As the 20-year war against the Taliban ends in inglorious defeat, a new book about Australian military engagement in Afghanistan reveals hitherto unknown details of alleged war crimes committed by elite soldiers.
Rogue Forces was written by ABC journalist Mark Willacy, who won a Gold Walkley award in 2020 for a Four Corners investigation into alleged atrocities, suspected cover-ups and deep cultural problems within Australia’s special forces while based in Afghanistan.
The most shocking revelation was the unprovoked shooting of a disabled Afghan civilian by a group of soldiers, all of which is captured on video footage from a nearby soldier’s helmet cam.
In it, a man called Soldier C is seen pointing his rifle at the local man, who is lying terrified on the ground, his fingers grasping a set of worry beads. Three times over a 30-second period, Soldier C casually asks his colleagues: “Do you want me to drop this cunt?” After someone says “Yes” he pumps three bullets into the man, killing him.
The program caused shockwaves around the world and resulted in an Australian Federal Police war crimes investigation. It also sparked a line of investigation by the Brereton inquiry, the independent Australian Defence Force inquiry into war crimes in Afghanistan.
It found that a total of 39 Afghans had been allegedly murdered by Australian special forces in 23 incidents, and two more were cruelly treated.
After the program was broadcast, more SAS soldiers came forward with eyewitness testimony of other unlawful killings, from which Willacy has written this devastating book.
Rogue Forces describes a litany of war crimes: the killing of unarmed civilians, including children; soldiers compelling their juniors to shoot someone as a form of “blooding”; the extensive use of “throw-downs”, or putting a gun or radio on the body to pretend that the victim was armed and therefore a lawful target.
Back at base camp, pressure would be applied on administration staff to delete photographic evidence of wrongdoing, contributing to a cover-up.
Willacy spoke to many Australian male and female soldiers and many Afghans who witnessed the alleged crimes.
He quotes a man, Abdul Wali, who says he wants to avenge the unlawful killing of his father, no matter how long it takes: “Among us Pashtun we say, ‘The older it gets, the stronger and fresher it becomes.’ It does not fade away.”
Willacy also interviews experts on wartime malfeasance, including Captain Roger Herbert, a US expert on ethics in war who says that the Taliban’s repeated violations of international law made a difficult war even harder to fight.
“Blurring the line between soldier and civilian is an effective guerilla strategy,” Herbert said. “If counter-insurgents can’t reliably make this distinction, then over the course of a protracted campaign they will inevitably make mistakes and harm non-combatants. When this happens, insurgents are ready to leverage the wrongful killing or destruction for propaganda value.”
The Taliban have taken full advantage of this, he said.
For legal reasons the book does not name the main offenders, referring to them as Soldiers A, B and C. But one of the most devastating chapters is an interview with the wife of Soldier B, who is almost killed by him in an act of drunken rage at their home in Perth. After the police charge him with aggravated assault, the other members of the special forces persuade her to drop the charges, saying it would end his military career. He is immediately redeployed to Afghanistan, where he commits acts of brutal violence on the local people.
Willacy ultimately lays the blame for this immoral culture at the feet of the Australian public.
“We elected successive governments who sent these soldiers back and back and back to Afghanistan,” he says. “We pinned medals on them and sent them back again. The war broke them. And we sent them back again. Those governments, as always, escape the blame for conflicts like Afghanistan, for the civilian casualties, for the shattered lives of Afghans and Australians alike.”
And in the end, was it all worth it?
The book includes a quote from British army chaplain George R Gleig on the first Anglo-Afghan war of 1839-1842: “A war begun for no wise purpose … brought to a close after suffering and disaster, without much glory attached either to the government which directed, or the great body of troops which waged it. Not one benefit, political or military, was acquired with this war.”
Rogue Forces is published by Simon & Schuster and is on sale today, Wednesday, August 18.
“Willacy also interviews experts on wartime malfeasance, including Captain Roger Herbert, a US expert on ethics in war who says that the Taliban’s repeated violations of international law made a difficult war even harder to fight.”
