just wrong......

www.theage.com.au/national/soldiers-to-be-charged-over-raid-20100908-151b6.html

Soldiers to be charged over raid

Rafael Epstein, Dan Oakes and Sophie McNeill

September 9, 2010
 

AN OFFICER in line for a medal is among a group of Australian soldiers who will face manslaughter and negligence charges over the deaths of five Afghan children in a bungled raid last year.

The soldiers, mostly from the 1st Commando Regiment, are facing an unprecedented court martial over the raid, codenamed Operation Pakula, near the village of Surkh Morghab in February 2009.

Defence Force officials have sent letters of protest to Brigadier Lyn McDade, the Director of Military Prosecutions, with some officers hoping the charges will be downgraded.

But it is unlikely Brigadier McDade will change her mind, and The Age has been told she is unclear why there has been a continuing delay for the public announcement of the charges.

One source said the charges would be ''dangerous to the whole culture of the military''. Many in Defence believe the courts martial should begin by the end of November, as Brigadier McDade was handed the evidence in November last year.

There is growing anxiety inside Defence about the prolonged legal process, with some lawyers for those involved still in the dark about specific charges faced by their clients.

The Age believes two soldiers, from a group codenamed Force Element Charlie, were directly involved in throwing grenades during the raid and will face manslaughter and other charges.

Their commanding officer on the ground that night, who is believed to be in line to receive a leadership medal, will also face serious charges.

Charges of negligence and failure to get appropriate command approval will be brought against a supervising officer working from Kandahar, and other officers who were involved in the decision to attack a compound not originally targeted.

Officers within Special Operations Command have been frustrated that they have been unable to publicly support the soldiers. The chief of the Defence Force, Air Chief Marshal Angus Houston, also has privately expressed frustration with the decision to lay such charges, when many believe there is insufficient evidence for any likely convictions.

As reported previously in The Age, it is believed the prosecution will bring evidence that relies in part on other officers within the chain of command, who had reservations about the training and behaviour of the reserve commandos.

A previous army inquiry had raised concerns about the pre-deployment training of the group of reservists, the first such deployment since World War II.

The soldiers were targeting an insurgent leader who was not found at an initial compound. A crucial part of the prosecution argument will rest on the decision to move to a second compound, and whether the intelligence was sufficient for it to be approached with the same level of stealth and tactics.

The soldiers say they exchanged fire for an extended time with an Afghan man, who was killed. Those close to the soldiers are adamant that grenades were necessary because the soldiers were under fire and the shots only ceased after a second grenade was thrown.

Those killed were a teenager, two younger children and two babies. The civilians were in the same room as the Afghan man who fired at the soldiers. Other women and children were also wounded.

The families of the Afghan victims have not been spoken to by Australian investigating officers or military police. Investigators were told it was too difficult and too dangerous to return to the compound.
 

These guys are paid the big bucks to work under pressure, I am sure they do a great job, but to work under fire would be a whole different outcome.
the unfortunate side of war, civilian casualty's, I am sure if weapons fire is coming from one window, that's were the return fire would be aimed

only those guys who were there know what happened and im sure it repeats in their minds daily - hindsight is a wonderful thing - so until these legal people are under fire - they should keep out of it - shot or be shot...........my thoughts and best wishes go out to these soldiers and every other soldier fighting for australia.

By the sounds of it, Brig. McDade should go on a "fact finding" to Surkh Morghab and interview the victims relatives.

I wonder how long ago the good Brig was out there amongst the troops in a real battle

I'm getting sick of all this new age ansy pansy beauracratic bullshit

my 2 cents, time for a beer.

hay Flan.... maybe the guys should start filling in JSA's just like everyone else who works on/at hazzardous locations.... that way our boys would still be here with their families

What the fuck!!! The Brig needs to grow a set of balls and tell the investigating officers to piss off big time.  There has never been a war fought inthe last 200 years where there was no collateral damage to civillians, if commanders on the ground can't make decisions how the fuck do they expect any one to win this friggin war on terror.  I tell you if I was in charge over there it would be a lot driggen differnt, take and hold ground will win wars not sitting on ya butts in a fucking compound so the enemy can retake land after you have gone to bed FOR FUCK SAKE!!!!

And I know my way there will be more casualties but the political masters have to stand up for that.  Either prosicute the war properly and effeciently or get the fuck out.

no winners in war .... just another example . there has to be some oversight of what troops do in theartre , i think the actual problem is that this is made public and that it has taken along time and still unresolved. imo what should happen is that these issues are dealt with swiftly inside the armed services - so if there are lessons to be learned they are learned swiftly .

