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Australian SAS soldier arrested, charged with war crimes


Buckshot Bear

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SAS soldier arrested, charged with war crimes

 

Australian police have arrested a decorated former SAS soldier and will soon charge him with war crimes after he was allegedly caught on camera shooting an Afghan man in a field while deployed in Afghanistan.

 

https://www.news.com.au/technology/innovation/military/sas-soldier-arrested-charged-with-war-crimes/news-story/236373fb49b88b691266d0d8f25225dd

 

Jeez I'd hate to go to war these days for any country.

Do they think the Diggers took Japanese prisoners in the Pacific?

 

Its ok for a pilot to drop bombs or a ship or submarine to launch Tomahawks and wipe out X amount of civilians and label it as 'collateral damage' but a foot slogger down on the ground in the mud, dust and heat.....crucify him.

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Sorry, but on this one I respectfully disagree.

 

There are rules and we fight by those rules, or we are no better than those we claim to be fanatics. Those whose actions have been called into question were not in the heat of battle.

 

I am not saying this man is guilty but there is more than enough evidence (the shooting is on video and has been played on public TV) for him to face a court and have his case heard. If he is found guilty then he should face the consequences of his actions.

 

This is the way it's done where the rule of law is respected, and I wouldn't want to serve where the alternative is the case.

 

 

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1 hour ago, Major Crimes said:

Sorry, but on this one I respectfully disagree.

 

There are rules and we fight by those rules, or we are no better than those we claim to be fanatics. Those whose actions have been called into question were not in the heat of battle.

 

I am not saying this man is guilty but there is more than enough evidence (the shooting is on video and has been played on public TV) for him to face a court and have his case heard. If he is found guilty then he should face the consequences of his actions.

 

This is the way it's done where the rule of law is respected, and I wouldn't want to serve where the alternative is the case.

 

 

 

My father was a young Australian Commando Forward Scout (Independent Company) in New Guinea, did his Commando training at Wilsons Promatory, turned 19 in the jungle facing wave after wave of Japanese soldiers in frontal assaults, the bodies of the attackers were stacked like cordwood and yet another bugle would blow and another wave would attack screaming at the diggers front line..

 

They were the first and forefathers of Australia's Special Forces -

https://garriehutchinson.com/australian-commando-memorial-tidal-river-wilsons-promontory/

 

 The diggers in New Guinea didn't take Japanese prisoners, what were they to do with them? The brass wanted prisoners for interrogation.....even offered incentives, they didn't get any prisoners handed over. The diggers also didn't trust any surrendering or wounded Japanese as they quickly learnt that they would feign and try to kill as many diggers as they could as they got killed, they just shot them outright.

What were they going to do with a wounded Japanese prisoner on a long range patrol after just being in a firefight? Honestly what do you think they did?

 

They'd also seen too many of their fellow soldiers butchered and their hearts, livers, thighs and buttocks cut off and in Jap cooking dixies as the Japs had resorted to cannibalism (They were told it was alright to eat the enemy, Jap officers often ate downed U.S airmen and they weren't starving) after they had been tied to trees and bayoneted and their genitals cut off and stuck in their mouths. One digger officer had been bayoneted 126 times and bayoneted so that he lived (according to a company medico) through each bayoneting...... all to the end. 

 

The diggers also had a problem with natives that had sided with the Japs, what were they to do with them on a long range patrol knowing that if they let them go they would tell the Japs that Australian Commandos where there. Put them in some type of nonexistent prison? Tie them up? Ask them nicely not to tell their Jap masters that they were in the area?

You can guess what choice they had.

 

My Dad spent years in and out of Concord Soldiers Repatriation Hospital, went through 26 surgical operations. He was the best Dad anyone could ever have.

 

Do you think he and all the other Diggers that served in New Guinea should have been tried as War Criminals for what they did and what they had to do against an enemy that was utterly ruthless across China in the Nanking Massacre, Singapore, Hong Kong and the whole of the Pacific?

 

We (the Australian Govt) sent young Diggers to fight in Afghanistan, not against a uniformed military force but against a guerilla force. What guerilla war has ever had niceties of engagement. 

 

As George Orwell was quoted -
"“Men sleep peacefully in their beds at night because rough men stand ready to do violence on their behalf.”

 

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6 hours ago, Buckshot Bear said:

SAS soldier arrested, charged with war crimes

 

Australian police have arrested a decorated former SAS soldier and will soon charge him with war crimes after he was allegedly caught on camera shooting an Afghan man in a field while deployed in Afghanistan.

