by Thomas Gatta
Kate had thought the Committee would work through the Pentagon’s Inspector General to uncover the truth about what Dark Heart had done. She knew some of her colleagues had gone to the IG to report excesses by Sean, his team, and other, similar, teams in Afghanistan. The IG had done nothing but tell SU management they had problems. Management had responded by finding out who had gone to the IG and silencing them. Kate had hoped her efforts would result in pressure from the Oversight Committee that would keep the IG from sweeping the matter of Sean’s conduct under the rug. She had expected that, with the Committee watching, the IG would have to investigate and then recommend at least an accountability board for Dark Heart and an examination of the culture that invited his actions.
Instead, the Committee staff had bypassed the IG and given Kate’s information about Dark Heart to the Justice Department, which had investigated and referred the matter to EDVA for prosecution. The Staffers had withheld her name from DOJ saying they’d received the information from a whistleblower and that they would reveal the whistleblower’s identity only if crucial to the investigation. So far the disclosure hadn’t happened, at least as far as Kate knew. Craddock also was taking elaborate precautions to avoid alerting her management that she had gone to the Oversight Committee. He never met with her in Committee space, never called or sent her e-mails at work, and deleted or covered her name in official correspondence and records. Craddock had even met her in his car outside the courthouse to discuss the trial and the Committee’s questions about what additional information she could provide regarding the case.
Craddock hadn’t listened to the second recording at the Starbucks. Kate had asked him to wait and told him she would answer his questions another time. She explained that she really needed to get back to the courthouse and that she didn’t feel comfortable talking about the second recording at Starbucks. Craddock had nodded and said he’d be in touch with her later. Kate hadn’t waited for him to change his mind.
After sitting down on one of the benches near the exit to the courtroom and taking off her jacket, Kate took a deep breath to steady her nerves and breathing. She glanced to her right and noticed that she sat next to a tall man with a dark complexion and dark hair. Kate looked at him again. She had seen him yesterday, too, sitting in the back of the courtroom. Kate suspected that he was from Afghanistan and wondered why he was in the courtroom. The man seemed focused on Dark Heart. Instead of watching the lawyers question yet another SU official about Dark Heart and his mission, the man was scrutinizing every move Dark Heart made. The man wasn’t smiling or frowning, his head was tipped to one side and his gaze was almost clinical, as though he was watching an animal’s movements.
Kate looked back to the front of the courtroom. The judge had just called for a recess for lunch. Good. She was hungry and wasn’t focusing on the trial like she should be. She needed to compose herself after her talk with Craddock.
Kate tried to catch the eye of the man sitting next to her as the judge finished giving instructions. She wasn’t sure he’d talk to her, but, as they both rose, she tried a “Hi, didn’t I see you here yesterday?” question.
He stopped, looked at her, and nodded, “Yes, I was here. And you?”
Kate smiled slightly, “Yes, I’ve been here since the start. I noticed that you were watching the defendant. Do you know him?”
The man shook his head, “No.”
Kate looked at him but kept quiet.
After a brief pause, the man looked back at Kate and said, “I don’t know him, but I needed to see what type of man would kill a group of schoolboys.”
The man closed his eyes briefly, and Kate saw the lines around his mouth tighten. She nodded encouragingly and waited for more.
After a pause, the man looked at Kate again. He said, “I don’t understand why. Yes, there was a war, but wasn’t the job of coalition soldiers to protect our people? Our civilians? Why kill children?” The man stopped talking, looked down, then looked up again at Kate. “I’m sorry. This is too much to say to you.”
Kate shook her head, “No, I thought you might be from Afghanistan and perhaps have some connection to the trial. I appreciate your willingness to talk to me.” She paused and then asked, “I know this is probably awkward for you, but perhaps we could get a sandwich somewhere and talk more?”
