A Think Piece

In today's Herald Sun, star columnist/pensioner Alan Howe, having just been informed that World War One is over, turns his attention to Australia's most recent military engagement, declaring that the Director of Military Prosecutions, Lyn McDade, who has charegd three soldiers in Afghanistan with manslaughter, "may well be the most dangerous woman in Australia."

Howe does note that the campaign against Brigadier McDade "is driven mostly by the puerile, angry and uneducated"; but on the other hand, much of the abuse "comes from big hearts". So that's all right then. When it comes to abuse and threats, it's the thought that counts. You see:

Brigadier McDade, 52, has spent her life in the law, which she knows very well. She has been a police prosecutor, deputy Northern Territory coroner and served as an army lawyer for many years.

But she has never been in a firefight with enemy determined to kill her, has never dragged back to camp a zipped-up body bag with a mate's limp, lifeless but still warm remains - and has never knocked on a suburban door to tell the occupants their son has been killed serving their country in some overseas hellhole. Like Afghanistan.

So we can all agree that her legal opinions are, essentially, worthless.

So anyway Howe goes on a bit about how disgraceful it is for Australian soldiers to be charged with anything and about how the Taliban are really, really bad people, so there's no way anyone fighting against them could ever do anything wrong, etc etc.

And then he identifies the crucial point:

So what is manslaughter? Well, the most recent convictions - for which you can be jailed 20 years - involved lowlife dog-catcher Mario Schembri and his slutty accomplice, Bernadette Denny, who killed businessman Herman Rockefeller in January.

They bashed Rockefeller to death. Schembri said he fought "like Muhammad Ali" as his uncountable blows hit Rockefeller "harder than he had hit anyone before".

Then they went to Bunnings and bought a chainsaw, disposable overalls, facemasks and a shovel, dismembered Rockefeller's body, cutting off the arms and legs and burning it all in a 44-gallon drum in a mate's backyard.

That's manslaughter.

Are any of our soldiers in Afghanistan guilty of that?

Well, er...no. Not really. So Howe makes a very good point. NONE of our soldiers in Afghanistan are guilty of that, so Brigadier McDade's logic starts to look a bit ropey, doesn't it now?

On the other hand, should the military justice system be amended so that soldiers cannnot be prosecuted unless they beat to death a millionaire who has disappointed them by failing to bring his wife on an unannounced wife-swapping visit before dismembering him with a new chainsaw from Bunnings, it may just narrow the terms of reference for military courts to a rather extreme extent.

"And when the private threw the grenade into the maternity ward, did he at any time claim to have 'fought like Muhammad Ali' before burning the evidence in a 44-gallon drum?"

"No, your honour"

"Case dismissed!"

So as much as we don't want to see these three soldiers convicted, perhaps we should at least allow for the possibility of prosecuting soldiers for crimes committed in battle, as opposed to prosecuting them only for crimes committed in working-class suburban homes and backyards against millionaires with secret lives?

Hmm?

SERIOUS ADDENDUM TO AVOID DISTRESSING CONFUSIONS:

Incidentally, and so it is clear, these guys might NOT have done anything wrong, and hopefully when they're tried it turns out that they didn't - it sounds as if they may have a pretty good defence. I guess we'll see. But if they were just doing their jobs, so is Brigadier McDade, and despite her lack of combat experience, when it comes to decisions to prosecute I'll take the opinion of a military legal expert over that of an opinion columnist. Although perhaps Alan Howe can sway me by telling me how many firefights he's been in and how many doors he's knocked on, since that seems to be the way we determine whether someone's legal opinions are valid or not.



Alan Howe: Strongman of the Editorial Page

Today in Tabloids

(cross-posted at Gather Around Me)

You may have got the impression from earlier postings that Melbourne's Herald Sun was mainly a repository for the ramblings of developmentally delayed readers with too much unsupervised email time available.

This is not true. It is also a repository for the ramblings of developmentally delayed journalists. Take for instance today's front page headline, which screamed "RED ARMY" in huge letters.

The story, with an update noting the army's backdown, is here. It's all about the shocking revelation that the government planned to MAKE OUR BRAVE FIGHTING SOLDIERS WEAR CHINESE MATERIAL!!!!!

And so the headline, RED ARMY. Get it? Because they're communists? So our soldiers would be wearing communist fabric? So our army would be "red"?

GET IT YET?

Felix Sher, whose son Gregory was killed in a rocket attack in Afghanistan last year, said this morning questions had to be asked over what justified the bizarre cost-cutting strategy.

"Bizarre cost-cutting strategy"? The strategy is to cut costs. This is, you know, to save money. Apparently this is bizarre to the Herald Sun? No, Herald Sun - a "bizarre cost-cutting strategy" would be one where you, say, threw a million dollars in cash into the river in order to cut costs - that would be quite bizarre. A cost-cutting strategy that saves you money is not a bizarre one; it's actually quite a sensible one, I would have thought.

"If Greg was alive I don't think he would be happy," Mr Sher said. "To wear a Chinese-made uniform just to save a dollar ... I don't think any Australian soldier would be happy.

"Greg was devoted to his job and to his country but if he was alive he'd definitely be asking why the Defence Department were doing this.''

And maybe the defence department would say, "To save money, cockface - now get back in line".

Because MAYBE, Mr Sher, the idea is to save money on uniforms - which, in a world full of SANE PEOPLE, would be made wherever was most convenient and cost-effective, with a general agreement that it doesn't matter the slightest, tiniest, infinitesimal bit where the fabric got made, for Christ's sake.

Jennifer Ward, whose son Benjamin Ranaudo was killed in Afghanistan last year, said the cost-cutting strategy was going too far.

"It might just be factory work to some people, but that company would be proud to make those uniforms,’’ Mrs Ward told the Herald Sun.

Oh, well if they're PROUD. I mean, you didn't mention they'd be PROUD to make uniforms. By all means, let the necessities of the defence budget take a backseat to company pride - the self-esteem of factory workers is after all the main purpose of the Defence Force, innit?

Australian Defence Association executive director Neil James blasted the decision.

"Do we seriously expect our soldiers to fight a war dressed in a uniform made in China?" he said.

"There's a simple dignity issue."

Yes, how undignified! Good God, our brave diggers might catch Chineseness from their uniforms! How can any soldier feel dignified fighting in a uniform that is exactly the same as any other uniform, knowing the identical uniform was made in China? How could this bunch of sissy, pansy-arse, wussy, limp-wristed nancy-boys handle it, given they're such a bunch of soft, namby-pamby little girls they can't even handle putting on a foreign-made shirt? Pussies.

Oh yeah, and Sophie Mirabella weighed in:

Opposition industry spokeswoman Sophie Mirabella said it was outrageous.

"Our soldiers risk their lives under the flag and in the uniform of this country," she said. "It's dangerous, unpatriotic and tawdry for the Government to save a few dollars and buy the fabric overseas."

But we already knew she was a total fuckstick, so no need to pay much attention there.

Still, they backed down, so it's nice to see the Herald Sun's proud tradition of racist, xenophobic scaremongering continues to get results in the corridors of power.

Bravo Herald Sun.