 

https://www.news.com.au/technology/innovation/military/sas-soldier-arrested-charged-with-war-crimes/news-story/236373fb49b88b691266d0d8f25225dd

 

Jeez I'd hate to go to war these days for any country.

Do they think the Diggers took Japanese prisoners in the Pacific?

 

Its ok for a pilot to drop bombs or a ship or submarine to launch Tomahawks and wipe out X amount of civilians and label it as 'collateral damage' but a foot slogger down on the ground in the mud, dust and heat.....crucify him.

I would imagine it all depends on whether the Afghan dude was armed and what he was up to. The article says nothing about that. I'd like to know more about what actually went on during this incident. 

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We have the luxury of time and distance to think about what happened. 

The soldier involved had a situation. 

Did he make the wrong decision? 

Possibly, but he did what he thought he should in the instant.

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      I would have to see the whole video,  Just like the MARSOC 3 . This is why we never let storytellers looking for fame (media) embed with us .
We will get to many armchair warriors that never saw a day in combat say what they want based off what someone twisted into a story .. 

 

   I dont know the mission , or backstory prior . Like some of our Nam vets will tell you whole different world when that 10 year old that you gave candy too the day before is trying to blow you up today .  

 

  Do bad things happen in war , yes they do is he guilty ?? Not for me to decide , War crimes ?? In a country that Mom and dad will kill their year old baby, gut it and stuff it with explosives hardly .

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This is what happens when an enemy dresses as civilians, uses civilians as cover and concealment, and forces civilians to act as combatants.  How is a soldier supposed to tell the difference?  We saw it in Korea and Viet Nam.  We see it in Israel with Hamas setting up mortars and such in school yards or on hospital roofs.  I saw a clip of Palestinian men arranging teens and preteens on a road to throw rocks (not little rocks like you might try to skip across water, but things that looked like half a brick)  at cars and eventually one car hitting one of the kids.  Naturally the clip Hamas released to the press was a tight shot of the car hitting the teen, not the wider shot showing how the adults were manipulating the kids.

 

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3 hours ago, Buckshot Bear said:

 

My father was a young Australian Commando Forward Scout (Independent Company) in New Guinea, did his Commando training at Wilsons Promatory, turned 19 in the jungle facing wave after wave of Japanese soldiers in frontal assaults, the bodies of the attackers were stacked like cordwood and yet another bugle would blow and another wave would attack screaming at the diggers front line..

 

They were the first and forefathers of Australia's Special Forces -

https://garriehutchinson.com/australian-commando-memorial-tidal-river-wilsons-promontory/

 

 The diggers in New Guinea didn't take Japanese prisoners, what were they to do with them? The brass wanted prisoners for interrogation.....even offered incentives, they didn't get any prisoners handed over. The diggers also didn't trust any surrendering or wounded Japanese as they quickly learnt that they would feign and try to kill as many diggers as they could as they got killed, they just shot them outright.

What were they going to do with a wounded Japanese prisoner on a long range patrol after just being in a firefight? Honestly what do you think they did?

 

They'd also seen too many of their fellow soldiers butchered and their hearts, livers, thighs and buttocks cut off and in Jap cooking dixies as the Japs had resorted to cannibalism (They were told it was alright to eat the enemy, Jap officers often ate downed U.S airmen and they weren't starving) after they had been tied to trees and bayoneted and their genitals cut off and stuck in their mouths. One digger officer had been bayoneted 126 times and bayoneted so that he lived (according to a company medico) through each bayoneting...... all to the end. 

 

The diggers also had a problem with natives that had sided with the Japs, what were they to do with them on a long range patrol knowing that if they let them go they would tell the Japs that Australian Commandos where there. Put them in some type of nonexistent prison? Tie them up? Ask them nicely not to tell their Jap masters that they were in the area?

You can guess what choice they had.

 

My Dad spent years in and out of Concord Soldiers Repatriation Hospital, went through 26 surgical operations. He was the best Dad anyone could ever have.

 

Do you think he and all the other Diggers that served in New Guinea should have been tried as War Criminals for what they did and what they had to do against an enemy that was utterly ruthless across China in the Nanking Massacre, Singapore, Hong Kong and the whole of the Pacific?

 

We (the Australian Govt) sent young Diggers to fight in Afghanistan, not against a uniformed military force but against a guerilla force. What guerilla war has ever had niceties of engagement. 

 

As George Orwell was quoted -
"“Men sleep peacefully in their beds at night because rough men stand ready to do violence on their behalf.”

 

 

For better or worse, things have changed.  Whether it was in India & Burma, New Guinea & SW Pacific or the Pacific theater, no one who faced the Japanese in combat generally took prisoners.  Partly because the Japanese themselves generally didn't take prisoners and when they did they usually abused them before killing them.