The man looked at Kate and said, “I am from Afghanistan. Awkward for me to have lunch with a woman stranger, yes, but I am adapting to your American customs. And I’m hungry. I don’t think a sandwich and conversation would be a bad thing. I also will admit to curiosity about why you are at the trial.”
Kate nodded and began moving to the exit, “Good. Let’s go grab something to eat, and we can chat. I know a good sandwich place around the corner, and it’s not too noisy.”
- 43 -
Craddock had invited the three other Senate staffers on the team assigned to investigate Kate’s allegations to a small conference room so that they could listen to her recordings and decide what actions they should take. After everyone settled in at the conference table, Craddock pushed the play button on his machine and let them listen.
The other staffers were all well informed regarding the case. Kate had come to the Oversight Committee months ago alleging she had information that one of her colleagues years ago had intentionally killed a group of school children while on a terrorist raid in Afghanistan. Kate had said other colleagues had tried to report similar problems to the Pentagon IG but that the reports had been ignored or squelched. She said she knew the case against the alleged killer would be circumstantial—with no surviving witnesses that she knew of and much of the other evidence buried thousands of miles away. Nonetheless, Kate also said that the alleged killer, who counted her as a friend, had told her specifically what he had done. She said he had bragged to her about the killings in Khandahar. Kate had explained that she was unwilling to report the information to the IG for fear that, like her colleagues who had gone to the IG, she would suffer retaliation. But she also told the Committee staffers that she had to tell someone in authority, because the information, as she put it, “was corroding her soul.”
After looking into Kate’s allegations briefly—including conducting discreet document searches and interviews of SU and military personnel who had been assigned to Afghanistan at the time—the staffers had met with their Committee members and recommended that the Committee chairman refer the matter to DOJ, because the alleged crimes violated US criminal laws. The chairman made the referral. DOJ had conducted its own investigation and decided to turn the matter over to EDVA for prosecution. A military court martial wasn’t in the cards, as the allegation was against a civilian. The case against the man, known in court as Sean Bennett, was the result.
Craddock and his colleagues agreed that a court case was regrettable, particularly because of the bad press the SU would receive and because the staffers doubted a jury would convict Bennett. Nonetheless, the staffers were reluctant to take on the Pentagon and SU bureaucracy themselves. Craddock and his colleagues discounted their power to force changes in a culture that had disregarded if not promoted Bennett’s actions.
The staffers also were dismayed by Kate’s allegations that the SU’s watchdog, the DOD IG, had become a lap dog, assisting some SU managers in covering up problems.
The IG was presidentially appointed. Neither the Oversight Committee members nor the White House would appreciate the likely political fallout if staffers impugned a presidentially appointed IG. And the staffers had no doubts that, if they criticized the IG on the Hill, their comments eventually would leak to the press. So the team investigating Kate’s allegations had been watching the court case carefully and continuing to gather what information they could, even though they weren’t entirely sure what they would do with their knowledge.
Craddock pressed the off button on his machine and said, “So, these are the recordings that Kate provided me via mail and today during our meeting. What do you think? What do we do with them?�
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Nancy Johnson, a gray-haired, slightly plump staffer for the majority members, had been listening carefully to the recordings and taking notes. She looked up from her legal pad, smiled, and asked, “Did Kate provide these to anyone else? Do we know who?”
Craddock said, “She didn’t say, and I didn’t get a chance to ask her. I would think certainly not to the SU lawyers. Although they’re aware the prosecution may call her to testify about her duties and what information she passed to Bennett’s team, my understanding is that the SU attorneys are clueless about Kate’s allegations to us. She emphasized to me again today her concern that she’ll suffer retaliation for her whistleblowing efforts.”
Nancy nodded and looked at her two male colleagues who also had been taking notes while listening to the recordings. “You both are lawyers; how would a jury react to these? Particularly the graphic detail in the second recording?”
