended into a brutal stalemate which lasted until the second half of 1864. Lincoln, elected in November 1860, faced re-election in November 1864. For all money, he would suffer a landslide defeat in 1864; that is, until the military situation turned in his favour (especially the capture of Atlanta) just months before the 1864 election. Fortunes turned, and Lincoln won in a landslide. He was helped by the non-participation of the south in that election. Indeed it would take more than a century before Lincoln’s Republican Party would gain electoral traction in those southern states; and then only when – in the late 20th century – the two parties swapped places. (It was only recently that, in the US, the party of the south became the party of the north; and vice versa.)

Abraham Lincoln’s ’emancipation proclamation’ on 1 January 1863 was a wonderful piece of political theatre, that proved to be a masterstroke that both enabled the abolitionist cause to be fulfilled in the event of a Union victory, and formed an important part of the basis for Lincoln’s subsequent legacy. At the time it had as much impact as Putin would have if, later this year say, he were to declare an end to people-trafficking in Ukraine; Lincoln in 1863 had no practical jurisdiction over the people whom he notionally emancipated.

An important parallel to note is that it was the southern side in the US Civil War that was then most connected to the world economy, and thus it was the loss of the southern economy that incurred the greatest economic costs to the interested European powers. The (southern) Confederacy looked to the United Kingdom and France to provide military support. In the end the military support given to the south was vastly less than hoped for. There was no expectation, in America or Europe, that the European powers would provide assistance to Lincoln and his armies.

The analogy between the Ukraine War and the US Civil War suggests that the present war will most likely be, for years, a costly stalemate. Deutsch Welle, in its ‘To the Point’ (16 July) listing, said: “After capturing large parts of Donbas, will Putin have an appetite for more?” This western perspective makes Putin seem like a Viking raider who has a ‘bit of fun’ in the borderlands, and then withdraws for a short or long while. The idea that Putin, this year, might simply ‘pack up his toys and bring his boys home’ represents a substantial misreading of the motivation of Putin and the many influential Russians who will continue to promote this fight for Russian prestige and territory. Like Lincoln, I don’t see Putin as a quitter. And it’s not clear that, if something happened to Putin – like dying of covid – the war in Ukraine would necessarily fold.

The popular western perspective is that the war in Ukraine will somehow fizzle out after a few more months, and that the costs of the war to the rest of the world will be short-lasting and reversible. A similar view also existed in 1861, in the north of the United States.

World War?

Has World War Three already started? It’s not really a silly question. (Before putting in my two cents worth, I would like to note that I am inclined to agree with those historians who see WW1 and WW2 and a single event with a 21-year interregnum. In that case, that would be the GWW [or GWW1], Great World War, and what we shall call WW3 might prove to be the GWW2 (or GWW3 if we designate the Cold War as a Great World War, as I think we should). We should also note that the timing of the beginning of most wars is subjective. A good case can be made for dating the beginning of WW2 to 1937, with Japan’s invasion of China.)

There is a case that the Cold War should be classed as a ‘World War’. It was a war lasting from July 1945 (with the Soviet Union’s declaration of war against Japan) until the final demise of the Soviet Union in 1991. The hottest components of the Cold War – Korea, Vietnam, Afghanistan – continue to have repercussions today. So do many of the colder components of that war; especially the break-up of the Soviet Union.

(Under this GWW perspective, both GWW1 and GWW2 were nuclear wars. This is because the dropping of atomic bombs on Japan represent both the end of GWW1 and the start of GWW2.)

Like the other world wars, the Cold War split the world into three: indeed, we came to talk about the ‘first world’, the ‘second world’, and the ‘third world’. In some contexts, China was ‘third world’; in other contexts, it was a recalcitrant part of the ‘second [“communist”] world’. Like GWW1, there was an interregnum in the Cold War; the early 1970s, essentially the later years of Richard Nixon, and the short presidency of Gerald Ford. The Cold War – GWW2 – was reheated during the Jimmy Carter presidency, especially due to the influence of cold warrior Zbigniew Brzezinski. 1980 was a particularly belligerent year.

The dramatic economic events of the 1970s were a consequence of both the Cold War; and of a regional war that goes back to biblical times and will probably continue until the end of time, the Arab-Israeli War. The first episode of the ‘Great Inflation’ can be attributed to the Vietnam War, the quintessential hot war of the Cold War. The second ‘stagflationary’ episode of that inflation is usually attributed to the 1973 episode of the Arab-Israeli War, and its consequence for world oil prices; though the political response that pushed the Great Inflation well into the 1980s was as much a result of a form of capitalist ideology – monetarist neoliberalism – that had its origins in the earlier years of the Cold War.

The War in Ukraine has already divided the world into three. Aotearoa New Zealand has unambiguously taken sides as a western non-combatant belligerent. It’s not a simple proxy war between Russia and Greater NATO. Türkiye, a NATO member, has taken a much more ambiguous position than New Zealand has. Even though the fighting, so far, has only taken place on the territory of Ukraine, the costs of the war so far have been substantial. And global. And, as in the first months of World War 2 or the US Civil War, we may have only experienced the ‘phony’ part so far.

This war sets the scene for a new economic crisis that will most likely last until at least 2050. Much was already in place before this Russian war started in 2022 (though some would argue that this war started in 2008 or in 2014). The Covid19 pandemic has revealed how brittle the world economy is, and how easily knowledge gives way to narrative. In particular, the pandemic has revealed how brittle ‘first world’ labour markets are, and how dependent the privileged are on an exploited pool of global labour.

In addition, we have the global environmental crisis, which is about global emissions induced climate change; and much more. Indeed, in order to manage the new climate extremes, we have to burn more fossil fuels than ever; to run our air conditioners, our heaters to manage the cold, and to construct the infrastructure which we need to, among other things, keep out the floodwater. We are in a dangerous positive feedback loop, which means we have to aggravate the crisis in order to mitigate it.

Also, in the west in particular, there have been what might best be called the ‘culture wars’. The result is that, within the west, there are two large politicised groups of people who see their adversary as tantamount to ‘evil’; this wickedness of the other side becomes the corrupted lens which makes it close to impossible to define and discuss the very real crises that humanity both faces and imposes. The latest round of the culture war is the resurfacing of the abortion issue. In the United States today, the culture war does have significant overtones which date back to the Civil War.

The pandemic (presented as a war between man and microbe), the 21st century labour crisis with all its cruelties, the culture wars, and climate change all set the scene. The war in Ukraine – already GWW3 by my reckoning – is the spark that is escalating the present conflict. The latest symptom of escalating warfare is the ‘cost of living’ crisis.

Global Inflation?

