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Ex-UK Special Forces break silence on 'war crimes' by colleagues

bbc.com

61–70 of 89 posts

Re: Ex-UK Special Forces break silence on 'war crimes' by colleagues

#61
post #10

The evidence presented by the BBC in 2020: https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-53597137 And apparently Australia had already released their report and investigation of their own behavior: https://www.bbc.com/news/world-australia-55088230 But only the whistleblower and one other were tried and convicted: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brereton_Report

Wow, that’s crazy, the _whistleblower_ and one other person were tried and convicted. Essentially just punishing the person that felt bad enough to reveal the crime, not the many that committed it and stayed silent. :(

In a nod to an actual reality that's stranger than you imagine ...

> the person that felt bad enough to reveal the crime

is considerably arse backwards.

To scratch the surface of that:

   McBride had previously raised concerns within the Australian Defence Force about the dangers of increasingly restrictive rules of engagement and the nature of investigations into members of the special forces.

  The ABC found evidence of war crimes and published the information in their 2017 publication The Afghan Files.

  McBride was allegedly unhappy with ABC's reporting of his documents.
ie. The "whistleblower" disclosed examples of behaviour of the SASR and other(?) special force groups not with the motivation of disclosing "war crimes" but to provide examples of "stuff the lads do to get the job done", behaviours that were being threatened by kid glove thinking and internal policing that might have a bias, etc.

  During the case, McBride's lawyers stated he acted out of concern about the nature of the Defence Force's “excessive investigation of soldiers” in Afghanistan.

  McBride believed the investigations were a "PR exercise" to compensate for earlier public allegations of war crimes.

  Justice David Mossop stated "the way you've explained it is that the higher-ups might have been acting illegally by investigating these people too much, and that that was the source of the illegality that was being exposed."
~ https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/David_McBride_(whistleblower)

However his story changed and wandered over the course of time his initial motivation on record wasn't at all that he felt bad about the rules of engagement being disregarded, he felt that such things were being chased down too hard.

Re: Ex-UK Special Forces break silence on 'war crimes' by colleagues

#62
post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Soldiers are not trained to do police work, yet that's what many are asked to do. An informant provides a tip that someone is manufacturing IED's, so soldiers are sent to investigate. They're not trained for that. Worse yet, they're the targets of the crime they're investigating. Police are not typically asked to investigate an attempt on their own lives for good reason. Even with appropriate training and when invest…

> They're not trained for that. Not even special forces?

Are you asking specifically about the US Army Special Forces, or special operations in general? In either case they typically don't have much training in law enforcement. Special Forces do have extensive training on building relationships with locals, which can be helpful with investigations and intelligence gathering.

There are also Military Police trained in law enforcement. They tend to deal more with force protection and internal investigations. Some US MPs were responsible for the notorious Abu Ghraib prison torture scandal but there have been some reforms since then.

Re: Ex-UK Special Forces break silence on 'war crimes' by colleagues

#63
post #10

The evidence presented by the BBC in 2020: https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-53597137 And apparently Australia had already released their report and investigation of their own behavior: https://www.bbc.com/news/world-australia-55088230 But only the whistleblower and one other were tried and convicted: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brereton_Report

Wow, that’s crazy, the _whistleblower_ and one other person were tried and convicted. Essentially just punishing the person that felt bad enough to reveal the crime, not the many that committed it and stayed silent. :(

They did not stay silent . They bragged about warcrimes openly on a podcast.

Persecute the murderous fuckers hard and fast, but not publicly. This affair cooking up smells to much like another russian anti colonial sentiment cooking op.

Re: Ex-UK Special Forces break silence on 'war crimes' by colleagues

#64

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Wow, that’s crazy, the _whistleblower_ and one other person were tried and convicted. Essentially just punishing the person that felt bad enough to reveal the crime, not the many that committed it and stayed silent. :(

They did not stay silent . They bragged about warcrimes openly on a podcast. Persecute the murderous fuckers hard and fast, but not publicly. This affair cooking up smells to much like another russian anti colonial sentiment cooking op.

russian?

Re: Ex-UK Special Forces break silence on 'war crimes' by colleagues

#65
post #10

The evidence presented by the BBC in 2020: https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-53597137 And apparently Australia had already released their report and investigation of their own behavior: https://www.bbc.com/news/world-australia-55088230 But only the whistleblower and one other were tried and convicted: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brereton_Report

Wow, that’s crazy, the _whistleblower_ and one other person were tried and convicted. Essentially just punishing the person that felt bad enough to reveal the crime, not the many that committed it and stayed silent. :(

[deleted]

Re: Ex-UK Special Forces break silence on 'war crimes' by colleagues

#66
post #64

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They did not stay silent . They bragged about warcrimes openly on a podcast. Persecute the murderous fuckers hard and fast, but not publicly. This affair cooking up smells to much like another russian anti colonial sentiment cooking op.

russian?

[deleted]

Re: Ex-UK Special Forces break silence on 'war crimes' by colleagues

#67
post #64

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They did not stay silent . They bragged about warcrimes openly on a podcast. Persecute the murderous fuckers hard and fast, but not publicly. This affair cooking up smells to much like another russian anti colonial sentiment cooking op.

russian?

Australia. The land down under mate. Nice beaches. Vegemite. The good guys.

> This included a practice of "blooding" where junior soldiers were told to get their first kill by shooting a prisoner.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Australian_war_crimes

Re: Ex-UK Special Forces break silence on 'war crimes' by colleagues

#68
To add to the list, this article [1] alleges that a number of Afghan special forces were refused a UK visa upon withdrawal, so they couldn't testify in the UK against the UK special forces. Then when the Taliban took over, the predictable happened. Pretty shocking.

[1] https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/cp3q5xl9wqwo

Re: Ex-UK Special Forces break silence on 'war crimes' by colleagues

#70
post #61

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Wow, that’s crazy, the _whistleblower_ and one other person were tried and convicted. Essentially just punishing the person that felt bad enough to reveal the crime, not the many that committed it and stayed silent. :(

In a nod to an actual reality that's stranger than you imagine ... > the person that felt bad enough to reveal the crime is considerably arse backwards. To scratch the surface of that: McBride had previously raised concerns within the Australian Defence Force about the dangers of increasingly restrictive rules of engagement and the nature of investigations into members of the special forces. The ABC found evidence of…

Wow that is insane, thanks for linking the Wikipedia page. To summarize, the thing he was whistleblowing was over-scrutiny of military personnel actions! He wasn’t whistleblowing the murders! That’s crazy and horrible.
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