I find it laughable to assume that the Tailiban violated International Law. I doubt a single Taliban has read or understands International Law nor have they signed on to it. They are not beholden to it hence no need for pretence like the US and it’s allies does. These are tribal people who wage war in the traditional way to defend their homelands. As yet I haven’t see a Taliban menace Los Angeles. Captain Herbert ignores the real elephant in the room to the real badly needed ethical discussion as to why the US wages war for purely self interest in the first place.
“… why the US wages war for purely self interest…”
Hmm. Does it? What is the self-interest of the USA? It’s damned difficult to see how the USA was served by attacking Iraq in 2003, for example. It was obvious even before that war began, and many people said, it was very unlikely for it to be in the interests of the USA. As you point out, the Taliban has not been threatening Los Angeles; there were other ways than invasion and regime change the USA might have acted against Al Qaeda’s presence in Afghanistan. There’s a very long list of wars, proxy wars, invasions, interventions, coups, destabilisations and so on carried out around the world by the USA over many decades whose connection to the self-interest of the USA is less than obvious. But the connection to the interests of certain factions within the USA, at least in the short-term, is clear enough.
If the USA was demonstrably pursuing its pure self-interest, its actions would be more rational and more forgivable, and the USA would likely be much stronger, more prosperous and safer than it is now.
Reason for Iraq was easy – OIL! Same reason for the overthrow by CIA of the Mosedeq democracy in Persia/Iran and installation of the Shahs
And didn’t that go well…
I agree the USA had a reason, perhaps several reasons. That’s obvious, trite and beside the point. Reasons do not demonstrate it was in the self-interest of the USA. Various individuals and corporations profited from destroying Iran’s democracy in 1953, but in the longer term Iran was destabilised, a despotic government installed (once more undermining the USA’s various claims to uphold democracy) and when the Shah was deposed Iran became an Islamic republic bitterly hostile to the USA. So, great fun for the CIA and no doubt it demanded and received lots more resources as a result, but how was all that in the self-interest of the USA?
As for Iraq in 2003 – how much oil has the USA gained and at what cost in money, reputation, international relations etc? Are you really going to say it was in the self-interest of the USA? Or was it, as I said, just in the interests of factions within the USA who look after themselves, not the USA?
Look at the price of a barrel of oil before and after the gulf wars and you can see who benefited, and who got the political donations and lucrative consultancies.
We need an icac for the last quarter century, so we can wipe the smirk of the face of a woolly eyebrowed cricket tragic.
The day he didn’t get the international cricket gig was one of the happiest days of my life.
I know nothing of, and care less than zero about, cricket but I also enjoyed a Schadenfreudish shiver when I heard thatg.
If Bush had listened to his father’s advice, he would not have waited one term including the invasion of Iraq, to distance himself from rogue forces including Rumsfeld, Cheney, Rove et al.
Further, while the GOP has been owned by radical right libertarian forces via Koch Network think tanks demanding smaller government, lower budgets and taxes they do not apply the same supposed ‘common sense’ ideology to defence or military spending and ventures.
Go with the money of course – international arms industries, lobbyists, defence forces, war mongering politicians and flunky politicians all looking for monetary gain, political influence and power.
I’ve wondered for years, “Are some of these people broken before they go (maybe even before they enlist), or does that happen ‘over there’? And where does ADF responsibility lie – that they take bugger all?”
Great comments everyone
Klewso very few are broken before they go over there but once there that is where a lot are broken, limited sleep 4/5 hours sleep day after day, will my next step be the last? (mines) has the farmer over there got a gun, thouse are constant questions one asks one self, day in day out.
Are you suggesting that psychological screening and due diligence is not done during the recruiting process?
Surely wanting to join is a contraindication?
Any adult who wants to play with guns is, ipso facto, unsuitable.
