The Australian government just arrested our most decorated veteran from the Afghanistan War for alleged war crimes.
Ben Roberts-Smith was awarded the Victoria Cross for Australia after singlehandedly storming two Taliban machine gun positions by himself in order to save his own SAS team.
And this is how we repay him.
I spoke to an Australian Afghan war veteran who told me that the Australian government literally paid for billboards in Afghanistan offering to pay random Afghans to come forward with war crime allegations. What country on Earth would do this to itself?
Tell me: When does the Taliban plan on holding war crimes tribunals into their own people? When do the Taliban plan on holding themselves accountable for terrorism?
Absolutely retarded to purge your own men when fighting a brutal barbaric enemy that respects no rules whatsoever.
We are a cucked nation.
Free Ben Roberts-Smith.
https://x.com/i/status/2041332821990707662
I remain steadfast in my support of Ben Roberts-Smith despite news of his arrest today.
Ben, his immediate and broader defence family need the Australian people’s support right now and I will not abandon him like so many other politicians.
Ben was disgracefully arrested in front of his twin 15 year old girls.
He will be held in jail for 7 days. He gets just one bail application. If that application fails, they can hold him for 2 years.
AFP and OSI have spent $300 million dollars over 10 years to get to this point.
https://x.com/i/status/2041342694610673754
His only crime is putting on the ADF uniform if he had a Hamas headband on the lefties would be celebrating him. I don’t care whether he did or didn’t he’s a solider. Soldiers kill people that’s their job. 300 million is proof this is a witch hunt.
https://x.com/i/status/2041348549682856396
Three former soldiers will appear at Belfast magistrates court on April 20th. One is charged with a killing that took place in May 1972. He is not accused of acting outside his orders. He is accused of acting within them. The distinction no longer appears to matter.
This is the reality behind Labour's Northern Ireland Troubles Bill, a piece of legislation dressed in the language of reconciliation that functions, in practice, as an engine of persecution. The state that sent these men to Northern Ireland, that gave them their orders, that relied on their judgment in circumstances no minister has ever faced, is now the state that funds the machinery pursuing them through the courts half a century later.
That is not a technicality. It is the central fact. Taxpayer money flows to the lawyers challenging the actions of soldiers whose actions were sanctioned by the taxpayer. The government calls this justice. General Sir Peter Wall, who commanded the British Army for four years, calls it something without moral backbone. He is right.
The operational consequences are already visible. Elite soldiers are leaving the SAS and SBS rather than face the prospect of prosecution decades hence for missions carried out under government orders. The crisis has become sufficiently acute that reservists are being brought into the regular SAS to fill roles vacated by those walking out. Britain's most capable fighting force is being quietly hollowed out by a bill whose architects appear indifferent to the result. Seven former SAS commanders have warned that the legislation is doing the enemy's work, that operational secrets exposed through inquiries give hostile states a narrative of lawless troops. Moscow, Tehran and Beijing do not need to discredit British special forces. Westminster is doing it for them.
The asymmetry at the heart of this legislation is not incidental. It is structural. IRA members were released under the Good Friday Agreement. Many destroyed evidence, stayed silent, or received letters guaranteeing they would not be pursued. Soldiers kept records, gave statements, and remained traceable. Decades later, only one group remains available for scrutiny. Not because they are more culpable, but because they are more reachable.
The Coagh ambush of June 1991 illustrates the logic perfectly. Three IRA men were stopped by the SAS on their way to murder someone. A coroner ruled the force used was justified. Years later a family challenged that ruling, arguing the soldier should have paused after each shot to consider whether to fire the next one. A judge described that argument as ludicrous and utterly divorced from reality. The challenge continues, funded by legal aid, heard at the Court of Appeal just days ago. No verdict ends the process. The process is the punishment.
Keir Starmer has said publicly he is absolutely confident there will be no vexatious prosecutions. Three soldiers will be in a Belfast court in sixteen days. His confidence has not reached them.
The government insists its bill provides robust protections for veterans. General Sir Nick Parker, who oversaw the final operations in Northern Ireland, says ministers do not understand the duty of the state to stand by those who serve it. The duty to stand by those who serve is contractual, not sentimental. A soldier who follows orders in a war the state authorised cannot later be offered up as payment for political convenience.
What is being constructed here is not a legacy process. It is a permanent legal industry, sustained by public money, targeting the most traceable participants in a conflict the state itself waged. The soldiers kept their records. That is now their liability.
A serious country does not behave this way. This one, apparently, does.
"Keir Starmer has said publicly he is absolutely confident there will be no vexatious prosecutions. Three soldiers will be in a Belfast court in sixteen days. His confidence has not reached them."
https://x.com/i/status/2040558058066325729
Rob, the Good Friday Agreement provided for the early release of convicted prisoners, not immunity from future prosecution. The distinction matters. Those released had been tried and convicted. What is happening to these veterans is prosecution, not release. The Legacy Act, which Labour scrapped, was the mechanism designed to address that gap by drawing a line under future prosecutions. Labour removed it and replaced it with a commission that critics, including the generals who commanded these men, say provides no meaningful protection. So to answer your question directly: the GFA did not nullify future prosecutions. That is precisely the problem.
https://x.com/i/status/2040881824583618717
Why now? Is this the governments way of stopping the armed forces from standing against the government?
Who is actually bringing these charges?
https://x.com/i/status/2041238009832521931
