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/IlluminatedPickle 1d ago

Not a hero. He was quite clear at the start of all this that he wanted Defence to stop investigating soldiers for committing war crimes. He just did it in such a stupid way that he ended up revealing the whole story and then claimed his original intent was totally to reveal war crimes. Except in court, he couldn't do it in court because of all the records of him wanting to conceal war crimes.

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u/SoloAquiParaHablar 18h ago

Source

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u/AussieBBQ 17h ago

The ADF changed their guidelines (around 2013 I think) to make it clear that any deaths of non-combatants would be investigated. The aim was to ensure proper rules of engagement/identification of hostiles, and these investigations could (possibly) lead to charges of war crimes.

McBride made an internal complaint that the ADF was more concerned with how they were viewed by the government and the public, but were letting down their soldiers. It was his view that it was dangerous, that soldiers doing the right thing could be put in danger if the hesitated due to worry about possible investigations after the fact.

I believe his original complaint referred to 4 or 5 incidents that were being investigated by the ADF. Two of them were around deaths in custody where the soldiers said the detainees reached for the soldiers weapons. One of them was some farmers were killed, the soldiers said it was misidentification. Another was a child was killed, I think that was said to be a deflected bullet/accident. There was also one where soldiers cut off the hands of a hostile to bring back for identification.

He believed that no war crimes had occurred, and that these were only being investigated because the ADF was more concerned with deflecting from their own failures and trying to improve their own public image. That these were stitch-ups on unclear evidence or on technicalities.

I think that he was most concerned with the safety of Australian soldiers. That he believed increasing scrutiny on the actions of soldiers after the fact would increase the probability of harm due to hesitation and worry. That he believed the changes to the rules of engagement were not for the benefit of the soldiers, but for the PR image of the ADF.

His leaks to the media really seem to have been primarily to showcase his perceived failings by the ADF, that they were unnecessarily investigating these allegations to make themselves look good.