Roger Gilman, a long-time minority staffer with decades of experience in courtrooms as well as on the Hill, looked at his notes and his colleagues and said, “I don’t know, but I certainly wouldn’t want to be sitting at the defense table if the prosecution decides to play these. They certainly shine a light on the defendant’s thinking. They’re almost as bad as letting him take the stand.”
Craddock leaned forward on the table, crossed his arms, and said, “You mean they shine light on his dark mind? They underscore that he was ruthless at the time and is utterly without remorse now?”
Gilman responded, “Yes. His comments that the boys were vermin, his denial of their fundamental humanity, is chilling.” He shook his head and said, “How can we, in the US, criticize others for barbarity when we allow men like Bennett to operate?”
Bill Jordan, like Nancy, was a staffer for the majority members. Jordan had been sitting at the table hunched over his legal pad, writing, but he looked up at his colleagues and said, “We allow it, we even encourage Bennett’s behavior because it serves our ends. Bennett, however evil, did a job he was directed to do. Okay, not to kill schoolboys, but to take risks and kill terrorists. Many Americans would see nothing wrong with what he did. They don’t see it as barbarity. They have an ‘us or them’ view that doesn’t accommodate a middle ground or scruples that might put our officers or our nation at risk.”
Jordan, a former professor as well as an attorney, continued, “As far as having a job to do, do you remember, hopefully from your college history classes, reading about the political theorist, Hannah Arendt, and the ‘banality of evil’ idea she described after watching the trial in the early 1960s of the Nazi SS officer Adolf Eichmann?” When his colleagues shook their heads “no,” Jordan explained that Arendt’s concept was that evil acts are not necessarily perpetrated by evil people but can instead be the result of bureaucrats following orders.
Nancy nodded and said, “Oh, the ‘just following orders’ defense?”
“Sort of.”
Craddock asked, “Are you saying Bennett did what he did because he was ordered to do it?”
Jordan responded, “No. Far from it. The culture may have fostered his belief that all was fair and good in wartime. He also may have lost friends and colleagues in Afghanistan. Even so, I think he had a choice in what he did. There’s actually been quite a lot of research and data collected since Arendt came out with her ‘banality of evil’ argument. Much of the research is based on experiments a Yale University professor of psychology, Stanley Milgram, did about the same time that Arendt came out with her ‘banality’ idea.”
Nancy said, “Wait, I’m familiar with Milgram. As I recall, his experiments had to do with students administering electric shocks to other students? And they kept on going after mild to extreme shocks?”
“Yes. Milgram convinced the students administering the shocks that what they were doing—or in this case, what they thought they were doing, because the ‘shocked’ students were actors and not really suffering—was acceptable in the cause of science. His experiments showed that ordinary people are capable of doing incredible harm because they identify with a cause and think the cause justifies actions. So, unlike with Arendt’s ‘banality of evil,’ people aren’t mindless automatons who are just going along with what they’re told. The new research that’s been done, much of it based on Milgram’s work as well as Arendt’s theories, suggests that people have a choice.”
Craddock said, “So the terrorists who chop people’s heads off, they know what they’re doing? It’s not ‘just following orders?’”
Jordan replied, “Not according to the new research that’s based on Milgram’s work. But they do the unconscionable—like chopping heads off—because they see the leaders who’ve ordered them to do the acts as legitimate representatives of the cause or ideology they believe in. The leaders may sway them, convince them that what they’re doing, however malicious, however evil, is justified.”
Nancy frowned and said, “So, what’s the relevance here? What about Bennett? Did he just do what he was told to do—a bureaucrat following orders? Or did he drink the Kool-aide and knuckle under to a culture that expected him to perform callous, heartless actions in the name of patriotism? Did he put his conscience on hold because the SU taught him to do so?”
Gilman leaned back in his chair, tossed down his pen, and said, “Okay, I know I’m the liberal here, and I should be criticizing the SU, but I don’t buy the argument that the SU essentially brainwashed Bennett. I think there probably was an element of SU machismo that encouraged him, but Bennett put his own conscience on hold.” Gilman looked at Jordan, “Isn’t that what the research you’re citing suggests, that people are capable of making decisions? They do have a choice?”
