(Not me) Official video from David McBride's Official Youtube channel. If you don't know who he is - I don't blame you, with how little coverage this story has gotten
David McBride is a former British Army major and lawyer for the Australian Army. He leaked documents to the ABC which formed the basis of its reporting on unlawful killings (murders) of Afghan civilians by Australian armed forces. He attempted to seek protection from prosecution through Australia's whistleblower laws, however the Australian Government denied expert testimony through the use of public interest immunity laws so the case went to trial and he was recently sentenced to five years and eight months imprisonment.
It's a fucking travesty what's happening to him. He shone a light on some pretty sordid shit, shit that was definitely in the public interest to be reported, and he's been made into the villain.
Our government should be fucking ashamed of themselves.
tfw no one commenting on this story seems to point out the fact that david mcbride leaked military documents to prove that commanders were being too harsh on the troops, only to inadvertently expose actual war crimes, proving that the commanders were not only not being too harsh on the troops, but actively covering up their missdeeds, lol
sucks to suck, have a good time in the pokey, buddy
I read through this and thought it was supportive of his exposing of war crimes. But then youre glad hes in jail for exposing war crimes and im just confused.
I'm neither glad, nor unhappy. I just found it strange no one was mentioning that this idiot thought he was taking issue with the military brass for unfairly targeting soldiers for war crimes his stolen document trove ended up proving were in fact happening.
And I'm enormously amused by the mass intellectual dishonesty in his defenders, on parade in this comment section.
BBC: "McBride, 60, admits he gave troves of document to the Australian Broadcasting Corporation (ABC), saying he was concerned about the attitudes of commanders and what he then thought was the "over-investigation" of troops, the court heard.
But instead the information he provided underpinned a series of reports in 2017 called The Afghan Files, which gave unprecedented insight into the operations of Australia's elite special forces in Afghanistan, and contained allegations of war crimes."
McBride's intention was not to leak to expose war crimes, it was to show how troops were being unnecessarily hounded by legal etc , ie 'over-zealous” investigations of special forces'
The ABC discovered war crimes in the leaks and went down that path.
Now McBride looks like the hero being victimised for exposing the war crimes.
The abc is not biased at all in this, no. They're not the ones he leaked to.
You make it sound like he accidentally leaked evidence of war crimes. He leaked evidence of war crimes comitted by generals as well as boots on the ground but somehow the abc's top 'investigative reporters' ie gov't stenographers are still missing that.
Did you ready the article? McBride initially posted on his personal blog, which caught the attention of ABC journalist Dan Oakes. The information was leaked to Oakes and the ABC from there.
My reading of the article was McBride didn't initially think there were war crimes committed but:
ADF leadership alleg(ed) that SAS soldiers were being wrongly accused and illegally investigated for war crimes.
“If there is political bullshit going on against soldiers, and it doesn’t matter whether they’re SAS or not, you need to stand up for it,”
McBride didn't think war crimes had happened which is why he asserts that the soldiers were being wrongly accused and investigated. Oakes disagreed.
Now the question is, why is Oakes making this allegation allegation against McBride if it's not true?