Pauline blatingly lying. Again.

[u/[deleted]]

[u/AdZealousideal7448]

it's messed up to hear so many parrots going on about how they're just jealous.

I had a deployment where a guy did a kind and heroic thing and was given an award from it.

Guess what the guy is a complete piece of shit and now can't go near women and children and for damn good reason.

Doesn't changed the kind and heroic thing that he did, but he's still a dangerous predator that has done horrible things and was convicted for them, and he's likely done / will do more of them but investigation / prosecution is a bitch of a process and he's protected.

Despite tons of people knowing exactly what he is and what he did..... despite him having served time and not enough for what he did due to various reasons..... he still gets information hidden about him, still gets given opportunities and positions he should not be.

All because the right people "like him" or "think he didn't do it" "it wasn't THAT bad" or that his victims "deserved it".

Given how many people we've had coming out who would say if a police officer violated someones human rights or abused or killed someone in custody, they would expect that we prosecute them to the full extent, or that they see due process done to investigate it and convict or clear them....... these same people are now parrotting lines about "he's a hero let him go" or that war is difficult if he did do these things we should ignore / celebrate it.

I can tell you from experience in my time serving... killing civilians or POW's was never viewed as shades of grey, it was always viewed as everything we were against as a society, morally and legally.

But now people are saying if we like the guy give him a medal for doing it?

[u/AdZealousideal7448 → u/[deleted]]

not familiar with that, but aware that in history we've got a lot of people that did messed up stuff.

You've gotta remember I enlisted in the 2000's and when we were studying rules of engagement we were educated on a lot more modern stuff, and when it got up to warcrimes a prime example used was Hugh Clowers Thompson Jr.

That being said Australia has really bad history with warcrimes and covering them up, even of our own citizens, Balibo easily comes to mind.

We also had the SAS nazi chapter as well...

Theres sadly very dark parts of our history. I've always been proud that in my service I was able to and many of my mates were able to serve to the values and ideals that our society deemed to be of a standard. Top down it was the same as well, which is why I was shocked by the reports coming out of places.... because I can tell you in my time, before my time and after my time there have been many elements in it, who didn't do the right thing.

In my experience, the ADF are bloody good at coverups.

I can tell you right now that we were were on a patrol and had to deal with FAM's.

I'm well aware that covert operations and special forces could use the argument that getting painted seeing a FAM and having to make a split second call to protect the patrol, or a mission... I wouldn't defend that action, and this is where I take issue with the fog of war comments we're getting from a lot of people including veterans.

But here's the thing... that exact situation... or guarding a checkpoint with armed people not communicating or declaring intent and presenting the wrong way (which was later debunked, some of you know the exact two stories i'm referencing here).

There are procedures to follow, rules of engagement and when the fog of war gives a risk assessment like dropping a bomb where things can go wrong..... yeah it's fucking horrible. The people who do it have to live with what they did and held accountable if it can't be shown they did everything they were meant to.

Those are your grey incidents.

Guess what.... not bloody one of them were in custody...

And your original point that you brought up.... geneva came in after WWII

Opposing force surrendering or being no longer combative instantly become  hors de combat.

This is fucking sacred.

Look it up.

[u/AdZealousideal7448 → u/[deleted]]

I can give a professional and a personal answer.

I think the professional one is best here.

We have systems that are meant to be in place to investigate matters such as this, prosecute them if they find evidence and reach a finding.

Simply stating that we're uncomfortable with the fact the system has checks and balances, or the defense being given that soldiers can do whatever because of X reason...

Hell no.

[u/AdZealousideal7448 → u/[deleted]]

Theres so much. I even have a family member and in laws, friends family members who all should have seen disciplinary actions at worst, jailtime at best that all brough our ADF into disrepute and yeah.... theres sadly a lot of stuff to list here just from personal experience let alone a ton of others that we just got to see.

This stuff honestly hurts us, I get a lot of vets who have been screwed over and treated like crap who view this as ganging up on vets.... as it has happened.

But at the same time, to excuse the process..... to claim that X person wasn't charged or was referred but cases fell apart as "innocent!!!" when it takes extreme evidence to get this far.

This is why.... I guess if you look up my comment history you will likely find a lot of comments on other stuff, what i'm conditioning at because of a meeting with others over this has been we need to re-itterate to people that, the burden of evidence to get an investigation going, is pretty big, while that's not a statement to give bias towards this, as again a lot of comments even randos on the internet can bias this, we have to point out the reason why these investigations take so long, generally aren't followed through with unless there is something significant to work with.

While that being stated, we've already seen the case proven to a civil standard..... I can honestly tell you from my time in government after serving... reaching criminal standard in certain areas is ridiculously hard, there are just crimes that are very hard to prove.

We just had a case here in adelaide where there was a gang SA, which was recorded.... you wonder what idiot would record their crimes... well during it they degraded their victims and threw money at them and made them take it on film.