“I think so. The recordings indicate that Bennett was aware of what he was doing. And he did it anyway. With relish.”
Nancy glanced at the others and said, “So, Bennett chose to be evil?” She paused a minute, frowning. Then, Nancy looked over the rims of her glasses at her colleagues. She tapped her pen on her legal pad and said, “And what are we going to choose to do about it?”
- 44 -
Maddie left three voicemail messages for Kate to call her or Scott. The prosecutors needed to talk to her as soon as possible, never mind the hour. Maddie hadn’t wanted to say anything else on the phone.
After the last few days of testimony, Maddie and Scott were convinced that they needed to use Kate’s recordings. The SU managers they’d put on the stand were coached and careful to say nothing useful, either about what Bennett had been authorized to do or about whether Bennett’s actions were in support of DOD. And they wouldn’t come near a response to the question of whether they ever found the real terrorists. Maddie was surprised the jury members hadn’t all fallen asleep. The retired landscape guy had. One of his fellow jurors had thoughtfully poked him when he’d started to snore. Judge McNamara had noticed and, rather than admonishing the jury, had directed a “move this along or else” look at the attorneys who were questioning the witnesses.
So, Maddie and Scott had decided on a “shock and awe” effort using Kate’s recordings, and, hopefully, her testimony, to try to sway the jury.
- 45 -
Assadullah’s wife, Atefa, had gone to get more tea for him. They had finished dinner—an American chicken and rice dish his wife had made from a recipe a friend at work had given her. While they ate, he had explained what was going on at the trial and told her about his conversations with the woman, Kate, whom he had met in the courtroom. His wife had listened attentively but without making many comments. Atefa hadn’t known Haji, but she did know that Assadullah sometimes had nightmares about Haji’s murder. Assadullah, in his dreams, hurried to try to reach Haji at his school, but it was always too late. Haji was dead when Assadullah got to him.
Atefa put the tea tray on the table and sat down next to Assadullah. She poured them both a fresh cup of tea and then looked at Assadullah with her eyebrows raised.
Assadullah told Atefa, “Kate wants me to go to the prosecutors to
tell my story. She thinks it might help the prosecutors convince the jury that Bennett did a horrible thing. She said telling the jury about Haji might make them understand that Bennett didn’t just destroy things but that he killed real people, innocent boys, who didn’t deserve to die.”
Atefa asked, “You’ve just met this woman, Kate. Do you trust her?”
“Yes. She has reason to hate Bennett, too.”
When Atefa raised her eyebrows, questioning him again, Assadullah said, “No, I won’t tell you. Kate’s story is not mine to tell. But if you imagine the worst, you probably would be right.”
Atefa shook her head, closed her eyes for a second, and then reached for a sip of her tea. After pausing a minute, she asked, “And what do you want to do? Do you think this woman is correct? Would telling your story about Haji serve a useful purpose?”
Assadullah responded, “I want Haji back. I can’t have that. I feel that I failed him when I took him to that school. I should have argued against it, like my mother. I failed Haji again, after, when I couldn’t do anything to avenge his killing.”
“And can you help Haji now? Will telling your story to the court do that?”
“I don’t know. Kate told me that, if I tell the court about Haji and the rest of the schoolboys, the prosecutors may be able to send Haji’s killer to jail. That won’t help Haji, but maybe if his killer is in prison, he won’t be able to harm others.”
Atefa nodded and said, “That seems a worthy goal—keeping the man from hurting more people.”
After a minute she poured more tea into Assadullah’s cup. She studied his face and asked him, “And what about your desire for revenge? Will helping the prosecutors dull that? Will you feel that you finally have justice and can rest? Or will you still want to retaliate against Haji’s killer?”