Soper says SAS inquiry waste of time

Barry Soper writes:

There was never any doubt that Labour was going to order an inquiry into what went on in Afghanistan almost eight years ago when the SAS was involved in a raid, along with American helicopter gunships, on two remote villages.

And there’s little doubt in what this inquiry, with two million bucks being thrown at it for starters, will come up with – the allied forces were under fire and responded.

So $2 million will be wasted on an inquiry. Half a dozen Ministers in both the last and current Government have viewed video footage of the raid.

He’s now seen video of the raid and says claims in the book Hit and Run, written by Nicky Hagar and Jon Stephenson, that they were defenceless villages he doesn’t accept, he thinks there were armed people present.

He doesn’t only think it, he obviously knows it having seen the video.

There were two descriptions of the villages under fire in the book.

The first said they “contained only a few farmers and mostly women, children and elderly people.”

The second said they were mainly occupied by “women, children and the elderly when the troop carrying helicopters and Apache gunships arrived.”

Both accounts fail to mention armed rebels in the villages, now acknowledged by Parker. 

A rather key detail.

So why have an inquiry?

The acknowledgement by Parker would seem to have sealed the fate of the book’s veracity.

It’s a waste of money and the claim by Parker that the controversy hasn’t died down is flimsy.

It didn’t die down because of Labour and Green politicians insisting an inquiry is needed.