Kicking our SAS

Murder is not allowed in war unless committed from the air - because, as everyone knows, morality is a question of altitude. The phrase 'collateral damage' also excuses what would otherwise be murder.

Nevertheless, soldiers remain personally responsible for murders they commit on the ground during conflicts.

This Report concludes there were dozens of murders committed by a relatively small, but not insignificant, number of Australian special forces soldiers.

The Army commissioned and believes this Report. The fact it remains to be seen whether anyone will be later convicted in Court is irrelevant. Our legal system is based on the edict 'better that 9 guilty men go free, than 1 innocent man be convicted'. The Report and its conclusions rest on it's 4 years of investigations - much like a Royal Commission.

It is commendable that other soldiers had the courage and decency to blow the whistle. Not just for the victims, but so that future Australian soldiers will be less likely to be pressed and manipulated into unlawful killings by those senior to them who have already crossed that line.

It is unfortunate that the Report is a bit of a white-wash of senior ranks who failed to support junior officers who tried to apply military discipline to these rogue patrols, accepted the cut and paste patrol reports, identical kill reports, incompetent or collusive legal enquiries into complaints, etc.

Failure of senior ranks to respond to learning that 'throw-downs' were being carried, was telling. The Report excuses that under the flimsy and completely unbelievable pretext that senior ranks thought these were somehow only used when a killing was justified, but the killers just wanted to avoid questions. Riiiight....

'30. By late 2012 to 2013 there was, at troop, and possibly up to squadron level, suspicion if not knowledge that throwdowns were carried, but for the purpose of avoiding questions being asked about apparently lawful engagements when it turned out that the person killed was not armed, as
distinct from facilitating or concealing deliberate unlawful killings. While dishonest and discreditable, it was understood as a defensive mechanism to avoid questions being asked, rather than an aid for covering up war crimes. The more sinister use of throwdowns to conceal deliberate unlawful killings was not known to commanders.'

Commanders knew they had throwdowns, but only used them to avoid questions about righteous killings, not about murders. Ok then.

Huh, I guess that must be why Det Sgt Roger Rogerson carried a throw-down for all those years. Just for those times he'd legally killed someone, but just 'wanted to avoid questions being asked'.