We are clearly facing global cost crises; rises in real costs due to pandemic and the political measures taken to deal with it, due to environmental change and its costs (including substantial and largely ineffective bureaucratic costs), rising labour costs arising from the massive disruptions to the pre-2020 globalisation of labour, and now war shortages which so far mainly impact the prices (and availability) of staple foods and fossil fuels. A big part of the problem is that, in the west, there have been no serious attempts to cost the Ukraine War. Instead, there has been the pretence that it will just go away; the equivalent to the ‘over by Christmas’ assumptions made in 1861 and 1914 (and 2003 for that matter).

As well as properly assessing the costs of the war, and of the other crisis, a rational response must be to find reasonably equitable ways to share this cost burden. It would have been so much easier if principled income distribution mechanisms had already been in place prior to this crisis decade. We do expect that, in a war, the direct belligerents will face particularly high costs; but we also understand that, in a world war, all of humanity must bear some of the cost.

Yet, when we see countries’ consumers price indexes rising (so far by no more than an annual ten percent in most western countries), we disembody our minds from the real and rising costs ‘out there’; and we expect our politicians to roll out some kind of magic solution. We want them to magic away real costs; in practice that means we expect them to shift the cost burden to other people, especially people in countries or continents other than our own (such as Africa). We, en masse, still expect the very real and substantial crises of the world to be costless to us in our daily lives. Too many of us still see these crises as akin to dramas that we watch on television; as being like multi-season Netflix drama series.

An inflationary spiral takes place when non-powerless people seek compensation from real costs. (Cost crises are not the only inflationary situation. Macroeconomists tend to follow a one-size-fits-all analysis of inflation, based on ‘excess demand’ rather than on ‘increased cost’. So they, in the role of central bankers, rush to increase costs in the form of higher interest rates; whatever the underlying problem. And once one country does it, others are forced to follow in order to stop their currencies’ exchange rates from falling; depreciating currencies make their countries’ inflation rates higher than the global average.)

The first law of holes is ‘stop digging’. But it’s very hard to stop digging when you are in a ‘race to the bottom’.

*******

Keith Rankin (keith at rankin dot nz), trained as an economic historian, is a retired lecturer in Economics and Statistics. He lives in Auckland, New Zealand.

A View from Afar – In this podcast, political scientist Paul Buchanan and Selwyn Manning analyse how it is now clear atrocities committed against Ukrainian civilians is widespread, appears systematic, and may be coldly planned by Russian leaders as troops withdraw toward the east. But can justice be achieved?

The crimes committed in Ukraine could be defined by four categories:

• War crimes (which includes the targeting of civilians),
• Crimes against humanity (which crosses a scale because it is systematic and essentially focusses on individuals),
• Genocide (where groups are targeted),
• Crime of aggression (which is the waging of an illegal war).

This week, Professor of Law, Philippe Sands, of the University College London told PBS: “In the present circumstances where Russia has waged a war that is manifestly illegal, it is plain to me that the crime of aggression has been perpetrated. And, the significance of that crime is it is the only one with any degree of certainty that it reaches the top-table, Mr Putin, Mr Lavrov, the Defence Minister, senior military, senior intelligence, senior political leaders.

“With all the other crimes, the challenge that you have got is linking the terrible images that we have just seen with the leadership at the top. And, that can be very difficult.”

Professor Sands has joined around 100 others, including former leaders around the world, calling for a Special Criminal Tribunal, that would sit alongside the ICC in The Hague, and investigate in parallel the crime of aggression. (Ref. 14:31 PBS April 4, 2022, https://youtu.be/TbX8Wl4HEh4 )

Professor of Law, Yvonne McDermott Rees, of the University of Swansea told DW News: “Let’s say, theoretically we have a trial before the International Criminal Court, the ICC seeks to prosecute those who are deemed most responsible.

“And there are a number of modes of liability set out in statute of the International Criminal Court. These include ordering, inducing, soliciting these crimes to be committed. But importantly, in the case of Vladimir Putin, there is superior responsibility.” (Ref. DW, April 5, 2022, https://youtu.be/1xIOw21BUgc )

But as Paul Buchanan and Selwyn Manning discuss; it is challenging in the extreme to bring a leader of a nuclear power to justice.

QUESTIONS:

• Were the atrocities identified a deliberate, systematic attempt to erase Ukrainian populations and culture?
• Were they crimes committed by troops so as to cover their retreat, by killing and leaving dead Ukrainians behind, so that the Ukrainian armed forces were forced to stop and to attend to them?
• What of enforcement capability, where authoritarian leaders will oppose any attempt to bring anyone but the lowest level “rogue” personnel to justice. Is it satisfactory if recourse and prosecution becomes a mostly Western (mostly European) affair?

You can comment on this debate by clicking on one of these social media channels and interacting in the social media’s comment area. Here are the links:

• Facebook.com/selwyn.manning
• Youtube
• Twitter.com/Selwyn_Manning

If you miss the LIVE Episode, you can see it as video-on-demand, and earlier episodes too, by checking out EveningReport.nz or, subscribe to the Evening Report podcast here.

The MIL Network’s podcast A View from Afar was Nominated as a Top  Defence Security Podcast by Threat.Technology – a London-based cyber security news publication.

Threat.Technology placed A View from Afar at 9th in its 20 Best Defence Security Podcasts of 2021 category. You can follow A View from Afar via our affiliate syndicators.

A View from Afar – In this podcast, political scientist Paul Buchanan and Selwyn Manning will deep dive into the big picture that hangs over the Russian invasion of Ukraine.

That big picture has many aspects to it, and as such any resolution to the atrocities being committed in Ukraine will likely be weighed against what is a challenge to the International law and rules-based order.

In a previous episode in this series, Paul Buchanan and I examined how the world was transitioning into a democracies versus authoritarian bipolarity. (ref. EveningReport.nz)

This episode continues in that theme, but digs down into how descendent powers, or nations, tend to create, or become entrenched, in wars, and how Russia, in 2022, fits this pattern. And, there are comparisons to global western powers too, which we will draw on.

But in this episode we will go further. We will examine how transitional international moments, conflict as a systems regulator, can move to counter Russia.

In 2022, the United Nations security council, due to the P5 nations having veto powers, appears no longer fit for purpose. A UN-led multilateral response to Russia’s invasion of Ukraine is unlikely.

The UN general assembly appears frustrated by Russia’s refusal to acknowledge the combined insistence of the UNGA that it cease its war against Ukraine.

Against this backdrop, NATO, at this juncture, cannot directly defend Ukraine as Ukraine was not able to become a NATO member state before Russia invaded its territory.

Sometimes rules and law provide security and stability in the world. And sometimes, as we have seen in 2022, it permits conflict to burn on.

As we will discuss, the global rules-based order is fast changing in 2022. And as such, this underscores a need to re-set the international system.

But what can be done to stop people from being killed in this unprovoked war – a war that in many ways illustrates a wider war between democracies and authoritarians, as the world transitions toward a new bipolarity.

