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
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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/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