First of all we got ourselves a touchy feely police force....Now the morons want a touchy feely war effort. God help us & our valiant troops. If you lay with dogs, you get fleas....should have thrown a couple more grenades and levelled the joint. That way the bad guy is history, plus no-one knows of the collateral damage. The bad guys don't care how many innocents are eliminated....gives em a better profile to terrorise some one else.

I remember when this was first reported in the media and had a inkling that someone is going to get hosed over for this. Now it has come down to holding someone to account for mistakes that happen on the spur of the moment. Shots are fired, soldiers are trained to return fire to suppress that fire and regain the initiative, Everything is fair game as far as what weaponry to use, and grenades are really good in a confined environment. Every soldier is taught to provide suppressing fire and toss a grenade then follow though with an assault.. if that is what happened then no one is to blame except the enemy for using civilians to hide behind. The soldiers are governed by ROE, and I would say that they followed those ROE's. It is unfortunate that casualties were suffered by innocents caught in the fire fight at the time, but that happens in War. The investigating Officer has only the statements to go on while sitting in a comfortable office in Canberra. If anyone is to blame then maybe the REMF's at the rear that do all the planning and throw things together at the last moment without adequate planning and intelligence. But don't blame the diggers on the spot for making a decision to save their own lives by doing what they were trained to do in the first place.


* ROE Rules of Engagement
** REMF Rear Echelon Mother Fuckers

Do they realize that when the ragheads hear that soldiers were courtmartialed for this action, they will be running around shooting at our troops from behind a bunch of kids. (as the gutless mo-fos do now) Our troops wont be able to shoot back at them for fear of repercussions for doing what they are trained and sent there for. Result: more collateral damage and a decimated army all sent home for doing what they are trained for. And the worst part is the effect on these brave men forced to live with the trauma associated with this situation.

So the soldiers can do as their told and face court for doing their job or they can refuse to do their job because they might accidentally kill someone and then get a court martial and jail time.

not the right position to put our diggers in.

Either let em do the job or bring them home this is BS!

typical defense force . spent 12yrs as a reg and back to back deployments , sounds like a good old hang someone out to dry. what would have happened to the diggers if they didn't throw grenades ?. what about taking charge of a situation ? fuck that i,d have thrown then . if he was hiding behind women and children that is their problem .

they had this story on the news again tonight, seems they are going to court marshal them..................fuggin bastards,

what do they want our guys to do, if they come under fire they should be able to fight back without fear of being arrested. 

how were they to know who was in the house, just that they were being fired at. the insergant who opened fire should be held responsible, he knew who was in the house.

as if the job our boys are doing wasn't hard enough, FFS

 

forget about the wrongs and rights ... what i dont understand is , if the operations themselves are so secret why does the military then decide that courtmarshalls should be in the public domain ? i am just sooooo fuckin angry that this has become a public debate ..... but then again perhaps its good that it has , so people like me can register their fuckin anger at this !!!!

fuck pc , we are at war

fuck heads in Canberra !

fuckhead civilian bitch brigadere

fuck the lot of em

fuck !!!!

This is a link to the Defence Military Prosecution    defence.dmp@defence.gov.au 

 

To ex -serviceman, and if you have strong feelings about this issue, you can send an email to the above link with your comments.

 

 Every serviceman from now on will need a lawyer to tell them when to fire. 

 

 Please pass on the link to as many ex servicemen you know.

I cant imagine what it would be like in one of those close fighting situations with you finger on the trigger with your sences so alert that a farting fly would cause you to open fire and now they want to punish them.I think they people in power have just signed death warrants fo some of the guys still there scared to shoot first in case they hit a civilian, insurgents using kids ect to shield them.Every soldier there should leave and hand there weapons to the military chiefs behind this madness and say "here ya go ,fight them yourself"

My old man was an 18 yo digger in Borneo (ww2) they were clearing out caves, some were empty some had japs the one he was told to toss a grinade in had a woman & 2 kids in, (didn't do him any good ether.) 

Like these diggers  he just wanted to get back to his family & would have never wanted to hurt women & kids

Fucking armchair bitch brigadere,

Probably a fucken ugly dyke at that

from The West Australian - Friday 1st October 2010

WTF? When you are in that situation you have a choice, give the gooks who are trying to kill and you mates the benefit of the doubt , or go back to rule number one, look after your men