These are huge challenges that require sensible analysis.

Join Paul and Selwyn for this LIVE recording of this podcast while they consider these big issues, and remember any comments you make while live can be included in this programme.

You can comment on this debate by clicking on one of these social media channels and interacting in the social media’s comment area. Here are the links:

• Facebook.com/selwyn.manning
• Youtube
• Twitter.com/Selwyn_Manning

If you miss the LIVE Episode, you can see it as video-on-demand, and earlier episodes too, by checking out EveningReport.nz or, subscribe to the Evening Report podcast here.

The MIL Network’s podcast A View from Afar was Nominated as a Top  Defence Security Podcast by Threat.Technology – a London-based cyber security news publication.

Threat.Technology placed A View from Afar at 9th in its 20 Best Defence Security Podcasts of 2021 category. You can follow A View from Afar via our affiliate syndicators.

by Dr Bryce Edwards

It’s a very different Anzac Day this year. In recent years this remembrance day has been steadily transforming. Most notably, becoming more popular, with attendance at ceremonies up, and an apparently more interested population in general. Last year’s centenary also bolstered the importance of the day. But this year, due to the Christchurch terrorist attacks, it’s all changed again.

For the single best examination of how Anzac Day is transforming, it’s worth reading the Christchurch Press editorial, which explains some of the changes and calls for even more modernisation, to turn the day into a more liberal-progressive way of dealing with war and its victims – see: Anzac Day will never be the same.

The editorial explains that the form Anzac Day takes is always going to be a product of the politics of the time. And so, what has happened in Christchurch, and what’s occurring around the world – and in the Middle East, in particular – means that Anzac Day is changing. Essentially, it’s becoming more political, and New Zealand society is using the day to reflect on global conflict.

It concludes with the hope that those attending remembrance ceremonies today might think of victims of conflicts beyond the traditionally recognised ones: “it would be nice to imagine that they will be thinking about more than the thousands of Australians and New Zealanders who died over a century ago. Instead, they might also turn their minds to the many who have been killed in the decades since, sometimes very recently and very close to home.”

The growth and modernisation of Anzac Day is such that according to John Tamihere it has become more nationally important to New Zealanders than Waitangi Day – see: Of all our days Anzac Day is our real national day.

Tamihere sees the day as one of both diversity and unification: “The beauty about our Anzac Day is the way in which, regardless of the conflict, we can all stand together and own the memory of whānau who gave their lives selflessly in order to defend who and what we are today. It matters not if some stand there to remember ancestors who gave their lives in the New Zealand Land Wars, the Boer War, World War I or World War II, or indeed even newcomers to New Zealand — now New Zealand citizens — whose ancestors gave their lives for their lands fighting on opposite sides. The beauty about Anzac Day is it allows us to embrace as a nation all of these hurts and sufferings.”

However there seems to be a heightened awareness this year that war commemorations can sometimes spill into patriotism and nationalism, which is a bitter irony, given that the invasion of Gallipoli and World War I strongly represents the folly of such emotions and ideologies.

This point is well made by Glenn McConnell today in a column in which he says Gallipoli should be “a reminder governments can so easily disregard human lives” utilising their “propaganda machine” to foster nationalism and falsehoods – see: Anzac Day should be a time of reflection, not celebration or patriotism.

McConnell reflects on last year’s centenary, saying “As we commemorated a century since the war, many people conflated our coming together at ceremonies with national pride and cohesion.” The major problem, he argues, is that although we are commemorating the tragic invasion of a Muslim land, today the “one group that is not readily welcomed into this collective commemoration is the Muslim community.”

He’s referring in particular to the decision of RSAs not to include Muslim prayers in their services today. Here’s his wider point about this: “When our leaders stand at memorials to preach about our unity, remember that they are not giving us the full picture. We are not ‘one’. We are not yet united. People repeat those comforting myths to lull themselves into a false security. The ‘one’ which they speak of is a Pākehā assimilated ‘one’. It is one Christian god. It is the one group which wells up with national pride on Anzac Day. New Zealand, we have a lot to be proud of. But we shouldn’t be proud of everything We shouldn’t be proud that we’ve let a great opportunity to unite slip. We shouldn’t be proud that for more than a century and counting, we treat our Muslim friends more like enemies.”

Similarly, a Press editorial today disagrees with the exclusion of Muslim prayers: “The obvious subtext, that Anzac Day commemorations are only about Anzacs, and are somehow Christian, is interesting and flawed” – see: Commemorating Anzac Day in a ‘different’ country. Instead of exacerbating division, what the remembrance of war “should turn our minds to, even as we commemorate those of our number who made the ultimate sacrifice, is reconciliation and peace.”

Today’s Otago Daily Times editorial also carries this message of inclusion and tolerance, saying we need to be “employing kindness, respect and tolerance in the present” when dealing with past wars, and that Anzac Day “is not a day of exclusivity, intolerance or rigidity. That is not what this country stands for and is not what it has fought for” – see: Honouring our past, present and future.

In terms of the decision not to include Muslim prayers in the ceremonies, the paper reflects on New Zealand’s relationship with Islam and Turkey: “But Islam has never been the enemy of New Zealand. We have always strived to be an open and tolerant country. We have had Muslim members of our armed forces and we have fought alongside Muslim soldiers from other nations. We celebrate Anzac Day on the date our own soldiers stormed the beaches of Turkey, attacking and killing Turkish soldiers – many of them Muslim. No Muslim army has stormed our own shores. Nor does Turkey forbid us from remembering our fallen in their own country, year after year. Germans, Italians, Japanese and others we have fought also deserve our respect and empathy. We can honour our own soldiers while also empathising with the suffering experienced by our then-enemies.”

Of course, as with all “national days” there’s a strong element of “state building” and mythology. According to James Robins, at this time each year, “folklore and tradition overtake fact, and much of the nation seems to embrace a soft-lit consensus, or worse, outright delusion. The repetition of half-truths, misremembered legends, and popular fictions is elevated to high art”. He believes that the so-called “Special Relationship” between New Zealand, Australia and Turkey is rather overplayed –  see: The repetition of Anzac half-truths.

The biggest falsehood of Anzac Day, according to Robins, is the whitewashing of the genocide that occurred at the same time as the invasion of Gallipoli, which was intrinsically linked – see his article in the Guardian: Anzacs witnessed the Armenian genocide – that shouldn’t be forgotten in our mythologising.

And back in New Zealand, the narrative around Anzac Day is strongly reinforced by two Peter Jackson-associated exhibitions in Wellington – Te Papa’s “Gallipoli: The Scale of Our War” and the old Dominion Museum’s “The Great War Exhibition”. But both of these are strongly critiqued by Massey University’s Nicholas Haig, who says they “nourish nationalistic and chauvinistic sentiment” – see: War remembrance: Acting out or working through?

