Alleged war crimes set out on ADF’s day of reckoning

Thursday was a grim day in the history of Australia, and of our army. After years of investigations, internal reviews and leaks, the gruesome allegations of war crimes finally were ventilated for the nation to see. The bare metrics are horrific and tell a sorry tale. Australian soldiers are alleged to have murdered 39 Afghan civilians without compunction. At least 19 Australian soldiers will be investigated and probably will face criminal prosecution for murdering innocent civilians or prisoners of war. Chief of the Defence Force Angus Campbell was visibly affected as he delivered the litany of alleged war crimes to the nation. Their gravity cannot be overstated.

The report alleges the executions of innocent farmers and two adolescent boys were tragedies for their families. General Campbell appropriately expressed his shame and his condolences to them. Likewise, the alleged execution of compliant prisoners, incapable of resistance and posing no threat to their captors, offends the core ethos of our army. That ethos is part of our national identity. The legend of the Digger constitutes a central narrative as to who we are as a nation. Many people intuitively associate the birth of the modern Australian commonwealth with Anzac Day, more so than Federation or Australia Day. The exploits of the Anzacs who waded ashore under heavy fire at Gallipoli on April 25, 1915, are commemorated with reverence each year. Every Australian soldier should be aware that they are custodians of that legacy. It demands of them the highest standards of courage, integrity and decency. As Scott Morrison and General Campbell made clear, most of the 26,000 Australian servicemen and women who deployed to Afghanistan lived up to those ideals. Some paid the supreme sacrifice, leaving grieving loved ones. The crimes of the few are as much an affront to our fallen as they are to their victims.

Thursday marked the end of the beginning rather than the beginning of the end. General Campbell is to be commended for facing intense questioning and pledging to spare no one in the pursuit of those whose actions have brought odium on one of the few institutions in which Australians still repose some trust. He made it clear that there had been failures in command and leadership. We welcome this unequivocally. As Ben Packham wrote on Wednesday, the morale of many decent special forces soldiers has been corroded by a process that appeared likely to prosecute a handful of frontline troops while failing to rebuke or even investigate many in the higher echelons who should have known of the alleged flagrant breaches by their men at the time they occurred. We take General Campbell at his word that officers right up the chain of command will be required to account for their behaviour, including omissions or duplicitous reporting. By issuing immediate orders that the Chief of Army remove 2 Squadron SASR from the army’s order of battle and by stripping Meritorious Unit Citations from the Special Operations Task Groups that deployed between 2007 and 2013, the CDF showed he is prepared to mete out serious collective punishments that inflict disgrace on those units. Those punishments will endure into posterity. Historic failure warrants enduring shame.

The removal of 2 Squadron from the order of battle falls short of calls for the disbandment of the SAS Regiment. We have cautioned against destroying a crucial national capability over the actions, however heinous, of a minority. The SAS is a vital clandestine capability. It has been refined into that level of professionalism by years of investment in sophisticated capabilities, especially modes of insertion into the battle space. It would be folly to throw the baby out with the bathwater, as Peter Cosgrove, a highly decorated veteran and former defence chief and governor-general, has warned.

But Justice Paul Brereton’s report stretches credulity in dismissing the high tempo of operations and repeated rotations into a dangerous environment as a factor in eroding the troops’ moral sensibilities. There is unanimity among veterans and defence experts that the absence of any coherent national strategy or clear war aims, combined with the repeated rotation of a small elite force, was a significant factor in the loss of discretion in the application of violence.

Nor do we believe the term “warrior ethos” should be disparaged. Inculcation of warrior ethos is vital in forming soldiers to engage in close combat. Criminality is not the inevitable outgrowth of warrior ethos. It occurs when commanders fail. And General Campbell has conceded numerous failures in command. Those who have failed or engaged in false reporting should be stripped of honours and, if warranted, discharged from the army. Let criminal prosecutions be pursued without delay. The cloud over the accused soldiers has lingered long enough. Justice delayed is justice denied. This process cannot be permitted to drag on and cripple the combat effectiveness of the entire Special Operations Command.

This day of shame will not be redeemed by hiring cultural change experts and woke consultants who do not understand the core business of a combat unit. General Campbell has demonstrated he is willing to take drastic measures to redeem the tarnished reputation of our special forces and the wider ADF. His pledge to provide quarterly updates on the process he announced is welcome. The ongoing investigation of the degree of knowledge of several senior officers must continue and the cards allowed to lie where they fall. While 19 soldiers are likely to face prosecution, they are a symptom of a deeper problem. They should not bear total responsibility for the absence of any coherent political strategy and for rosy assurances delivered to the civilian leadership by ambitious commanders who failed to warn of the toll repeated deployments were taking in an unwinnable war.