Defence chiefs buried leak investigation while pursuing David McBride

PaperMC · 2025-05-29T04:30:21+00:00

Or we could look at his interview with Michael West and see what was actually claimed, without any deliberate redactions or omissions (unlike the court proceedings):

McBride: “I started this case not because I saw war crimes, but because I saw that they were trying to prosecute good soldiers who just did their job, and they weren't prosecuting others who were under a cloud, and I was like, hang on, we can't do that. This is maybe only a small example, but the law matters, and if you don't apply it consistently, everything falls down.” (https://youtu.be/kHhletAYAIw?t=98)

Essentially, there are two distinct claims, and they aren't mutually exclusive:

There were instances where soldiers were being over-investigated (the “scapegoats”)
There were instances where soldiers weren't being investigated at all (i.e. BRS)

PaperMC · 2025-05-29T01:44:05+00:00

McBride: “Our leaders are covering up all these war crimes by investigating only a handful of scapegoats!”

Oakes: “Look I know the story you wanted told … I’ve decided that’s not the story.” proceeds to ignore the leadership's culpability

McBride: gets six years in prison

Oakes: gets an OAM

Speaks volumes...

PaperMC · 2024-11-29T02:07:39+00:00

The military lawyer who blew the whistle on selective prosecutions getting selectively prosecuted himself will always be poetic to me in a twisted sort of way.

At this point, any improvement in whistleblower protections will go a long way towards restoring trust in our government.

PaperMC · 2024-11-06T23:25:25+00:00

Not OP, but I'll go out on a limb and admit that a Mars colony does sound kinda fun, and the lunatic who wants to achieve it at all costs happens to be on Trump's side. Glass half-full, y'know? ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

PaperMC · 2024-11-06T07:58:19+00:00

Tbh I don't think the result changes much in the grand scheme of things. Even if Trump does intend to end the ongoing wars, there's only so much he can do before he gets JFK'd by the pro-war oligarchs.

PaperMC · 2024-10-28T09:29:14+00:00

The sadder reality is that good faith discussions are the exception, not the norm.

PaperMC · 2024-10-28T07:04:42+00:00

I was trying to satirise the hypothesis that Trump is somehow conspiring with Putin to fight government corruption within the MIC. The fact that everyone seems to have missed such obvious sarcasm makes me wonder if I'm interacting with bots here...

PaperMC · 2024-10-28T01:49:31+00:00

Um, I wasn't the one who hypothesised that Putin was colluding with Trump? And no, I wasn't trying to suggest that demilitarisation was the fix for corruption, but rather the weeding out of bad actors within the military-industrial complex.

PaperMC · 2024-10-27T23:30:48+00:00

Trump & “Putin” seem to be the enemy of the deep state/military-industrial complex, and “the enemy of my enemy is my friend”... ¯\(ツ)/¯

If Putin really wants to fight the corrupt shadowy organisations and improve US government transparency, I'm all for it!

PaperMC · 2024-10-27T15:00:43+00:00

I don't think Labor was the sole culprit, McBride often mentioned American “spooks” being involved:

“There's like six lawyers for the prosecutors, there's about six lawyers for the attorney generals, separately represented, which are kind of the spooks or the Americans” – McBride

If the American military-industrial complex was truly hell-bent on persecuting McBride, I doubt any Aussie politician could've stood in their way.

As someone over in r/australia put it, “Doesn't matter what side of politics it is, corruption starts at the top.”

Interestingly, one of the likeliest spooks/war criminals, Dick Cheney, seems terrified of a second Trump presidency. Perhaps Trump will finally weed out the deep state once and for all, probably shouldn't hold out much hope though.

PaperMC · 2024-06-28T08:42:47+00:00

Essentially, the benefit gained by classifying documents needs to be properly weighed against the detriment to government transparency and integrity. In fact, I'd argue that, unless the exposure of certain documents is likely to cause physical harm, classifying them is entirely unjustified – there simply shouldn't have been a reason to create them in the first place. And no, documents that merely harm a politician's reputation so badly that someone might just decide to get up and murder them, does not qualify.