On a lighter note, for another history lesson on how New Zealand has come to commemorate Anzac Day, see Bob Edlin’s Anzac Day – how local body leaders initiated a half-day holiday in NZ. In this, he looks back at what led to the national half-day holiday, noting “We have been checking the files and find a story akin to rival trans-Tasman claims about Phar Lap and pavlova cake.”

Controversy over cancellations and security

The various cancellations and increased security this year has also made today rather strange, with a lot of debate about whether authorities are doing the right thing. In Auckland, two-thirds of Anzac Day services were cancelled, and one was cancelled in Christchurch.

The New Zealand Herald is very unconvinced about the need for the cancellations, saying “Unless they know of a threat to Anzac Day, the police should let New Zealand honour its fallen as usual without fear” – see the editorial, Anzac Day is no time to give in to terror.

The newspaper argues that “Terrorism succeeds when a community is afraid to go about its normal life”, and “it becomes hard to deny the shooter in Christchurch has achieved a part of his destructive purpose. The police ought not to be giving him this satisfaction without good reason.”

This is also the view of John Tamihere: “Anzac Day celebrations are about honouring those lost in conflict and NOT the pointless ugly acts conducted in Christchurch. We cannot surrender what we are, who we are or where we are after this alleged lone ranger attack, or any other single act. But it feels to me, somewhere, someone has surrendered our identity as Kiwis.”

Former politician and soldier, Heather Roy also says she’s offended by the cancellations, saying they are a blow to the freedom that New Zealand soldiers have died for: “Thanks to their sacrifices we live in a free society. We’re free to go where we please, free to gather with others, enjoy freedom of speech and freedom of association. Yet this ANZAC Day the Police have told us we’re not free to gather with our local communities because they can’t protect us. They blame the government imposed heightened security threat” – see: Resist Anzac Day Restrictions. Attend and March.

They’re not the only ones dissatisfied. 1News reports that the backlash has been strong against the cancellations, with RSA leaders being blamed – see: RSA president called ‘coward’ and ‘disgrace’ following Anzac cancellations in Auckland.

There’s some dispute, however, over who actually made the cancellation decisions, with Police Minister Stuart Nash stating clearly that it was an RSA decision, causing some RSA officials to push back strongly. One official went on record to explain what he was told by Police: “The first thing we were told was you will have no parades and no marches anywhere, and after a bit of discussion on that we were then told you will have one civic parade and you will have one dawn parade… No arguments… it was an order, we were directed, it wasn’t would you please, it was you will have” – see Kim Baker Wilson’s RSA and police in standoff over who is responsible for cancelled Anzac Day events.

But for the best discussion of security arrangements for today, see the Herald’s Kiwi troops not designed for Anzac Day crowd control, police say they have the resources.

Finally, although the dawn services are already over today, there’s plenty of memorial coverage, war films and documentaries to watch on TV – see Fiona Rae’s What to watch on TV this Anzac Day. And if you want to make a stand for peace, there are also lots of anti-war events around the country – see: Anzac Day peace vigils and picnics.

The gloomy portrait of the Middle East today should not obscure that peace is achievable. The basic premise for any such peace must be to preserve the territorial integrity of states. This means countering all forces that exist only to pursue their dystopias at the expense of others and with the help of outsiders, including Daesh and PKK/YPG terrorists. Their vision of endless bloodshed must be countered and defeated.

Daesh has largely been militarily defeated, but that’s not only because groups trained and armed by the United States dealt it a final blow. They were defeated due to the dedicated work of the Iraqi Army and a global coalition operating from Turkey. The weaknesses of Daesh were most clearly exposed after Turkey became the only NATO army to directly engage — and unsurprisingly crush — it in Jarablus in northern Syria. A prospective regrouping of Daesh is now being prevented by the dedicated work of a coalition that includes Turkey, which maintains the largest no-entry list of foreign terrorist fighters and runs the world’s biggest civilian anti-Daesh security operation.

The appeal of the ideology of Daesh, al Qaeda, and other affiliates will not easily go away. Terrorist acts on our streets were carried out before Daesh and would continue independently of its armed operations in the Middle East. The fight against terrorism must continue with full vigor but with greater emphasis on timely intelligence gathering, financial measures, and anti-recruitment and radicalization measures.

A point of discord with the United States is its policy of arming the PKK/YPG to act as foot soldiers, even as they have a history of terrorism. This is a legally and morally questionable policy that was prepared by the Obama administration in its waning days and somehow crept into the Trump administration. The United States has played into the hands of all its critics and opponents by deciding to form an alliance with terrorists despite its own values and its 66-year-old alliance with one of their primary targets, Turkey.

I have been pleased to see many NATO allies distance themselves from this U.S. policy, which flies in the face of our alliance’s values. It also runs against our common interests in the region and beyond. I hope that my designated counterpart, incoming Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, and National Security Advisor John Bolton would see it a priority to correct the course.

Iraq, Syria, Yemen, Libya, and other countries in the Middle East face destructive pressure from transnational forces that threaten their survival. Their difficulties in turn provide an excuse and opportunity for all sorts of interventions by all sorts of countries and nonstate actors. The result isn’t just a blood bath but massive migration and terrorist pressure against Turkey and the rest of Europe, which is at its doorstep. Their chaos also acts as an incubator of hatreds and threats against the United States. Resilient nation-states must form the basis of any order and stability in the Middle East. The vision of Bashar al-Assad will eventually lose, but a united Syria must ultimately win the long war.

Turkey’s Operation Olive Branch, which has involved a military incursion into Syria, is above all an act of self-defense against a build-up of terrorists who have already proved aggressive against our population centers. As host to 3.5 million Syrians, Turkey also intends Olive Branch to clear roadblocks to peace in Syria posed by opponents of the country’s unitary future. The massive PKK/YPG terrorist encampments across our borders served a double purpose. One was to open a supplementary front for PKK terrorist operations, in addition to the one in northern Iraq and unite them to form a continuous terrorist belt. The weapons and military infrastructure we have seized in Afrin decisively prove this assessment. The second purpose of the terrorists’ encampments was to form territorial beach-heads for their own statelet to be built upon the carcasses of Syria and Iraq on the areas vacated by Daesh. Olive Branch stops the descent into a broader war and soaring terrorism that would engulf Europe and the United States. Instead, it opens an artery toward peace.

I know that in the age of post-truth there is a broad campaign to cast shadows over Olive Branch. Not a day passes without us encountering calumnies. The truth is that we have taken utmost care to avoid civilian casualties and this has become one of the most successful operations the world has seen anywhere anytime in that regard.

