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war in afghanistan
Judge in Defamation Case Rules Against Aussie 'Hero' Accused of War Crimes in Afghanistan
"Today is a day of justice. It's a day of justice for those brave men of the SAS who stood up and told the truth about who Ben Roberts-Smith is—a war criminal, a bully, and a liar," said one of the journalists sued for defamation.
Jun 01, 2023
An Australian federal judge on Thursday ruled in favor of three newspapers sued for defamation by the country's most decorated living soldier, who the court found committed war crimes in Afghanistan, including the murder of civilians and unarmed prisoners.
Following harrowing testimony from fellow soldiers, Afghan civilians, and others, Justice Anthony Besanko of the Federal Court of Australia ruled that Fairfax Media newspapers The Age, The Sydney Morning Herald, and The Canberra Times had "established the substantial truth" that former Special Air Service Regiment [SASR] Cpl. Ben Roberts-Smith is a war criminal who murdered four unarmed prisoners in Afghanistan.
Roberts-Smith—whose multimillion-dollar defense was bankrolled by billionaire Australian media mogul Kerry Stokes—is a recipient of the Victoria Cross for Australia, the nation's highest military honor, as well as other awards including the Medal for Gallantry and Commendation for Distinguished Service. He fought in the U.S.-led wars in Afghanistan and Iraq.
"Today is a day of justice. It's a day of justice for those brave men of the SAS who stood up and told the truth about who Ben Roberts-Smith is: a war criminal, a bully, and a liar," Sydney Morning Herald and The Age journalist Nick McKenzie—a defendant in the suit—said following the ruling. "Today is a day of some small justice for the Afghan victims of Ben Roberts-Smith."
\u201cAustralia's most decorated living veteran was not defamed when accused of committing war crimes in Afghanistan, a judge has ruled \u2014 calling the allegations he killed unarmed prisoners 'substantially true.'\u201d— DW News (@DW News) 1685634121
Besanko found that in 2012 Roberts-Smith marched a handcuffed civilian prisoner named Ali Jan to a cliff in the southern village of Darwan and kicked him off the edge. Jan survived but was severely injured; Roberts-Smith ordered a subordinate soldier to execute the man.
"Ali Jan was a father, Ali Jan was a husband. He has children who no longer have a father. He was a wife who no longer has a husband," McKenzie said.
While Roberts-Smith argued Jan was a suspected Taliban scout, Besanko wrote that the soldier "murdered an unarmed and defenseless Afghan civilian," that he "broke the moral and legal rules of military engagement and is therefore a criminal," and that he "disgraced his country Australia and the Australian army by his conduct as a member of the SASR in Afghanistan."
In 2009, Roberts-Smith is alleged to have pressured a newly deployed soldier to execute an elderly Afghan man found hiding in a tunnel in order to "blood the rookie," according to the court. Roberts-Smith machine-gunned the man's younger disabled companion to death and then used his prosthetic leg as a novelty beer-drinking vessel, an act the court called "callous and inhumane."
\u201cCW: Afghanistan War Crimes\n\nAustralian soldier Ben Roberts-Smith kicked a handcuffed Afghan man off a cliff and then ordered him shot; shot a teenage prisoner point-blank in the head; and gunned down a disabled man, whose prosthetic leg SAS soldiers later used to drink beer.\u201d— Rebecca J. Kavanagh (@Rebecca J. Kavanagh) 1685599535
Besanko also found that Roberts-Smith bullied a fellow soldier, while finding that the papers did not prove an allegation that he punched a woman with whom he was having an affair in the face after a 2018 argument in Canberra.
University of Sydney professor David Rolph, a defamation law expert, told the Herald that the court's judgment "is a comprehensive victory for the media outlets" and "a vindication of the journalism in question."
"Defamation losses have a chilling effect for the media, particularly for serious investigative journalism," he added. "This decision should give media outlets some confidence that they can undertake public-interest journalism and prevail."
Sen. David Shoebridge (Green-New South Wales) called Besanko's ruling "an important win for fearless journalism in the public interest."
