Credibility dilemma for military
In the 1992 movie, A Few Good Men, Colonel Nathan Jessup, played by Oscar-nominated Jack Nicholson, is under intense pressure. Struggling against the cross-examination of Tom Cruise’s character, Jessup breaks, loudly exclaiming in court: ‘‘You can’t handle the truth.’’
Oblivious to the consequences, blinded by arrogance, he is unable to understand why his actions, in defence of ‘‘the blanket of the very freedom that I provide’’, may appear repugnant and legally wrong to others.
A Few Good Men is a fiction. But there is a similar courtroom drama, and possibly even a hint of that military arrogance, being played out for real in this country. And the truth is potentially unsettling.
It is doubtful many of the general public would have followed too closely the ongoing inquiry into Operation Burnham, a 2010 Sas-led raid in Afghanistan in which it is claimed civilians were killed. The NZ Defence Force has long held that such claims were baseless and there was no cover-up. It appears that New Zealanders, for the most part, have been willing to give our troops and their leaders the benefit of the doubt.
Until now. The revelation of evidence confirming possible civilian deaths would have shaken that faith.
But even more corrosive is the possibility that this evidence was placed in a safe, and left for a number of years, while Defence Force chiefs and even ministers stuck so stridently to the party line.
There are only two conclusions, both of them uncomfortable to handle: either the Defence Force placed that report in a safe because of the sensitivity of the information it contained, or it was so incompetent as to misplace a clearly important document.
Those of us who like to believe in the stability of our governance and the relative incorruptibility of its many offices and agencies will be hoping for the latter, but now it appears that all bets are off.
The existence of this potential ‘‘smoking gun’’ has raised the stakes considerably. Not only has the progress of this 18-month-long inquiry been undermined, but no matter what its eventual outcome, the Defence Force will not emerge unscathed. Certainly not in reputation, nor possibly in regulation.
Evidence of that pressure and possibly a touch of Jessup arrogance emerged this week when, under cross-examination, the former chief of defence Tim Keating responded multiple times that ‘‘I don’t understand the question’’, and ‘‘I’m not being cute here’’.
It is another inconvenient truth that this has been a bad week for the institutions of office we expect to trust. The Defence Force’s potential evasion follows a similar one from the prime minister. Her poor handling of the sexual assault complaints has damaged the notion of transparency she has so often trumpeted and, by association, her reputation and that of the Government she leads.
It could be that, in both cases, those in charge of these institutions felt the public wouldn’t be able to handle the truth. If so, that’s arrogant, wrong and not what we deserve.
It also highlights another possible reality: It is not we who are struggling with the truth but those we appoint to protect it.