It has been alleged that our operation impedes the fight against Daesh because the YPG terrorists are now focused on resisting the Turkish military’s advances. I think that this choice by the YPG demonstrates the folly of any strategy that involved relying on the group in the first place. But, rest assured, Turkey will not allow Daesh to regroup one way or the other and shall work with the United States to that effect.

We should also resist any framing that portrays Olive Branch as a fight of Kurds against the Turks. It should be obvious that the PKK and YPG terrorists do not represent the Kurds. The YPG has expelled some 400,000 Kurds from the territory it seized in Syria. Turkey wants all Kurds to live in peace and prosperity in all the countries they straddle. The PKK’s micronationalism and terrorism are a disservice to everyone including the Kurds.

An equally important point is to find a way to put the Middle East on the path of development. Central to this vision must be a peaceful, stable, prosperous Iraq thriving under its current constitutional order. In February, the international community made a start at a donors’ conference in Kuwait, pledging $30 billion to Iraq, one-sixth of which was provided by Turkey alone. But Iraq needs much more in aid; I call on all my counterparts, in recognition of the benefits of a healthy and friendly Iraq, to help fund a major reconstruction effort. It would be no less instrumental in building peace than the Marshall Plan was for Europe.

The Middle East must be kept safe from the threat of sectarianism, spheres of influence, resurgent imperialisms, royal family feuds, and extremism of all sorts, religious and otherwise. The states and peoples of the region — and those affected by it — have suffered enough. A road map toward such a successful future may already be emerging, with Turkey’s resolute leadership. I hope the United States chooses to seize the moment and support that vision of peace.

There’s an overlooked aspect of the New Zealand Defence Force’s account of Operation Burnham that when scrutinised suggests a possible breach of international humanitarian law and laws relating to war and armed conflict occurred on August 22, 2010 in the Tirgiran Valley, Baghlan province, Afghanistan.

According to New Zealand Defence Force’s official statements Operation Burnham ‘aimed to detain Taliban insurgent leaders who were threatening the security and stability of Bamyan Province and to disrupt their operational network’. (ref. NZDF rebuttal) We are to understand Operation Burnham’s objective was to identify, capture, or kill (should this be justified under NZDF rules of engagement), those insurgents who were named on a Joint Prioritized Effects List (JPEL) that NZDF intelligence suggested were responsible for the death of NZDF soldier Lieutenant Tim O’Donnell.

When delivering NZDF’s official account of Operation Burnham before media, Lieutenant General Tim Keating said:

“After the attack on the New Zealand Provincial Reconstruction Team (NZPRT), which killed Lieutenant Tim O’Donnell, the NZPRT operating in Bamyan Province did everything it could to reduce the target profile of our people operating up the Shakera Valley and into the north-east of Bamyan Province. “We adjusted our routine, reduced movements to an absolute minimum, maximised night driving, and minimised time on site in threat areas. “The one thing the PRT [NZPRT] couldn’t do was to have an effect on the individuals that attacked Lieutenant O’Donnell’s patrol. For the first time, the insurgents had a major success — and they were well positioned to do so again.”

For the purpose of a counter-strike, intelligence was sought and Lt. General Keating said: “We knew in a matter of days from local and International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) intelligence who had attacked our patrol [where and when Lt. O’Donnell was killed].” The intelligence specified the villages where the alleged insurgents were suspected of coming from and Lt. General Keating said: “This group had previously attacked Afghan Security Forces and elements of the German and Hungarian PRTs.” The New Zealand Government authorised permission for the Kabul-based NZSAS troops to be used in Operation Burnham. “What followed was 14 days of reliable and corroborated intelligence collection that provided confirmation and justification for subsequent actions. Based on the intelligence, deliberate and detailed planning was conducted,” Lt. General Keating said. Revenge, Keating said, was never a motivation. Rather, according to him, the concern was for the security of New Zealand’s reconstruction and security efforts in Bamyan province. As stated above, Operation Burnham’s primary objective was to identify, capture or kill Taliban insurgent leaders named in the intelligence data. We know, from the New Zealand Defence Force’s own account, Operation Burnham failed to achieve that goal.

Analysis of the NZDF Official Account The official account of events that occurred in the early hours of August 22, 2010, describe how Taliban insurgents, realising coalition forces were preparing to raid the area (marked as ‘Operation Burnham Area of Operation’ in a map (slide 3) declasified and released to media on March 27, 2017), formed a tactical maneuver using civilians (women, children and elderly) as a human shield.

Despite the official account placing this group within a building, within a small hamlet, within the area of operation, within Tirgiran Valley, there is no clear definitive official account yet given of what happened to either the civilians or the insurgents.

This appears to be an obvious void in the official record, but one that has failed so far to be scrutinised.

To follow the logic of Lt. General Tim Keating’s account (detailed below), is to discover our defence personnel, who were in charge of the ground and air operation during Operation Burnham, failed to identify what had become of those civilians (women, children, and the elderly), and also importantly the suspected insurgents who Lt. General Keating said during his briefing used the villagers as a human shield.

We know from the Chief of Defence Force’s notes as provided on March 27, 2017, that as Operation Burnham began, NZDF was in command of United States manned aircraft (including helicopters and possibly a AC-130). The aircraft were swarming above the Tirgiran Valley.

From the NZDF account an NZDF joint terminal air controller was in charge of the air attack against those NZDF had defined as insurgents. Lt. General Keating stated the alleged insurgents were armed and a NZDF commander authorised the US manned aircraft to commence firing.

Weapons-fire then began to rain down on the valley from above. Meanwhile NZSAS ground force soldiers prepared to secure their positions and to defend themselves against any potential enemy counter-attack.

Lt. General Keating stated the insurgents responded: “The insurgents, the guerrilla force, the tactic is mixed in with the civilian population, if you like, the term used is a human shield. So they use civilians as a shield.”

He added: “What occurred, is a helicopter was engaging a group of insurgents outside the village, on the outskirts of the village. During that engagement, it was noted by the ground forces there – the SAS ground forces – that some of the rounds [from the US manned aircraft] were falling short, and went into a building where it was believed there were civilians as well as armed insurgents.”

To be clear, from this account, Lt. General Keating stated a group of insurgents were being tracked, targeted, and fired upon by the US manned aircraft and under the command of a New Zealand Defence Force terminal air controller. Meanwhile, according to the NZDF record, one of the airborne helicopter’s weapon’s sights were not calibrated correctly, and, according to Lt. General Keating, 30mm projectiles went into a building where it was believed there were civilians as well as armed insurgents – remember these 30mm projectiles are capable of penetrating the side of a tank.

For accuracy, Lt. General Keating restated his account: “It is noted, the building, there were armed insurgents in there, but it is believed that there may have been civilians in the building.”

