The devastating fall from grace of the nation’s most decorated living soldier is a story about a war criminal, a murderer, a bully and, as the Federal Court unceremoniously concluded on Thursday, an unchecked liar.
It’s also a tale about the distorting influence wealth and privilege are liable to visit on basal democratic norms, such as the rule of law, and not least a story about unflinching media courage on a matter of the highest public interest.
There are, in this connection, few things that command greater national significance than war crimes committed in our name, particularly at the hands of a supposed war hero. For this reason, the legacy of Ben Roberts-Smith will always be bookended by disgrace, moral travesty and a betrayal that strikes at the soul of the nation.
But it’s precisely in this blended sense that his is likewise a parable about the dangers of an unvarnished nationalism that’s long masqueraded as patriotism in the form of our obscurant worship of the Anzac myth. What’s passed for public thinking about our nation’s identity in recent times, it bears emphasising, are not ideals rooted in a singular fidelity to the creed and promise of democracy that sits at the heart of our 122-year-old constitution, but conversely a romantic set of ideas about the sacrosanct white Aussie digger.
For nearly 30 years, quiet but solemn commemoration of the military has gradually been superseded by the drumbeat of a blind veneration that gifts the military immunity from public scrutiny.
If we care to be honest, any long gaze in the mirror would tell you it’s not surprising the Brereton report into alleged war crimes found evidence of a “warrior culture” within special forces, and one which had fused “military excellence with ego, entitlement and exceptionalism”. An understanding, in other words, that the usual rules of engagement don’t apply.
The same inquiry was in part prompted by the military’s internal Crompvoets report, which among other things detailed allegations that Afghan men and boys were tortured before then being shot or having their throats slit; “throwdowns”, where soldiers would cover up unlawful killings of civilians by planting weapons or radios on the corpses; and “blooding” or initiation practices, in which new soldiers were coerced into killing unarmed prisoners.
There were also claims of “sanctioned massacres”, where soldiers would shoot men, women and children running from landing helicopters. Whether all such allegations ultimately found reflection in the unredacted version of the Brereton report is unknown, but they’re nonetheless a testament to the savagery that awaits when the guardrails to prevent a descent into inhumanity dissolve in favour of a nationalist-inspired glorification of war.
What invariably manifests in such a setting, to be clear, is an immoral ideology of war devoid of limits, of conflict unspooled from the usual constraints of international law — a space in which racist symbolism, such as Roberts-Smith’s donning of the Crusader’s cross, and the SAS’ use of Nazi flags, is elevated to the natural order of things.
Indeed, it’s only in such a context that Roberts-Smith’s insistence that he “followed the rules” and “did everything that I was supposed to do” can hold any semblance of truth. As the Brereton report found, complaints from Afghan locals of conduct amounting to war crimes were, as a matter of course, dismissed as Taliban propaganda or otherwise stifled by a culture of cover-up led by several SAS patrol commanders, who were treated as demigods.
Though it’s true there have been many isolated incidences of unlawful killings at the hands of Australian soldiers in all conflicts, from the Boer War through to the First and Second World Wars, Vietnam and beyond, none approached the systemic scale of that alleged in Afghanistan.
And it’s for this reason the Afghanistan allegations should have shocked the conscience of the nation, resulting in an extended period of national reckoning. Yet conversely the opposite came to pass, at least within many rarefied and powerful circles. As one-time Liberal Party leader and then-director of the Australian War Memorial Brendan Nelson put it when first confronted by the allegations levelled against Roberts-Smith: “Where is the national interest in tearing down our national heroes?”
“What these young, highly skilled and trained men have done repeatedly over the last 15 years in intense conflict is something that is rightly the pride of the nation.”
To similar effect were Scott Morrison and Peter Dutton, who politicised the recommendations of the Brereton report by directly undermining the pledge of Defence Force chief Angus Campbell to strip special forces troops of their meritorious unit citation — a move supported by Labor. And so too Kerry Stokes, who infamously bankrolled Roberts-Smith’s defamation suit against those “scumbag journalists”, and Tony Abbott, who hung a question mark over the appropriateness of judging soldiers operating under the “fog of war” by the same standards as we would civilians.
