Nick's Collingwood Bulletin Board Forum Index
 The RulesThe Rules FAQFAQ
   MemberlistMemberlist   UsergroupsUsergroups   CalendarCalendar   SearchSearch 
Log inLog in RegisterRegister
 
"The Circle" can VC recipient.

Users browsing this topic:0 Registered, 0 Hidden and 0 Guests
Registered Users: None

Post new topic   Reply to topic    Nick's Collingwood Bulletin Board Forum Index -> Victoria Park Tavern
 
Goto page Previous  1, 2, 3 ... 17, 18, 19, 20, 21, 22  Next
View previous topic :: View next topic  
Author Message
Pies4shaw Leo

pies4shaw


Joined: 08 Oct 2007


PostPosted: Fri Jul 29, 2022 8:35 am
Post subject: Reply with quote

^ 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.
Back to top  
View user's profile Send private message  
David Libra

I dare you to try


Joined: 27 Jul 2003
Location: Andromeda

PostPosted: Thu Jun 01, 2023 5:46 pm
Post subject: Reply with quote

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
Back to top  
View user's profile Send private message Send e-mail MSN Messenger  
Pies4shaw Leo

pies4shaw


Joined: 08 Oct 2007


PostPosted: Thu Jun 01, 2023 6:12 pm
Post subject: Reply with quote

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.
Back to top  
View user's profile Send private message  
David Libra

I dare you to try


Joined: 27 Jul 2003
Location: Andromeda

PostPosted: Thu Jun 01, 2023 8:35 pm
Post subject: Reply with quote

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?
Back to top  
View user's profile Send private message Send e-mail MSN Messenger  
stui magpie Gemini

Prepare for the worst, hope for the best.


Joined: 03 May 2005
Location: In flagrante delicto

PostPosted: Thu Jun 01, 2023 10:03 pm
Post subject: Reply with quote

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.
Back to top  
View user's profile Send private message  
David Libra

I dare you to try


Joined: 27 Jul 2003
Location: Andromeda

PostPosted: Thu Jun 01, 2023 10:27 pm
Post subject: Reply with quote

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
Back to top  
View user's profile Send private message Send e-mail MSN Messenger  
watt price tully Scorpio



Joined: 15 May 2007


PostPosted: Thu Jun 01, 2023 10:43 pm
Post subject: Reply with quote

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
Back to top  
View user's profile Send private message  
watt price tully Scorpio



Joined: 15 May 2007


PostPosted: Thu Jun 01, 2023 10:45 pm
Post subject: Reply with quote

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
Back to top  
View user's profile Send private message  
watt price tully Scorpio



Joined: 15 May 2007


PostPosted: Fri Jun 02, 2023 12:02 am
Post subject: Reply with quote

https://chaser.com.au/general-news/ben-roberts-smith-cheers-self-up-following-court-loss-by-kicking-a-farmer-off-a-cliff/

https://theshovel.com.au/2023/06/01/kochies-replacement-on-sunrise-announced/

_________________
“I even went as far as becoming a Southern Baptist until I realised they didn’t keep ‘em under long enough” Kinky Friedman
Back to top  
View user's profile Send private message  
pietillidie 



Joined: 07 Jan 2005


PostPosted: Fri Jun 02, 2023 6:18 am
Post subject: Reply with quote

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
Back to top  
View user's profile Send private message  
stui magpie Gemini

Prepare for the worst, hope for the best.


Joined: 03 May 2005
Location: In flagrante delicto

PostPosted: Fri Jun 02, 2023 7:08 pm
Post subject: Reply with quote

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.
Back to top  
View user's profile Send private message  
think positive Libra

Side By Side


Joined: 30 Jun 2005
Location: somewhere

PostPosted: Fri Jun 02, 2023 7:27 pm
Post subject: Reply with quote

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!
Back to top  
View user's profile Send private message  
watt price tully Scorpio



Joined: 15 May 2007


PostPosted: Sat Jun 03, 2023 12:00 am
Post subject: Reply with quote

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
Back to top  
View user's profile Send private message  
David Libra

I dare you to try


Joined: 27 Jul 2003
Location: Andromeda

PostPosted: Sat Jun 03, 2023 12:12 am
Post subject: Reply with quote

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
Back to top  
View user's profile Send private message Send e-mail MSN Messenger  
think positive Libra

Side By Side


Joined: 30 Jun 2005
Location: somewhere

PostPosted: Sat Jun 03, 2023 1:38 am
Post subject: Reply with quote

I don’t believe you respect authority at all
_________________
You cant fix stupid, turns out you cant quarantine it either!
Back to top  
View user's profile Send private message  
Display posts from previous:   
Post new topic   Reply to topic    Nick's Collingwood Bulletin Board Forum Index -> Victoria Park Tavern All times are GMT + 11 Hours

Goto page Previous  1, 2, 3 ... 17, 18, 19, 20, 21, 22  Next
Page 18 of 22   

 
Jump to:  
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



Privacy Policy

Powered by phpBB © 2001, 2005 phpBB Group