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1:57

Special Operations Robert

2:02

Pops at

2:04

Vietnam, the

2:06

team house with

2:08

your hope, Jack Murphy

2:12

and David Park. Hey

2:18

folks, welcome to episode 271 of

2:20

the team house. I'm Jack Murphy here with Dave Park.

2:24

Tonight on the show we have Ben

2:26

McKelvey. He is the author of Find

2:28

Fix Finish. He's also the author of

2:30

Massoul and The Commando. We're

2:33

going to be mostly talking about this

2:35

book tonight, which is about the Australian

2:37

Special Air Service Regiment, some

2:40

heroic actions that they took, and

2:42

also some allegations of war crimes

2:45

that we're going to go deep into. Right

2:48

before we get into that, I just want to

2:50

give a shout out to

2:52

our Patreon and I'd ask folks

2:54

out there listening or viewing this, click

2:57

the link down in the description for our

2:59

Patreon and consider sponsoring the show, supporting the

3:01

channel. You get access to

3:03

all these episodes ad-free when you sign up

3:05

and we really appreciate you guys helping this

3:08

thing keep chugging along. So

3:10

thank you. Ben, thanks

3:12

for coming on the show man. Hey

3:14

guys, how are you? Doing real good. Good.

3:18

Early morning there in Australia. Yeah,

3:21

it's a beautiful autumnal day

3:24

in Bondi Beach. Funny and gorgeous.

3:27

So Ben, before we get into the book, I want

3:29

to ask you a little bit about your background, how

3:33

you came into journalism, how you

3:35

came specifically into Australian

3:37

military national security journalism.

3:40

Yeah, I actually

3:42

just wrote a book about how I got

3:44

into journalism and how I got into

3:47

that national security stuff. I had

3:49

an aphasic stroke when I was when I

3:51

was 27. So I was

3:53

working in a magazine and I was boxing at the

3:55

time and then all of a sudden...

3:58

I couldn't sleep. I couldn't comprehend

4:01

language, couldn't read, couldn't write, went to hospital.

4:04

Oh my God. Had

4:07

a sort of recovery of a

4:09

number of months, going back into

4:12

comic books and young adult novels and

4:14

really sort of doing that language skills. Oh

4:16

my God. And

4:19

then I had done all

4:21

that and I was sort of conceiving a life

4:23

outside of the journalism life

4:26

that I already had. I was working at a men's magazine.

4:28

I was having a lot of fun with my friends.

4:30

I had actually done a little bit of work with

4:33

the commandos. I'd gone and done their barrier test for

4:35

a story. And then I'd also

4:37

done a sort of exercise with

4:40

them in the incident response regiment, which

4:42

was later SOA, the Special Operations Engineering

4:44

Regiment. And I'd gone to East Timor

4:46

in an embed and I've done a few little bits and

4:48

pieces, but that's what I really wanted to do. And

4:52

eventually I petitioned to the Australian

4:54

Defence Force to go to Iraq with them as

4:56

an embed. And

4:59

then while I was waiting on that

5:03

request, which I thought was a Hail Mary, even

5:05

where I was working, what I was doing, I

5:08

had a heart attack. And

5:11

it was a STEMI heart attack. So it was kind of like a pretty

5:14

serious incident. And I had had some

5:16

open heart surgeries afterwards. And

5:20

then I recovered from the last

5:22

surgery and I was,

5:24

you know, I'm 96 kilos

5:26

or something. I was in the sixties after

5:28

the surgery, you know, I was thin and

5:31

ill and couldn't even walk up my street. And

5:34

then I got an email from the Defence Force saying, okay,

5:36

come to Iraq in a few weeks. And

5:41

I went to my cardiologist, I went to my surgeon and

5:44

said, you know, I thought he was going to tell me

5:46

you can't do this. And

5:48

he's like, live your life, you know, which is a very

5:50

sort of surgeon attitude. They're like, I fixed you. He's like,

5:52

my work is good. You go to Iraq. And

5:58

then that sort of started it for me. Iraq and then

6:00

independently I worked as a freelancer and went

6:02

to Iran, Syria and Afghanistan for other bits

6:04

and pieces. And

6:07

then I worked, the

6:09

thing that really accelerated me in that

6:11

space was working on a

6:13

biography of Cameron Baird who you're aware

6:15

of, Jack. Yeah, yeah. How

6:19

did you know, how did you know of Cam or did you

6:21

know Cam? Did you have any interactions with him? No, I never

6:23

met him. I knew of him through

6:25

some of his teammates and people in the commandos

6:28

who knew him. And they

6:30

told me stories about how he'd cammo up

6:32

like the Incredible Hulk. And

6:34

he was big about charging out there and wanted

6:36

the enemy to see him and shoot at him

6:39

so he could shoot back. Just

6:41

like a larger than life kind of figure. He

6:44

really worked. I remember one of the first

6:46

interviews that I did with one of his

6:48

C.O.s was he always knew when they got

6:50

out of the helicopter which one was Beatty

6:52

because the soldiers were sort of moving forward

6:55

in a relatively uniform fashion and then Beatty

6:57

was just like, oh! Off

6:59

being a bullet magnet, you know. But

7:03

yeah, there

7:06

was this Special Operations Task

7:08

Group which was Australia's

7:12

special forces commitment to the war

7:14

in Afghanistan was large

7:17

and very kinetic but not

7:19

known about much in Australia at all.

7:21

No one had been embedded with the

7:23

special forces. We had this Protected Identity

7:25

Status Law meaning that they couldn't legally

7:28

speak to journalists about what they were

7:30

doing. And that was

7:32

the commandos and the SASR meaning and

7:35

so are everybody else associated. So

7:37

there was really a dearth of information as to what

7:40

the Australians had been doing in a risk game. And

7:42

then when I got the contract to

7:44

do the book about camera beds, the

7:46

posthumous book about camera beds had been

7:49

killed in combat. I

7:51

went to Holsworthy and started interviewing

7:53

the guys and I was completely

7:56

shocked. had

8:00

no idea. I kind of felt that I had

8:02

sort of been paying attention to

8:04

what had been happening in the war in Afghanistan. And

8:06

it was, it was a completely different story. And you

8:08

know, that was a thread that I sort of pulled

8:11

and pulled and pulled and I've been

8:13

doing that all the way to find

8:15

fixed finish. So you feel that the

8:17

Australian people were fairly naive about the

8:19

intensity of the combat that their soldiers

8:22

were getting into. Yeah,

8:24

I mean, not just that, you know,

8:26

there was a failure

8:28

not only within the public, but,

8:30

you know, on a political level

8:32

to understand just the basic tenor

8:34

of the conflict. I mean, even now, I mean,

8:36

my pet peeve is there'll be a news report

8:39

about the commandos on the drug job that they

8:41

had done. You know, a historical news report might

8:43

be related to war crimes or something else. And

8:46

then uniformly, when they're talking

8:48

about a gunfight, they they

8:51

refer to the Afghans as Taliban. And, you

8:53

know, sometimes they're fighting the Taliban

8:55

and sometimes they weren't. You know, it was just

8:58

I knew so little. I realized when I started

9:01

that book that I knew so little. And

9:03

that meant that most people in Australia

9:05

knew a little about the conflict that

9:07

we'd we'd sort of been

9:09

heavily involved in. And we only sort of

9:12

understood after the fact. I'm

9:14

just curious for you, because we've talked to

9:17

American journalists who were in veds with

9:19

U.S. forces. How were you

9:21

received when you first showed up? And

9:23

what was your relationship like with not

9:26

only the command structures, but the

9:28

individual soldiers themselves? I

9:32

think I was received better than most

9:34

because on my body armor,

9:37

I just slapped a Ralph

9:39

sticker, which had a, you know, sort of half naked

9:41

woman on the sticker. And

9:43

soldiers almost uniformly had Ralph

9:46

posters in tanks and on

9:48

their lines. And, you know,

9:50

so, you know,

9:53

journalists from ABC or 2GB or something like that, they

9:55

don't really give a shit. But it's like, oh, it's

9:57

the Ralph guy. I

10:00

know what that outlet is. So

10:04

the story that I ended up doing, I did a

10:06

piece for Ralph and then I did a piece for

10:08

the Western Australian newspaper and a piece for the Bulletin,

10:10

which was Australia's version of

10:12

Newsweek at the time. I

10:15

did a piece that was really

10:17

a soldier's eye view of things,

10:19

which up to find fixed finish

10:21

was sort of the way that

10:23

I operated, was from the perspective

10:25

of a soldier who's on the

10:27

ground, because I want to know what they

10:29

know. And then maybe I'll bring in some

10:31

information about contextually where

10:33

they are, but that's where I really

10:36

started from a biography background. And

10:38

that was my perspective up until find fixed finish.

10:41

To jump into find fixed

10:43

finish, if you can take us

10:45

a little bit back in time to a little history

10:47

lesson that you write about in your book about

10:51

there's this large

10:53

span of time for the special air

10:55

service regiment between the Vietnam conflict where

10:57

they served and the global

10:59

war on terror. Can you

11:02

tell us about the sort of like pre global

11:04

war on terror, special air service,

11:07

what their mission was, what their culture

11:09

was, and then leading us into the

11:11

Tampa? Yeah, well,

11:15

in Vietnam, they had sort of earned this moniker to go

11:17

to the jungle, you know, they were sort of some, you

11:21

know, there were special forces, as you would understand them to be.

11:24

They sort of they disappear and reappear and, you know,

11:27

and kill and no one has known where they've

11:29

been. And, you know, they really kind

11:31

of had this, this sort

11:33

of dangerous kinetic mission. And

11:36

then after Vietnam, there was a defense white

11:38

paper, an Australian defense white paper, which is

11:40

kind of a big deal, you know, it

11:42

only happens every, you know, sort of 10 to 15

11:44

years or something. And

11:46

I think the guys members called did brought

11:49

this white paper about the defense of Australia.

11:51

And there was a structure of the Australian

11:53

Defense Force that was dedicated on the defense

11:56

of Australia, which would

11:58

seem sort of, you know, obvious

12:00

and it sort of

12:02

makes sense. But that meant that we didn't

12:04

have much capacity for force projection. And

12:07

within a defence of Australia

12:10

structure, the SAS would sort of

12:12

primarily be engaged with doing

12:14

guerrilla warfare in northern Australia, which

12:16

is not particularly populated. And

12:19

there was even a program where they were

12:22

working with indigenous Australians to do demolitions

12:25

and things like that. So there's still a group

12:27

up there called North Force that they

12:30

get guys who are sort of traditional owners

12:32

of land and then engage them to work

12:36

in columns or in demolitions. Like sleeper cells.

12:39

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14:23

they eased in more than was the time

14:25

where they were seriously engaged. Some

14:28

of the quotes in the book is that they just spend a

14:30

lot of time wandering around in the desert counting train

14:33

cars. They secrete themselves in a position to

14:35

watch a train go by and then come

14:37

back. Their

14:40

main mission at the time was strategic

14:42

reconnaissance. Yeah, basically. That's

14:45

right. In Australia as

14:47

well, which is a large empty place. It

14:50

just meant being really good at being out for

14:52

a long time and then coming back with information

14:56

or whatever

14:58

the job was at the time. The

15:01

guys who were within the region, there was

15:03

a lot of people who ... It

15:06

wasn't an engaging

15:09

role for them. It was sort

15:11

of preparing for something that they thought probably was

15:13

never going to happen and it wasn't a

15:16

particularly explosive job. Then

15:20

Tampa happened. Tampa

15:26

was a ship that nearly came into Australian

15:28

waters with a lot of refugees. Refugees,

15:31

and they were mostly Afghan, had

15:34

come on an Indonesian fishing

15:37

vessel to try and come to Australia

15:39

illegally. Then their ship started

15:42

to sink and they put out

15:44

an SOS call. Then the Tampa

15:46

came and rescued them. Then a lot of them were

15:48

sick. The law of

15:50

the sea is that they need to be brought to

15:52

Australia so they can be given medical

15:55

treatment. There was a lot

15:57

of political ... at

16:00

the moment, as in, and actually at the moment,

16:02

about illegal migrants

16:04

coming into Australia. And

16:07

they had set up a policy where

16:09

they weren't going to let anyone come

16:11

into Australia. So when the

16:14

Tamper decided that they were going to come to Christmas Island,

16:16

which is the territory in Australia,

16:19

the government told them they couldn't. And then there ended

16:22

up being this standup. And

16:24

then the SAS

16:26

were actually sent to storm

16:29

the ship, because erroneously, there

16:31

were reports that, you know,

16:33

some of the refugees, I don't

16:35

think there were reports that they were armed, but that they

16:37

might have been dangerous. And, you know, they all had gastro

16:39

and they were all lying on the deck and they're all

16:42

exhausted and sick. And they'd been at sea for weeks and

16:44

weeks. So the SAS ended

16:46

up storming Tamper, and there was some

16:48

leaked photos and video of it. And

16:50

there's all looked very, very dramatic. But

16:54

in the book, I sort of mark that as

16:56

the moment where the SAS, to a

16:58

certain extent, became a political tool, because

17:00

only a few weeks later, 9-11 happened. And

17:03

as soon as 9-11 happened, the guys at Campbell

17:05

Barracks, where the SAS, started preparing for a mission

17:08

to go into Afghanistan. And

17:11

they were one of the first forces

17:13

after the Marines secured. I

17:16

can't remember which base it is. I'm sure you guys remember. Was

17:19

it Bagram or Kandahar? No,

17:22

it was in Kandahar. Yeah. Okay. Talk

17:24

to us a little bit about the

17:26

early GWOT years in Afghanistan, where the

17:28

Special Air Service really did some quality

17:30

work, in my opinion, based on what

17:32

I read in your book. Yeah.