As Guardian Australia columnist Paul Daley points out, such paeans reflect the omnipotence of a military culture cherished as core to our national identity. In the same way, they tug at the fabric of the nation by hinting at the depressing squalor that has become our civic life — a space in which anything that threatens to tarnish the Anzac myth is, by definition, unpatriotic and silenced.
Beyond this, such statements by such powerful individuals, freighted as they are with the notion that soldiers should operate with impunity, problematically lend such misconduct the faint whiff of youthful indiscretion. By inviting Australians to turn a blind eye to senseless slaughter, they dishonour not only the country but the vast majority of servicemen and women who serve our nation with dignity, loyal to the values and ethics instilled in our institutions. They also shrug off the importance of accountability in any civilised society and foster a bipartisan mentality that treats war criminals as heroes, and whistle-blowers, such as David McBride, not as patriots but traitors.
Zoom out a little and the reason for this is plain. A devout worship of our Defence Force serves those who have a vested interest in the subservient role Australia plays in its alliance with the United States. Absent such veneration, the pressure on the government to insist on some semblance of sovereignty and to resist wars of choice — such as Afghanistan and Iraq — would be acute. The paradox here, as military historian John Blaxland has noted, is that it was in part the open-ended nature of the Afghanistan mission that “made an erosion of the moral compass possible”.
Lest there be any doubt about this, look no further than the virtual bipartisan silence with which the Roberts-Smith judgment was met on Thursday evening, as well as the obvious reticence of authorities to promptly move on what are well-documented allegations of war crimes.
As of Thursday, it became a matter of public record that Roberts-Smith is a war criminal, a murderer, a bully and a liar. A man who kicked a handcuffed Afghan prisoner off a cliff before ordering a subordinate to shoot the injured prisoner dead; who gunned down a disabled man, souveniring his prosthetic leg as a drinking vessel; who bullied and assaulted his comrades; who attempted to pervert the course of justice by destroying evidence; and a man who lied under oath in the Federal Court.
But he’s also a man who could prove the bridge to a future in which we no longer tolerate the conflation of nationalism with patriotism, where we relinquish the unsound idea that ours is a nation forged in the spirit of war rather than a proud, liberal democratic tradition, and where Australians of all colours and creeds cherish our shared common spirit with First Nations peoples.
The only alternative is to forever stare into the abyss manifested by the conduct of Roberts-Smith and others, where our nation’s pride remains irrevocably wedded to the corpses of innocent civilians and the blood-stained fragments of our broken ideals.
So true!
“For nearly 30 years, quiet but solemn commemoration of the military has gradually been superseded by the drumbeat of a blind veneration born of nationalism that gifts the military immunity from public scrutiny.”
Another legacy of John Winston Howard.
You beat me.
Likewise.
I think that we should take a look at a bigger picture than just the Afghanistan war, Who Cares. In her article Maeve alludes to the Boer War through to the First and Second World Wars, Vietnam and beyond. (Don’t forget Korea, another major conflict.) I would argue that our involvement in all of those wars (except for WW II) was a legacy of our subservience to, and reliance on, foreign powers, namely Britain and then the United States and a failure to ever ‘stand on our own two feet’ as an independent nation. We could (and did) say exactly what you are saying about Howard, about Menzies at the time of the Vietnam war.
“Unnecessary Wars” by Henry Reynolds
And AUKUS will ensure we keep tugging the forelock to our foreign masters.
Yes, and with the same moral justification (none), but with even less strategic purpose – what the hell do we think a war against China will achieve? The USA couldn’t beat China in Korea when all the Chinese had was trucks and rifles. Things are a little different now. To the USA, it’s not important to win the war, good enough that its armaments corporations and their mates in politics make a profit out of it and they have a chance to road-test their new toys.
Lest We Forget that the Gallipoli legend was forged in a grubby intra-family squabble between the monarchs of Europe over land and resources – this is what we should remember – how willing our leaders are to send off our kids to die in rich men’s wars
Exactly!!! The Brits had coveted that land for yonks. And lest we forget that the Charge of the Light Brigade was during the so-called Crimean War when Britain and France were attempting to steal Sebastopol from Russia. In other words, it was ok for the Brits and the French to ‘invade a Sovereign Country’ which is the ridiculous charge against Putin, but when the Brits were doing it, well, it was the Charge of the Light Brigade, see, nothing to do with invasion, British Glory, old chap.
