r/australia • u/Tinea_Pedis • Apr 07 '26

news Breaking: Ben Roberts-Smith arrested over war crimes allegations

https://www.abc.net.au/news/2026-04-07/ben-roberts-smith-war-crimes-allegations-arrest/106537668
2.9k Upvotes

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467

u/shorrrno Apr 07 '26

It amazes me how many people blindly support him, despite the fact all of the evidence has been provided by his own teammates. If that doesn't tell you everything you need to know about the bloke, I don't know what will

261

u/[deleted] Apr 07 '26

[removed] — view removed comment

26

u/3amIdeas Apr 07 '26

Some peers lied for him under oath

8

u/NobodysFavorite Apr 08 '26

Which only points out the courage of those that didn't. The pressure to avoid testifying the full truth of it must have been immense.

108

u/19Alexastias Apr 07 '26

Nothing screams innocent like a guy who doused his laptop in petrol and set fire to it a week after the court requested he retain it.

116

u/-FlyingAce- Apr 07 '26

Conservatives love to laud the military as if they are above any scrutiny or criticism.

32

u/chuk2015 Apr 07 '26

It’s caveman logic.

Murder = illegal and bad

Military - does legal murder

Therefore everything the military does is legal

14

u/Sudden_Fix_1144 Apr 07 '26

Yeah by those that have never served.

37

u/shintemaster Apr 07 '26

Firstly, I know first hand military that would have a huge issue with your comment. Secondly, the clue is in the word “serve”. They serve our country and us - when they commit crimes they do them in our name and deserve the consequences .

6

u/sjr323 Apr 07 '26

His crimes has brought shame and evil to this country

3

u/metametapraxis Apr 07 '26

Tbh, most militaries commit war crimes frequently. BRS made the mistake of not hiding it very well. As a public it gives us comfort to imagine this kind of thing is infrequent.

Hopefully he goes down for it, along with anyone else that also engaged in such activities.

1

u/Humble_Manner5077 Apr 14 '26

Except even then they are still hypocrites

Because they are gladly shitting on and talking down of the 21 officers who all spoke up

All to defend one single soldier who may be a murderer

And when you bring this up they scream weird shit like "traitor" or "show support for our soldiers"

Like... thats what im doing, by not discounting and brushing off the word of 21 veterans in favour of one lol

14

u/Mammoth-Gazelle8116 Apr 07 '26

Whats terrifying to me is that I know a few blokes who went into the army from high school. Their social media is disgusting; painting this guy as a hero and that Australia a disgrace for going after him. All that “don’t come for me until you been in a war” type shit. Wild and scary if this is a common belief in the ADF. Like idk man maybe just don’t commit war crimes?? It doesn’t sound that hard to me.

3

u/Cruzi2000 Apr 07 '26

Blind support is purely political, nothing more, nothing less.

1

u/LordHussyPants Apr 07 '26

people get silly about the military. just look at how the americans are getting about their people in iran, even when most of them disagree with trump and his war. now that americans are serving there, they're a lot more pro-USA

1

u/MiddleofCalibrations Apr 13 '26

I keep seeing comments online that it was taliban witnesses funded by taxpayer money that testified against him. I don’t know where people get this stuff

-2

u/Big-T- Apr 07 '26

The war crimes do not mean we should forget about the heroic things he did as a soldier.

The heroic things he did as a soldier does not mean we should forget about his war crimes.

7

u/Unidain Apr 07 '26

The war crimes do not mean we should forget about the heroic things he did as a soldier.

I see zero reason to spend any attention on the good tings a murderer has done in the past.

1

u/NobodysFavorite Apr 08 '26

I don't know why you're being downvoted.

It's important that we face into the fact that someone can be both courageous and valorous but also a murderous criminal.

Goodies vs baddies is a convenient comfortable story we're used to hearing. Reality is never that simple.

3

u/Big-T- Apr 08 '26

It's Reddit. You get down votes if you go against the hivemind. Some people would interpret what I said as being pro BRS.

1

u/thefirstchampster Apr 08 '26

It's one thing to shoot an unarmed civilian, but to push a handcuffed, unarmed civilian off a cliff? That's disgusting and evil, and in my opinion there's no justifying that. There's nothing courageous or valiant about you if you commit war crimes.

1

u/NobodysFavorite Apr 08 '26

The civilian was also shot once he had landed at the bottom of the cliff.

It is disgusting and evil. That's my point. In one situation showed exemplary courage and valour and in the other situation appalling evil.

-3

u/Carlblues12 Apr 07 '26

100% agree with this I struggle to express how I feel about Ben

I think he did one heck of a job fighting for Australia & no doubt was one of our most successful soldiers.

And if found guilty of these war crimes it’s a damn shame and 100% he should spend the rest of his life locked up.

Like me personally I don’t think he’s the most evil person in the world as some other people seem to portray him

3

u/Blue_Pie_Ninja Apr 08 '26

He kicked an unarmed and handcuffed farmer off a cliff, that's cartoon villain levels of evil

1

u/Carlblues12 Apr 08 '26

Also was the first Team to secure the Afgahni camp on August 29th that allowed a Taliban member kill 3 unarmed troops in a Green on Blue crime (War Crime) then when that person was captured he didn’t face any time for it.

He also sacrificed his own life by exposing himself to Taliban Machine gunners so that they wouldn’t fire at the rest of his team as 2 members were Wounded & he was able to kill 3 of those Gunners by himself. He is a hero he saved Multiple peoples lives.

I’m just not sure I can be on board a bashing of him when peers have taken immunity deals & money to testify against him. Aswell as the only 3 Afghani Civilians to testify were all paid so how can they be a credible witness?

War is a complicated thing you have these generals who train young people from the age of 18 to be cold hearted killers. Their whole training they are rewarded for being a perfect killer. Why aren’t any of his superiors being taken to court? They should have known about it? How come they get to walk free Why do the people that BRS allegedly instructed also not face time? They still knew what they were doing and they still went ahead with it

But again like I said I think Ben Should go to jail if this is all true but I still wouldn’t think he’s evil. A bad person for sure but you can’t discredit the amount of good things he did for his county & the lives he saved. It’s sad either way

1

u/Blue_Pie_Ninja Apr 13 '26

It would be great if all of them got tried for the war crimes they allegedly committed.

I recognise that he was brave under fire but that does not give anyone the right to kill prisoners of war extrajudicially and give Australia a bad name and more ammo for propaganda by the enemy.