17:36

I mean, basically, like

17:38

you said, they were doing reconnaissance. And, you know,

17:42

they were a few instances where they were working

17:45

with the Marines, primarily.

17:49

With the masses.

17:53

And he really loved their work,

17:55

because they would go out for such

17:57

a long time. You know, they would have reconnaissance teams. go

18:00

out for 10, 20 days. And I think some

18:02

of the FAFR teams went out for 50 or

18:04

60 days in

18:06

these sort of open top vehicles in the freezing cold,

18:08

you know, but they were so happy to get the

18:10

work that they were just meant, they were happy to,

18:13

you know, to just keep going

18:15

and going. And then they had

18:17

done a lot of instances where they had

18:19

identified targets, sat there, waited, looked

18:22

at the pattern of life, sent all the

18:24

information back and then there were either strikes

18:26

or there weren't strikes or, you know, a

18:28

larger force had come in and prosecuted the

18:30

targets. And they had done all that and then they

18:32

were given

18:34

a role that ended up being

18:37

relatively integral in

18:40

Operation Anaconda and, you

18:42

know, where Roberts

18:45

Ridge and all

18:47

of that activity happened. But the primary

18:50

Australian force was working, Ridge was

18:52

working as a blocking force with

18:54

other international special forces, but there

18:56

was one team that was

18:59

in this position that was just sort

19:01

of perfect for bringing in air

19:04

and ordnance. And they did that day after day after

19:06

day after day after day, you know,

19:08

without having any direct confrontation with

19:10

the enemy bringing in this ordnance.

19:12

But that was at the time

19:14

a sort

19:16

of perfect SAO mission. You know, that's what

19:19

they were really good at and they

19:21

had executed that really well. But

19:24

that sort of mission moves on because technology moves

19:26

on, you know, with drones and the sort of

19:28

satellite technology that we have now, you

19:31

don't need as much of that. So then their

19:33

capabilities and their mission has

19:35

changed. And

19:38

so with that, if we fast forward

19:40

a few years, is

19:44

it Earth's GAN province? Yeah.

19:47

Talk to us about, you know,

19:49

Sasser landing in

19:51

that province, their

19:54

first ops in April 2006 and

19:56

then their relationship with the Dutch were

19:58

also in trouble. of that sector. Yeah,

20:02

I mean, the Dutch came in a little later. So

20:05

Australia had put their hand up to say that

20:07

they would be part of ISA,

20:09

of the International Security Assistance Force.

20:13

But we didn't know, or the Australian government didn't

20:15

know exactly where that force was going to end

20:17

up and what the composition of it was going

20:19

to be. But there

20:22

was a suggestion that they would

20:24

go to Earthgan. And there's a

20:26

couple of quotes in the book

20:28

about they just weren't prepared for a

20:30

province like Earthgan, perhaps, or that they didn't

20:32

know necessarily what they were going into the

20:35

Australian government. Because, you know, Earthgan is, along

20:38

with Kandahar, it's sort of one of

20:40

the heartlands of the Taliban.

20:42

You know, it's where Mullah Omar was from, that's

20:45

where his village is. So

20:47

they sent the SASR into this ground-truthing.

20:51

And there's a story in the book about an

20:54

element going up to the northwest

20:57

corner of Earthgan. And

21:00

they see some locals and they're like, hey, how

21:02

are you going? And then all of a sudden,

21:04

there's just RPGs and bullets. These

21:07

were just locals who were aggrieved

21:09

with the Australians coming into Earthgan.

21:12

They ended up being this massive gunfight, you

21:14

know, they ended up bringing in Apaches, the

21:18

whole thing. It was just meant to be a, hey, how

21:20

are you going with the locals ground-truthing mission? And

21:24

then they come back to Tarrant Cott. And

21:27

when they do, the Australian Defence Minister Robert

21:29

Hill is there. And he sees all the

21:32

shot-up vehicles and bloody soldiers, none of the

21:34

Australian SASR guys are killed, but there's a

21:36

lot of injuries. And

21:39

he has never spoken about this, but

21:41

he retired from his position a few

21:44

weeks later. And the

21:46

speculation was that he had

21:49

always had an issue with Australia's involvement

21:51

in Iraq and

21:53

that he didn't think that it was

21:55

within Australia's strategic interest to be involved

21:57

in Iraq, is my understanding. but

22:00

there is speculation that he saw

22:03

what the Afghan mission was going to be for

22:05

the Australians in these sort of years to come.

22:08

And he was perhaps, and this is not

22:10

something I did actually speak to the Prime Minister and

22:12

the Foreign Minister at that time. It's

22:14

not something that they would speak to

22:16

me about, but there may have been

22:18

issues within the National Security Cabinet as

22:21

to whether Australia should have had that role

22:23

in Afghanistan. And then the

22:25

FAFR. Sorry, go on. I

22:28

was just going to ask, I mean, as

22:30

things develop, you know, the SAS ends up

22:32

in this capture-kill mission,

22:35

but the Dutch have a different approach that's

22:37

more hearts and minds oriented. Yeah,

22:40

the Dutch mission

22:43

was very much, there

22:46

had to be a political mandate for the

22:48

things that they were going to do. And

22:52

with the way that the Dutch government

22:54

was constructed at the time, there were

22:56

a lot of left-leaning government or left-leaning

22:58

parties that had influence into what was

23:01

what ended up being the Dutch operations. So

23:04

that was part of the reason why

23:06

they weren't comfortable doing kill capture. But

23:09

the other issue is that they, or what was the issue,

23:11

it was a boon to them. They had

23:13

the sort of anthropologists, they

23:15

had a lot of people at this place

23:18

called the Liaison Organisation that were giving them

23:20

really great intel into the way that the

23:22

tribal structure worked in Urusgan. And

23:25

so they were sort

23:27

of suggesting to the Dutch forces that endlessly

23:31

attacking the enemies of the

23:33

warlord that we have associated ourselves with, which

23:35

was a guy called John

23:40

Mohammed Khan, and then a guy called Mati Ola Khan

23:42

afterwards. He said, you're just going to create more

23:44

conflict. And so they

23:47

didn't necessarily believe in the American mission that was

23:49

sort of maximalist and more

23:51

kinetic than the Dutch thought it should be. And

23:53

then the Australians put their hand up and they're like, yeah, we'll do that.

24:00

And talk to us

24:02

a little bit about how those ops

24:04

get stood up. In

24:08

your book, June 2, 2006,

24:10

there's an operation where

24:12

a special air service operator, Ben

24:14

Robert Smith, is said to kill

24:16

the teenager during an engagement, maybe

24:18

legitimately, maybe not. Yeah,

24:23

I mean that's the sort

24:25

of integral and important moment

24:28

in the history of Australia's

24:30

engagement in Afghanistan. This

24:34

was a sort of combined ops. This is when they

24:36

were working with the Dutch. And

24:39

the idea of that ops was there's

24:41

a valley coming into Taringoc, which is

24:43

where the multinational base is and where

24:45

the provincial capital is. Certainty,

24:54

but a lot of them were the

24:56

enemies of this warlord, John Muhammad Khan,

24:58

at the time. And Shoura

25:01

and Baluchi came through to a place

25:03

called Darafshan, which was sort of on

25:05

the plane, very close to Taringoc. And

25:08

so you basically had this non-permissive

25:10

area that was leading into the capital.

25:14

So the idea was that they would

25:16

clear Shoura out, they'd have this large

25:18

operation, and they'd have this force

25:20

pushed through all the way through to Taringoc. And

25:22

there'd be a series of battles, and they'd take

25:25

control of this area. And

25:27

the Afghans and the Dutch would sort of

25:29

seize these areas, put up patrol bases, and

25:31

then we'd have a permissive environment close to

25:33

where the multinational base is and where the

25:36

provincial capital is. Incidentally,

25:38

they ended up fighting in

25:40

that area consistently all

25:42

the way through, basically. There were

25:45

periods of peace and periods

25:47

of war, but it never ended up becoming a

25:49

whole permissive area. But Ben

25:53

Robert Smith was sent

25:55

up to be part of a

25:57

patrol that was going to be doing an Overwatch. which

26:00

is not too similar to the Overwatch mission

26:02

that Matthew Bulliont, who was the guy who

26:04

was the patrol leader

26:07

for the mission Operation Anaconda, not too similar

26:09

to that. Sent out, hang

26:11

out, have a little spot, see what's happening down

26:14

there, send intel back, perhaps bring ordnance in if you have

26:16

to, and then secrete your way

26:18

back. But this

26:22

is the subject of a

26:24

defamation case at the moment.

26:27

So we can't specifically know

26:29

what happened, but unarmed or unarmed, actually

26:31

I think they've agreed that it's unarmed,

26:34

but may or may not have been

26:36

a fighter, a teenage

26:38

kid walks across, perhaps

26:40

pre-teen, walks across the observation

26:42

post and they decide to go and find

26:44

him and kill him. And

26:47

they do that, and then that starts an

26:49

engagement, and

26:51

they have to sort of fight their way back, which

26:53

they do, and they end up bringing in air support.

26:57

So the fight ends up, the threat of gravity of the fight ends

26:59

up being at the top of the mountain, not

27:01

down in the valley where it's meant to be. But

27:06

depending on who you speak to, that was sort

27:08

of an integral

27:10

and valorous moment within the S.A.S.R., and

27:12

people were given medals afterwards. And

27:14

some people have suggested that that sort of

27:17

set a precedent within the S.A.S.R. in Afghanistan,

27:20

because that perhaps

27:23

could be seen as a strategic

27:25

negative moment, and yet

27:27

people were awarded medals for

27:29

it afterwards. And

27:31

then you also, going

27:34

forward a little bit in time, you

27:37

have the creation of the Special Operations

27:39

Task Force, SOTG, which brings

27:41

in the commandos. Could you

27:44

talk to us a little bit about the

27:46

role of the commandos, their history, their mission,

27:49

and the rift that developed between them

27:51

and the S.A.S.? Yeah,

27:54

I mean, most of my friends are

27:56

within the commando regiment in that space.

28:00

They were

28:04

designed to work hand in glove with

28:06

the SASR, probably in the way that

28:08

the Rangers were

28:11

meant to be a

28:14

cooperative force with J-SOC. We're

28:18

not initially stood up for that reason,

28:21

but they kind of became that, right?

28:24

When you need a lot of manpower to do

28:26

things that a small specialized unit

28:28

can't do, yeah, you call the Rangers.

28:32

Yeah, and so they work sometimes in the cordon force and...

28:36

Or direct action and... Direct

28:39

action, yeah. To strike targets

28:42

that a small surgical hostage rescue

28:44

focused unit isn't necessarily set up

28:46

for. Yeah, I mean, it

28:48

sounds like you're describing the commandos. You

28:51

know, the commandos. Yeah, yeah. There was

28:53

a suggestion just before 9-11 actually that

28:55

the special operations, the Australian

28:58

special operations command should be expanded

29:00

because of the type of technological

29:03

innovations that had come with a type

29:05

of heavy weapons that can be carried

29:07

by an individual and by the type

29:10

of communications that can be

29:12

used. So they thought

29:14

that the force structure would

29:17

benefit from having this sort of direct

29:20

action, you know, sort of hyper-infantry style force

29:23

that could work with the SASR. So

29:26

they were starting to be stood up around 99, 2000. Then

29:30

2001 there was an acceleration so they could

29:32

bring the companies on board because they assumed

29:34

that the commandos might be used in the

29:36

future. They

29:38

were sent into Iraq. The

29:41

SASR were doing a series

29:44

of different things in the

29:46

western desert of Iraq, including scud

29:48

hunting. And

29:51

the commandos were meant to be their quick

29:53

reaction force, but they were just across the

29:55

border at H2 in Jordan. And

29:57

then they were actually never used, even though they were in...

