|
|
|
View previous topic :: View next topic |
Author |
Message |
Pies4shaw
pies4shaw
Joined: 08 Oct 2007
|
Post subject: | |
|
^ As others have already pointed out, the "criticism of these soldiers" is coming from other "these soldiers". There is nothing to be defensive about, in this instance, unless one wants to pick a side randomly. Such regiments are full of highly-trained, very capable people who take on appalling tasks in circumstances of extraordinary difficulty - and those with ordinary human feelings likely end up deeply traumatised in many cases. Most of them serve with great distinction, as your father will have done. Almost none of them are accused of war crimes by their colleagues. |
|
|
|
|
David
I dare you to try
Joined: 27 Jul 2003 Location: Andromeda
|
Post subject: | |
|
Roberts-Smith loses his defamation case:
https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2023/jun/01/ben-roberts-smith-loses-defamation-case-with-judge-saying-newspapers-established-truth-of-some-murders
Quote: | Ben Roberts-Smith VC murdered unarmed civilians while serving in the Australian military in Afghanistan, a federal court judge has found.
Justice Anthony Besanko found that, on the balance of probabilities, Roberts-Smith, Australia’s most decorated living soldier, kicked a handcuffed prisoner off a cliff in Darwan in 2012 before ordering a subordinate Australian soldier to shoot the injured man dead.
And in 2009, Roberts-Smith ordered the execution of an elderly man found hiding in a tunnel in a bombed-out compound codenamed “Whiskey 108”, as well as murdering a disabled man with a prosthetic leg during the same mission, using a para machine gun. |
The only pity is that he doesn't (yet?) face any other consequences for what he did. _________________ All watched over by machines of loving grace |
|
|
|
|
Pies4shaw
pies4shaw
Joined: 08 Oct 2007
|
Post subject: | |
|
jack_spain wrote: | Ben is a genuine hero. They don't give away VCs for anything but the highest level of valour. |
A lot can change in a decade. |
|
|
|
|
David
I dare you to try
Joined: 27 Jul 2003 Location: Andromeda
|
Post subject: | |
|
This is a good piece on the fallout from the case and what all this means:
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2023/jun/01/as-the-ben-roberts-smith-case-proves-its-time-for-australia-to-abandon-our-farcical-myths-of-anzac
Quote: | For well over a century Australian military personnel have been committing serious crimes on foreign battlefields. The 2020 Brereton report into alleged war crimes by Australian special forces in Afghanistan carefully contextualised its findings against contemporary soldiers on foreign operations. It highlighted that from Australia’s colonial adventurism in the Boer war and through the first world war, into battles in Europe and the Pacific in world war two and into Vietnam and beyond, Australian soldiers had been involved in many unlawful killings.
It’s not something you’ll learn about when you look at the dioramas and other displays chronicling Australia’s martial history at our national secular shrine, the Australian War Memorial. You’ll learn about enemy atrocities, to be sure. But the Australian combatant is largely lionised.
And none more so, of course, than the disgraced Roberts-Smith, two portraits of whom hang in pride of place. One measures an immodest, imposing 1.6m by 2.2m and features him in a combat pose as if about to fire a handgun. Pistol grip, it is titled. Michael Zavros painted a hero who, the artist said, when asked to adopt a fighting stance, “went to this whole other mode. He was suddenly this other creature and I immediately saw all these other things. It showed me what he is capable of … it was just there in this flash.”
Pistol grip asks: do we get the heroes we deserve or those we create? |
|
|
|
|
|
stui magpie
Prepare for the worst, hope for the best.
Joined: 03 May 2005 Location: In flagrante delicto
|
Post subject: | |
|
Whatever tool wrote that piece is in dire need of an enema. _________________ Every dead body on Mt Everest was once a highly motivated person, so maybe just calm the **** down. |
|
|
|
|
David
I dare you to try
Joined: 27 Jul 2003 Location: Andromeda
|
Post subject: | |
|
What did he get wrong? I think he's absolutely right about the untouchability of soldiers and the myths that have served to excuse brutality. Indeed, that's one of the precise reasons I wrote what I did on the first page of this thread a decade ago, before any of us (including me) had any idea about the kind of person Roberts-Smith was. It's the glorification of soldiers that's the problem. _________________ All watched over by machines of loving grace |
|
|
|
|
watt price tully
Joined: 15 May 2007
|
Post subject: | |
|
David wrote: | What did he get wrong? I think he's absolutely right about the untouchability of soldiers and the myths that have served to excuse brutality. Indeed, that's one of the precise reasons I wrote what I did on the first page of this thread a decade ago, before any of us (including me) had any idea about the kind of person Roberts-Smith was. It's the glorification of soldiers that's the problem. |
There’s nothing at all wrong with the article indeed nail hit head. I don’t see anything controversial whatsoever. At the same time the majority of SAS soldiers are decent hard working soldiers asked to do awful work. The journalists Nick McKenzie and Chris Masters said as much.
