Lost truths about Ben Roberts-Smith, amid harsh realities of war (Australian Victoria Cross recipient accused of war crimes)

Patrick, who has written five other books, says Masters’ 2017 book on the SAS, No Front Line, includes only a single paragraph about the storming of the Taliban-held mosque for which Roberts-Smith received the VC and only a single sentence mentioning Roberts-Smith.

Yet Patrick argues this action is probably the high point of the entire war for Australia. The award of a Battle Honour Citation for the entire Special Operations Task Group Rotation 12 for “extraordinary heroism and combat excellence”, the first such award since Vietnam, suggests Patrick is correct.

Patrick condemns all war crimes but believes people have a right to know the details of the roles of Australia’s Sydney-based Commandos in Chenartu and Perth-based SASR in Tizak. He argues these were the most dangerous engagements fought by any Australians since the Vietnam War.

Patrick says the Commandos were wrongly denied air support to finish off the Taliban force at Chenartu and the Taliban fighters were allowed to leave and regroup in camouflaged high ground positions for the next day’s battle at Tizak.

Patrick tells this column: “I reckon Australians are in three camps. One, they just don’t want to know what happened over there. Two, they don’t care if the SAS executed people over there because the Taliban used execution and assassinations all the time. And three, there are those who are disgusted and want people tried for murder. I suspect the first group is the biggest.”

Patrick’s Sydney Institute speech concluded with a fact that will surprise most Australians. The total cost of the investigation into the findings of the Brereton report into allegations of Australian war crimes now exceeds $318m, or almost $17m for each of the 19 soldiers being investigated.

Unfortunately this article is paywalled and a 300 word extract cannot do it justice. I've had to leave out some parts I thought were important - the main ones in my view being that if he hadn't been awarded the VC, Ben Roberts-Smith would probably be a totally unknown former soldier today, never accused of war crimes, and details of the conditions under which he and his comrades fought.

There seem to me to be way too many people today who want to sit in judgement on men who risked their lives to protect others, from the comfort of their civilian lives, and who don't understand that war is a dirty business - especially the type of war that special forces troops are often asked to undertake.

Civilian courts - not military ones - now sit in judgement on matters they are not equipped to understand. And when criminal prosecution still fails to happen because of a lack of evidence, then civil cases are brought with a lower standard of evidence required and people who are supposed to be considered innocent until proven guilty in the eyes of the law, are labelled as 'war criminals' 'on the balance of probabilities'.

$318 million dollars spent investigation 19 soldiers - all of whom risked their lives for their country, a number of whom were expressly decorated for their courage. $17 million per soldier - how do you defend yourself (in the legal sense) when that much money is being spent to destroy you.

Ben Roberts-Smith VC only got any real defence because a particular billionaire, Kerry Stokes, bankrolled it to the tune of tens of millions of dollars.

"...There seem to me to be way too many people today who want to sit in judgement on men who risked their lives to protect others, from the comfort of their civilian lives, and who don't understand that war is a dirty business - especially the type of war that special forces troops are often asked to undertake..."

I have thankfully never experienced combat. But I feel a great resentment at the judgement of those who fight by those who have no idea. This is not to excuse real atrocities but to those who have never been there, it seems that there are many things, when viewed outside the real, physical prism of combat filled with death, that could be easily construed as "war crimes".

Things like this should only be evaluated by people who have had to experience it, IMO. Not civilian courts.

Things like this should only be evaluated by people who have had to experience it, IMO. Not civilian courts.

I agree entirely. And, here, at least, that used to be how it normally was.

To be fair, the Brereton Report was headed by a senior Judge who is an Army Reserve Major General. I do think some effort was made to have a soldier in the role - but his report was noteable in that it didn't actually identify accused people.

But the involvement of civilian courts has been problematic to say the least. And some of the media have stretched what I think is any reasonable definition of public interest - naming Roberts-Smith when criminal investigators had already decided there was no criminal case to answer seems to me to have been based on a desire for a scoop more than any actual intention to achieve justice.

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