30:00

where they could have been used. And that,

30:02

I think, is the moment where the rift

30:04

developed between the FASR and the commandos, because

30:07

the FASR saw them as this force that

30:09

couldn't be trusted to go out and to

30:12

be used. Whereas the commandos,

30:14

they thought they were ready. And they

30:17

probably were ready. They'd been training up on this

30:19

close quarter battle. They'd

30:21

been stood up for a couple of years

30:23

at that point. And so a

30:25

lot of the guys within the commandos actually went off

30:27

and worked with PMCs, especially

30:30

a lot of the junior NCIs. But

30:36

then Afghanistan happened. So the Special Operations

30:38

Task Group, the

30:40

Special Forces Task Group and the Special Operations

30:42

Task Group needed guys to come into a

30:44

risk game. So a lot of the guys

30:47

who had been working as PMCs came

30:49

in. And they

30:53

couldn't get the two units to work cooperatively.

30:55

There are times where they were

30:58

both on target at the same time. But

31:01

primarily, they didn't work together.

31:03

And part of the issue was that

31:05

there were fistfights in the mess.

31:07

There were people

31:10

threatening to kill each other. It

31:12

was a real rupture between those. There

31:15

was a lot of fraternity between some of

31:17

the parts of those

31:20

two regiments. But

31:22

there was definitely animus as well. And

31:24

I think part of the issue. I was

31:27

just going to point out, it should probably be mentioned

31:29

also that these two units were almost

31:31

pitted against each other by the Australian military

31:33

in some ways, that you have two soft

31:35

units. Eventually, they're both

31:38

given the direct action mission. So

31:40

they're both competing for missions, which

31:42

only, I imagine, escalates the animosity.

31:45

No, that's right. And then if you look at the FASR, they're

31:48

doing these coordinate search missions. And they're

31:50

doing direct action as well. And they're

31:53

not necessarily designed for that. They're the

31:55

four structures that they've meant to be

31:57

a bit of more surgical and. They

32:01

are Australia's elite unit. Whereas

32:05

they're doing something that the commandos are actually

32:07

kind of like perfectly built to do with

32:09

their force structure. And

32:11

so sometimes the commandos are sent off to do

32:13

things that the SAS would like to do, but

32:15

they're just just by getting to their force structure,

32:17

the commandos are better

32:20

suited to do it. And so then that

32:22

creates this incredible resentment. And

32:24

the SASR see them as the little brothers

32:26

and the commandos are like, you know, our

32:28

guys are dying also. The doze. The

32:32

which one? I know you've heard that term, the doze.

32:35

The doze? I haven't. What is it? You haven't?

32:37

That the SAS guys call the commandos the doze.

32:40

The doze? Can you spell it

32:42

out? D-O-E-S, like a female deer.

32:45

Oh, yeah, yeah. The doze. Yeah. And

32:48

the commandos call the SAS the poo

32:50

poo barrows. I've heard that. I

32:54

mean, it's a little soft moric,

32:56

yes, but. That's the thing. 15 years

32:58

later, it seems like infertile, but it's

33:00

climate like that. Yeah,

33:02

yeah. It's like it's like super serious stuff.

33:06

And some guys did go over, you know, some guys

33:08

do the commando, work

33:10

with commandos and then do selection and go

33:12

within the SAS, but it never

33:15

really it never really disappeared.

33:17

The animus between the two units. Let's

33:23

also talk a little bit at this

33:25

point about some of the structural issues

33:27

within the Australian Department of Defense. There's

33:31

some really interesting stuff in your book. I mean,

33:33

you talk about a lot of breakdowns that happen,

33:35

but one of them that especially

33:37

strikes me is that it

33:40

feels like at

33:43

some point civilian control of the military

33:45

was lost. And even

33:47

commanders in the military didn't

33:50

understand what their own force was doing.

33:52

Like there's one quote in your book

33:54

where I think you said it was

33:56

the commander of Australian special operations saying

33:59

that. capture kill missions or an

34:01

invention of the media. Which

34:03

is either a lie or it just speaks

34:06

to the complete obliviousness of the chain of

34:08

command. I can answer that

34:10

one. It's a lie. Okay.

34:14

I mean, it's the top patrol reports.

34:17

Like, everybody

34:19

knows the nomenclature. The

34:22

problem in Australia, I think at that

34:24

time, was that there

34:26

was this culture of bullshit because Australia had

34:28

to be involved in the war in that

34:30

it was very important for

34:33

us to be a

34:35

good alliance partner with the US. We always wanted

34:38

to be a good alliance partner. We have always

34:40

wanted to be a good alliance partner. Not

34:42

only that, when you go a

34:45

little bit further down the command structure,

34:47

there was this technology transfer and this skill

34:49

transfer that was happening as well because we

34:51

were eventually working as a sort

34:53

of fungible soft force. They were working as

34:56

a fungible soft force. They were

34:58

sort of, from a modular perspective, becoming

35:01

useful within an American structure, which was good

35:04

for the Australians. They

35:06

were upskilling very quickly. But

35:09

the Australian public, the

35:12

political class, would not accept

35:15

the Australians doing the things that the Americans

35:17

were doing. The

35:22

major thing that I sort of lean on from

35:24

an ethical perspective in the book is that the

35:27

Australians were doing these kill capture missions,

35:30

and the ROE allowed them to

35:33

directly target individuals, which

35:36

is basically an assassination without any

35:38

attempt to capture whether they're

35:40

armed or unarmed. There is

35:42

no way that that would have been accepted if a

35:45

politician explained to the Australian public that that

35:47

was what was happening in Afghanistan. So

35:50

there had to be this sort of top

35:53

level layer of

35:55

bullshit between public facing individuals

36:00

information from the highest people within

36:02

government and within the military. Saying

36:05

that this mission is really about standing

36:09

up an Afghan battalion, it's about protection

36:11

of women's rights, it's about all these

36:13

things, whereas all of those strategic goals

36:15

had gone in Urusgan by probably about

36:17

2009. It

36:19

just wasn't happening. Everybody on

36:21

the ground knew that wasn't happening. Contact

36:24

me if I'm wrong, Ben, but there is, in

36:26

your system, there is a chief

36:30

of defense, which is a military officer, and

36:32

there's a minister of defense, which is a

36:34

civilian. When the civilian is

36:36

saying, I can't get

36:38

information out of the military, I'm not getting

36:40

all the information I need, I don't know

36:42

what's going on, is that a lie or

36:45

is that part of that public facing propaganda,

36:47

if you will? Yeah,

36:49

well, I mean, that's a direct quote from a

36:51

defense minister who I interviewed for the book, and

36:53

that was one of two defense ministers who told

36:55

me that they couldn't get information from the military.

36:59

In a democracy that's completely unacceptable, but

37:03

I think the department and

37:05

the ministry, there were some things

37:07

that they didn't want to know. They had sort

37:10

of punted on some information. They

37:12

had empowered the military to do

37:15

certain things without any understanding in

37:17

either side. Then when

37:19

they do want information, they have

37:21

already created this system where it's difficult

37:23

for the ministry to get information, so the ministry

37:26

has plausible deniability, and it's

37:28

the same with the department as well. This

37:30

is speculation, but this is the way, this

37:32

is, I think, one of the issues. So,

37:35

yeah, there was a major issue, there

37:38

may well still be a major issue

37:40

within the Australian government that there isn't

37:42

as much civilian oversight as there

37:44

should be. But to go back to my point of that

37:46

sort of layer of bullshit that's at the top, that

37:49

sort of dripped through all the way down to

37:51

the ground. We're

37:54

already not being transparent

37:56

about our strategic goals, and

37:58

so then when we're not

38:00

transparent about what the

38:03

specific types of missions are. And then

38:05

we're not specific with our patrol reporting.

38:07

So it's just dripped all the way

38:10

down. So

38:13

moving on to some spicy content

38:15

here. Not

38:18

particularly. Bring my lawyer in. Hold on a

38:20

second. Exactly. Not

38:22

a particularly great moment for the SAS.

38:24

Tell us about the moment that they

38:27

were flying a swastika in Afghanistan. Well,

38:30

that was actually the commandos. Oh, it was. I

38:32

correctly identified that book. OK. Thank you

38:34

for correcting me. So

38:37

yeah, they were out on operations. And

38:40

I mean,

38:43

there has been this issue

38:46

within. I mean,

38:48

the soldiers probably wouldn't necessarily see it as

38:50

a problem. But there is this sort

38:52

of impunity within

38:55

some of the units in that

38:57

there were rules that were allowed

38:59

to be bent and rules that

39:01

were allowed to be broken. One

39:03

of the obvious ones was drinking. Sure. So

39:06

the SAS had a bar in Tarrantcon. They're

39:08

not meant to be drinking, and they have a bar. And

39:10

all the generals went there. Like everybody went to the bar.

39:13

They actually, famously in the book, one of the signature

39:15

war crimes, one of

39:19

the things that's being contested in this defamation

39:22

case at the moment is whether there was

39:24

an execution of a disabled Afghan who

39:26

had a

39:30

prosthetic leg. Yeah.

39:32

And then that ends up becoming a drinking vessel in

39:35

the bar that the SASR had. So

39:39

that was sort of allowed. So nobody really knew

39:41

where the line was. And so

39:43

somebody thought that the line allowed

39:46

swastikas to be flat on operations.

39:49

I was told by lots of people that it

39:51

was a joke. But then I subsequently learned that

39:53

that guy was actually a Nazi

39:55

and part of a sort

39:57

of Nazi group. Oh, yeah. regiment

40:00

before he came to the first Bocoracian's men. I

40:02

very much doubt that the other guys around him

40:07

were of that... But

40:11

they certainly saw it. They certainly saw it. I

40:13

saw it, yeah. And

40:16

one of the other issues with that photograph is

40:18

there's a major there who ended up becoming a

40:20

very senior soldier and was someone who

40:22

was on the track to end up being Chief

40:24

of Defense. And the guys

40:27

that I spoke to about that major, I

40:29

said, well, you know, why didn't he rein the men? Why did

40:31

he stop them from doing it? And he's like, well, he

40:34

didn't necessarily... He didn't like it. He was obviously

40:36

upset about it, but he didn't feel at the

40:38

time that he could rein a sergeant in that

40:40

way, which is a problem. That's

40:42

a perfect segue because I want to

40:45

ask you next about officers

40:47

losing control of the SAS and

40:50

how that kind of came about. Yeah.

40:54

I mean, one of the problems with the officers in the SAS is that

40:56

they come in and out of the regiment. So quick. And

40:59

having a successful period

41:01

in the SAS, it's

41:03

hugely important for your career, especially

41:08

when you're on a sort of

41:10

combat deployment. That really is your

41:12

opportunity for advancement in

41:14

Korea and the chances for

41:16

medals and having that on your resume is

41:19

hugely important. And

41:22

within the Australian military, there

41:25

has been a long succession of people who have

41:27

gone through the SAS and then have gone up

41:29

to even to the point of our Chief of...

41:31

Our Governor

41:33

General, who's the most senior person

41:35

in the government, is a former

41:37

SAS officer. So it's

41:40

very important for an officer to have a successful

41:42

deployment. But if you have

41:45

your sergeants

41:47

and your corporals in open revolt, because they're upset

41:49

about the things that you're doing, and these are

41:51

guys who have sort of set the tone and

41:54

have a greater understanding of what the ground truth

41:56

is, then that's going to be a

41:58

problem in your career. It

42:01

means that officers who want to

42:03

go against something that may be unethical

42:05

would take a massive amount of moral

42:07

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42:09

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So if you're an officer and you

43:48

think that one of your patrols is doing the wrong thing,

43:51

when you rein them in or you bring in

43:54

charges or the IGADF, which is

43:57

basically our military police.

44:00

to investigate these types of things, you'd probably create a

44:02

thesis. So you might even create

44:05

a political issue. So

44:07

it was incredibly tough for

44:09

the officers to do that. But

44:12

then, before that, they actually have to

44:14

understand what's happening in the first place. So

44:16

quite often they're in this sort of like over-watched position,

44:19

they're not necessarily on the ground. With this defamation case,

44:21

we had a lot of officers coming in, in

44:23

instances where there had been suspected war crimes, and

44:26

they're like, I don't know, and blew in, and

44:28

there were some dead people. And then what can

44:30

I tell you? In

44:33

the book, you talk about how the SAS

44:35

came to have a tribal culture. I mean,

44:37

one of the operators you spoke to described

44:40

it as a ward of the flies culture,

44:43

where they were sharing kill videos with

44:45

one another, where

44:48

there was this kind

44:50

of stonewalling of any

44:53

acknowledgment of PTSD within the regiment. Could

44:55

you tell us about how that developed?

