Last week, Ben Roberts-Smith, Australia’s most decorated living soldier, was arrested and charged with five war crimes, including murder. The criminal case has again raised the record of Australian atrocities during the neo-colonial, US-led occupation of Afghanistan.
In virtually all of the media coverage of Roberts-Smith’s arrest, one name was conspicuously absent: David McBride. Notwithstanding the belated charging of Roberts-Smith, for offences allegedly committed roughly 15 years ago, McBride remains the first and so far the only individual to have been convicted and imprisoned over Australia’s war crimes in Afghanistan.
But unlike Roberts-Smith, there was never an allegation that McBride harmed an Afghan civilian. Instead, his “crime” was to have exposed the atrocities, as a courageous whistleblower. For that, McBride was hounded by the authorities, charged under draconian “national security” legislation and subjected to a secretive trial, overseen by the Labor government, before being thrown in prison where he remains to this day.
The contrast between the two cases is striking, not only for the diametrically opposed character of the accusations, but also for the zeal with which McBride was pursued as against the hesitant and faltering investigation of Roberts-Smith.
Allegations of war crimes against Roberts-Smith, including the murder of Afghan civilians and prisoners, were first reported by Nine publications in 2017 and 2018. In the latter year, the allegations...
QUEENSLAND— A nurse in Australia has been formally reprimanded after admitting he submitted forged documents to Qantas (QF) in an attempt to secure a refund for a non-refundable airline ticket. Th...