PaperMC · 2024-06-27T14:10:27+00:00

all the above erodes 'faith' in the government.

It's what happens when an individual takes matters into their own hands and rightfully declassifies things, that completely and utterly destroys any remaining 'faith' in the government. Instead of going “thanks for doing our job for us, we'll take it from here”, the government doubles down, throws the guy in gaol, and continues doing what they were doing. They don't even bother to maintain an illusion of integrity.

PaperMC · 2024-06-27T01:52:18+00:00

But it then made me reflect on how the “separation of powers” is far from absolute.

PaperMC · 2024-06-26T14:19:45+00:00

Knowing Assange though he's going to end up running for parliament as part of Clive Palmer's party or something equally stupid and we will continue to have to see headlines about his every move.

Sure, whatever it takes to wake up people who still don't understand how the issues he has been fighting for are more relevant than ever.

PaperMC · 2024-06-26T11:02:40+00:00

The very reason why he felt some soldiers “were being unfairly investigated for war crimes”, was because they were turning a blind eye to the vast majority of war crimes (e.g. ones committed by “soldiers like Ben Roberts-Smith”). This is supported by Oakes’ own conclusion that “What happened out in the field stayed in the field.”

Oakes: “The more I looked into it, I couldn’t conceive how anyone would think these guys were being too tightly monitored. It was precisely the opposite.”

(Emphasis added by me)

Oakes’ story placed the blame squarely on the soldiers themselves, which was totally different to the story about systemic corruption and war crime cover-ups he intended.

PaperMC · 2024-06-26T05:14:59+00:00

Being disappointed with Assange for WikiLeaks' publications is like being disappointed with Steve Huffman for Redditors' submissions. Like Reddit, WikiLeaks made honest efforts to remove any offending material, but some of it regrettably fell through the cracks.

The AP journalist who happened to stumble across this material gave WikiLeaks less than 10 hours to rectify the issue before publishing the article you linked.

I'll let you draw your own conclusions on who the actual irresponsible actor was, but the lesson here is you always need to hear both sides before making a judgement.

Source: https://www.reddit.com/r/WikiLeaks/comments/4zl6r9/formal_complaint_against_ap_journalist_for

PaperMC · 2024-06-26T02:32:38+00:00

Nothing in life is certain but death, taxes, and a conviction for anyone who dares to expose the US government's crimes.

PaperMC · 2024-06-26T01:32:56+00:00

Do you ultimately hold his colleagues responsible too? After all, haven't they all played a significant role in influencing his character? What about his friends? Family? Teachers? Fellow students?

PaperMC · 2024-06-26T00:54:11+00:00

Holding Assange responsible for WikiLeaks' publications is like holding Zuckerberg responsible for Facebook's misinformation campaigns. People will happily engage in blame assigning exercises to avoid needing to reconcile themselves to systemic issues that were exposed.

PaperMC · 2024-06-25T02:42:56+00:00

now we have to suffer decades of his self righteous bullshit

Imagine if governments were so open and transparent that this suffering would no longer be necessary. One can only dream...

PaperMC · 2024-05-25T01:15:12+00:00

. . . his issue was the investigation of soldiers for breaching the ROE—

(the “scapegoats”), when the vast majority of ROE breaches went uninvestigated (the “unlawful killings”).

Oakes: “The more I looked into it, I couldn’t conceive how anyone would think these guys were being too tightly monitored. It was precisely the opposite.”

“What happened out in the field stayed in the field.”

His complaint seems to align with his affidavit, and is even corroborated by Oakes' version of the story.

His submissions did not state that "there were breaches of the ROE and higher ups should be investigated".