44:59

Yeah, I think that quote

45:01

might actually be from the unit

45:03

psychologist of the SAS. But

45:06

that sort of lingo culture, that's

45:08

how they would describe people who

45:10

would suggest that they had a

45:12

PTSD issue. A

45:15

lingo means that you're a malingerer, so

45:17

you're not taking on the duties that

45:19

you should be taking on, and you're

45:22

basically letting everyone down. The

45:25

way that it was described to me over and over again

45:27

is like a motorcycle gang.

45:30

It's like you do not break the trust

45:33

of the guys within the motorcycle gang. But

45:35

then also coercive violence is

45:37

something that was kind of enforced

45:40

a certain structure there as well. So

45:43

guys could be beaten, guys

45:45

could be slapped. For some people, it

45:48

could feel dangerous breaking outside of that

45:50

code of silence. There was an

45:52

incident in Australia where somebody's house got

45:54

blown up because They

45:57

had fallen afoul of this code of silence. Am.

46:01

I. Don't necessarily understand how it develops

46:03

but there were people who who

46:05

sort of told me that coming

46:07

into that to set environment because

46:10

when you come into chemotherapies come

46:12

into i'm into the regiment. Yeah.

46:15

That's a that's a top of your career with

46:17

the Euro, with your an operator or with you

46:19

and officer or whether it's a video or whatever

46:21

you are you know, especially in or in a

46:23

in a in a Tomahawk. You. Really

46:25

want to do the best job you nine everybody

46:27

Super chance to me like that I can stand

46:29

as because this is a time of was I

46:31

want to the best job I'm. But.

46:34

They would. They were. Like you said, there was this.

46:37

Is a psychologist discarded to me as a

46:39

sort of tinderbox ready to ready to blow?

46:41

You know the fact that they were. In

46:44

a lot of instances of domestic violence,

46:46

a lot of people getting super drunk,

46:48

a lot of people assaulting people up

46:50

pods, a lot of like if porn

46:52

being shared as well. like of weird

46:55

not for a lotta kill videos a

46:57

lot of photos of be i had

46:59

been flying often suffer that like at

47:01

some point. Or a sort of

47:03

responsible adult should condemn said I can we

47:05

kindly to. We need to clean this up

47:08

for the benefit of the people who within

47:10

the structure. Yeah, no not not not to

47:12

be on a tree. Speak about it until

47:14

er en Ny you know you're getting detention

47:16

for just didn't Could be healthier for everybody

47:18

and we're going to be more effective as

47:20

a fighting in it if we could suffer.

47:22

Are you writing a book about how as

47:25

time goes on, the culture of the unit

47:27

changes in. Guys are sort of differing on

47:29

advancing their career because they just want to

47:31

be gunfighters like they've gotten addicted. To the

47:33

Combat. Yeah. Well.

47:35

I'm in. The idea is that, you know. You're

47:37

you're a troll. Comment on anything worthwhile. You

47:40

become a warrant officer and you sort spread

47:42

the i'm. In or the at

47:44

the experience that you've had across the regiment

47:46

and sometimes across the military as well. That's

47:48

meant to be it with via an area

47:50

of excellence and it is mary of excellence

47:52

where they could go out into the great

47:54

the Defence Force. And sort

47:57

of bring some of that excellence with

47:59

them. But because

48:02

I think so many of the guys

48:04

became addicted to the combat and

48:08

we don't have any sort of solid

48:10

numbers on what

48:12

the level of PTSD is. But

48:16

the psychologist explains to me that

48:18

he said the literature

48:21

that we have suggests that it's not

48:23

accumulative, it multiplies.

48:25

And so when you've got guys who've done these sort of 8, 9, 10

48:28

combat deployments, and that is the number that

48:30

guys end up doing, SASR guys. And

48:33

I can imagine similar with the Americans as well. You

48:36

know, so there is these sort of intense

48:39

environments for, you know,

48:41

10 deployments might be 6 months each,

48:43

you know, it's 5 years, it's a

48:45

super intense thing to do. They

48:49

just want to go back in because that's

48:51

the place where they feel comfortable, they start

48:53

to feel uncomfortable in a civilian environment. And

48:55

in the case of the commanders

48:57

as well, there was lots of guys whose, you know,

49:00

their lives were falling apart for us to an extent

49:02

outside of the outside of their

49:04

deployments, you know, they had problems

49:06

with their wives or, you know, their friends,

49:08

they didn't relate to their friends anymore, or,

49:11

you know, so they just wanted to get back

49:13

out. And you know,

49:15

just being a warrant officer and,

49:18

you know, working at working

49:20

a QCV course for the rest of your life

49:23

is not as exciting. Yeah, right. Right.

49:27

Tell us a little bit about the one commando

49:29

operation in 2009, where it's sort of like the

49:32

first time I, if I'm

49:35

understanding correctly, that the issue of war

49:37

crimes starts coming into the public, like

49:39

there, there's some aspects where

49:41

they're, they might prosecute this guy, they might

49:43

not. Yeah. Yeah,

49:46

that was, that was a very important,

49:48

sort of forgotten part of the Australian

49:50

war crime story. So

49:53

By 2009, we'd had three years of

49:55

these deployments of commandos. and SASR. Your

50:01

everybody to get fatigued and you know

50:03

they basically needed to re up com

50:05

some of the guys without bringing into

50:08

the second commander regiment especially. End and

50:10

the affair thought so they decided to

50:12

do a deployment of one commander guys

50:14

who are reserved. This is this is

50:17

a threat to our oldest. Continuous.

50:20

A special forces regiment I'm but I

50:22

hadn't been used in operation for such

50:24

a long time, so lot of guys

50:27

in her thumb on the thought of.

50:29

All. Time some of them a policeman mean Arsenal

50:31

now have of the jobs. And

50:34

so they did. Ah of that, he.

50:37

Preyed. Upon it readiness which is supposedly

50:39

was with a little lacking. Arm

50:41

and then they were. They were sent to

50:44

Earth Can and then I was. I was

50:46

doing that to capture missions so there was

50:48

a A. There was a half actually again

50:50

and in the place where are you know

50:53

chore unglued. She and I think it wasn't

50:55

actually direction. sort of very close to to

50:57

turn caught a now going to be the

50:59

compound interest. And I'm

51:01

doing is not mission. Nothing was she has a midnight

51:04

to I am something like that and they go to

51:06

the south. My point of entity. And so

51:08

they decide that they going to just. Gotta.

51:11

The house next door and. And

51:13

and to. That have instead

51:15

com which. They had

51:17

already had them as the author order that that

51:20

was I would not lead to do that. You

51:22

wanted to select a to go into an object

51:24

and compounds because you had some intelligence about about

51:26

a certain call them. Anyway,

51:29

so they went into this house com

51:31

you don't This is something in some

51:33

relatively legally i'm. Wary.

51:36

About bought some. I

51:38

think it's on that There was a guy

51:41

who was a with Emily. Ah,

51:43

he heard someone breaking into his compound.

51:45

He got his rifle. One of the

51:48

cell just saw him. I

51:50

shot him. And. Then at the

51:52

hadn't killed him, he was shooting through

51:54

a door a machine gunner. Fired.

51:57

into the room where him and his family were And

52:00

then afterwards, this is the

52:02

part that is somewhat controversial. It's there. Some

52:06

have suggested that there was a

52:08

ceasefire call. Some

52:10

have suggested that they were still shooting. You

52:12

know, it's contentious,

52:14

but grenades were thrown in and some

52:17

babies were killed and some

52:19

children were killed. The

52:23

most interesting aspect of that is what happened next.

52:25

At the time, the Australian military had

52:28

this independent judiciary that was beyond the

52:30

chain of command. So it was

52:32

Brigadier who got a brief from the IGADF

52:34

and believed that this was war crime. And

52:37

so she was going to prosecute the guys and

52:39

she was going to prosecute Lieutenant Colonel who ordered

52:41

the second house to be assaulted. And

52:45

so she tried to go through this prosecution and

52:48

the Australian media were very upset by it and

52:50

the chain of command were very upset by it.

52:53

And eventually she was chased out of the army

52:55

and there was a ruling

52:58

that was made in court that

53:00

previously it was assumed that the soldiers

53:02

owed a duty of care to civilians

53:04

in Urasgan. And

53:07

then a ruling was passed down that there

53:09

was no obligation to have

53:11

a duty of care for civilians. And

53:14

she was quite upset by this Brigadier

53:17

who was the chief legal

53:19

officer of the Australian Defence Force at the time. She

53:21

said that she thought that they were creating new law

53:23

with this ruling. And

53:26

yeah, the guys didn't end

53:28

up being prosecuted. And

53:31

so that was the standing rule afterwards

53:33

that the Australian forces did not have

53:35

an obligation to duty of care over

53:37

civilians. And then

53:39

another controversial operation was an

53:42

assault. I believe the target was called Whiskey 108?

53:46

Yeah. Whiskey 108 was the one

53:48

where the guard with the prosthetic leg was

53:51

shot. So that's something that's under

53:53

appeal at the moment. So it

53:56

had been alleged that there was an

53:58

assault on Whiskey 108. They. Are

54:01

fighting going on between a conventional forces who

54:03

had a patrol base for a closer to

54:05

that compound and guys who were there and

54:08

in that village which is direction as well

54:10

So it was really close to the place

54:12

where this stage one commit a killing said

54:14

happened and way so much of the. So.

54:17

much of the as try to walk from story

54:19

happen to fight the second title area with with.

54:22

With. Not and a people living there. I'm.

54:25

They are they had been a

54:27

battle they are called. Enter an

54:29

airstrike by blown up a compound.

54:32

The essay has come in

54:35

and they. Either.

54:38

Simply. Cut legal your documents legally but there

54:40

was a with news report saying that they

54:42

hadn't killed and legally the Federal the Smith. Had

54:45

a the executed or ordered the execution

54:47

of a couple of these guys are

54:50

including the kind of the prosthetic leg.

54:53

And get it under pillow at the

54:55

moment so that that so says the

54:57

first instance of lamb. Essayist

54:59

murders being reported about it happened

55:01

that think it's thousand and nine.

55:04

out of curiosity a edo I

55:06

kind of blend or. I

55:09

guess leading into the ideas, maybe he

55:11

was or wasn't executed. Who was your?

55:13

Who do they think he was? Like.

55:16

What was injured on the up was

55:19

you just a random guy on target

55:21

Or the I do think that he

55:23

was somebody who had been evading. Capture.

55:26

And at. Local

55:28

forces wouldn't hold. Well.

55:33

In a defamation case, somebody actually suggested

55:35

that he was a J Pill target

55:37

and he was ejected. Guy Boyd and

55:40

he could explosives. He was known for

55:42

keeping explosives in his prosthetic leg. I

55:46

think we can. Fairly cycling just

55:48

with yeah that was the case or

55:50

they keep it that Bond villain I'm

55:52

but T and the other guy who

55:54

was killed in his some. if

55:58

the center the get much in case And

56:00

they had come out of a tunnel, and in the tunnel

56:02

there were weapons. The

56:05

major issue in Eriskand, though, is

56:07

that they were almost certainly local

56:09

militia. But

56:12

were they, and they were probably local militia

56:14

who were shooting at the Australian conventional forces.

56:19

But do you want to

56:21

kill all of your local militia who agreed by putting

56:23

up a patrol base near your village? That's the question.

56:26

The only reason I ask is not

56:28

to justify a killing if the killing

56:30

is true, but I'm curious, because in

56:33

my mind there was a significant difference between

56:35

a killing of a guy who just

56:37

happens to be on a target or in a

56:40

house next to a target, and killing a guy who

56:42

is a

56:44

suspected IED maker who has been

56:47

rolled up a few times and

56:49

released every time. And again, I'm not

56:51

justifying it. I'm just asking if there

56:53

was something in their mind for

56:56

them that justified it. Well,

56:58

that's the difference between an ethical question

57:00

and a legal question. Because

57:04

regardless of whether this person's a civilian or

57:06

whether they had been previously in combat and once

57:09

the person is forced to combat, if you

57:11

kill him then that's murder. So

57:14

I think,

57:17

I mean my instinct is that

57:19

the Australians were not just randomly killing people on target.

