• Baku
    link
    fedilink
    English
    arrow-up
    27
    ·
    4 months ago

    Poor bloke :/ this is fucking barbaric

    • Fredselfish@lemmy.world
      link
      fedilink
      English
      arrow-up
      1
      arrow-down
      2
      ·
      4 months ago

      Not familiar with yall laws but how can he appeal against the Supreme Court? In US they are the last court to appeal to.

  • No1
    link
    fedilink
    English
    arrow-up
    18
    arrow-down
    9
    ·
    4 months ago

    McBride’s intention was not to leak to expose war crimes, it was to show how troops were being unnecessarily hounded by legal etc , ie ‘over-zealous investigations of special forces’

    The ABC discovered war crimes in the leaks and went down that path, ignoring McBride’s initial reason for leaking the information.

    Now McBride is allegedly playing a hero being victimised for exposing the war crimes.

    ABC article

    • Ilandar
      link
      fedilink
      English
      arrow-up
      20
      ·
      4 months ago

      His intent or whether he is a real “hero” is not relevant to his conditions of imprisonment or his status as a whistleblower. The information he disclosed was clearly in the public interest and the ABC certainly seemed to agree when it used the information to publish a seven-part series. Isn’t it funny how the tune changed under threat of prosecution?

    • dillekant@slrpnk.net
      link
      fedilink
      English
      arrow-up
      16
      ·
      4 months ago

      It’s important to recognise the mechanism is more important than the intent. If people cannot blow the whistle safely, then the “government” can freely keep secrets. “Government” is in air quotes here because often it’s the spooks or the military who get to keep secrets, often from the elected officials. This means that MPs are often kept in the dark (and sometimes on purpose, in a Berejiklian-style “I don’t need to know about that” sense) and this means that a bunch of people who we pay taxes for can do what they like with impunity.

      If the secrets are kept, then the people keeping the secrets are not accountable to anyone. This is a serious problem if they start to violate the rights of people on Australian soil. You might feel like it’s not going to be you, but it well could be. There is no safety on that gun. The only way around it is to make whistleblowing safe.

    • SLfgb@feddit.nlOP
      link
      fedilink
      English
      arrow-up
      15
      ·
      4 months ago

      You’ve commented the exact same thing in a previous post on this. Please actually engage with the counter-arguments and materials I responded with here .

      That is some twisted narrative the abc has been spinning about their own source.

      If David hadn’t wanted to expose the murders, he wouldn’t have leaked evidence of it. What’s more, he leaked evidence of their cover-up up to the highest ranks, which could be argued is he graver war-crime, since it fosters a culture of impunity.

      It is true that David saw some soldiers, who served in Afghanistan the year after a lot of those murders took place, prosecuted unfairly, the way he saw it. He believes the Defence leadership were scape-goating these soldiers to be seen to be doing something about war crimes when in reality they continued the cover-up for the murderers. This flauting of command responsibility is the bigger story which the abc continues to ignore.

      Edit: also, motive was never discussed during trial. Trial only ever got as far as pre-trial, where the justice ruled on the meaning of ‘duty’ (just follow your orders) and in a closed session allowed the govt to scoop away David’s evidence, leading him to plead guilty.

      • SLfgb@feddit.nlOP
        link
        fedilink
        English
        arrow-up
        1
        ·
        4 months ago

        I’d really like to know what else was in the bags of documents David McBride handed the AFP and what else was in the documents he gave to journalists including ABC’s Dan Oakes.

    • Zane
      link
      fedilink
      English
      arrow-up
      14
      ·
      4 months ago

      Regardless of David’s original intentions, he is being victimised for exposing war crimes. There is nothing just in his incarceration.

    • SLfgb@feddit.nlOP
      link
      fedilink
      English
      arrow-up
      4
      ·
      4 months ago

      The boyboy video you linked is probably the best explainer of the whole situation.

      • No1
        link
        fedilink
        English
        arrow-up
        1
        arrow-down
        2
        ·
        edit-2
        4 months ago

        This video gets pointed out a lot.

        The title is ‘Our friend is going to jail’, and he even claims he’s best mates with McBride. It’s so obviously biased I have difficulties placing any trust in it.

        Is there a better independent source?