He then added: “There’s no confirmation that any casualties occurred, but there may have been.” He restated again: “There were civilians in that building.” Now, this is where the Chief of Defence Force’s account fails to further explain what occurred after that point. To summarise, the official position of the New Zealand Defence Force is:

• There were civilians in a building within the village that was fired upon by an armor piercing aircraft weapon
• That it was believed insurgents were also in that building
• That civilian casualties or deaths “may have been” or occurred inside the building.

At this juncture, we must consider whether the New Zealand Defence Force ground commanders had a responsibility to determine whether there were Taliban insurgents in the building?

And if so, whether they were the individuals listed on the JPEL list, those deemed responsible for the death of Lieutenant Tim O’Donnell?

And what of the ground commanders’ legal requirements, the duty of care with respect to civilians, were NZDF commanders on the ground or back in Kabul compelled by law to confirm the status of the civilians, whether they were injured or killed?

When asked by a journalist at the March 27, 2017 press conference: ‘If there may have been civilian casualties, why not have an inquiry to find out?’ Lt. General Keating replied: “Even if there was, as far as the New Zealand Defence Force has heard, the coalition investigation has, um, said that uh, if there were casualties, the fault of those casualties was a mechanical failure of a piece of equipment.” This reply does not appear to consider the legal requirements under:

• Second Protocol to the Geneva Convention Relating to the Protection of Victims of Non-International Armed Conflicts, Article 7: the obligation to provide medical assistance to all wounded, whether or not they have taken part in the armed conflict
• Second Protocol to the Geneva Convention Relating to the Protection of Victims of Non-International Armed Conflicts, Article 8: the obligation to search for and collect the wounded and to ensure their adequate care
• Second Protocol to the Geneva Convention Relating to the Protection of Victims of Non-International Armed Conflicts, Article 13: the obligation to protect the civilian population against dangers arising from military operations
• Armed Forces Discipline Act 1971, section 102. This section provides that the commanding officer of a person alleged to have committed an offence under that Act must initiate proceedings in the form of a charge or refer the allegation to civil authorities, unless the commanding officer considers the allegation is not well-founded. While little legal guidance is provided, it cannot be accepted that preliminary inquiries to determine whether an allegation is well-founded can be considered adequate where they fail to obtain evidence from the injured parties, determine their identities or even verify that they exist
• Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court, Article 28
• The NZDF Manual of Armed Forces Law provides that there are three types of inquiry in the NZDF: a preliminary inquiry, a court of inquiry and a command investigation. (It appears however the ISAF investigation cited by the Chief of Defence Force was not any of the above forms of inquiry).

Specifically, if you analyse Lt. General Keating’s account, the New Zealand Defence Force commanders failed to identify whether any insurgents were inside the building and whether there were dead or wounded civilians. Why was this the case? It seems reasonable to suggest, this is an abandonment of logic. It does not make sense.

We know from official NZDF documents the soldiers arrived at the scene of Operation Burnham at 0030 hours on August 22, 2010 and left at 0345 hours, that’s the official record. To clarify, the NZSAS commandos were in the area of operation for 3 hours 15 minutes.

Lt. General Keating stated, near the conclusion of the raid: “The ground force commander chose at that time that there was no longer a threat and they were leaving.”

How could that rationally be the case unless the suspected insurgents inside that building had been checked?

Was it not suspected that there were insurgents in that building? Surely the ground force commanders would be compelled to seek and identify the inhabitants of that building to see if they matched the names/descriptions on the JPEL list?

After all, the manhunt for Taliban leadership was the purpose of the raid that night. Also, logic would suggest, the people inside the building were in part civilians including women and probably children – by Lt. Keating’s account the group likely included wounded civilians and probably a dead child.

Also, it is reasonable to suggest, considering the events over those 3 hours 15 minutes, the survivors would have been crying, weeping, even howling, and the wounded would likely have been in agony.

It defies belief that the ground force commanders, and their counterparts back in Kabul, were not aware of this building, that the NZDF account states was housing suspected Taliban, and included a group of civilian victims that had been used as a human shield.

The entire area of operation specific to Operation Burnham is a skewed rectangle approximately 500 metres wide by 1 kilometre long, with an intensified operation plan focusing on two small hamlets, each approximately 50×200 metres in area [based on the scale measures of the NZDF map] – named Objective 1 and Objective 2 in the NZDF released material.

To state it simply, the official silence surrounding the above-mentioned building, and the fate of the people inside, speaks volumes. It leaves one to consider at worst whether a crime was committed by New Zealand Defence Force commanders that night – whether by failing in their duty to care for the injured they were in breach of Articles 8, 9 and 13 of the Second Protocol to the Geneva Conventions.

ADDITIONAL NOTE:
• The Statute of the International Criminal Court defines war crimes as, inter alia, “serious violations of the laws and customs applicable in international armed conflict” and “serious violations of the laws and customs applicable in an armed conflict not of an international character”. (Ref. IHL Definition of war crimes, page 1 (pdf) – ICC Statute, Article 8 (cited in Vol. II, Ch. 44, § 3))
• ‘The Statute defines as within the scope of the law, the “launching an attack without attempting to aim properly at a military target or in such a manner as to hit civilians without any thought or care as to the likely extent of death or injury amounts to an indiscriminate attack”.
• War crimes can consist of acts or omissions. Examples of the latter include failure to provide a fair trial and failure to provide food or necessary medical care to persons in the power of the adversary.’

At best, if NZDF’s official account is to be relied upon, we are to believe the NZSAS ground commanders failed to ensure the Taliban insurgents they sought were not holed up in a building that had sustained damage from coalition force aircraft. If this assumption is incorrect, at what point had the suspected insurgents left the building?

And what had become of the civilians that had been allegedly used as a human shield? Again, the vacuum of information specific to this aspect of the official account needs to be explained, including an explanation as to why NZDF’s account remains vague after six years since Operation Burnham was conducted.