57:21

There may have been a couple of instances where they

57:23

did because they got later on in the war they

57:26

believed that there were places where they were just full

57:28

of shit people. They just

57:30

called them shit guns. And in certain incident

57:33

villages it's just like all the guys in

57:35

this village are shit guns. And I

57:37

don't know whether you're following the British inquiry that's going

57:39

on at the moment. But

57:42

there's been evidence, profit, that the

57:44

British SAS in Helmand in

57:47

some villages killed every fighting age male

57:49

that they could find on certain targets.

57:53

But I think primarily the Australian

57:55

SAS, if they had killed

57:58

people illegally,

58:00

they generally believe that

58:03

they were combatants. But

58:07

from

58:09

my perspective, one

58:12

of the major issues of Australian

58:14

operations in Oresgan was an over aggregation of

58:16

the enemy. I

58:18

think that you have to be very

58:20

selective in coin operations as to

58:23

who you decide to target. There's a

58:26

sort of a max approach sometimes in regards

58:28

to some places. Talking

58:32

about the legal versus the ethical, I

58:35

absolutely agree with you. Sometimes

58:39

when it's reported that somebody

58:41

was killed in custody, a lot of times

58:44

I think there's

58:47

a deeper story to it than just

58:49

these guys are savage. Or

58:52

the coalition forces,

58:54

US, Australian whomever,

58:56

are just savages off the rails

58:58

in their minds, even though

59:00

it's not legal, in their minds it makes sense. I

59:04

think there probably were some people who had what left. And

59:08

I think there were a lot of people who perhaps thought

59:10

they were doing the right thing. But

59:12

from a strategic perspective, it's not a

59:14

smart thing to do. You're not getting closer

59:17

to your strategic goal, if your strategic goal

59:19

is pacification. Right. If

59:22

your strategic goal is getting

59:25

a pat on the back from a certain

59:27

person who wants you to kill as

59:29

many people as possible, then that's

59:31

different. And that's why I've been arguing for

59:33

there to be a Royal Commission in Australia

59:36

into these killings, because I think that they

59:38

poorly understood. And I think that we

59:40

should understand the link between the

59:43

civilian structure, the department, and the

59:45

ministry, Special Operations Command, and

59:47

the soldiers on the ground. Because I think there

59:49

is this sort of connected picture that doesn't

59:52

exist in

59:55

the public consciousness in the way that it should. And

59:57

there's a real scenario in

59:59

these wars. that I think that

1:00:01

Western societies were not ready for

1:00:03

in the sense of if you

1:00:05

take an IED maker,

1:00:08

a bond maker who never places the bombs

1:00:10

themselves, he pays farmers, he gets

1:00:13

rolled up because of the local

1:00:15

justice and how it is, he

1:00:17

gets bought out of jail every

1:00:19

time he gets rolled up, and

1:00:21

then he hits coalition forces, he's

1:00:23

known for the death. It's like

1:00:25

how many times do you want to roll this guy

1:00:27

up just for him to be released over and over

1:00:29

again? And I think that a

1:00:32

lot of the soldiers on the ground

1:00:34

got frustrated in those situations. He

1:00:37

isn't an enemy combatant. He may not be shooting at

1:00:39

me right now, but he'll sure as hell blow me

1:00:41

up tomorrow. Yeah. Yeah,

1:00:44

and that's definitely the issue in Australia. There's

1:00:46

a chapter in the book and I

1:00:48

described the porous Afghan justice structure and

1:00:51

the fact that there

1:00:53

was this sort of disability

1:00:55

of certain people to take people out of

1:00:57

the legal

1:01:00

system, the Afghan legal system, unitarily

1:01:02

just because of the power that they had and

1:01:04

then recycled them back into the battlefield. And

1:01:07

there was an incredibly admirable effort

1:01:10

by some of the Australian army

1:01:13

lawyers and some of the soldiers and the reservists to

1:01:15

create this thing called the rule of law. So

1:01:19

they tried to train a lot of the

1:01:21

soldiers, the SS guys and the commandos, to

1:01:23

basically work as forensic investigators and then build

1:01:25

up the court so they could get the

1:01:28

prosecution. And part of the reason is a

1:01:30

quote in the book from one of the guys who was setting up

1:01:32

this rule of law saying, we

1:01:34

thought it was a good thing to do to the soldiers because it's

1:01:36

just not good for the soul to be endlessly

1:01:39

killing these people and have this rage about these people who

1:01:41

are combatants and are not legally allowed to kill them. But

1:01:44

from my perspective as a civilian, so this is

1:01:46

something that I sort of stress over and over

1:01:48

again, is I am just

1:01:52

an impartial observer. If

1:01:54

I was a soldier, I'd have a completely different perspective,

1:01:56

I'm sure. from

1:02:00

a civilian arms length look at this thing,

1:02:02

if that is the case that we are

1:02:04

recycling these guys and the guys are like,

1:02:06

fuck it, we have to kill them. We

1:02:09

have to protect those guys from doing that because if

1:02:11

they do that, they may be subject to Australian laws

1:02:13

that might put them in prison for the rest of

1:02:15

their lives. And if we are doing

1:02:17

that, we have to articulate to the public, these

1:02:19

are why we're killing these people. This is why

1:02:21

we're doing it. And we have to link it

1:02:24

all the way up to some sort of strategic

1:02:26

goal that makes sense for Australia. And

1:02:28

I think they failed in that obligation. Ben,

1:02:32

could you tell us a little

1:02:34

bit about the SAS's undeclared fourth

1:02:36

squadron? I thought that was an

1:02:38

interesting fact in your book. Yeah,

1:02:41

I mean, I actually don't know that much

1:02:43

about fourth squadron, but I have spoken

1:02:45

to some of the guys and they can't talk to me that

1:02:47

much about it. But it's a it's

1:02:49

sort of an intelligent gathering

1:02:51

squadron. You know, they they

1:02:55

are sort of the most technologically capable of

1:02:58

the squadrons. And they have

1:03:00

this gray role, it's

1:03:03

not a bit sort of, it's meant to be a

1:03:05

sort of clandestine role as well. So one

1:03:07

of the one of the tensions

1:03:10

that they had within the SAS while they

1:03:12

were on operations in Afghanistan, when there were

1:03:14

so many guys in operations in Afghanistan, was

1:03:16

that they only had so many

1:03:18

soldiers, you know, it's a relatively small

1:03:20

regiment, but they were trying to bring

1:03:22

these guys into this gray role. So

1:03:25

it's the issue started

1:03:27

at selection. So, hey,

1:03:29

it's 2009, and you're in the middle of war

1:03:32

in Afghanistan. And you know that, you know, when

1:03:35

you when you have someone that you have selected, and

1:03:37

then you got to put them in the rear cycle,

1:03:39

that they're going to go into combat with guys like

1:03:41

Ben Robert Smith, against, you

1:03:43

know, the opposing forces in

1:03:45

the Earthgan, you want them to have the

1:03:47

capabilities to succeed in that environment. So

1:03:50

one of the guys in the book describes the

1:03:53

tension within selection there is because,

1:03:55

you know, we want these

1:03:57

big scary gun fighters to do this type of thing.

1:04:00

type of direct action stuff. And

1:04:02

so we are selecting for that. And we're

1:04:04

selecting for these sort of like ruthless killers,

1:04:06

you know, these common bear

1:04:08

types actually, sort of frankly, within

1:04:11

the SAS. But

1:04:15

there is a tension because there's people within the

1:04:17

SAS that are looking at the sort of strategic

1:04:20

future of the regiment. And they're like, well,

1:04:22

we need these sort of weedy dorks who

1:04:24

just, you know, can walk on any street

1:04:26

and just don't look like anyone. You

1:04:28

know, like Ben Robert Smith, there's

1:04:31

only certain environments in which he can sort of walk down the

1:04:33

street and look normal. I don't know whether you guys are familiar

1:04:35

with him, but he's, you know, six foot five, 120 kilos, something

1:04:38

like that, you know? He's

1:04:40

a giant, he looks like a VC recipient. He

1:04:42

looks like a soldier, you know, whereas

1:04:44

you need these guys who are going to be sort

1:04:47

of low pros. So even from

1:04:49

a perspective of selection and

1:04:52

the way that the SAS, they rotate through

1:04:55

to four squadron and then also to

1:04:57

the, the

1:05:00

counter-terrorism tag capability. You need

1:05:02

someone who could sort of do everything. So they

1:05:04

were selecting for these guys in Afghanistan. And

1:05:07

the other issues that they found,

1:05:10

and this is something that one of the people who was

1:05:12

doing selection was, you know, he was doing the,

1:05:14

the, the side screening for these guys, is

1:05:16

that they were, they were trying to weed out as

1:05:19

many as they can, but they weren't weeding out everybody

1:05:21

who wanted to hunt and kill people because they knew

1:05:23

that that's what they were doing in Afghanistan. So

1:05:25

there were people who were selecting, who

1:05:28

were going into the SAS because they knew at some

1:05:30

point, they'd be able to go on target and start

1:05:32

doing this, this, this, this kill capture

1:05:35

mission. So there's an interesting

1:05:37

sort of vignette that maybe not a lot

1:05:39

of people are aware of, where

1:05:41

the Special Operations Task Group,

1:05:43

the Australian Special Operations Forces,

1:05:46

they have a team up

1:05:48

with DEA, American

1:05:50

Drug Enforcement Agency FAST teams in

1:05:52

Afghanistan. Can you tell us about

1:05:55

that relationship? Yeah,

1:05:57

I mean, that came of, that came of the

1:05:59

tension between. the SAS and the second

1:06:01

commando regiment. There

1:06:03

was a lot of contention as

1:06:06

to who would get the air assets because

1:06:08

Australia didn't bring its own air assets into

1:06:10

Afghanistan, so we had to use pull

1:06:13

helicopters and pull ISR. And

1:06:15

so there would be these air windows where the

1:06:17

SAS would go and they'd have their air windows,

1:06:20

so they'd take their helicopters out into position.

1:06:22

And then there were periods where the commandos had their air

1:06:24

window. And if there was

1:06:26

bad weather or something like that and somebody

1:06:29

missed a day, the regiments and not hating

1:06:31

each other because somebody else would get their

1:06:33

helicopters. And so the

1:06:36

commandos were like, well, we need to find

1:06:38

our own helicopters. So I think I have

1:06:40

told this story. I can't remember

1:06:42

all the details, but I think it was

1:06:44

actually at a funeral, someone

1:06:46

met someone within the DEA and the DEA

1:06:49

said, we're running our own helicopters. We

1:06:52

have these old Russian helicopters and we have

1:06:54

these guys that we call

1:06:57

the expendables, who these sort of like, some

1:06:59

of them flew in Vietnam, these

1:07:01

sort of contract pilots that are working

1:07:03

for the DEA. So why don't you

1:07:05

come and work with gunfighters for us?

1:07:07

And it was this really fruitful relationship

1:07:09

in the context of they

1:07:12

managed to destroy a lot of drugs, they managed to attack a

1:07:14

lot of drug labs. There was

1:07:16

a lot of fighting, but

1:07:19

there has been a lot of questions as to whether

1:07:22

that actually, I mean, the idea was that

1:07:24

they were going to take money away from

1:07:27

the insurgency. That's why they

1:07:29

were doing these drug missions. But there

1:07:31

has been a lot of suggestions since that

1:07:34

basically they were just working

1:07:36

for the benefit of other drug lords who

1:07:39

weren't being attacked. Oh,

1:07:41

interesting. But like intentionally or that the other

1:07:44

drug lawyers were just feeding them the intel

1:07:46

so that they would go like take out

1:07:48

the. Some of them were feeding them the

1:07:50

intel. Some of them had political connections, connections

1:07:53

with the Karzai family, people

1:07:56

who were working with the

1:07:58

coalition in Urusgan and the Heli because

1:08:00

most of these missions were conducted in the

1:08:02

Helmand. But they were,

1:08:04

I mean, this

1:08:06

sort of leads into the, or

1:08:09

goes back to the political disconnect.

1:08:12

I think if the Australian public really knew the

1:08:14

way that these drug missions worked and the way

1:08:17

that the DEA worked, they

1:08:19

probably wouldn't have allowed it, especially considering that we

1:08:21

had this strict mission and the

1:08:23

strict parameters under which the Australians could operate.

1:08:27

But there was this sort of tendency

1:08:29

towards action. So the commanders went and

1:08:31

did these missions. And there

1:08:34

was a lot of action. They really enjoyed it. For,

1:08:37

you know, were the Australians under the

1:08:39

same strictures like the U.S. forces in

1:08:41

terms of like the capture kill? If

1:08:44

they're captured, would they just go into

1:08:46

basically a coalition detention facility

1:08:48

or to the local authorities? Or

1:08:52

did the Australians have something else set up?