 

I've spent better than 40 years dabbling in WWII history and the militaries of most countries at some point or the other committed acts that would be considered war crimes by today's standards.

 

Without defending or condoning Japan, what they did was acceptable by THEIR standards.  I just finished reading Jungle Fighter by John Hedley and he was told by Allied POW's that the Japanese treated each other worse than they treated the POW's.  

 

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6 hours ago, Chantry said:

 

 

Without defending or condoning Japan, what they did was acceptable by THEIR standards. 

 

 

That's incorrect -

"The crimes committed also fall under other aspects of international and Japanese law. For example, many of the crimes committed by Japanese personnel during World War II broke Japanese military law, and were subject to court martial as required by that law".

 

Estimates of the number of deaths by caused by the Japanese just to civilians in occupied countries range up to 30 million through massacres, human experimentation, starvation etc

 

I've read multiple personal written accounts of Japanese soldiers who were sickened of the excess that they witnessed and they knew that one day (especially as the tide turned against them) that they would answer for these excesses. 

 

... "the Japanese started selecting prisoners and every day one prisoner was taken out and killed and eaten by the soldiers. I personally saw this happen and about 100 prisoners were eaten at this place by the Japanese. The remainder of us were taken to another spot 50 miles [80 km] away where 10 prisoners died of sickness. At this place, the Japanese again started selecting prisoners to eat. Those selected were taken to a hut where their flesh was cut from their bodies while they were alive and they were thrown into a ditch where they later died"

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34 minutes ago, Buckshot Bear said:

 

That's incorrect -

"The crimes committed also fall under other aspects of international and Japanese law. For example, many of the crimes committed by Japanese personnel during World War II broke Japanese military law, and were subject to court martial as required by that law".

 

Estimates of the number of deaths by caused by the Japanese just to civilians in occupied countries range up to 30 million through massacres, human experimentation, starvation etc

 

I've read multiple personal written accounts of Japanese soldiers who were sickened of the excess that they witnessed and they knew that one day (especially as the tide turned against them) that they would answer for these excesses. 

 

... "the Japanese started selecting prisoners and every day one prisoner was taken out and killed and eaten by the soldiers. I personally saw this happen and about 100 prisoners were eaten at this place by the Japanese. The remainder of us were taken to another spot 50 miles [80 km] away where 10 prisoners died of sickness. At this place, the Japanese again started selecting prisoners to eat. Those selected were taken to a hut where their flesh was cut from their bodies while they were alive and they were thrown into a ditch where they later died"



One week after the surrender of Japan on September 2, 1945, General Douglas MacArthur—the Supreme Commander of the Allied Powers—ordered the arrests of Japanese suspects, including General Hideki Tojo. Twenty-eight defendants, mostly Imperial military officers and government officials, were charged. From May 3, 1946 to November 12, 1948, the trial heard testimony from 419 witnesses and saw 4,336 pieces of evidence, including depositions and affidavits from 779 individuals. Seven defendants were sentenced to death by hanging and 16 defendants were sentenced to life imprisonment. 

 

 

 

https://www.nationalww2museum.org/war/topics/tokyo-war-crimes-trial#:~:text=Eleven countries came together to,to start and wage war.

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and we being the good guys have never fire bombed civilian targets, to include leveling entire cities.

 

More recently, ever heard the term free fire zone ?  Or MACV/SOG kill lists, the phoenix programs.....

 

War is hell and it's meant to be,

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Again, I respectfully disagree.

 

There are rules of war that we say separate us from those who are Terrorists and Barbarians.

 

If we do not follow them, we are no better.

 

The sins of our fathers are no excuse for ours and we should hold ourselves to a higher account if we want this world to improve that little bit more each generation, so our children live that little bit better than we did and so on.

 

The vast majority of my peers in uniform also believe that by following the rules we better show the people we want to help that we are better and its worthwhile turning away from the capricious and arbitrarily violent to follow a way that respects and protects the rule of law.

 

I am not saying it's easy, but many of us believe it is right.

 

As to specific cases, I prefer to say that all those accused deserve their day in court and if the case cannot be proved beyond reasonable doubt, then the law has been honoured as the verdict must be honoured.

 

In this particular case the video of the shooting is very compelling but needs to be tested in a court of law. I would add that the person filming it clearly was troubled by what happened as he provided the video (note filming was a personal thing there was no direction to and Defence did not condone or support it).