It appears reasonable to assert that this single issue, notwithstanding the irregularities of official NZDF stated ‘facts’, warrants further official and independent investigation. As it is, at this juncture, we are left to consider a series of unanswered questions that to date the New Zealand Chief of Defence Force has failed to satisfy. Here are some of them. Key Unanswered Questions:

• What were the specific definitions of an insurgent that were used by NZDF for the purposes of evaluation during Operation Burnham and for the purpose of post-operation official analysis? For example; was it deemed that anyone who was male and of a fighting age was defined to be an insurgent?
• Were NZDF soldiers fired upon by individuals (villagers or insurgents) located within the confines of the villages or surrounding area during Operation Burnham?
• Was the individual who was killed by a NZSAS soldier or NZDF personnel carrying a weapon at the time of this shooting? If so, had he fired or attempted to fire his weapon in an attempt to kill or wound NZDF personnel?
• How long in minutes were the coalition forces’ helicopters, and any other airborne craft, firing their weapons on the villages and surrounding region during Operation Burnham?
• How long in minutes were NZSAS soldiers involved in securing the operational area from real or potential insurgent attack?
• Did NZDF personnel at anytime seek to identify individuals (and their status, injured, killed, or otherwise) who were located inside or near the building that Lt. General Keating said had suffered damage from an alleged mis-aimed firing from an airborne coalition aircraft?
• Were those who were injured or killed within sight of NZDF personnel before, during, and/or after the alleged mis-aimed firing?
• How many individuals did the NZDF personnel suspect were inside the building?
• How many of these people did the NZDF personnel suspect were civilians?
• How many were suspected of being women?
• How many were suspected of being children?
• Lt. General Keating suggested that one of the individuals that may have been killed during Operation Burnham was a six year-old child. What was the gender of this child?
• Was their any attempt to identify this six year-old victim?
• Was this child Fatima, the three year-old child identified in the Hit & Run [ISBN 978 0 947503 39 0] book? If not, then who was this child?
• What actions did NZDF personnel do to exercise their duty of care obligations to the injured and to civilians?
• What reports, cautions, evaluations were written and/or submitted regarding Operation Burnham to NZDF by the NZDF legal officer who was on the ground during Operation Burnham?

The Twisting Turning Official Account – Is This Smoke and Mirrors? As a consequence of the Hit & Run book [ISBN 978 0 947503 39 0] being published, New Zealand Defence Force’s top ranking soldier, Lt. General Tim Keating admitted civilians “may have been” killed during the operation.

Up until March 27, 2017, for the past six years, New Zealand Defence Force has insisted that no civilians were killed during Operation Burnham on August 22, 2010.

But on Monday, under questioning from the media, at the March 27 press conference, Lt. General Keating stated that the NZDF’s new “official line” regarding civilian deaths was “there may have been”. He then attempted to suggest that NZDF’s previously stated position – that claims of civilian deaths were “unfounded” – was basically the same thing. “I’m not going to get cute here and say it’s a twist on words, it’s the same thing, ‘unfounded’, ‘there may have been’. The official line is that there may have been casualties,” Lt. General Keating said.

A journalist then challenged him further suggesting: “They’re different things, one means they didn’t happen and one mean might’ve done.”

Lt. General Keating then replied: “You’re right…the, the, the official line is that civilian casualties may have occurred, but not corroborated.”

When asked how many insurgents were killed, Lt. General Keating replied: “A significant number of insurgents, identified insurgents, were killed during Operation Burnham.”

When asked again how many were killed, Lt. General Keating stated: “Nine.” When asked if NZDF had the names of the insurgents that were killed, he replied: “No, we do not have names of insurgents.”

This trajectory, inching toward a truth, occurred under tight questioning by a journalist, over just a few minutes.

What further truths will become relevant to understanding what occurred that night in Khak Khuday Dad and Naik villages should a commission of inquiry be established?

The Inconsistencies – A Summary

In evaluation, it is reasonable to assert the official Government inconsistencies observed along a six-year timeline offer the appearance of a military hierarchy that has being dragged, by degrees, (mainly by the work of Jon Stephenson, an investigative journalist specialising in war and conflict reportage) into an arena where the floodlight of public interest ought to shed light on secrets long since filed into a dark place.

However, considering the above, rather than responding openly to the challenge of meeting its responsibilities to the New Zealand Minister of Defence and public, the New Zealand Defence Force appears resistant to its obligations toward open and accurate disclosure of non-classified fact.

In conclusion, if this is true, this conduct exhibited by the officials of New Zealand Defence Force and its Chief Lt. General Tim Keating is hardly a defining benchmark of ‘exemplary’ standards.

Actually, the admissions of relevant information, that is forthcoming only when lanced from the New Zealand Defence Force under questioning, offers the impression of a smoke and mirrors operation – it may appear churlish to suggest, but perhaps the post-Operation Burnham aftermath ought to be referred to as Operation Desert Road (bleak, cold, inhospitable, proceed with caution).

The public deserves to know the whole truth, not spin or part-truths – both the public interest and the national interest depends on it.

By the New Zealand Defence Force’s own account, it appears reasonable to suggest that the commanders overseeing Operation Burnham had legal obligations to civilians; that they were potentially negligent when considered against their stated rules of engagement, rules of conduct, obligations to international human rights law and international humanitarian law – negligent of their obligations to laws covering war and armed conflict, notwithstanding their obligations as representatives of the people and Government of New Zealand to observe the Bill of Rights Act.

It is also reasonable to suggest; there are significant established facts as mentioned above, as put by the New Zealand Defence Force, that require an official investigative response from the New Zealand Government.

It is also reasonable to insist that the matter of an absence of consistent fact emitting from the New Zealand Defence Force upon which a reliable opinion can be draw, adds weight to the burden on the Government to establish an inquiry into this matter.

If the New Zealand Prime Minister Bill English elects not to act then it will likely become a matter of political leadership or lack thereof.

If Bill English does not care to act on his office’s public interest obligations, then, it is reasonable to suggest he consider the empirical facts underlying this matter and the impact the matter has on New Zealand’s national interest. Should he fail to do so, this matter potentially could be argued before the International Criminal Court.

“It seems to me,” Lt. General Tim Keating stressed, “that one of the fundamentals, a start point if you like, of any investigation into a crime is to tie the alleged perpetrators of a crime to the scene. Then we would examine the motive and means, and other scene evidence.” – Lieutenant General Tim Keating, March 27, 2017.

On Monday, March 27, 2017 both the Prime Minister Bill English and the Chief of New Zealand Defence Force Lieutenant General Tim Keating countered details revealed in the book Hit & Run and argued facts stated in the work could not be relied upon because the authors ‘incorrectly’ alleged Operation Burnham took place in Khak Khuday Dad Village and Naik Village deep in the mountainous Baghlan province of Afghanistan – two locations the Defence Force chief insisted his soldiers had never been to. Lt. General Keating asserted that the New Zealand Defence Force had never been to the two villages (Khak Khuday Dad and Naik) and insisted Operation Burnham took place 2.2 kilometres to the south of where the authors Nicky Hager and Jon Stephenson had marked the location of the villages (specifically on a map published in the book Hit & Run).

Lt. General Keating said: “As you will note from the book, the authors have been precise in locating these villages with geo reference points — so I have no doubt they are very accurate in the villages they are taking their allegations from.

“The villages lie in the Tirgiran Valley some 2 kilometres north from Tirgiran Village. In straight distance this is like comparing the distance from Te Papa to Wellington Hospital. However, if you overlay the elevated terrain, you will see we are talking about two very separated, distinct settlements,” Lt. General Keating said.