"It's a tragic fact that private media companies, not any part of the federal government, have taken on the public task of telling the truth about Australia's war record in Afghanistan," Shoebridge told the Herald. "The official silence must now end."
\u201c"@benmckelvey said Australia needs to launch a royal commission \u2014 akin to a U.S. congressional inquiry \u2014 to understand what went wrong.\n\nThe defamation trial, he said, was \u201cjust a little peek through the crack in the door.\u201d"\u201d— White Rose Society (Australia) (@White Rose Society (Australia)) 1685600983
In 2017, the Australian Broadcasting Corporation obtained leaked documents—known as the Afghan Files—detailing SASR war crimes such as the murder of unarmed civilians including children. A subsequent parliamentary probe confirmed the commission of war crimes by Australian troops in Afghanistan between 2005 and 2016.
On Wednesday, Reutersreported Australian defense chief Gen. Angus Campbell was warned by the United States—which has a long history of war crimes in Afghanistan and other countries invaded or attacked during the open-ended War on Terror—that allegations of SAS atrocities could trigger the Leahy Law, which prohibits military assistance to countries that violate human rights with impunity.
Troops from other coalition forces—including Afghans, British, Germans, Polish, and Canadians—have committed or been complicit in atrocities during the Afghan war, as have Taliban, al-Qaeda, and Islamic State fighters.
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Anti-War Voices Accuse Super Bowl of 'Hijacking the Pat Tillman Story'
One journalist reminded readers that the NFL star and Army Ranger "called the Iraq invasion and occupation 'fucking illegal' and was killed by friendly fire in an incident the military covered up and tried to hide from his family."
Feb 12, 2023
Advocates of peace, truth, and basic human decency on Sunday excoriated the National Football League's "whitewashing" of former Arizona Cardinal and Army Ranger Pat Tillman's death in Afghanistan by so-called "friendly fire" and the military's subsequent cover-up—critical details omitted from a glowingly patriotic Super Bowl salute.
As a group of four Pat Tillman Foundation scholars chosen as honorary coin-toss captains at Super Bowl LVII in Glendale, Arizona were introduced via a video segment narrated by actor Kevin Costner, viewers were told how Tillman "gave up his NFL career to join the Army Rangers and ultimately lost his life in the line of duty."
The video did not say how Tillman died, what he thought about the Iraq war, or how the military lied to his family and the nation about his death. This outraged many viewers.
"Obviously the army killing Pat Tillman and covering it up afterwards is the worst thing the U.S. military did to him, but the years they've spent rolling out his portrait backed by some inspirational music as a recruiting tool is a surprisingly close second," tweeted progressive writer Jay Willis.
\u201cI worry that young people may not know,& older folks may have chosen to forget,the true story of Pat Tillman,an NFL player, a soldier, & great man whose disturbing \u201cfriendly fire\u201ddeath was used by our govt to perpetuate the justification for an unjust war. https://t.co/W4C7mWvbpv\u201d— Sherrilyn Ifill (@Sherrilyn Ifill) 1676251540
"Pat Tillman called the Iraq invasion and occupation 'fucking illegal' and was killed by friendly fire in an incident the military covered up and tried to hide from his family," tweetedWashington Post investigative reporter Evan Hill.
"I'm writing a book for FIRST GRADERS on Pat Tillman that contains more truth about his life and death than the NFL just provided at the Super Bowl," wrote author Andrew Maraniss.
"Another year of hijacking the Pat Tillman story and not telling that he hated the Iraq War and was killed by the military," said one Twitter user.
"Tell the real story of Pat Tillman or get off the screen," fumed yet another.
Tillman, 25 years old at the time, turned down a $3.6 million contract with the Cardinals to enlist in the U.S. Army in May 2002 after the 9/11 attacks on the United States. He expected to be deployed to Afghanistan. Instead, he was sent to invade Iraq—a country that had no ties to 9/11. Tillman quickly came to deplore the "fucking illegal" war, and even made "loose plans" to meet with anti-war intellectual Noam Chomsky, according toThe Intercept's Ryan Devereaux.