Rules of engagement are written to exonerate the politicians, the public and the generals. A bomb dropped from on high will kill civilians right and left, but that’s OK? Crop destruction kills by starvation, as do sanctions. Is that OK? So when enemy soldiers are identical to civilians??
Our soldiers are not mindless mass murderers, shooting anything that moves. They have to form an opinion, based on training and experience. It is not humanly possible to be correct 100% of the time. Throw in a big helping of PTSD (battle fatigue), the inevitable result of many tours of duty, and the fact that all Afghans, unless they’re being well paid as interpreters, etc, totally hate foreigners being in their country shooting them (as would we), and it all gets a bit fraught sometimes. Very sorry. Afghanistan has a long history of being invaded and that is also part of the deal. The very fact of needing interpreters guarantees that our soldiers will never understand them.
You might think this is all an excuse, but consider the way the Afghan army folded overnight, as soon as they could, and you will see that it is true. Afghans like to be Afghans. They don’t want to be Americans or Australians. Just because I think their religion and way of life is cruel or crazy doesn’t change a thing.
You can’t change a nation by invasion, but you can do it by kindness and friendship. And by not promoting corruption, it should be said.
You seem to be suggesting the ‘fog of war’ excuse. My understanding is that the Special Investigator, Major General Brereton expressly rejected that the unlawful killings he uncovered were explainable by the fog of war. As for ‘our soldiers are not mindless mass murderers’ I haven’t read of anyone making or investigating the allegations who has suggested that this was in any way typical of the vast majority of defence personnel. And I haven’t read Willacy’s book but I presume he doesn’t suggest it is typical either. The investigation was reportedly initiated by Sengelman, the commander of the Special Forces himself – presumably because he knows how hard the job is and wouldn’t turn a blind eye while the standards upheld honourably by the many for decades were corrupted by the few.
Well put, especially your summation.
George Dubya sent the US to war because he wanted to show he was as good as his did. Pure and simple. He always lived in the shadow of both hus father and big brother Jeb. He was insecure. He needed something to give his self esteem a boost and prove himself according to his crazy view of what that meant. For the first 2 years of his presidency he fumbled everything he touched and was pretty useless. Then came 9/11. He jumped on it hard as a chance to do something, make a statement and be like dad. He thought Iraq was so good he would do it again in Afghanistan. It was all pretty much the result of George Dubya’s low self esteem and the need to impress his dad.
Afghanistan war began just after 9/11, in 2001, Iraq invasion in 2003.
Obviously there are broad similarities between Vietnam, Afghanistan and Iraq: all ending ignominiously to varying degrees. But the standout case study is Iraq, because the military victory was achieved but the post war task was so badly handled it points to what I think is the biggest issue of all: the capacity of democracy to deliver government not to the best people, but to venal, dull political salesmen.
Speaking of dull, John Howard claimed on 7:30 last night that following 9/11 we were in so much danger going to war in Afghanistan was the only thing we could do, and he still justifies it. And according to some ABC survey he’s our favourite prime minister.
I fear that when he is finally flushed past the S bend that if Scummo or his ilk still rule, there will be a State funeral.
The dead are due nothing but Truth.
Ex Florida governor Jeb! is seven years junior to Shrub the Lesser who was only 8 months into his (p)residency when the Twin Towers came down.
It was beyond credence that he was elected in 2004 given his proven incompetence since that fateful day – how we larfed at dumb amerikans who would elect such a chump.
Until Nov 2016.
Couldn’t happen here – until May 2019.
Howdy, myself and my father are vets. I remember similar conversations in the 1970s about Vietnam vets, my father was a career serviceman the same as me. Yes, I remember in the 1980’s myself being attacked one ANZAC day as a “ murder” by a member of the public, obliviously enthusiastic to share their view. TF66 was a tough gig for those of us who popped by for a deployment or two. Equally, I also find the public service that I now work in equally questionable on many levels, should I blow the whistle on everything I see that I perceive as questionable? Now, that’s suicide !,,