In 2016, Australia’s Special Operations Commander, Major General Jeff Sengelman, was troubled enough to concede that, ‘A growing body of actual and anecdotal evidence from the past decade suggests that the personal and professional ethics of some [in the Australian Defence Forces] have been deeply compromised.’ He was particularly concerned by alleged misdeeds allegedly committed ADF personnel in Afghanistan.
The findings of the Inspector-General of the Australian Defence Force Afghanistan Inquiry, a four-year investigation released last week, albeit in heavily redacted form, bore out much of those concerns. Compiled by a team of investigators led by NSW Supreme Court of Appeal Justice Paul Brereton, the inquiry found ‘credible evidence’ that 39 Afghan non-combatants and prisoners were allegedly killed by Australian special forces personnel. These findings involved prisoner executions, the planting of weapons upon the slain victims and cover-ups along the chain of command. Two others were reportedly also treated with cruelty while under the control of Australian personnel. The report recommends the referral of 36 ‘matters’ to the Australian Federal Police for criminal investigation, spanning 23 incidents and the involvement of 19 individuals.
There had been many dress rehearsals prior to the report’s findings to reflect upon the nature of responsibility for such crimes. But after September 11 2001, the cult of Anzac and the elevated standing of Australia’s armed forces became an unimpeachable standard of public service. That such forces might have engaged in acts of cold brutality did not sit well with such ennobling mythology, being, in the words of the ABC’s political editor Andrew Probyn, ‘shaken by a murderous few with maximum firepower and discretion but minimum oversight.’
In view of such a shaking experience, the discussion in Australia as to how such atrocities are to be approached is telling. The call for responsibility has varied by degrees. Most tend to some variant of the rotten apple theory: a few particular fruits that may be isolated and extruded from the barrel. Culpability can thereby be confined, preserving the integrity of other military personnel and, importantly, political decision makers.
Prime Minister Scott Morrison, for instance, is doing his best to limit culpability: these alleged atrocities involved the ‘disturbing and distressing’ conduct of the abominable few. Thinking less of the Afghan victims, his concern has been for the innocent service personnel who have donned military uniform, that they ‘in no way feel reflected upon by the actions alleged of a number, a small number within our Defence Force.’
The Brereton report does its bit to sharpen focus upon the alleged criminal conduct of the few. The ‘fog of war’ defence, for instance, is dismissed, suggesting a narrow, criminal focus for a few steely killers. ‘None of these are incidents of disputable decisions made under pressure in the heat of battle.’
ADF Chief Angus Campbell has adopted a workmanlike, administrative line by promising to disband the SAS’s 2nd Squadron while referring individual personnel ‘alleged of unlawful criminal conduct’ to the Office of the Special Investigator. As for superiors and those along the chain? ‘Individuals alleged to be negligent in the performance of their duty will be managed through administrative and disciplinary processes.’
Independent Senator Rex Patrick, himself a former ADF member, suggests holding individual perpetrators to account and ‘those in the ADF chain of command who were responsible for the units and operations in question.’ A bit broader focus than Campbell’s, but not by much.
Conspicuously absent in the broader discussion is the role played by Australia’s top military commanders and, importantly, the political decision makers behind deploying such troops. John Howard, the prime minister responsible for committing Australian forces to Afghanistan in 2001, was very quick in responding to the report’s findings by praising ‘the bravery and professionalism of those [Australian] forces’ while carefully underlining the abhorrent ‘behaviour of a small group of special forces personnel who, it is claimed, amongst other things, were responsible for the unlawful killing of 39 Afghan citizens.’
Such methods of isolating the significance of military brutality has precedent. The killing of 500 unarmed women, children and elderly men in the Vietnamese hamlet of My Lai on March 16 1968 by soldiers of the US Americal Division convulsed debate on the depth, and extent of responsibility, in the United States. Despite complicity, officer cover-ups and institutional denial, only one conviction, that of First Lieutenant William Calley Jr., resulted. As international law academic and activist Richard A. Falk suggested in 1974, it was ‘clear that My Lai as a publicly condemned massacre was artificially isolated from the overall framework of the war.’
The focus on culture — the trendy word of the moment regarding Australia’s special forces and one used 122 times in the Brereton report — modifies the moral context of human agency. A culture suggests environmental control and contamination, not high-end command responsibility. Spot the culture; reform it. Former Australian Prime Minister Kevin Rudd sees it in such terms. ‘The Chief of the Defence Force now has the urgent responsibility to reform the culture of this units and their command structures.’
The gates of accountability, in other words, stop before Parliament, The Lodge and Kirribilli House. They lie in military ‘structures’, not political decisions that led to 20 rotations involving 3,000 personnel in a seemingly interminable war that former Prime Minister Tony Abbott declared was neither won, nor lost. The report states as much: ‘It was not a risk [the unlawful killings] to which any government, of any persuasion, was ever alerted. Ministers were briefed that the task was manageable. The responsibility lies in the Australian Defence Force, not with the government of the day.’
This selective, and slanted view, proved unconvincing to those persuaded by the broader school of accountability. Western Australia Greens Senator Jordon Steele-John was clear that the line between the alleged atrocities in Afghanistan and Australia’s institutions is uncomfortably clearer than one might think, not merely the isolated blood-soaked work of a ‘couple of rogue SAS solders’.
According to the transcendentalist philosopher Ralph Waldo Emerson, an institution can be seen to be the lengthened shadow of one man. If institutions are shadows of men, they are cast far and wide. ‘The politicians who sent [the special forces] to #Afghanistan & kept them there for over a decade,’ tweeted Senator Steele-John, ‘must be held to account, as must the chain of command who either didn’t know when they should’ve or knew & failed to act’.
One thing that the Brereton report does acknowledge, with logical force, is who is not responsible for the alleged crimes. ‘Perhaps the single most effective indication that there is a commitment to cultural reform is the demonstration that those who have been instrumental in the exposure of misconduct, or are known to have acted with propriety and probity, are regarded as role models.’ It took the tireless work of helicopter gunner Ronald Ridenhour to expose the atrocity of My Lai. It has taken the revelations of Major David McBride, aided by ABC journalists Dan Oakes and Sam Clark, to bring the abuses of Australian special forces to light in a public forum. Yet McBride remains the target of prosecution, facing five charges of pilfering Commonwealth property and disclosing sensitive material to journalists. Reforming that punitive culture might be a start.
