The new movie "Spotlight" follows the work of an investigative unit working for the newspaper, The Boston Globe, which, under the direction of a new, out-of-town editor, conducts an investigation of the history of child abuse by priests within the archdiocese. What emerged was a pattern of institutionalized concealment that hid the extent of the problem not only in the Boston area but extending across the United States, including Anchorage and beyond to the world. The implication of the film is that the Vatican itself was involved. When the Globe finally breaks its story, Boston's cardinal is transferred to a cushy job in Rome. One can draw one's own conclusions about whether the unprecedented resignation of a pope might have had something to do with it.
One of the substories revealed the effect of news coverage in reporting on a complaint and then going on to other unrelated news without further investigation. Another substory revealed the complicity of practices in the legal system. A lawyer takes the complaint, filing a demand letter. The archdiocese quickly settles. No legal complaint is filed. The lawyer takes his third. On to the next. Confidentiality, meaning concealment of facts, is a part of the settlement.
The film neatly points to conclusions regarding the consequences of a church's bureaucracy-wide, internal management system of this type of complaint. But the underlying points, that appropriate investigative agencies can close their eyes and that the news system jumps from day to day, rarely with longer term or in-depth investigations, are worth considering in other contexts.
To suggest a case in point, on Oct. 3 a U.S. Air Force AC-130 gunship attacked a hospital in Kunduz, Afghanistan, openly operated by the international relief organization known as "Doctors Without Borders." Probably several hundred Alaskans, among others, have contributed to this worthy organization. "Openly operated" means that American military authorities were given all kinds of knowledge about the existence and location of this hospital and its governance. This institution was the only source of serious medical attention in northeast Afghanistan, providing treatment to tens of thousands of Afghans of all political stripes. Though Kunduz had its problems with the Taliban insurgency, (not an ISIS terrorist organization,) it did not fully occupy the town. An investigative team from NATO's "Civilian Casualty Assessment Team" was on site within five days to assess the extent of the damage, the deaths and how it might have happened.
Among other findings, it reported that the hospital staff had desperately contacted the military sources indicated as appropriate and that the attack continued for at least another half-hour. Thirty or 31 people were killed, of whom at least three were physicians and another dozen or so staff. Another 26 people were wounded.
CCAT, a military support organization, soon released its report. The operators of the AC-130 did not know they were attacking a hospital. The causes of the misbegotten raid were "human error, technological mistakes and other causes." An independent U.S. military investigation followed reaching basically the same generalized conclusions. Some mysterious reassignments are made, implied to be punishments. Neither the CCAT investigation nor the U.S. military investigation can properly be called independent.
Time passes and in particular a terrorist attack in Paris dominates the headlines for a week. More recently a domestic terrorist attack on a Planned Parenthood office in Colorado Springs adds an additional coat of sealer to the Kunduz event.
Maybe the Kunduz attack was a totally understandable and regrettable "human error." Any other interpretation leaves the situation open to description as a war crime under the Geneva Conventions. Maybe "other causes" are trivial and of no public interest. But maybe, as it was with Mai Lai, our Vietnam slaughter of women and children, there are institutional reasons to cover up. In the meantime, it is open to speculation whether some Taliban leader was a patient in the hospital and somebody's target. Maybe, considering the Afghan proclivity for deadly personal grudges, somebody fed our forces deadly information that was not vetted.
The circumstances called for an independent investigation, a restoration of medical services to northeast Afghanistan, restitution to the innocents harmed by "regrettable" human error. Let us hope that Doctors Without Borders, as they proceed with their thankless job, and we as citizens, do not let this one lie.
John Havelock ?is a former Alaska attorney general and retired UAA professor of Justice. He served in the U.S. Army as a military police investigator.
The views expressed here are the writer's own and are not necessarily endorsed by Alaska Dispatch News, which welcomes a broad range of viewpoints. To submit a piece for consideration, e-mail commentary@alaskadispatch.com