Complete bullshit. Regimes that punish whistleblowers harder than war criminals reveal themselves as dreaming of tyranny.
The entire trial was cooked, and I’m furious :(
That non parole period is nuts too, pure revenge. What danger does this man represent? If he’s out on the streets some war criminals better watch their backs?
edit: I should add, it’s also quite frustrating that at the end of all this top brass has had no light shone on them, which was his initial goal on leaking. He thought the SAS was being investigated overmuch as a distraction from leadership failures. I guess we’ll never know. A slap on the wrist for the executioners, no systematic investigation, and an inconvenient man in gaol.
It’s not like he handed them to a stranger at a train station or sold them to the highest bidder. He carefully sought out a trustworthy investigative journalist from the most trustworthy and reputable broadcaster in the country. A public one mind you, without a pure profit motive and stringent ethical guidelines.
The military is not an impartial or objective body either. They are just as politically active as the police with their own self serving goals.
It’s still treason, the journo doesn’t have clearance, you don’t know what someone might have on said journo etc.
I admit it’s not a great example of our democracy manifest .
It’s authoritarian as fuck, but it’s overseas in active combat zones
The journo literally doesn’t need to have clearance. That’s why we have whistleblower protection laws.
Yeah nah, the highest calling is ensuring integrity. Everything else must come second to that or there will be none, and if the military cannot conduct itself in a trustworthy manner then it cannot be trusted and loses the privilege of secrecy.
If individual soldiers are endangered then it is the military who endangered them, not the person blowing the whistle.
Yeah unfortunately nothing is infallible and it’s better in my opinion to keep a fucked up secret then have 10 men die so we can be open and honest all the time
Men (and children) did die, though. That’s the point.
More than 10 I might add
Yes, although I did find it a little ironic that when I went to Wikipedia to check this it specifically mentioned “at least 10” deaths. All human lives are equal, of course, but to me there is an important distinction between the deaths of completely innocent and uninvolved civilians vs the deaths of service men and women to have chosen to involve themselves in a conflict. Western bias makes it easy to overlook this point, but those civilians who were murdered are literally just us in a parallel universe. We owe it to ourselves as much as anyone else to properly investigate these crimes and bring the perpetrators to justice. And if governments and military organisations are unable to do this transparently, then anyone who does (journalists, whistleblowers, etc) should be celebrated and protected.
If we want militaries to be more than murderers for hire then murders by militaries must be taken at least equally as seriously as murders by random citizens.
wtaf
You’re one of the saner voices around these parts.
I honestly don’t even know how to respond to someone saying they would rather have 10 people die because of keeping a fucked up secret than have an open and honest society. Like seriously that’s just beyond the pale.
I think often when people think of other people dying they internalise it as a headline does. Such and such died, ok that’s sad I guess.
I think the correct way to interpret it is to take the death of the person you have been the closest to ever. All that pain and grief and rage, multiply that by the number of people expected to feel that per person, then by the number of people dead. you start to interpret pointless, preventable, or cruel deaths with the appropriate amount of madness-tinged grief then.
Exactly. I touched on this in another reply but this could easily be us in a parallel universe (or even our own, one day). We are civilians too. The murder of civilians by armed forces should concern us, regardless of where they live in the world. I wonder how this person would feel about the situation if it was reversed, and a whistleblower in another country was being prosecuted for revealing the murders of Australian civilians by foreign armed forces.
I’m saying it’s better a fucked up secret is kept than 10 people die not the other way around
Ok, but that’s not what your earlier comment said. It’s quite the opposite of your earlier comment.
Anyway, even if we do take it that way, as others have said, it just doesn’t work that way. Keeping these secrets is enabling more deaths to occur. The “fucked up secret” was “people are getting away with murdering noncombatants and prisoners and covering it up”. By revealing this “fucked up secret”, McBride was helping to save lives.
Ironically, this is kinda what you seemed to be acknowledging in your earlier comment. You said that keeping the secret leads to deaths (“keep a fucked up secret then have 10 men die”).
(⊙_⊙)