 

These are the reasons for my belief, but they are mine and I understand there are other views and I respect that. There is nothing wrong with a difference of opinion so long as we can discuss it and agree to disagree.

 

I stand ready to do violence I am not willing to commit murder.

 

 

 

 

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7 minutes ago, Major Crimes said:

 

The sins of our fathers

 

 

 

Sorry mate, but after what I wrote about my Dads experience as a young Australian special Forces Commando in New Guinea, I find that line offensive. 

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43 minutes ago, Dutch Nichols, SASS #6461 said:

and we being the good guys have never fire bombed civilian targets, to include leveling entire cities.

 

More recently, ever heard the term free fire zone ?  Or MACV/SOG kill lists, the phoenix programs.....

 

War is hell and it's meant to be,

 

Taliban farmers (or Taliban sympathisers) used mobile phones to give intel repeatedly of troop numbers and troop movements, the best places to plant IED's etc etc  

 

Of course known insurgents doing this were 'removed' on orders same as you said with the MACV/SOG kill lists, the phoenix programs in Vietnam.

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1 hour ago, Buckshot Bear said:

 

That's incorrect -

"The crimes committed also fall under other aspects of international and Japanese law. For example, many of the crimes committed by Japanese personnel during World War II broke Japanese military law, and were subject to court martial as required by that law".

 

Estimates of the number of deaths by caused by the Japanese just to civilians in occupied countries range up to 30 million through massacres, human experimentation, starvation etc

 

I've read multiple personal written accounts of Japanese soldiers who were sickened of the excess that they witnessed and they knew that one day (especially as the tide turned against them) that they would answer for these excesses. 

 

... "the Japanese started selecting prisoners and every day one prisoner was taken out and killed and eaten by the soldiers. I personally saw this happen and about 100 prisoners were eaten at this place by the Japanese. The remainder of us were taken to another spot 50 miles [80 km] away where 10 prisoners died of sickness. At this place, the Japanese again started selecting prisoners to eat. Those selected were taken to a hut where their flesh was cut from their bodies while they were alive and they were thrown into a ditch where they later died"

I was not referring to the cannibalism, although even that took place on both sides*, nor their treatment of civilians or medical "experimentation".

 

I have little doubt that any Japanese soldier caught by one of the head hunting tribes in Burma or the islands chains near New Guinea were also killed and eaten.

 

*I have read of one instance, where soldiers from one England's African colonies, captured a Japanese patrol who themselves who torturing some Gurkhas they had caught.  The African soldiers crucified the Japanese, removed their eyeballs and replaced them with their testicles and then proceeded to eat pieces of the Japanese.

 

I have little doubt that any Japanese soldier caught by one of the head hunting tribes in Burma or the islands chains near New Guinea were also killed and eaten

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@Chantry

 

If you can find this book available anywhere I would recommend it. I have an extensive WWI & WWII book library.

 

Written by Yuki Tanaka

 

iu6iu6.thumb.JPG.12cce151000ed87ed7af6be698b873ba.JPG

 

 

And also -

Japanese War Crimes during World War II: Atrocity and the Psychology of Collective Violence

By Frank Jacob

 

y6i5.JPG.36f754000e12584f6b535efb2db06a1b.JPG

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32 minutes ago, Buckshot Bear said:

 

Sorry mate, but after what I wrote about my Dads experience as a young Australian special Forces Commando in New Guinea, I find that line offensive. 

Sorry I didn't mean to offend you or your father.

 

I just believe we have to stand for our own actions and not those of others.

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9 minutes ago, Major Crimes said:

Sorry I didn't mean to offend you or your father.

 

I just believe we have to stand for our own actions and not those of others.

 

I know you wouldn't have intended that MC.

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DO not send a soldier to kill if you dont want him to kill , i cannot imagine being sent by my country to fight then being prosecuted for doing what i was sent to do , i get it that there are civilians in the theater of war but so often its not that easy to discern who they are and often they are the enemy , they are using women and kids , im not saying he was right but im not going to prosecute him either - stop the war , dont send the soldiers - or accept what happens , 

 

sitting here in peace its easy to judge , go serve , 

 

god bless him , 

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14 hours ago, Buckshot Bear said:

@Chantry

 

If you can find this book available anywhere I would recommend it. I have an extensive WWI & WWII book library.

 

 

I have a bunch myself and in recent years I have been mostly focusing on the 14th Army and the war in India & Burma.  A remarkably crappy place to fight a war.  Keep in mind that no criticism was intended for your father's service and the other Australians who fought in WWII.

 

It's simply the more that I read of the soldiers, from all sides, the more reluctant I am to impose my worldview on what they went through.