Ridiculous charge against Putin? Really?
Putin had no choice. A siege of Donesque over many years by Ukranian Azov Nazis, 14,000 dead civilians, then NATO missiles on his borders. 26 million Russian dead in WW2 is something Putin remembers well. EVERY INVASION BY THE US in recent times is based on lies. Every one. Why would Ukraine be any different?
The Brits coveted Afghanistan more for the fact that it constituted a pathway to the underbelly of Russia, a country which the British have loathed and lusted after for over 2 centuries. Cast your eye back to Crimea 1850 or so to the current hysteria coming from London about Putin and Ukraine. All self induced by their total lack of resources and a desire to continue the program of ‘colonisation’ of a country’s wealth for their own, upper crust, delectation. Some people never learn.
So true. That is what I was taught Lest We Forget meant back in primary school.
Then Howard converted it to “For Political Convenience”, and sullied the original Anzac soldiers forever. (I was too young to understand Vietnam).
Including WW2.
If Ireland, Spain, Portugal, Switzerland, Sweden and Estonia could stay neutral then Australia almost certainly could’ve.
Did anyone tell the Japanese that?
Its a trifle difficult being neutral when you are industrialising and have no natural resources. 😉
Umm… Weren’t we part of a Commonwealth? Also, given the atrocities of the Nazis, should we have stayed neutral?
If Putin is to be referred to a war crimes tribunal, why aren’t Bush, Blair and Howard?
Dumb question really. We know that the ‘rules based order’ only applies to others, especially as our side sets those ‘rules’ in our favour. Bit like when the Chinese fighter came reasonably close to a US (spy) aircraft. Horrors! Our aicraft was flying in international air space! So was the Chinese aircraft! So, who owns international airspace?
Should Henry Kissinger (who turned 100 a few days ago) be included in that rogues gallery?
Should Henry Kissinger (who turned 100 a few days ago) be added that that rogues gallery?
War crimes are prosecuted by the “winners” just as they write the history.
Agree, why not, these despicable men have blood on their hands
It is difficult to find a problem in modern Australia that cannot be laid at the feet of the rodent.
As Keating said, when you change the government you change the country, and the vile rodent Howard had 11 years, supported by a supine media, to do just that. I am hoping Albanese will take advantage of his tenure to change Australia for the better, but so far it’s been disappointingly slow going.
Well we do have the Voice, and 43 percent, but then we also have AUKUS. At least, Morrison is history. Be thankful.
Good luck with that!
Weapons of Mass destruction that did NOT exist. One person should not have the power to send our young to war
Not unless they lead from the front, not some cosy office thousands of miles away in their own country.
If you want a war, you should be in there like the kings of old were – out in front until long shanks, and then Tudor.
What is annoying me about the terms of this debate in the Left media (who I usually agree with) is that the Anzac Myth is being attached to blind veneration of nationalism and not quiet but solemn commemoration of the military. This is what the Anzac spirit always meant to me as a child. It was almost anti-nationalistic. The digger was suspicious of -isms and power.
I agree with nearly everything in the above article but feel irritated that it mischaracterises what the Anzac myth means to me (and presumable many other Australians). It seems a good way to lose an argument even though you’re right.
The left should be trying to help bring the Anzac spirit back where it belongs, not deriding the Anzac myth. Then it will be aligned with the vast majority of Australians. The un-australianess of nationalist flag-waving goons who blindly follow power will become apparent.
A digger does not kick an innocent man off a cliff.
Agree that in a more naive and simple time, Anzacs were seen in a different light. In a more aggressive and highly competitive world at home where the elites co-opted all our myths for their own purposes, the Anzac spirit of your youth disappeared. It has become Americanised, where people actually believe that unnecessary violence and torture is justifiable as revenge and emotional reaction to one’s own difficulties. It is also openly supported as pre-emptive strikes or prevention of harm that is assumed to occur if people are not ‘taken out’. Actions in Iraq, books, the media and movies have all taken this line.