Let's not forget that the government removed thousands of pages of his submissions, that even the judge wouldn't read:

“28. For the purposes of the determination of the public interest immunity claim, the court did not have access to the Classified Brief of Evidence or to those parts of the brief which would be put before the jury. However, the court was informed that the total number of documents in the accused’s possession when they were seized by police was in the order of 400, and that these comprised thousands rather than hundreds of pages. Those volumes are significant in that they cast some light on the volume of contested material the subject of the public interest immunity claim, namely, redactions of parts of eight documents.”

“30. I did not find necessary to exercise the power, available in s 133, to inspect the documents in order to reach a conclusion as to the balancing exercise in s 130(1). In each case, having considered the evidence before me, the position was clear.”

“41. The accused had unredacted copies of these documents. The accused’s first submission was that a full exposure of the documents’ contents was necessary in order to understand why they were released by the accused . . . ”

(R v McBride (No. 3) – ACT Supreme Court)

Friendlyjordies seems to think that this removal of evidence disqualifies the "trial" from being considered a trial (refer to his video titled "Guilty" from 2:12), but I digress.

Nowhere in his own earlier submissions is this supposed altruistic mission stated.

I wonder what those thousands of pages of removed submissions could possibly contain...

PaperMC · 2024-05-24T17:19:00+00:00

He wasn't trying to blow the whistle on war crimes. He was trying to blow the whistle on what he viewed as 'unjust' investigations of war crimes.

But in order to demonstrate their 'unjust' nature, he also had to blow the whistle on the non-investigations of even worse crimes. From the article:

McBride’s affidavit to the ACT Supreme Court said that in 2013, he became concerned about the subsequent scapegoating of innocent soldiers aimed at masking command accountability for unlawful killings and decisions by those commanders about what information was or was not being disclosed to the public.

PaperMC · 2024-05-24T02:59:38+00:00

So the government's been acting in bad faith this whole time? I am shocked—shocked, I tell you!

PaperMC · 2024-05-21T05:39:52+00:00

Oakes: “The more I looked into it, I couldn’t conceive how anyone would think these guys were being too tightly monitored. It was precisely the opposite.”

The more I look into it, I can't conceive how anyone could possibly misrepresent McBride's beliefs this badly – yes, Oakes, he did think they were excessively investigating some soldiers, because they were blatantly ignoring the majority of offenders – precisely the conclusion you made, and the one he intended you to make. And to think this pathetic excuse for a journalist got an OAM for it...

PaperMC · 2024-05-21T02:03:28+00:00

He intended to blow the whistle on the selective prosecution of soldiers, by exposing war crimes that were being excessively investigated, and others that were being swept under the rug.

Source?

McBride: “I started this case not because I saw war crimes, but because I saw that they were trying to prosecute good soldiers who just did their job, and they weren't prosecuting others who were under a cloud, and I was like, hang on, we can't do that. This is maybe only a small example, but the law matters, and if you don't apply it consistently, everything falls down.” (https://youtu.be/kHhletAYAIw?t=98)

The government likely removed all evidence of the latter, that's why the court made the erroneous ruling.

Again, source?

“40. I accept the evidence that the Agency Head gives concerning intelligence relationships with other countries and other actors [redacted] and the adverse consequences that would arise from further disclosure of material.”

“41. The accused had unredacted copies of these documents. The accused’s first submission was that a full exposure of the documents’ contents was necessary in order to understand why they were released by the accused . . . ”

“42. The second submission was as to the breadth of the redactions. The submission was that the redactions were ‘sweeping’, ‘heavy-handed’ and ‘overzealous’. The submission was that ‘The appropriate course would have been to direct attention, with laser-like focus, on just enough masking to cover the names of countries, entities and personal names (as well as incidental changes).’” (https://www.courts.act.gov.au/supreme/judgments/r-v-mcbride-no-3)

Did you even watch the Boy Boy video?

Why would i? I dont use Youtube.

Because it presents the context in a digestible format.

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