1:08:55

No, they had their own facility later

1:08:57

on, but then they would go into

1:09:00

local detention afterwards because they

1:09:03

had to go through Afghan

1:09:05

court. Going back

1:09:07

to the drug missions, the drug missions, they had

1:09:09

a certain rule of engagement, a certain set of

1:09:11

rules of engagement that was distinct to the other

1:09:13

missions that they were doing. And

1:09:17

I don't know, are you guys familiar with

1:09:19

the ROEs that ISAP was using

1:09:21

in Afghanistan? I would assume you would. Yeah, I

1:09:24

mean, relatively so. There were different

1:09:26

ones a different time. They changed all the time. So

1:09:28

like they changed like week to week. Do

1:09:31

you know that there's 429 ROE, 429 A and B, which

1:09:33

are the offensive ROEs, as is my understanding.

1:09:39

And then is there 429 ROE, which

1:09:42

is the direct targeting ROE

1:09:45

basically? I

1:09:47

honest to God could not tell you. And

1:09:49

those ROEs became so complicated from what

1:09:51

I've been told. It

1:09:54

was like a stack of three ring binders

1:09:56

this high and a very, very small group

1:09:58

of people really had any. Mostly J

1:10:00

tax actually had any sort of understanding

1:10:02

of how they were and I think

1:10:04

that the ROEs actually differed There's

1:10:07

a NATO ROE. Yeah, they did Yeah,

1:10:10

there's soft ROE so they also differ

1:10:12

from unit to unit it

1:10:15

was it was insane it was insane That's

1:10:17

crazy. Yeah, I mean that's something that they

1:10:19

there is speculation that that's gonna pop up

1:10:21

in in the criminal cases You know has

1:10:23

been one SAS guy charged for murder. Yeah,

1:10:25

and it's on video. I'm sure you guys

1:10:27

have seen yeah Any standing

1:10:29

over now Dan says do you want me to drop this count and

1:10:31

kills them? And there is

1:10:34

speculation that they're going to mount

1:10:36

the defense that they believe that that

1:10:38

killing was within a certain ROE as

1:10:40

it was explained to them That's

1:10:44

part of the Australian issue is that Everybody

1:10:47

has told me what they believe the

1:10:49

ROE that they're operating under was and

1:10:51

quite often. It's quite different. I honestly

1:10:55

don't outside of like outside

1:10:57

of Like Jack mentioned the

1:10:59

JTAC because a JTACs Like

1:11:02

their job depending on no dependent on

1:11:04

knowing the ROEs Because they were waiting

1:11:06

like their fire came from higher headquarters,

1:11:08

right? Who were who the attorneys were

1:11:10

sitting there for it? But for the

1:11:12

average Joe on the ground whether it

1:11:14

was SAS or 10th Mountain or Special

1:11:16

Forces or whatever They

1:11:19

they have their general ROEs like

1:11:21

you don't you know You don't

1:11:23

shoot somebody who right a non-combatant

1:11:25

like they have the general but

1:11:28

yeah at any given time They

1:11:30

could have been breaking ROEs. I Little

1:11:33

vignette. I mean I I was deployed

1:11:35

with Special Forces in 2000 and Was

1:11:39

2008 or 2009? I Never

1:11:43

saw an ROE. Yeah, we

1:11:45

asked for one too. Yeah, and we were

1:11:47

never given it It's a for people who

1:11:50

are watching listening who aren't who might not

1:11:52

you can probably get it from context But

1:11:54

an ROE is a rule rules of engagement

1:11:56

and it basically tells a soldier

1:12:00

why they can shoot at another person.

1:12:04

And you would think it seems like a

1:12:06

simple question, but

1:12:08

it gets very, very convoluted. It

1:12:10

becomes like, how big is the structure?

1:12:13

Can the structure be reduced? What

1:12:15

is the acceptable SIDS cap, if any?

1:12:17

Right, and it's armed combatants. Okay, you

1:12:20

can shoot at somebody who's armed, or

1:12:22

what if he doesn't raise his weapon

1:12:24

at you? What

1:12:26

if he's not shooting at you? What if he has

1:12:28

his cell phone and there's intelligence that there are spotters

1:12:30

in the area? What if a guy tries to steal

1:12:32

your Humvee? What if he tries to steal a radio

1:12:35

that hasn't purchased it? What if he

1:12:37

doesn't have a weapon, but he's running off a

1:12:39

target where you know bad guys are, and he's

1:12:41

running towards a known location of

1:12:43

weapons, or suspected location of weapons

1:12:45

cache? Like, it gets very convoluted.

1:12:48

It sounds like civilians would think, well, it's kind

1:12:51

of obvious, right? The guy's a bad guy or

1:12:53

not, right? But it gets very convoluted very quickly.

1:12:56

Especially when everybody's on

1:12:58

uniform, there are certain groups that you

1:13:00

could directly target. The Taliban obviously is one

1:13:02

of them, but then there's these other militias, it's like, is he

1:13:04

part of this group or another group? Yeah,

1:13:07

if only they would have worn uniforms

1:13:09

to let us know who they were.

1:13:11

I know, this is something considerate. So

1:13:13

inconsiderate, I know. Something

1:13:18

I wanna make sure that we talk about here is

1:13:20

I'd like to ask you about the big firefight where

1:13:23

Ben Roberts Smith was awarded the Victoria's

1:13:25

Cross for. For

1:13:28

our American listeners, the VC, that's

1:13:31

the Australian or Commonwealth equivalent of

1:13:33

our Medal of Honor. Yeah,

1:13:37

I mean, it was the Battle

1:13:39

of Tizak, which was part of the Shauli

1:13:41

offensive. Like

1:13:46

everything, post this defamation case,

1:13:49

there are multiple versions of this. So

1:13:51

there was the official version of what

1:13:53

Ben Roberts Smith did. Regardless, it

1:13:56

was an incredible feat in which he

1:13:58

charged a machine gun. post, there

1:14:01

were two machine gun

1:14:03

posts, killed lots

1:14:05

of people. They were hugely undermanned

1:14:07

in this battle of Tizdak. But

1:14:14

the war crime story has emerged

1:14:16

not from without, but within. It's

1:14:19

been soldiers who are upset with

1:14:21

Ben Robert Smith. Ben Robert Smith

1:14:23

has ended up becoming the most

1:14:25

decorated soldier since Vietnam

1:14:27

because he was awarded the Victoria Cross. He was

1:14:29

awarded the Medal of Gallantry and the Commendation of

1:14:31

Distinguished Service. So when he

1:14:34

was awarded the Commendation of Distinguished

1:14:36

Service, somebody went actually back to

1:14:38

Tizdak after Ben Robert Smith was

1:14:40

awarded the Victoria Cross and paced

1:14:42

out where he

1:14:45

was involved in this firefight and

1:14:47

looked at the official reporting and said that the official

1:14:51

reporting is a little

1:14:53

bit skew-if. But

1:14:56

I don't think there's any question

1:14:58

that he was involved in this

1:15:00

incredibly difficult situation. Do you

1:15:02

want to describe a little bit of that?

1:15:05

Because it sounds like the SAS was engaged

1:15:07

in entrenched, dug-in enemy, they were outnumbered. And

1:15:10

you write about this scenario where Ben Robert

1:15:12

Smith and another operator are kind of

1:15:15

in a jam and are pretty convinced they're about

1:15:17

to die. Yeah, they really are. They're

1:15:20

pinned down by PKM2, PKM machine

1:15:23

guns. And

1:15:25

they basically need to seize the initiative again. So

1:15:28

they have to charge across open ground to

1:15:30

silence those machine guns and kill these guys

1:15:32

while they're getting lateral fire as well, is

1:15:34

my understanding. But

1:15:37

he did it with another guy

1:15:39

who was one of his best friends who

1:15:42

was a junior soldier. And

1:15:44

it was contended in the defamation case that this

1:15:46

is one of the people that he ordered to

1:15:50

commit an execution. And so this

1:15:52

person is in their own

1:15:54

legal jeopardy. This person is also someone

1:15:56

who has a significant psychological issue. someone

1:16:00

who in the defamation case says that you

1:16:02

know he loves Ben Robert Smith you know

1:16:04

that that he's someone that who who he

1:16:07

really kind of appreciates but he

1:16:09

claims in the defamation case that both he

1:16:12

and Ben Robert Smith basically did

1:16:14

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Ben Robert Smith was given the Victoria Cross and

1:17:54

this guy was given the Medal of Gallantry

1:17:56

after this guy who hasn't been named.

1:18:00

after this guy had been told that he was

1:18:02

going to get the Victoria Cross. And an aspect

1:18:04

of this defamation case is that after

1:18:07

the Battle of Tizak, you know,

1:18:09

defence needed a PR win and Ben

1:18:11

Robertsmith is a judge's son. You know,

1:18:13

he went to a private school. He

1:18:15

looks the way that he does. You

1:18:17

know, he could speak well to a

1:18:20

certain category of Australians. And

1:18:22

so, you know, it could be

1:18:24

argued that this is the point where the rift began.

1:18:31

Let's see, what else do we want

1:18:33

to get into here? Oh, there's another

1:18:36

operation that struck me from reading your

1:18:38

book that this was a very legitimate,

1:18:40

well-executed operation. Was it a 2011 operation

1:18:42

where the Australians got

1:18:44

intelligence that there was a group of children

1:18:47

suicide bombers that were moving into their AO?

1:18:52

Yeah, I mean, one

1:18:54

of the problems in Afghanistan

1:18:56

generally was

1:18:59

that the Taliban had this sort of

1:19:01

area, this de-confliction area in Pakistan, and

1:19:03

that there was a porous border. So

1:19:05

they basically, you know, there was a

1:19:07

quedicure that basically ran the centralised insurgency.

1:19:09

And they couldn't be touched. And they

1:19:11

basically had this city where,

1:19:13

you know, they could live with impunity.

1:19:15

They, you know, that was four hours

1:19:17

away by motorcycle

1:19:21

from central Urusgan. So

1:19:23

they could basically go in and out of theatre when they

1:19:25

wanted to. And so

1:19:27

this is a story that has

1:19:29

not been told and perhaps may

1:19:32

not be told because of the, you know,

1:19:34

because of the compartmentalised nature of some of

1:19:36

the information. They

1:19:39

had to sort of build

1:19:41

up this intelligence structure that

1:19:43

included an understanding of what

1:19:45

was happening in Pakistan. You

1:19:48

know, so they wanted to, when these guys sort

1:19:51

of came in, they wanted to hit them when

1:19:53

they'd come into theatre. And, you know, they couldn't

1:19:55

go into Pakistan. But they

1:19:57

had heard that these child suicide... suicide

1:20:00

bombers were coming in. They

1:20:02

got some information in the

1:20:05

way that the information is gathered. I

1:20:07

know that isn't detailed in the book and can't be

1:20:09

detailed. So they get this information

1:20:11

with these child suicide bombers

1:20:13

are coming in and I

1:20:16

think they actually ended up

1:20:19

neutralizing without killing them. Is that right?

1:20:21

Yeah, that's what's in your book, as

1:20:23

I recall, really. Yeah,

1:20:26

I mean, it's probably the margin, but like I said,

1:20:28

two books you guys say. There's some stuff I don't

1:20:30

remember. And then the

1:20:32

last couple, the like

1:20:34

final years of the SOTG, you

1:20:37

write about how that's really where a lot

1:20:40

of the murders in mayhem, alleged murders

1:20:42

really pick up and things really get

1:20:44

bad. Yeah, it's

1:20:46

2012 where the sort of bulk of

1:20:48

the murders are alleged to have happened.

1:20:52

And I mean,

1:20:55

it makes sense, you know, from an

1:20:57

ethical perspective, we

1:20:59

are all moral beings. So, you know, regardless of who

1:21:01

we are and what we've done and what we think

1:21:03

is appropriate and not appropriate, we have

1:21:05

this sort of like understanding of what is right

1:21:07

and wrong. And if you're

1:21:10

if you're leaving, or is

1:21:13

getting having committed so much bodily

1:21:15

and emotionally to

1:21:18

the fight, I

1:21:20

can understand why you believe that you think

1:21:22

there are these people who you know that

1:21:24

are bad and that the province will be

1:21:26

better off if you have killed them. You

1:21:28

know, there is no justification legally. And personally,

1:21:30

I don't think there's any justification morally to

1:21:32

execute people. But if you are at the

1:21:34

back end of this thing, you've seen so

1:21:36

much death, you've had friends die as well,

1:21:38

you killed so many people, you don't want

1:21:40

it to be for nothing, you

1:21:42

know, you don't want to just be walking away and

1:21:44

going, oh, well, we didn't win, you

1:21:47

know, especially after after, you know, spending

1:21:50

your entire 30s or, or, you know,

1:21:52

like a great chunk of your life

1:21:54

to this thing, you know,

1:21:56

in Australia and in Afghanistan. That's

1:22:00

just my speculation as to what

1:22:02

happened. But yes, it happened primarily

1:22:05

in 2012. The other thing that I

1:22:07

read about in the book is that a lot

1:22:09

of the guys talk about the incentive structure that

1:22:11

had built up around then. Jackpots

1:22:14

was a big thing. So jackpots are

1:22:16

J. Pel-Targagets who were prosecuted, who

1:22:19

were either killed or were in detention, in

1:22:21

long-term detention. So if you recycle a guy,

1:22:23

you go and catch him and you put

1:22:25

him into the Afghan

1:22:27

justice system. And it doesn't, it won't count

1:22:30

as a jackpot. But at the top of

1:22:32

the mission sheets, it says jackpot.