We need to co-opt our myths back. Not destroy them. If our myths aren’t inclusive enough to reflect modern day australia they can evolve. The last 30 years have showed how our myths can be dragged in the wrong direction. Let’s drag them back and further to where they need to be.
Myths are stories that unite people. Unity is something we need against the Putins and Xis of the world.
Atrocious foreign policy has nothing to do with what being an Anzac is supposed to mean. Let’s not blame the idiocy of our elites politicians on the common soldier.
All the evidence is that BRS is a psychopath who deserves to be disgraced, but the harm to our society is being done by those who put people like him on a pedestal to further their own agendas. At the expense of the Anzac myth not because of it.
Lest we forget, Gallipoli was a failed ANZAC invasion where many Australian soldiers quickly became cognizant of their co-option.
Hi. Franko
I had a post with similar sentiments when there were only about 8 other posts, which was published.
It has now disappeared down about 100 or so comments, while the comments it was published with are still at the top of the page.
Censorship ?
The censorship of the masses… not enough people voted your comment up. Try and be more controversial next time.
(Actually the debate here is generally pretty sane)
Unfortunately I’m starting to conform to SMH’s pearl-clutching and it may be carrying over.
It’s not a conspiracy, Bill. You didn’t get enough likes/votes, and I’m personally not surprised. In the second part of that comment you virtually accuse Maeve of being “evil” (your words) for citing the incidence of war crimes committed by Australians in other conflicts. If you had read our official war histories, or even just the Brereton report, you would know that’s a fact, not a controversial statement.
fwiw, your constant attacks on Maeve are getting obsessive and creepy.
Didn’t get enough likes? It got a large number of dislikes, appropriately enough, and then disappeared. Perhaps that was inappropriate, but it’s not surprising in view of what it said.
No, it’s still there. It’s just near the bottom. It’s sitting on five “likes”.
… and they’re all from bill’s mum.
God, Maeve, I am not quite sure just where to begin in writing a response to your magnificent and powerful essay. To call it inspiring and perspicacious does not seem to do it justice. I agree wholeheartedly with all of your comments. I would only add as an insignificant ‘by-the-by’ that I have had, for a long time, a total disdain for nationalism; in fact, I regard it as one of the three greatest scourges of humanity (the other two being greed/capitalism and religion).
These very high-quality articles of yours are becoming a regular feature here at Crikey. I am very much looking forward to reading many more.
They mostly make me want to puke – there’s a balance right there.
Was it not U Thant, former director general of the UN, who said that one of the great curses in the world was the slogan? A great deal of propagandistic sloganeering has been and is attached to our ‘nationalism’. You know…’better to be dead than red’ nonsense and the like.
Quite agree old fella.
Also the sheer idiocy of “my country, right or wrong“, which I heard many times during the disastrous Vietnam War years.
my country, right or wrong – swap out “country” with “family” and you’ve got the motto for most organised crime families
The full quote was “My mother, drunk or sober, my country right or wrong.” from GK Chesterson, crazed xtian apologist who crossed the Tiber for love of bells & smells.
We often see the same with mateship and friendship, where you support your mate no matter what terrible things s/he does. When people do terrible things, real friends set them straight rather than supporting actions that will corrupt the individual and those around them.
There is a difference between supporting your mate and friends/relatives and supporting their behaviour.
It’s due, not I believe, to the individual, but to the group ethos and pressure to conform endemic to any human grouping and is evident throughout our daily life and interactions.
Excellent points Bill!
Friendship must be fearless.
Yeah
What a great article. You have hit the nail directly on the head.
As the son of German parents who suffered directly in the catastrophe called World War 2, from which, by my reckoning, the Western World, ie. English speaking – has learned absolutely nothing but how to point the finger and how to ignore the mirror of their own atrocities.
