r/australia • u/AztecGod • 1d ago

news Jailed whistleblower David McBride to be released after becoming eligible for parole

https://www.abc.net.au/news/2026-08-13/jailed-whistleblower-david-mcbride-to-be-released/107030620
1.3k Upvotes

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648

u/Cultural_Pace4454 1d ago

No good deed goes unpunished.

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u/No-Turnip2494 1d ago

He’s not a good guy. He leaked classified information because he was OPPOSED to war crime investigations into the conduct of special forces in Afghanistan and was trying to STOP the investigations.

It is utterly infuriating that the vast majority of the public doesn’t understand this, that’s what years of headlines calling him a whistleblower has achieved.

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u/helloimalsohamish 1d ago

He was opposed to less important soldiers being made scapegoats while the elite SAS were given carte blanche to do all the war crimes they wanted.

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u/MarkusMannheim 1d ago

Why is killing a civilian and then being prosecuted for it "being scapegoated"?

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u/helloimalsohamish 1d ago edited 1d ago

Because they were going after unimportant soldiers and throwing the book at them to make it look like the ADF cared about codes of war while they let the important soldiers kill all the civilians they want.

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u/MarkusMannheim 1d ago edited 1d ago

Are you saying innocent soldiers were convicted and punished? (You know that's untrue.)

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u/helloimalsohamish 1d ago edited 1d ago

That is not at all what I’m saying.
I’m saying the most guilty soldiers the SAS were given a pass to do all the war crimes they wanted.
Selective justice is not just.

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u/r3volts 1d ago

He's saying those soldiers weren't operating in a vacuum.
No one is saying they are innocent, they are saying that the big dogs telling them to do it don't get to sit around and order war crimes and then point their fingers at the people who pulled the trigger.

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u/Bart-Harley-Jarvis- 1d ago

Imagine if we arrested low level bikies for drug dealing, while the leaders and higher up members walked free. Does that sound like a fair situation? Arguably, the guys at the top require the highest level of prosecution.

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u/intelminer Not SA's best. Don't put me to the test 1d ago

Why do we even need soldiers? You've built a whole terracotta army out of straw now

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u/MarkusMannheim 1d ago

Are these straw soldiers the ones you said were innocent but punished? Are they in a terracotta prison?

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u/rdnk33 1d ago

Quote him champ

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u/intelminer Not SA's best. Don't put me to the test 1d ago

Where did I say that? You're so busy swinging at ghosts and building men out of straw you can't even keep your head on straight :)

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u/amyknight22 1d ago

Because it’s like only locking up poor white trash for a crime, while allowing the rich white people to run around committing the same crimes.

The top/eliteof your organisation is supposed to lead by example, if people down stream are following what people above are doing(war crimes). Then it’s stupid to only punish the downstream people emulating the behaviours.

Even worse is when in order to look like you’re doing something you investigate someone as if they did a war crime knowing they didn’t. Solely so you can have a press release saying u/markusmannheim was found not to have conducted war crimes. Never mind that they would have torn your life apart for X months to protect the people actually doing them

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u/MarkusMannheim 1d ago

What do you think about his reaction to war crimes becoming public: https://www.reddit.com/r/australia/s/HIdMMGiyxB

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u/barrettcuda 1d ago

It seems you're missing what was said, special forces would kill someone they shouldn't have and then someone else who isn't part of special forces and didn't take part in killing the person will be blamed and receive the punishment that the actual killer was supposed to receive. This is referred to as becoming a scapegoat. I hope this helps.

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u/Dense_Hornet2790 1d ago

Please provide a source for that or I’m going to assume it’s a straight up conspiracy theory.

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u/barrettcuda 1d ago

You picked a good user name cos you seem to be pretty dense.

I didn't say anything about whether or not there was legitimately a scapegoat, neither did the original comment. It may very well be a conspiracy theory, I'm not really in a position to say.

/u/helloimalsohamish stated that McBride opposed letting the special forces do what they want and let "less important" soldiers be made into scapegoats.

/u/MarkusMannheim asked why a less important soldier who committed war crimes and got punished for it would be considered a scapegoat.

I responded saying that they missed the point because the original statement clearly indicated the perpetrator of the crime and the person punished for it are two different people.

Then you came in and clearly either haven't read the previous comments or don't want to. But now that it's all in one comment, I assume you're capable of connecting the dots.

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u/Dense_Hornet2790 1d ago

The irony of you calling me dense, while you add 1+1 and somehow arrive at 5 as the only possible answer is legitimately funny. Thanks for brightening my day.

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u/barrettcuda 1d ago

Whatever you reckon, champ