1:22:34

And there's a box for whether you got a

1:22:36

jackpot or one or two. And I

1:22:38

think the SOTGs were trying to rack up as

1:22:40

many jackpots as they could. And

1:22:43

I don't know this because this

1:22:45

hasn't necessarily been investigated. But I think some

1:22:48

of the order to combat killings may have

1:22:50

been J. Pel-Targets to make

1:22:52

sure that this person was killed rather

1:22:54

than recycled and that they weren't counted

1:22:56

as a jackpot. One

1:22:58

of the things you wrote, actually

1:23:00

kind of, even though no one

1:23:02

was actually killed in this scenario, there

1:23:04

is, I mean, I thought this

1:23:06

was in a sense the most shocking part of your

1:23:09

book, was that you write that Ben Roberts

1:23:11

Smith on training exercises

1:23:13

in Australia was having

1:23:15

the junior operators conduct

1:23:18

mock executions and

1:23:20

saying, hey, that's how we do it overseas.

1:23:23

That's not something you can't chalk that up to

1:23:25

like, in the heat of the moment, you know,

1:23:27

we're in combat, things happen. That's

1:23:30

very premeditated, if it's true. Well,

1:23:34

I mean, all of the alleged murders, or

1:23:37

most of the alleged murders are premeditated

1:23:39

in that drop weapons were involved. So

1:23:41

they took weapons on target or radios

1:23:44

on target so that when they had

1:23:46

executed people, they could for the SSE

1:23:48

photos, drop a weapon or radio on

1:23:50

them. That was evidence that was given

1:23:52

at the defamation case by, I think,

1:23:54

two witnesses who were involved in these

1:23:59

pre-contemplation. employment readiness

1:24:02

exercises. From

1:24:05

memory as well, they gave evidence that

1:24:08

this has happened in front of lots

1:24:10

of people, that

1:24:12

these mock executions in the Ben

1:24:14

Robert Smith has allegedly,

1:24:18

in this defamation case, had sent to

1:24:20

these junior soldiers. You execute this Afghan

1:24:22

because that's how it's going to be

1:24:24

over there. And then one

1:24:26

of the guys gave evidence to him and

1:24:28

picked him up at it later and just said, what

1:24:31

the fuck are you doing? What

1:24:33

are we doing here? And

1:24:38

then we get into 2012, Ben

1:24:42

Robert Smith is accused of kicking a

1:24:44

guy off a cliff. What

1:24:49

happened there? I

1:24:53

mean, a few of the

1:24:55

killings and part of the reason

1:24:57

that I think Australia needs a Royal Commission

1:25:00

is that that was in the

1:25:02

wake of a green on blue

1:25:04

killing where a guy

1:25:06

called Hekmatula had been being

1:25:09

trained by conventional forces in a patrol

1:25:11

base and he turned his gun on

1:25:13

the Australian conventional forces and

1:25:15

killed a number of people and then ran off

1:25:18

into the ether

1:25:20

and they had some intelligence as

1:25:22

to where he was, but they were sort of a

1:25:24

little bit behind the eight ball. So this is one

1:25:26

of the missions where they

1:25:29

flew into this area. They were trying to find him

1:25:31

and it's entirely possible that they found

1:25:34

someone who had been on a phone

1:25:36

who was trying to facilitate his escape

1:25:39

and they may have decided to

1:25:41

take things into their own hand

1:25:44

in that context. But yeah,

1:25:48

that's one of the things that's up in

1:25:50

appeal. It was upheld in the original ruling

1:25:52

that Ben Robert Smith had stood

1:25:55

a guy in front of a cliff.

1:26:00

long deliberations as to whether it was a clear

1:26:02

for whether it was an incline or whatever it

1:26:04

was. But the judge,

1:26:06

which is, and this ruling is now an

1:26:08

appeal, found

1:26:11

it credible that Senator August Smith had kicked

1:26:13

this guy off this cliff. He sustained some

1:26:15

facial injuries and then he ordered another junior

1:26:17

soldier and a machine gun into death afterwards.

1:26:21

Going back to that question of things

1:26:23

happening in the heat of battle, all

1:26:25

of these murders supposedly happened in a

1:26:27

permissive environment after there

1:26:29

was no more shooting. And

1:26:32

to clarify, this guy was

1:26:35

suspected or known

1:26:37

to be linked to

1:26:40

the guy they were after, to

1:26:42

my terror. Well, I mean, there's

1:26:44

been an incredible amount of reporting

1:26:46

about this killing, including two relatively

1:26:48

famous Australian books. And

1:26:52

the intimation has been that he was

1:26:54

someone who just sort of blew into

1:26:56

this town and was the wrong place

1:26:58

at the wrong time. But I've been

1:27:00

told by multiple people that he was

1:27:02

part of a local militia and took

1:27:04

Hecmatilla in and basically sent him off

1:27:07

north after he'd

1:27:09

escaped from this Australian patrol base.

1:27:12

So that's something that might come out in

1:27:15

a criminal trial. But yeah,

1:27:17

we'll see. There's a lot of it that's just well-placed. You

1:27:20

mentioned some of the ideas

1:27:22

for the Australian government and what you think should

1:27:24

happen with some of this stuff. How

1:27:27

much responsibility do you think that the

1:27:29

governments of like Western nations have when

1:27:32

we go into these sort of these

1:27:34

nebulous environments with a rotating justice system

1:27:37

and allow soldiers

1:27:39

to completely, you know, repeatedly

1:27:42

deploy to these, like

1:27:46

they obviously get to a level

1:27:48

of frustration where nothing is changing.

1:27:52

And yet the governments themselves

1:27:54

and their generals, the military structure

1:27:57

is not sympathetic to what's going

1:27:59

on. going on there. No, that's

1:28:01

right. Do you think

1:28:03

there's a solution to that in

1:28:06

how the government would handle these

1:28:08

types of conflicts going forward? Yeah,

1:28:12

I mean, there

1:28:14

were so many times where I was writing

1:28:16

Fine, Fix, Finish, where I was like, why

1:28:18

doesn't a civilian reach down, enforce

1:28:21

a fact-finding mission to have

1:28:23

an actual understanding of the

1:28:25

nuts and bolts, especially of

1:28:27

the SOTG operations, and

1:28:29

then come back, and

1:28:31

you probably need some people who have retired,

1:28:33

military people to sort of assemble

1:28:36

a plan of action to make sure that

1:28:38

we are operating A, in a strategically

1:28:41

coherent way, and B, in

1:28:44

an ethical and moral way, and C, in a way that's

1:28:47

not going to be damaging to your forces. There

1:28:49

were so many times where I just thought,

1:28:52

why does the Department of the Ministry not

1:28:54

reach down? There was a

1:28:57

JTF commander, so the structure

1:28:59

is that we have the SOTGs,

1:29:01

we have all the individual task

1:29:03

groups across the Middle East, the

1:29:05

Australian task groups. They report

1:29:08

to an officer who's in

1:29:11

the UAE, and he's the JTF commander,

1:29:13

so he's a major general. And

1:29:15

then he reports to Australia, which reports

1:29:17

to government. And the JTF commander who

1:29:20

I interviewed said, JTF commanders quite often didn't

1:29:22

even have access to the Australian special forces.

1:29:24

They were sort of told that they didn't

1:29:26

have, they required clearance to be around in

1:29:29

their compound. So

1:29:31

you're never going to have this sort of

1:29:33

transparency if you have major generals who are

1:29:35

part of the command structure unable

1:29:37

to gain access to the soldiers. So

1:29:40

I think that it would have been

1:29:42

useful if the civilians would

1:29:44

be able to reach down and actually speak

1:29:47

to the soldiers, not only from an operational level, but

1:29:49

from an actual boots on the ground level. What do

1:29:51

you guys do? Grab some of these guys and go,

1:29:53

what's your day to day? What are

1:29:55

you told about the ROE? What are you told about the missions? And

1:29:58

then from that, you can build up an under- understanding

1:30:00

of what strategic nature is and then

1:30:02

move things. Because there were these firewalls

1:30:04

all the way through. And

1:30:07

I'm very sympathetic with the ministers

1:30:09

because they are given this political

1:30:11

appointment. But then

1:30:13

also they do have

1:30:16

an obligation, especially when lethal

1:30:18

force is being employed, to

1:30:21

represent the Australian public, to represent in

1:30:23

a democracy the things that are being

1:30:26

done on the other half. And

1:30:28

there was a failure in being able to do

1:30:30

that. It also seems

1:30:32

we were very busy advising the

1:30:35

Afghan military and aspects of the

1:30:37

NDS, the security apparatus.

1:30:40

But we weren't, to my

1:30:42

knowledge, there were no coalition forces

1:30:44

in the actual correctional system. And

1:30:47

it's like that was the leaky hole.

1:30:51

And if somebody higher in

1:30:53

command in the military or people

1:30:55

in governments would have recognized

1:30:57

that. Because

1:31:00

I'll tell you, I'm sort of on the opposite side

1:31:02

of you in the sense of I know why it's

1:31:04

not legal, but I do find it ethical. But

1:31:07

the thing is, we need to take people, we need

1:31:10

to take that situation and make

1:31:13

it so that it meets

1:31:16

your expectations. So

1:31:19

that any nonjudicial killing is

1:31:21

ethical, or I

1:31:23

mean isn't ethical. Yeah, sorry about

1:31:25

that. But

1:31:29

isn't ethical, where these guys aren't rotating back

1:31:31

through and you know it's not kind of

1:31:34

dirtbags that you're dealing with. Yes.

1:31:37

I mean, from my perspective as an Australian, all

1:31:40

Australian forces have to be subject to Australian

1:31:42

law. Sure. Absolutely, because from

1:31:44

a moral perspective, these people are citizens. They are

1:31:46

going to be fighting in Afghanistan for a certain

1:31:48

period of time and then they're going to be

1:31:51

coming out into the community and they have to

1:31:53

be members of the community. If

1:31:56

you are going to be pushing the bounds of what

1:31:59

is allowed. and what is legal,

1:32:01

there has to be at least some sort

1:32:03

of strategic reason for that to be happening

1:32:05

rather than just, this is a bike of

1:32:08

brands, this is a bike we've been sent

1:32:10

in. So perhaps

1:32:12

there is more understanding for

1:32:14

rule bending if you are

1:32:16

an American because you are

1:32:18

committed to this war

1:32:20

that you have decided that is strategically

1:32:23

important. But if you are Australian, there

1:32:26

is no justification for it if it is just a

1:32:29

lines criteria. I'm

1:32:32

agreeing with you on that point in the sense of there

1:32:35

shouldn't be rule breaking.

1:32:38

But in order for there not to be rule breaking, I think

1:32:41

that the people on the ground have to know that

1:32:44

the rules will be followed, that when

1:32:46

they put a guy away, he's going

1:32:48

to stay away. And that's what I'm

1:32:50

saying is that

1:32:52

these governments should recognize that

1:32:55

there's a leak in the indigenous

1:32:58

justice system and not

1:33:01

put the operators, the

1:33:03

soldiers, the people on the ground in the

1:33:05

position of making these bad legal decisions. Yeah,

1:33:09

but then also, I agree, I

1:33:11

highly agree, but then you also need to understand that

1:33:15

you are here for a reason. You're in a country

1:33:17

that has a porous legal system. You have

1:33:20

a country that is

1:33:22

tribally based and the idea of

1:33:24

being an Afghan isn't the same

1:33:26

idea of being an American

1:33:28

or Australian. So there are

1:33:30

going to be these things that are infuriating

1:33:32

to you and perhaps recycling targets over and

1:33:34

over again is one of those things. But

1:33:36

you have to still be an Australian and

1:33:38

an American. They're going to be

1:33:40

an Afghan. You're not going to be an Afghan.

