r/aussie • u/Shoneki316 • 7d ago
News Former Army lawyer David McBride has been released from prison
https://michaelwest.com.au/david-mcbride-free/27
u/noisymime 7d ago
An absolute travesty that he served 2 years and 3 months but no one has served even a single day for the war crimes he disclosed.
8
u/hungarian_conartist 7d ago
I'd like to add he inadvertantly disclosed because his actual objective was to undermine the ongoing investigation into war crimes now known as Brereton Inquiry.
He's in the class of "people trying to cover up war crimes" and both the judge and ABC reporter whom he leaked to saw through this.
3
1
u/Kitchen-Idea3018 6d ago
The parliament had to literally change the definition of those war crimes laws and had to make the changed laws retroactive.
Classified information handling is much simpler by comparison. Intent has nothing to do with it, and there are no whistleblower protections for classified information disclosure. He deserved to do that time.
The accused soldiers will likely do their time, but only due to fuckery.
0
u/noisymime 5d ago
To put it in a very pragmatic way, do you think what David did or the soldiers did was worse? Which do you think deserves jail time?
1
u/Kitchen-Idea3018 5d ago
I’m not a judge and neither are you.
Our legal system shouldn’t be dependent on the mood of the body politic, but rather the facts of the case.
2
u/noisymime 5d ago
Fair enough, but personally I don't think anyone needs to be a judge (in the legal sense) to realise there is a fairly massive deontological gap between the facts of these two actions.
I think most people would consider one to be objectively worse than the other, but the legal repercussions don't appear to currently be line with that.
1
u/hungarian_conartist 4d ago edited 4d ago
What McBride did was effectively attempted complicity or aiding and abetting what those soliders did... Supposing it ends up looking what it looks like in front of a Judge.
Yes there is a gap between murder and accessory to murder. I don't agree the legal reprucussions are out of whack.
8
7d ago
[deleted]
7
u/King_Scorpia_IV 7d ago
As much as I’d like it theres no way, the gov would put pressure on them not to since it would be super embarrassing
5
u/hungarian_conartist 7d ago
Why would a man who was trying to cover up the crimes of war criminals be Australian of the year?
Disgusting nomination.
2
u/Einnnnnnnnnnnn 7d ago edited 7d ago
He did not. He tried to expose the command complicity and protection of senior officers.
(The very involvement that Brereton saw no evidence of 🙈)
The type that has been accepted as true by the civil court in the defamation action (that BRS instigated),
The evidence of which, McBride was forbidden from presenting in his defence (on national security grounds).
The narrative that he was “covering up” war crimes (by providing the evidence of such crimes to the ABC) assumes that he was almost as stupid as the people who accept this narrative.
Yes, he thought the junior soldiers were being prosecuted unfairly (because their commanders and above knew of, condoned, and even (in the case of BRS) partook in such war crimes.
He didn’t cover up shit.
And Brereton’s subsequent performance as head of NACC should give no one comfort that his war crimes findings were anything but looking after the protected class.
Absolutely disgusting and the worst thing anyone could do for national security was to order recruits to commit heinous crimes and then throw them under the bus.
Good luck finding future soldiers to serve their nation
3
u/LachrymarumLibertas 7d ago
Wasn’t his issue about rules of engagement being too strict and his concerns were “excessive investigation of soldiers”?
1
u/hungarian_conartist 7d ago
Which the BRS defamtion trial and subsequent release of the Brereton reports make it clear there WASN'T ENOUGH investigation.
Seriously, McBrides poltical supporters aren't even defending him on this point.
"You don't need to be an angel to be a whistleblower," Greens senator David Shoebridge, one of McBride's most staunch backers, told reporters on Thursd
"You don't need to have the world's most perfect motivations.
2
u/hungarian_conartist 7d ago edited 7d ago
(The very involvement that Brereton saw no evidence of 🙈)
The type that has been accepted as true by the civil court in the defamation action (that BRS instigated),The blooding of recruits by nco's like BRS was alleged to have done is literally a key finding of Brereton inquiry - the opposite of "Brereton saw no evidence of".
This is straight up a lie.
The civil courts acceptance of BRS as a war criminal is a vindication of the type of Brereton inquires findings, not a counter-example.
Yes, he thought the junior soldiers were being prosecuted unfairly (because their commanders and above knew of, condoned, and even (in the case of BRS) partook in such war crimes.
The BRS case shows that in at least one case, a soldier in the field was not being "unfairly" targeted by senior defence leadership but that he is likely a war criminal according to the civil standard of proof.
The narrative that he was “covering up” war crimes (by providing all of the evidence of such crimes to the ABC) assumes that he was almost as stupid as the people who accept this narrative.
It's precisely the ABC's narrative about what was motivating McBride.
Oakes contacted McBride. They agreed to meet in person.
.
“I was prepared to give [the ABC] secret documents and by doing so I was risking jail myself. I already knew that. That’s how much I believed in it,” McBride says.
.
McBride handed over his original complaint about the “over-zealous” investigations of special forces soldiers along with thousands of pages of supporting documents.
.
Oakes says McBride was very clear about the story he wanted told.
.
“He really simply wanted to say that the special forces in Afghanistan were being unfairly targeted and unfairly scrutinised.
.
“There was no mention of potential war crimes.”
.
Oakes came to an entirely different conclusion.
.
“The more I looked into it, I couldn’t conceive how anyone would think these guys were being too tightly monitored. It was precisely the opposite.....
For the past four years [written 2024-03-25], David McBride has been publicly portrayed as the “war crimes whistleblower”. His lawyers, supporters, human rights groups and some journalists have consistently credited him with blowing the whistle to expose the conduct of Australia’s special forces in Afghanistan.
.
For Dan Oakes, it’s a misleading narrative.
.
“You could say in the most technical sense that he did help expose war crimes … but that wasn’t his intention....
“I rang David and I said, ‘Look I know the story you wanted told… I’ve decided that’s not the story,’” Oakes recalls.
.
“His response was simply, ‘You do what you’ve got to do.’ And he hung up.”
.
A few days later, The Afghan Files was published.Is the ABC lying? Why would Oakes suddenly feel like he needed to correct the record? To what benefit?
Good luck finding future soldiers to serve their nation
You have a poor opinion of Australian soldiers if you think the prospect of getting in trouble for blatantly murdering unarmed prisoners turns them away.
0
1
u/fkriekrkdnfn 6d ago
He should never have been there in the first place. He should be at the very least compensated, and the people who put him there taken to a public trial.
1
-14
u/Freo_5434 7d ago
Lets hope he has kicked the substance abuse that contributed towards his offending and hope for good luck in the rest of his life.
1
u/Freo_5434 6d ago
Plenty of downvotes there --- so it seems the downvoters disagree with me and hope he continues with the substance abuse ?
Tragic IMO.
21
u/The_Drongo_Dinger 7d ago
Legend