Beyond the obvious, it was a staggering claim, especially for those aware the New Zealand Defence Force had insisted one week prior, that its official position remained the same as stated in a media release dated April 20, 2011 that: “On 22 August 2010 New Zealand Defence Force (NZDF) elements, operating as part of a Coalition Force in Bamyan province, Afghanistan conducted an operation against an insurgent group.”

NZDF’s earlier position asserted New Zealand soldiers had not been in Baghlan province on or near August 22, 2010 the night of Operation Burnham. Now, the chief of New Zealand’s armed forces was admitting that they had.

At the press conference on Monday March 27, 2017 the Chief of New Zealand Defence Force prepared to stake his claim that the book could not be relied on as a factual reference.Before around 30 journalists, Lt. General Tim Keating pointed to four relevant bullet-points underlying key claims of fact in the book:

• Helicopter landing sites
• Location of houses that were destroyed
• Locations of where civilians were allegedly killed
• Presumed location of an SAS Sniper with evidence presented of SAS ammunition and water bottles which were found at the site.

A relationship was drawn between the Sniper location and the alleged killing of the individual Islamuddin, the School teacher. He acknowledged that the book contained a detailed list of those alleged to have been killed or wounded during a military operation in Khak Khuday Dad and Naik villages and a detailed list of the houses destroyed at the two locations.

Lt. General Keating then drove his point home that: “The underlying premise of the book is that New Zealand’s SAS soldiers conducted an operation on Khak Khuday Dad Village and Naik Village…” “It seems to me,” he stressed, “that one of the fundamentals, a start point if you like, of any investigation into a crime is to tie the alleged perpetrators of a crime to the scene. Then we would examine the motive and means, and other scene evidence.”

Lt. General Keating pivoted. “Let me now talk about the ISAF Operation Burnham in Tirgiran Village.” The premise of the Chief of Defence Force’s position was; the book Hit & Run described events that may or may not have occurred in Khak Khuday Dad and Naik villages, but that these alleged events had nothing to do with New Zealand Defence Force soldiers as they had never been to the two locations as marked in the book.

Likewise, the Prime Minister, Bill English, said the book got it wrong, that the New Zealand Defence Force had never been to either Khak Khuday Dad Village and Naik Village.

The Prime Minister added: “We believe in the integrity of the Defence Force more than a book that picks the wrong villages.”

For some, it appeared the raid that night as described by the authors could have been committed by another force. For others, it seemed the authors had got a major fact wrong so therefore the remaining claims in the book were moot.

By mid-Wednesday morning, the Government and the public found out there was more to it, that the Chief of New Zealand Defence Force was also wrong with regard to his geography.

Unpicking the official line began in earnest late on Tuesday night (March 28, 2017) when the lawyers representing the alleged victims of Operation Burnham contacted their clients back in Afghanistan. The purpose of the contact was to identify the exact location of Khak Khuday Dad Village and Naik Village; to confirm or otherwise disprove the existence of ‘Tirgiran Village’ (the NZDF stated official location of Operation Burnham), and to identify and confirm what village or villages are located at the exact co-ordinates as provided by Lt. General Tim Keating in his briefing to New Zealand media.

The lawyers’ clients, represented by a doctor from the region, stated categorically that ‘Tirgiran Village’ (as stated by Lt. General Keating) does not exist. That the region is known as Tirgiran Valley.

The lawyers evaluated from the new information, that to refer to the location of Operation Burnham as Tirgiran Village is like insisting an operation had occurred in Otago City (obviously Otago is a region and a city of that name does not exist, and as such would fail to offer an exact point of reference on a map).

Importantly, the lawyers confirmed, New Zealand Defence Force’ co-ordinates of where Operation Burnham took place were correct – but that the location was not as the NZDF had stated as ‘Tirgiran Village’ (an incorrect reference to a village that does not exist) but rather marks the geo-locations of where Khak Khuday Dad Village and Naik Village are located.

Specifically, the villagers confirmed the red-rectangle as marked on the NZDF map provided by the Lt. General on Monday March 27, and referred to as the area specific to Operation Burnham, frames the exact positions of where Khak Khuday Dad and Naik villages are located. So simply, the book contained a map that placed Khak Khuday Dad and Naik 2.2 kilometres north of there specific real locations.

And, the NZDF got it wrong by stating that those two villages were located where the book suggested, and that the village at the centre of Operation Burnham was a different village called Tirgiran Village (again, a place-name that does not exist).

So it turns out, according to those that live in the Tirgiran Valley, the Chief of Defence Force’s statement is incorrect or false; that when NZDF stated as a categorical fact that the New Zealand SAS commandos had never been to Khak Khuday Dad Village nor Naik Village, that that information was false.

At this point politically, it’s inescapable that the Prime Minister’s stated position ought to have taken a hit.

Remember back to the Prime Minister’s statement to media on Monday March 27, 2017 where he pitched his rationale: “We believe in the integrity of the Defence Force more than a book that picks the wrong villages.”

Surely, the same measure that was applied to the authors of Hit & Run now ought to be applied in equal measure to the New Zealand Defence Force chief and his officials.

After all, they also got their geography wrong. Since then, there has been stated unease about the whole issue by Internal Affairs Minister Peter Dunne (the minister who would have to sign off and authorise the costs of an inquiry should the Prime Minister order an inquiry be established).

By Thursday March 30, 2017 Dunne, through media, called for an inquiry into the whole affair. (ref. Stuff.co.nz ) Also on Thursday, the Minister of Defence at the time of the raid, Dr Wayne Mapp, wrote of his unease about Operation Burnham in a piece published on the Pundit website. (ref. Pundit ) Dr Mapp argued that the Government’s position, and that of the New Zealand Defence Force, cannot be the end of it. “Part of protecting their [the SAS’] reputation is also finding out what happened, particularly if there is an allegation that civilian casualties may have been accidentally caused. In that way we both honour the soldiers, and also demonstrate to the Afghans that we hold ourselves to the highest ideals of respect of life, even in circumstances of military conflict,” wrote Dr Mapp.

Common Statements Of Fact

The descriptions of Operation Burnham, in both the book, and, as stated by the New Zealand Defence Force, do mirror each account with precision on numerous vital points, including:

• The time of night Operation Burnham took place
• That New Zealand Defence Force was commanding and leading the operation (both on the ground and in the air)
• That the helicopters were manned by United States military personnel under New Zealand’s command
• That the purpose of the operation was to kill or capture those named as having been part of a Taliban insurgent raid that killed Lieutenant Tim O’Donnell
• That buildings were destroyed during the operation
• That people were killed at the villages.

However, anyone who has reasonably assessed the issue can see there is much more information to be revealed.

Conclusion: In concluding this analysis, it is an imperative that due to the highest levels of public and national interest concerning the alleged conduct, the seriousness of allegations, and the variables relating to the official account, that the matter be subjected to an independent commission of inquiry.