What I’m trying to say is that unless you have experienced the random atrocity called War, either as a soldier – my father who was conscripted in 1941 when he turned 17 was sent as part of the 6th Army to Stalingrad. He was lucky, he was shot in the head at Kharkov, survived, and spent the rest of the war in Bordeaux and the Abruzzo where he deserted. My mother’s family – ethnic Germans in northern Yugoslavia – was ethnically cleansed in October 1944. The men were shot – my grandfather – a vigneron – among them. My mother was placed in a cattle truck a la Spielberg and along with her inmates – German women under 40 – was sent to a coal mine in what is now Donetsk where she was made to work 12 hours a day, 7 days a week, and given one Sunday off a month. She was one of the few survivors, dumped at the railway station in Frankfurt an der Oder in April 1947. She weighed 44 kilos. She was a kindergarten teacher.
We emigrated to Australia in June 1956. My father, a veteran of 4 years in an English POW camp in Port Said, had worked for the American Army in Pirmasens as a Fitter and Turner, his occupation while doing his apprenticeship in 1941. He spoke perfect English. He was also wise enough to understand that inevitably the USA would start a war with Russia – the Allies had, as I said, learned SGA from the horror of WW2 – and he had two sons. He declared to me when I was old enough to understand, that war is bullshit, that soldiers were its victims, along with the defenseless civilian populations which were the inevitable result of this insanity. He said that in an ideal world, the first people on the front lines of any war should be the Politicians and the businessmen and armament manufacturers who made this profanity possible.
So, as the inheritor of the trauma of my parents, I know in my DNA what war entails. Imagine my profound disgust at the way our so-called Diggers have been glorified, especially post the insanity of the Howard era. I recall that when I drove taxis on Anzac Day, I would deliver and take home broken men who had spent the day crying and drinking themselves stupid because they had relived the sheer horror of their years as cannon fodder.
The blind adulation for people like Ben Roberts, especially from the blinded far right wingers of this country, people who believe we fight alongside the worst warmongers in History – the USA – to protect our freedoms should be sent to an imaginary Afghanistan and made to suffer the way our troops made Afghani men, women and children suffer.
I should also add, I make this plea not as a ‘hurt’ German, and it no way diminishes the sadness and grief I feel for the people who suffered at the hands of the Nazis. In other words, I write from the heart of one mensch to the hearts of others.
That is one seriously painful history………………
………congratulations on extracting a worthwhile lesson from it.
If only the Americans would take a cold, hard look at themselves instead of perpetuating the fantasy that their troops would never commit war crimes…………..
………..even when Assange released video footage of them doing just that.
My Lai wasn’t the last occurrence and was not an isolated incidence.
Thanks for that.
In my working life I had the privilege of contact with Australian WW2 veterans. I was struck by two things about most of them:
And that was from the veterans of a war that at least had some moral justification – unlike the dirty, pointless wars Australia has followed the US into since 1945, where moral injury additionally tortures the souls of those returning from the front lines.
I remember having a great conversation with an ex Black Watch WW2 trooper who was a giant of a man but very gentle. It was a positive revelation that has lasted these last 55 years. One can never blame the troops for fighting but only those who sent them. However, if battlefield crimes are committed, they must be prosecuted to the letter of the law.
Thankyou for sharing your story, terrible as it is. You understand intergenerational trauma. So does the Jewish population. And the aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander populations. And so many others. We really need to focus on working to heal that trauma by humane treatment of all people, rather than attacking others which just creates more trauma, more damage, more dysfunction and more anger.
There’s also the Polish, Russian, Balkan, Italian, and African blight – the Congo, for instance – of intergenerational trauma. Apparently, nearly 6 million Poless also died, not to mention the 22 million Soviet citizens. Churchill starved to death over 3 million Bengalis in 1943, and apparently 120 million Indians died under British rule. We call ourselves the ‘Civilized’ West, we believe in a myth that we are all about freedom and democracy. The truth is far different. We are the children of centuries and centuries of Colonial rape, every atrocity accompanied by its holier-than-thou clergy….
Agreed. You know more of the history than I do, but much of it I recognise. I just have to hope that with more knowledge (and truth telling) we grow empathy and wisdom, so can move to a more humane world. We just need to ensure that the truth is told rather than hidden by elites with their own divisive and exploitative interests. A difficult task that could be assisted by better education including in critical thinking, analysis of the validity and credibility of sources. We also need to select our politicians better.
Don’t forget Ireland…
Today’s eurotrash Oirish have.