\u201cPat Tillman was a beautiful soul. That he thought the war in Iraq was "illegal as hell" is not something to hide. It is part of what made his soul so beautiful.\u201d— Dave Zirin (@Dave Zirin) 1676245035
As Tillman's brother Kevin sardonically wrote:
Somehow we were sent to invade a nation because it was a direct threat to the American people, or to the world, or harbored terrorists, or was involved in the September 11 attacks, or received weapons-grade uranium from Niger, or had mobile weapons labs, or WMD, or had a need to be liberated, or we needed to establish a democracy, or stop an insurgency, or stop a civil war we created that can't be called a civil war even though it is. Something like that.
Pat and Kevin were sent to Afghanistan on April 8, 2004. Stationed at a forward operating base in Khost province, Pat was killed on April 22, 2004 by what the army said was "enemy fire" during a firefight.
However, the army knew in the days immediately following Tillman's death that he had been shot three times in the head from less than 30 feet away by so-called "friendly fire," and that U.S. troops had burned his uniform and body armor in a bid to conceal their fatal error.
"The deception surrounding this case was an insult to the family, but more importantly, its primary purpose was to deceive a whole nation," Kevin Tillman testified before Congress in 2007. "We say these things with disappointment and sadness for our country. Once again, we have been used as props in a Pentagon public relations exercise."
Hearing on Tillman, Lynch Incidents: Kevin Tillman's Openingwww.youtube.com
Tillman's father, Patrick Tillman Sr., told the Washington Post in 2005 that after his son was killed, "all the people in positions of authority went out of their way to script this. They purposely interfered with the investigation, they covered it up."
"I think they thought they could control it, and they realized that their recruiting efforts were going to go to hell in a handbasket if the truth about his death got out," he contended. "They blew up their poster boy."
The following year, Tillman's mother Mary was interviewed by Sports Illustrated and blamed U.S. military and George W. Bush administration officials all the way up to then-Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld for covering up her son's killing.
"They attached themselves to his virtue and then threw him under the bus," she said. "They had no regard for him as a person. He'd hate to be used for a lie. I don't care if they put a bullet through my head in the middle of the night. I'm not stopping."
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A Woman in the Presidency Is Simply Not Enough
Feb 19, 2016
Former Secretary of State Madeleine Albright tried to issue a mea culpa in The New York Times last week for her recent remarks suggesting that women who are not planning to vote for her friend Hillary Clinton should be condemned to hell. Although it was "the wrong context and the wrong time to use that line," Albright wrote, "I so firmly believe that even today, women have an obligation to help one another."
She added:
The battle for gender equality is still being waged, and it will be easier if we have a woman who prioritizes these issues in the Oval Office and if the gender balance among elected officials reflects that of our country. When women are empowered to make decisions, society benefits. They will raise issues, pass bills and put money into projects that men might overlook or oppose.
Of course, the more women make decisions, the more likely it is that women-centered policies will emerge. However, having female politicians in office does not ensure that feminism, progressive values, or compassion are priorities. To assume so is sexist.
Women like Albright and Clinton--who have climbed the ladders of the political establishment--are to be strongly commended for the chauvinist barriers they have undoubtedly faced and overcome. But in breaking through the glass ceiling, they have conducted themselves first and foremost as skillful politicians rather than as progressive women.
Reading Albright's op-ed reminded me of Afghanistan, a different arena in which the same dynamic has played out.
Remember that the war in Afghanistan was supported by liberals and conservatives, Democrats and Republicans alike. After a GOP president started the war, a Democratic president continued it. Rebuilding a post-Taliban Afghanistan that was friendly to women was touted as one of the outstanding post-9/11 U.S. foreign policy achievements--except that it didn't work. Today, Afghanistan is such a hostile place for women that they might as well be living under the Taliban, as the horrific fatal beating of a young woman by a mob showed last year.