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We are wandering afield as to be expected I fear, and could continue on tangential comparisons indefinitely. It has been and will always be a difficult and touchy subject.

But the point is, did the soldier violate the Rules of Engagement as specified by his organization or the Laws of Land Warfare as set down by the 1899 Hague Convention. 

Personal trauma, stress, combat fatigue, etc  may be mitigating circumstance and may have an affect on the sentence if adjudicated guilty. But they are not a legal justification. 

We will have to see what the investigation and trial reveal.

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Rules of Engagement as specified by his organization or the Laws of Land Warfare as set down by the 1899 Hague Convention sounds nice and gentlemanly, like an early morning duel with seconders at your side. But war isn't clean like that, it's not gentlemanly its barbaric, civilized thoughts find themselves lost very quickly. The script is dynamic and can and will change in the blink of an eye.

 

Yes there can be moments of chivalry and gallantry, but for front line troops its mostly blood and guts and killing anyway you can.

 

Its lunchtime on a Thursday here and raining cats and dogs, so I have time to type a bit.

 

You're a young Aussie Commando in New Guinea serving in the jungle at Wau or Wewak, Buna or the Ramu Valley. From intel you know that there is a brigade sized enemy of the Japanese 20th Division and also the 20th Japanese Reconnaissance Regiment are patrolling.

 

Your Major of your Commando Company asks your Captain to get intel on the Japs, the Captain passes this on to your Lieutenant and looks at you and your mate that are the sections forward scouts and tells you two to take three other men from your section and go and collect intel on Jap numbers and movements. As your packing gear he says "If we don't hear from you within 4 days we'll consider you have been killed".

 

You empty your pockets and pack of anything personal, anything that the enemy can't have and give them to a mate to hold onto ......just in case.

You grab your Thompson submachine gun, ammo, fill water bottles and grab whatever meager rations have been able to be portered up the track ........  pick three other men from faces looking at you all eager to go because they are your mates and off you go up the track. You walk past your mates out far from the platoons and sections dug in listening posts and they bid you "good luck cobber".

 

Scenario -

First day no contact, you heard some noises in the jungle and got in ambush positions a few times but nothing came of anything.

Second day you come up over yet another razor back mountain, from vantage points you see a native village that has around a platoon of Jap soldiers bivouacked in the village. From what you can see the natives are very friendly with Japs. You continue to gather intel through the day.

Third day you've kept of the track as much as possible but you hear voices and the five of you go to bush as quietly and quickly as possible. Along come three male natives carrying food and water back to the Japs. One of them notices a broken branch and looks a bit harder and spots you and eyes widen and just about to yell and you and the other four are up and have a hold of the 3 natives and this keeps them quiet temporarily. They start looking down the track towards the Japs and you can just tell that they are about to start yelling, next thing the five of you have them on the ground with your hands over their mouths and their eyes are bulging and they just want to yell out. The Japs are fresh and rested up and if alerted will be onto you in minutes or worse follow you or your trail back to your sections/platoons. Anyway it plays out they will have intel that Australian patrols are close by.

 

What do you do in the above scenario? If you did what needed to be done, would you have liked to be tried as a war criminal by people who had never been to war?

 

 

Some other meanderings.

Now I could write scenario after scenario, some fictious and some passed onto me. I never hesitated to ask a returned serviceman about their experiences and to a man they were always willing to talk, most at length. I met so many of my Dad's fellow Commando's on Anzac Days and many more at his funeral. Many I kept in contact with after he passed so that I would have some link to my Dad. The many times he spent at Concord Serviceman's Repatriation Hospital gave me many opportunities to talk to many other diggers.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Concord_Repatriation_General_Hospital

Over the years the stories flowed and I met more returned servicemen from different regiments and companies.

We often heard "Men don't like or won't talk about the war".

I put that to many of these old soldiers, old soldiers that on doing extensive research on my Dad's Commando Company at the Canberra War Memorial and also online searching, I knew what they had done and seen and read about them being mentioned in dispatches and also unit books that some wrote later in their lives. Their most often retort line back was that "Not every soldier was a front line trooper".

Digging a little deeper I heard it said more than a few times from these veterans of very bloody campaigns that everyone answered the call and signed up, the Army, Navy and the Air Force then chose what you would do and where they would send you.....no fault of your own, you signed up willing to do battle for your country but these branches of the military needed drivers, typists, mechanics, batman, cooks etc etc etc etc

The ratio of frontline troops to rear echelon support troops after doing research was quite amazing. These rear echelon support troops were extremely important to the trooper on the frontline.

 

 

 

 

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