As new details emerge of alleged war crimes committed by Australia’s special forces in Afghanistan, the regiment’s most powerful supporters are stepping up their campaign to defend the elite fighting force.
A charity co-founded by billionaire Kerry Stokes and backed by Andrew “Twiggy” Forrest has confirmed it is collecting donations for the legal fight of SAS soldiers who face prosecution over the alleged murder of Afghan civilians.
The SAS Resources Fund was set up after the Blackhawk helicopter disaster in 1996 that killed 18 soldiers in a training exercise in Townsville. But the charity’s chairman, Dr Grant Walsh, said it had decided to create a separate fund to raise money for the legal fees of soldiers accused of war crimes after “members of the Australian community” wanted to know how they could help.
“The fund established a discrete sub-fund for the specific purpose of receiving donations to enable access to necessary legal advice and representation as may be required,” he told Crikey.
“Any allocation of SAS Resources Fund resources for this purpose must still meet the criteria of associated hardship and will be underpinned by impartiality.”
The fund makes good on a promise by Stokes to stand by the SAS regiment following the release of the Brereton report last year, which found “credible information” Australian soldiers had murdered 39 Afghan civilians and prisoners. The Defence Department has stood down at least 10 members of the squad implicated in the inquiry’s findings.
Along with personally bankrolling the multimillion-dollar lawsuit of Australia’s most highly decorated special forces soldier, Ben Roberts-Smith, over allegations he committed brutal war crimes, Stokes has also suggested the fund, on which he serves as a trustee, could be used to help all SAS soldiers accused of war crimes with their legal battle.
The well-connected Perth charity has acted as a powerful lobby group for the elite fighting force. It was originally set up to help the families of SAS members killed in operations but now supports any member experiencing financial hardship. And with a number of high-profile West Australian personalities on the board, it has helped promote the regiment’s “unique and hazardous role” in the defence force.
This week, Victoria Cross recipient Roberts-Smith has launched his defamation trial against the Nine papers in the Federal Court, and Afghan interpreters hired by the Australian Defence Force say they are risking death as they wait years for their visas to be approved.
An ABC investigation has revealed fresh accounts of the deadliest alleged war crimes committed by Australia’s special forces in Afghanistan, which includes claims multiple civilians were allegedly killed as part of a cover-up.
Walsh says the fund’s support for accused soldiers did not go beyond the charity’s mandate: “Nobody has yet been charged or found guilty so any response from the [fund] demands impartiality.”
I wonder if the taxpaying public supporting this ‘Charity’ could be given a list of the names of those who contribute?
I’m one.
Do you also vote LNP?
So when someone is convicted of a war crime- & this is a very distinct possibility- will you donate to the victims of the people you defended in error? Or are war crimes something you support?
ATO has strict requirements for entities wanting to achieve ‘charitable status’. if an organisation’s main function is lobbying or advocacy, the charity status can be challenged.
One very very sick man. How can this be called a charity? And what will he do if/when the claims are proven by a court? Will he donate the same amount of money to the families of the VICTIMS of the war criminals?
“Stoker” is on the board of the AWM – picking winners?
Was his 7 all for the “foot-in-the-door” war to Afghanistan and subsequent main-game invasion of Iraq? As well as during the shared/under-resourcing of both – that had it’s own down-side, not least among those that our government (with his unquestioning backing) sent to those wars?
I think we need to change the title. What was the Australian War Memorial is to have the memorial aspect removed and replaced by an exhibition of war toys. Earlier this week approval was given to knock down the design-award-winning Anzac Hall despite the vast majority of submissions opposing this strategy.
The Temple for The Glorification of War might be a more relevant name after they go ahead with the Disneyfication of the current war memorial.
I heard on RN Tuesday AM that the public submissions sought on this obscenity were overwhelmingly against – the NCA’s chief executive Sally Barnes said the public consultation process received 601 submissions — the most in the authority’s history. “Most people who put in submissions did not support the project overall … they did raise issues, including the need for the expansion and the cost,” Ms Barnes said.
I’ve forgotten the exact numbers but, roughly, 2 were in favour, 7 equivocal and over 590 against.
But that’s just the pubic – what do they know or matter?
Their only function is to pay taxes to fund the $500M extravaganza.
Hands up those naif who don’t think that cost will blow out.
The War Memorial is appropriately named. It indeed memorialises war and the machinery of war to the point of excess. The ultimate fate of veterans and the casualties of war are largely and minimally confined to an outdoor side annex carefully separated from the main show. If the LNP want to spend more on a focused Memorial to Veterans they should make the Campbell site a memorial to veterans alone and move the paraphernalia of war to a War Museum elsewhere, as found in many other nations. The theme park atmosphere pervading the currant setup is disrespecting our veterans and the solemnity of their sacrifice. One has only to observe the chatter and behaviour of most of the visitors to devine the effect the current “Memorial” promotes.
I look forward to articles which hold powerful elites to account for Middle East wars failings as well. i.e DFAT officials whom Afghan’s reported war-crimes to? Why do they escape analysis? Who did David McBride report war-crimes to? Why is McBride being imprisoned for speaking up on this issue? Decision-making for an illegal war that kills hundreds of thousands of people? When Army advised Government that SF soldiers were too exhausted and burnt-out to deploy again, but were told, “bad luck, send them again” – who made that decision? No, let us all focus only on the wrong doing done by soldiers. The people at the bottom of the power pole. Let’s hang the diggers Australia and the people who created the intolerable environment, a brutal circumstance which led some to become dehumanised, they can escape any analysis. Come on, think harder. There is a royal commission is to vet suicide going on right now, join the dots, what might this have to do with this case? It suggests war brutalizes people perhaps, that psychological toll is enormous? If so, and some involved in the harshest fighting might loose their moral compass, is this to be jeered at and ridiculed? Or is a sad awful reality of war which leaders should have been guarding against? (That some people may become psychotic out of a type of distorted fear based dehumanization of enemy psychological coping mechanism etc).