In the aftermath of the Taliban's fall in 2001, women in Washington often spoke about rebuilding the country in a way that ensured that "women had a seat at the table." Indeed, this language has become so ubiquitous that it is now shorthand for women's equality and human rights. The image of a sizeable diplomatic roundtable bringing together all the "stakeholders" (another favored term)--armed warlords and Taliban as well as "women" (any women will do)--conjures up an idealistic vision of democracy and peace. It is a vision that has proved to be empty.
As Afghanistan demonstrated, any woman that the country's myriad fundamentalist armed commanders (most of whom have at some point been beneficiaries of U.S. largesse) would accept would be a woman who would not challenge their power. Clinton (along with Laura Bush) upheld such intellectually bankrupt notions of women's rights through her work with the U.S.-Afghan Women's Council. Educated and well-placed liberal Afghan women were trained to speak with the media and thrust into positions of power as placeholders to demonstrate that women's rights had been achieved. Yet it turns out that most Afghan women in the country's new parliament are "sisters and wives of warlords or tribal leaders chosen merely to fill the required quota of women."
One notable exception was Malalai Joya, the fiery young feminist activist who was legitimately elected to parliament by her community and who spoke out forcefully for women's rights and against domestic warlords and foreign occupiers. But Afghanistan's parliament wasn't designed for women like Joya. It was designed (by the U.S.) to achieve a superficial victory for democracy by showcasing the mere presence of women. Any feminist members of parliament who attempted to exercise their rights in the interests of all women--and ordinary Afghans in general--were excoriated, and her nemeses eventually kicked out Joya. You cannot simply seat women at a table full of armed woman-haters and magically produce democracy and justice.
The same sort of women in Washington, D.C.--including Clinton and Albright--want us to believe that placing a woman, specifically a woman who will not rock the boat, in the White House is a panacea for women's rights. Ordinary American women are expected to celebrate this as a victory, whether it impacts their lives positively and practically or not.
This is the type of identity politics that has long been favored by the U.S. liberal establishment precisely because it distracts us from the political demands of progressive and independent voters.
Eight years ago, we saw a similar dynamic play out in the election of Barack Obama. Most Americans voted for him, first and foremost, because he wasn't George W. Bush but also the ideal demographic alternative to Bush--a blank slate upon whom we could write our hopes and dreams. He could be anything to anybody, just about. The fact that he would be the first black president was the best part of it.
However, Obama was never the progressive candidate we imagined him to be, no matter how much we wanted it. Campaign adviser Anita Dunn, in a recent interview with Ezra Klein, said, "Obama had significant establishment support in his campaign, including from the traditional Democratic donor base." She added, "Obama promised change, not a revolution." Obama's former chief strategist David Axelrod told Klein, "Obama's was not an ideological campaign. There was a big difference in the war, but Obama was not the candidate of the left." Obama's nearly two full terms as president reveal how moderate and pragmatic his approach has been.
Clinton is banking on voters seeing her through a similar lens--as a candidate whose female gender will be enough to quell desires for change and distract the electorate from her Wall Street campaign donations, sizeable personal wealth, foreign policy disasters, and former board membership at Walmart.
Clinton wants voters to see her as a successful woman who has broken through the political glass ceiling and earned her credentials as commander-in-chief. Indeed, through the Clinton Foundation, the former secretary of state initiated a program called No Ceilings: The Full Participation Project, aimed at the "full and equal participation of women in political, civil, economic, social and cultural life." Such a program reflects a standard liberal feminist approach to women's rights that ignores the fact that all women need to have the floor raised to break through any ceilings. The full rights of women to food, water, shelter, education, employment, and health care are subservient to tokenism in political arenas that often keep people who are at the bottom well.
No one doubts that Clinton and Albright are brilliant, tough, and experienced women who are probably overqualified for their jobs compared to their male counterparts. However, none means anything to voters tired of prevailing conditions if their political values tend toward preserving the status quo. Feminism cannot be defined solely by helping the highest-achieving women get a "seat at the table."
While the problems that American women face are far smaller echoes of what Afghan women face, as Afghanistan's continued misogyny has shown, putting establishment women into positions of power only ensures one thing--that the establishment view will prevail. That is just as true in the U.S. as it is in Afghanistan.
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