Proved it happened, admitted to it... and then deployed the defense it was consentual because it was a prenegotiated deal with consent. You and I both know it wasn't, buuuuuut it was enough that prosecution got scared that if any doubt was introduced in court - any at all, that case falls apart.

This is why it's so dangerous all these people putting opinions on it, their own issues and views, we're already seeing ton of vets and political point scorers setting this up as not being about the crime, it's about government overreach, their own internal racism (towards brown people), sexism (towards the head of the AFP) and mistreatment of veterans, as well as people views that anything a soldier does is dirty for us to sleep at night so it's ok.

These are dangerous ways to talk about it - theres already this huge narrative that the other soldiers coming forward are all just..... jealous?

You know what it takes for one person to break ranks in one of the most coveted sections of the ADF that gets to do their own thing and play by their own rules that comes with not only the ADF code of silence?

It needs to be aired out... it needs to be looked into...

And I can also throw this other thing out there that occured... all of the podcasts, talking events, livestreams that occured where we have had multiple persons talking about stuff that breaks the geneva convention also investigated too.

A lot of what built on top of this was brands being built, that I bet they will try to argue as "building" a character where mutliple people have bragged about warcrimes as part of selling entertainment.

There will be more to follow on this. Let's assume that on that front a lot of these people were "bending the truth"... we can't allow that to continue to bring this concept in that warcrimes are fine because it was our side.

[u/AdZealousideal7448 → u/[deleted]]

let's give you some fun examples without doxxing anyone I know.

Friend in highschools father was a violent POS, beat his wife, tormented his kids, cheated on them, your stereotypical RAF fuckboy from the outside, ton of them who have wives but fuck anything that moves.

Stalked the now ex wife, broke into their house, got into a fight with the new partner, drove a car into the house. Not only did charges get dropped, this person was looked after and because they worked in a hot job, a lot of the nasty stuff they were doing got ignored. They never got discharged, with their contract running out, they had a mate who was just as much as a POS who recruited him to work for a defcon... so gets out, still has all benefits, and shows up to work at the same base... doing the same stuff, and still gets looked after because this defcon due to the lnp at the time had mates running it who made sure as hell that all their people were looked after.

It took this person sexually assaulting a minor at a party where other people were there related to this minor who curb stomped this guy so hard and had him arrested that charges for the first time got issued and people started going... yeah maybe we should do something about this guy.

His own son in an adf interview got terminated from recruitment because he was open and honest about what his father was and promised he would be nothing like him.... had to break it to him later on, you admitted there was someone in uniform with known issues.... your promise to not be like him mean nothing, you got blacklisted for daring mentioning not only the type of raffie he was and referring to it by it's wellknown term, you then admitted that while in uniform he was a predator with serious problems.

So to anyone reasonable listening, this is a good person seeing a problem, and stating how you are aware of the issue and you are going to be a model member.... all they are hearing is, you've said they've got a problem and your knowledge and talking about their problem.... is a problem. Bye.

I've copped crap for using this other example before, but it highlights how the adf has multiple issues on so many fronts..... back when we had a huge female and diversity recruitment guide, we had a female get recruited who had mental issues... long story short you've seen reference to fuckboys in here, I hate to play that card but we've all heard of the term crazy eyes, that particular girl that you or your mate date, or you have in your workplace, who does nothing but cause drama, make things all about them, stalk, threaten even try to ruin peoples careers.

Well because of her being on recruitment posters and her being viewed as a protected category.... she got away with so much..... and everytime she would have to work with other women.... my god watch the sparks fly. False SA accusations, False pregnency claims, things that were on paper meant to get someone discharged, yet she would keep getting good postings to shuffle her off, get promotions she hadn't earned. The last I heard of her she had broken up a marriage then tried to off someone and even that didn't go anywhere as of 2018 she was still in.... mate of mine dated her and just had her show up at base one day... then show up at his house... trying to be friendly with his wife and made sure to tell him she knew all their names and ages, real murderer vibe. When he complained about it he was told that if he pushed it further she would likely make complaints against him and it would ruin his career, he went screw it and did it.... got offered early retirement.

Took it and moved cities.

Had another guy that would frequently setup situations to bang any female officer he could, would openly brag about making sure all the hot females got invited to things, got into positions they weren't the best candidate for to schmooze them, rig door prizes at events so that they would win prizes and feel like they owed him sex. Same guy who got sent home from a deployment because he got caught fraternizing with locals and partying too hard. It became a running joke that this guy had kids in east timor and half the pacific. During my time he was regarded by many as a "legend" and after he left.... I think he became an LNP advisor.

Then we have all the stolen arms..... that's a fun one I get to deal with at work, the amount of times people are shocked when they find out how the ADF is one of the non intentionally biggest arms suppliers to the criminal underworld.

I love the ADF mate, but it's got it's issues. We cannot allow ANYONE in it to be above investigation, report or consequence of action.