The island is currently copping the largest influx of military age foreign men since Strongbow or Cromwell who both found plenty of collaborators on the auld sod.
Today those Quislings run the Dail – despite neither FF nor FG having more TDs than the Shinners – and are changing the laws to prevent any opposition being printed or broadcast.
I cannot find the words to respond appropriately to your embedded pain and suffering. I have German friends of about my own vintage ( 74 ) who escaped Germany as soon as they were able because of the weight of the history of WW2. As the son of a British war hero, though not an acclaimed one, I also grew up with the ongoing trauma associated with WW2.
The first German I ever had contact with – and I don’t think he’ll be alive now, so I’ll use his name, was one of the gentlest, kindest people I have ever met. At the age of 16 he was sent to the Russian front as a member of the Hitler Youth, which all children had to belong to, and was captured by the Russians. He served as a slave in Russia, in re-construction work for 10 years. Immediately he was released, he set sail for Australia, where he became the target of second-generation Poles at his workplace – persecution he bore with a shrug of his shoulders.
The only Pole in the workplace who had lived during the war was then an older man, who when asked about the goings-on of his fellow, much younger Poles, also shrugged and responded with ‘too much rubbish’.
This is a story I have hardly ever recounted. I hope it can be of use.
The hero, in my eyes was Hans Wohl, of St. Albans, Victoria.
I grew up in Albion. Thanks for that wonderful story. By the way, according to my father, joining the Hitler Youth was not compulsory. My father, from Leipzig, certainly didn’t join. Instead he was an apprentice Fitter and Turner. Mind you, this was 1941, when Germany seemed to be winning. It probably changed later.
Great points made in this hopeful article!
It’s worth noting that all who lauded Ben Roberts-Smith were serving their own interests and had little real knowledge of the issues. They were politicians and policemen without recent Army experience. In contrast we have General Angus Campbell, Major General Paul Brereton, Andrew Hastie and David McBride all with more recent and relevant experience of the issues, who focused on the facts and were dismissed, ignored, overridden or charged by police (McBride). There was a clear campaign to support the war hero myth and to cover up the ugly side of war, as well as the obligation for soldiers to abide by the rules and morality of war.
The ‘fog of war’ was irrelevant here, but Tony Abbott wouldn’t know that, as he operates on faith, myth and legends as he’s demonstrated regarding George Pell.
Those with little knowledge are confident in their beliefs, whilst those who know more were more restrained and objective in their comments and focus on facts. That is the principle of the Dunning-Kruger effect and overconfidence, because they don’t know what they don’t know.
the “fog of war” is usually a furphy but in this case, his own colleagues are the ones who have reported and testified about this appalling behavior… so it’s particularly ridiculous to claim BRS was in the fog of war but none of his colleagues were
Don’t rules of engagement and the Geneva Convention rule out excuses like “the fog of war”?
precisely
experts ignored?! – it’s the leitmotif of our times
Sadly, yes.
The only fog that Abbott suffers from is that between his ears.
No one has won except lawyers, but perhaps the decent soldiers who did come forward have also won in a way. The SAS has been misused and in the process a monster has been created. It was not intended for long term multiple deployments. It is also worht noting that the difference between a top class SAS soldier and a psychopath might be rahter small. One of my mates had an SAS member brother and he reckoned he should have been locked away for 5 years deprogramming. We train and demand killing without hesitation, but there is a consequence that we don’t want to see.
I have a long term interest in military history and have read many accounts of VC winners. None has given me chills like Roberts_Smith’s account in Wartime. Guilty or innocent, a very dangerous man. But the officer class that bred this culture or failed to notice it (???) must also be part of the disinfection.
In the heart of battle, terrible things are done-Read Les Carlyon on the Western Front. But this was not a heat of battle situation and was also the culmination of a long term villification of all things Muslim to the point where I think the concept of human life changed, as it did with William Calley in Vietnam.
This has highlighted the importance of whistle-blowers, investigative journalists and courageous insiders. So why are McBride & Assange not supported?
Negotiations by the federal government are underway – something that never did and never would happen under the cons.
That’s what they’ve said, but it was reported that there are no documents that support such a claim.