That type of work is going to attract narcissistic alpha psychopaths and in some respects that’s what you want doing that type of work (within limits of course). _________________ “I even went as far as becoming a Southern Baptist until I realised they didn’t keep ‘em under long enough” Kinky Friedman |
|
|
|
|
watt price tully
Joined: 15 May 2007
|
Post subject: | |
|
The narcissistic psychopath Ben Roberts Smith has brought great shame to Australian soldiers and the armed forces. Needs to be stripped of his Victoria Cross immediately. _________________ “I even went as far as becoming a Southern Baptist until I realised they didn’t keep ‘em under long enough” Kinky Friedman
Last edited by watt price tully on Fri Jun 02, 2023 12:45 am; edited 1 time in total |
|
|
|
|
watt price tully
Joined: 15 May 2007
|
|
|
|
|
pietillidie
Joined: 07 Jan 2005
|
Post subject: | |
|
I spotted this today and recalled the thread.
I guess that clears that up.
Skids, don't worry, I would never hold his ill work against the many genuine and genuinely brave folks performing a thankless task. I have the same protective approach to police, social workers and anyone doing a thankless task. Far more businesspeople also fall into this category than many realise. _________________ In the end the rain comes down, washes clean the streets of a blue sky town.
Help Nick's: http://www.magpies.net/nick/bb/fundraising.htm |
|
|
|
|
stui magpie
Prepare for the worst, hope for the best.
Joined: 03 May 2005 Location: In flagrante delicto
|
Post subject: | |
|
David wrote: | What did he get wrong? I think he's absolutely right about the untouchability of soldiers and the myths that have served to excuse brutality. Indeed, that's one of the precise reasons I wrote what I did on the first page of this thread a decade ago, before any of us (including me) had any idea about the kind of person Roberts-Smith was. It's the glorification of soldiers that's the problem. |
No, you have the same problem with the Police. Soldiers aren't glorified or untouchable, most get far less credit or plaudits than they deserve.
One bloke going rogue should not taint the others who, as WPT said, do a bloody hard job. A job that requires them to risk their own life and routinely take others. Just to be able to do that requires a serious emotional switch. This is a judgement on one man, not the entire armed services. _________________ Every dead body on Mt Everest was once a highly motivated person, so maybe just calm the **** down. |
|
|
|
|
think positive
Side By Side
Joined: 30 Jun 2005 Location: somewhere
|
Post subject: | |
|
stui magpie wrote: | David wrote: | What did he get wrong? I think he's absolutely right about the untouchability of soldiers and the myths that have served to excuse brutality. Indeed, that's one of the precise reasons I wrote what I did on the first page of this thread a decade ago, before any of us (including me) had any idea about the kind of person Roberts-Smith was. It's the glorification of soldiers that's the problem. |
No, you have the same problem with the Police. Soldiers aren't glorified or untouchable, most get far less credit or plaudits than they deserve.
One bloke going rogue should not taint the others who, as WPT said, do a bloody hard job. A job that requires them to risk their own life and routinely take others. Just to be able to do that requires a serious emotional switch. This is a judgement on one man, not the entire armed services. |
this _________________ You cant fix stupid, turns out you cant quarantine it either! |
|
|
|
|
watt price tully
Joined: 15 May 2007
|
Post subject: | |
|
Congratulations to the courageous journalists and brave soldiers who chose to speak up despite the pressure not to.
I’m just waiting for the Murdoch Press to label this “woke” _________________ “I even went as far as becoming a Southern Baptist until I realised they didn’t keep ‘em under long enough” Kinky Friedman |
|
|
|
|
David
I dare you to try
Joined: 27 Jul 2003 Location: Andromeda
|
Post subject: | |
|
stui magpie wrote: | David wrote: | What did he get wrong? I think he's absolutely right about the untouchability of soldiers and the myths that have served to excuse brutality. Indeed, that's one of the precise reasons I wrote what I did on the first page of this thread a decade ago, before any of us (including me) had any idea about the kind of person Roberts-Smith was. It's the glorification of soldiers that's the problem. |
No, you have the same problem with the Police. Soldiers aren't glorified or untouchable, most get far less credit or plaudits than they deserve.
One bloke going rogue should not taint the others who, as WPT said, do a bloody hard job. A job that requires them to risk their own life and routinely take others. Just to be able to do that requires a serious emotional switch. This is a judgement on one man, not the entire armed services. |
Respect isn’t the same thing as glorification. I advocate respect, and I also want to see the mythology torn down.
I completely agree with the rest of your post, but the pedestal these guys are put on did ultimately make it much harder to take BRS down (look at the forces he had in his court, from media to politicians). I commend his fellow armed service members who bravely spoke up against him, though what they said was also a reminder that the rot goes far deeper than one rogue actor – it’s inherent in the culture of silence and fear, following superiors’ orders blindly and disregard for human life.
That’s the culture that elevated Roberts-Smith and enabled him to act in the way that he did. Nobody reading the testimony here could have any doubt that there were serious structural issues at play. _________________ All watched over by machines of loving grace |
|
|
|
|
think positive
Side By Side
Joined: 30 Jun 2005 Location: somewhere
|
Post subject: | |
|
I don’t believe you respect authority at all _________________ You cant fix stupid, turns out you cant quarantine it either! |
|
|
|
|
|
|
You cannot post new topics in this forum You cannot reply to topics in this forum You cannot edit your posts in this forum You cannot delete your posts in this forum You cannot vote in polls in this forum You cannot attach files in this forum You cannot download files in this forum
|
|