1:33:42

You have to try and understand the

1:33:45

motivations, which is an incredibly difficult thing

1:33:47

to do as to why they're

1:33:49

doing the things that they do. But you still

1:33:52

have to stay who you are. You

1:33:54

have to represent your uniform. You have to represent

1:33:57

your set of rules as much as it sucks.

1:34:00

annoying as it's going to be, but you kind of

1:34:02

have to do that. And I

1:34:04

mean, I think the major sin in Australian

1:34:06

operations in Afghanistan is that doing

1:34:09

less might have been the right thing to do

1:34:12

because then you can just let Afghans rule the

1:34:14

way that right is rule. Right. Yeah.

1:34:17

Tell us about how that's a tough thing to

1:34:19

do. How did this

1:34:21

whole war crimes issue explode into the

1:34:24

public consciousness in Australia? How did that

1:34:26

come about leading into the the Ben

1:34:28

Robert Smith that now defamation trial the

1:34:30

Barrington report all these things? How did

1:34:32

that happen? You know back

1:34:34

home. Well, I

1:34:37

mean it happens internally. It was there was there

1:34:39

were a lot of sort of squeaky wheels within

1:34:41

the command who didn't like that. You

1:34:44

know, that a lot of this stuff that happened. There

1:34:47

was a moment where a new

1:34:49

special operations commander came in and

1:34:52

basically said to the guys look.

1:34:56

Everybody talking about it. I don't know what year this

1:34:58

was. It's in the book. We

1:35:01

you know, we want to clear the

1:35:03

air. This this can't be something that sort of drag the

1:35:05

command down for the for the rest of

1:35:08

the immediate future. So everybody you

1:35:10

can just write down anonymously

1:35:13

in on a piece of paper. Give me an

1:35:15

envelope and just tell me what happened. You know,

1:35:18

right. So then we'll just have a sort of

1:35:20

understanding. You said he got like 200 letters. Yeah,

1:35:23

you got like 200 levels and some of the stuff

1:35:25

with the most outrageous stuff. I think I think it

1:35:28

was sort of like a case of Chinese whispers where

1:35:30

lots of people be like someone I had heard that

1:35:32

someone that I hate did this certain thing, you know,

1:35:34

like done these executions or whatever, you know, like some

1:35:37

outlandish stuff and I can imagine a lot

1:35:39

of the stuff with things that had actually

1:35:41

happened. And so they were

1:35:43

like, well, how can we reconcile with

1:35:46

this? So they bought in a civilian

1:35:48

sociologist, which was has

1:35:50

been hugely contentious. A

1:35:53

woman called Dr. Samantha Crumpet and

1:35:55

she is, you know, essentially a

1:35:58

culture expert and so she. She

1:36:00

interviewed a lot of soldiers about what

1:36:02

had happened and then she filed this

1:36:04

report. And the report

1:36:06

was meant to be about the

1:36:08

culture. She gave it to the Chief

1:36:11

of Defense about the culture within Special

1:36:13

Operations Command. But a lot of it

1:36:15

was detailing the ethical

1:36:17

failings as she saw it within the

1:36:19

command. And so the Crawford

1:36:21

reports became

1:36:25

big news in Australia. It

1:36:27

was very much a big deal. And then the

1:36:29

IGADF at that point stepped in and

1:36:32

they worked on a report for

1:36:34

a long time as well. One

1:36:37

of the issues with that report, my

1:36:39

understanding is that one of the issues with that report is

1:36:41

that they compelled witnesses to

1:36:43

speak. So they interviewed

1:36:46

SAS soldiers and commandos and

1:36:48

they were compelled to talk. You know, they couldn't

1:36:51

basically take a fifth. And

1:36:53

then the report came out and the report detailed

1:36:55

39 murders and there were 19 people who

1:36:58

had allegedly committed these murders. The

1:37:02

report stressed that this wasn't

1:37:04

a totality of what

1:37:06

we think the war crimes problem was,

1:37:08

but these are people who we think

1:37:10

can be referred to a prosecutor.

1:37:14

And so after that, the Australian government,

1:37:16

the Barrett report came out. It was

1:37:19

a big day in Australia. The Prime

1:37:21

Minister stood up on the dais with the

1:37:23

Defence Minister and the Chief of Defense and said,

1:37:25

you know, we're all outraged by this. You

1:37:28

know, no one's more shocked than I am.

1:37:30

Blah, blah, blah, saying all right things. The

1:37:32

Barrett report, by the way, said that, you

1:37:34

know, while there was some moral failings within

1:37:36

the command, you know, it's basically the responsibility

1:37:38

of the soldiers who pulled the trigger, which

1:37:41

is not how I am intending.

1:37:45

But they then built this new

1:37:47

body called the Office of the

1:37:50

Special Investigators. And so

1:37:52

they were then going to build

1:37:54

these briefs of evidence from these referrals

1:37:56

from the Barrett report and

1:37:58

then take them to the... to the

1:38:01

Department of Public Prosecutions and then these

1:38:03

would go through and become trials. But

1:38:06

Brereton was 20-20 I

1:38:09

believe, so it's now four years later.

1:38:11

We've had one arrest, a

1:38:13

guy called Oliver Schultz, and he was the

1:38:15

person who pulled the trigger in the infamous

1:38:18

video where he's standing over

1:38:21

an Afghan youth saying, do you want me to drop this

1:38:23

count? And he kills him. There

1:38:25

hasn't been any other referrals, there

1:38:27

haven't been any other arrests. There

1:38:30

was one of the other things that after the

1:38:32

Brereton report was announced, the Prime Minister announced that

1:38:34

there was going to be an

1:38:37

implementation panel, an

1:38:39

Afghan implementation panel. So

1:38:42

this was going to

1:38:44

address all the structural issues and the command

1:38:46

issues. So they got these three experts and

1:38:49

they were working on it for a couple of years

1:38:51

on the things that the Defence might have done wrong.

1:38:54

They were meant to table the reports to the

1:38:56

government and then the government were meant

1:38:59

to make these reports public. They

1:39:01

didn't, so people have had to go

1:39:03

and FOI these requests, which is a

1:39:05

Freedom of Information mechanism that's

1:39:07

within Australian law where you can get documents

1:39:12

out of government. And then the final report,

1:39:16

which I can imagine is going to be

1:39:18

particularly damning of government

1:39:20

and defence, that

1:39:24

hasn't been made public. So the

1:39:28

Deputy Prime Minister, who's also

1:39:30

our Defence Minister, has

1:39:33

been given the report. He was given the report a

1:39:35

long time ago. FOI requests have been made. Those

1:39:38

requests have been denied, incidentally, by someone

1:39:40

who is involved in the

1:39:45

revitalisation of defence post Afghanistan. The

1:39:48

Senate, our Australian Senate, has

1:39:51

asked for it to be tabled. In fact, they've ordered

1:39:54

for it to be tabled. They have twice ordered it

1:39:56

for it to be tabled. It's gone to a

1:39:58

vote in the Senate. that

1:40:00

the vote has passed, that report is

1:40:02

still not labeled like. It still isn't

1:40:04

available to us. So, you know, years

1:40:06

and years and years on, the

1:40:10

thing sort of drags on and we

1:40:12

have, you know, we have this high

1:40:14

profile General Smith's defamation case where there's

1:40:16

no criminal liability in jeopardy. We have

1:40:19

this one soldier who is going to

1:40:21

be tried for this murder. And

1:40:24

then we have this, you know, report

1:40:26

about defense accountability and what,

1:40:29

you know, what the government of

1:40:31

the day knew or didn't know or should

1:40:34

or shouldn't have done. And it's nowhere to be seen.

1:40:37

And meanwhile, the word goes

1:40:39

on for Australian special operations. These guys

1:40:41

get sent right off to Iraq to

1:40:44

deal with ISIS. Yeah,

1:40:46

that's right. And there was always

1:40:48

speculation that, you know, the

1:40:50

the four squadron guys go over to a

1:40:53

thing called Gallant Phoenix. Have you guys interviewed

1:40:56

anyone who was part of Gallant Phoenix? I'm

1:40:59

pretty sure we have, even if they

1:41:01

didn't use that term. Yeah,

1:41:03

it's like a collective intelligence

1:41:05

gathering in Jordan, I believe,

1:41:07

where they tracked all the

1:41:09

international jahari that went over

1:41:11

to Syria and Iraq. And

1:41:15

then, you know, I think there was some targeting

1:41:18

the TF Hydra with

1:41:20

the Brits and the French and from what

1:41:23

you write about the Australians also. Yeah,

1:41:25

the Australians as well. So that was the that was an

1:41:28

SIS element that went and did that. But

1:41:30

then the commandos went on and worked

1:41:33

in the in the strike settle in

1:41:37

around Mosul and Al-Sar

1:41:39

and Takedim and places like that. And the

1:41:41

Australians were actually in a house

1:41:43

with Eddie Gallagher when when the Eddie

1:41:45

Gallagher incident happened. Yeah. So

1:41:48

that was Seals and commandos who

1:41:50

were together in Bartella in

1:41:52

the Battle of Mosul. Interesting. Yeah,

1:41:55

I've actually been told that the special

1:41:57

air service has kind of taken over.

1:42:00

from the Americans kind

1:42:02

of mentoring the white reaction regiment in

1:42:04

the Philippines. Yeah,

1:42:06

I mean, that would make sense given that we're, you know,

1:42:09

we're sort of much closer to the Philippines than you guys

1:42:11

are. And the

1:42:13

Australians, I mean, the mint

1:42:16

and our insurgency issue,

1:42:18

I can't remember. Do you guys remember when that was? I

1:42:21

mean, it's still

1:42:24

like ongoing. It's ongoing. Yeah. But

1:42:26

I know Australians are over there bringing

1:42:29

in airstrikes and there was J-TACs

1:42:31

and sort of prototypical

1:42:34

strikes out there as well. So, yeah,

1:42:37

I would imagine I mean, my visibility

1:42:39

is with it's with operations

1:42:41

in Afghanistan. You know, I'm not thinking on

1:42:43

the pulse of stuff that's happening now, but

1:42:45

that wouldn't surprise me at all. Do we

1:42:48

have questions for Ben? Yeah.

1:42:50

Do you know, do we have any Patreon

1:42:52

stuff? OK, let me get

1:42:55

to this real quick. So

1:42:58

where do things stand today, Ben, with like

1:43:00

if you could talk a little bit about

1:43:03

the forced disposition of the Australian special operations

1:43:05

community? Well,

1:43:08

I mean, everybody, almost

1:43:10

uniformly, everybody I'm in contact

1:43:12

with is retired because

1:43:14

I think part of the

1:43:16

reason is because that

1:43:19

was the party. You know, Afghanistan

1:43:21

was the place where we, you know, you

1:43:23

could be involved in combat. And I think

1:43:25

there was going to be at least a

1:43:28

long interregnum after Iraq. I mean,

1:43:30

Iraq was was very different. You

1:43:32

know, the the the counter-isis stuff was was

1:43:36

not gunfighting. And

1:43:39

the people that I speak to are sort

1:43:42

of generally an agreed group for

1:43:45

various, the various different reasons. You know, I

1:43:47

mean, there are a lot of there

1:43:50

is a lot of unity within the community

1:43:53

in that they think that the command

1:43:55

piece of the war crime story in

1:43:57

Afghanistan should be understood and should be

1:43:59

exposed. it shouldn't be that the

1:44:01

entire weight of those

1:44:03

failures should be on the soldiers that the guys

1:44:05

were on the ground. And

1:44:07

so even though there's a lot of different

1:44:10

voices and there's a lot of people who

1:44:12

hate each other and there's a lot of

1:44:14

old wounds, I think most

1:44:17

people think that there should be

1:44:19

an understanding of what

1:44:22

the command piece is. Yeah. What

1:44:24

do we got for Ben here? Ben

1:44:27

Corbin, thank you very much. And

1:44:29

Aussie Bud asks, how important was BRS's

1:44:31

family background in enabling the protection of

1:44:34

him? Was there a

1:44:36

cultural problem in other squadrons? There

1:44:40

was a cultural problem in other squadrons, but presumably

1:44:42

it wasn't as bad as two squadrons. So

1:44:46

just a bit of background. They were disbanded, right?

1:44:49

Sorry? Was that the squadron that was

1:44:51

disbanded? They were

1:44:54

supposedly disbanded, but it's a bit of a black

1:44:56

box at the moment. So

1:45:00

yeah, Ben Robert Smith's dad is Len Robert

1:45:02

Smith, who was a major

1:45:04

general and he was the

1:45:07

head of the JAG Corps, I believe, here in Australia. He

1:45:12

was the head of a task force, I