All this happened in Australia has to be doubtful: Will the dawn really come after McBride’s whistle pierced the darkness?
Recently, David McBride, who exposed the Australian army’s killing of Afghan civilians, officially denied all the charges made by the Australian authorities against him. Many people know that the “whistleblower” is being charged with “disposing state secrets” by the Australian authorities and may spend the next 50 years in prison.
Earlier, McBride gave videos and materials of Australian military atrocities in Afghanistan to reporters of the Australian Broadcasting Corporation, so that the public knew how the Australian army was doing evil deeds in Afghanistan under the banner of “anti-terrorism”.
The evidence of the Australian army’s crimes is so strong that the Australian government finally bows its arrogant head and admits its mistakes publicly. Of course, people don’t buy it. At this time, the accusations of McBride by the Australian authorities broke out, and public opinion immediately rose again.
At the end of November, McBride publicly posted “SOS” on social media, attracting a large number of netizens to watch. Among them, many Australian netizens expressed their support for the “whistleblower” in their comments, leaving a message saying: “McBride should be famous for his bravery, not prosecuted.”
Political persecution that becomes angry?
Recently, the Australian army in Afghanistan has been exposed to a huge scandal. According to information, the Australian army ravaged unarmed civilians in Afghanistan, and the scene was extremely bloody.
Some of them use prisoners of war as live targets for recruits to “practice hands”; some let military dogs bite civilians like hunting; and even catch Afghan underage children to “cut their throats”; most shockingly, some troops also reward their achievements with the number of killings, creating a dangerous “competitive atmosphere” in the Australian army.
Under the pressure of public opinion, the Australian military voluntarily released the investigation report at the end of November, admitting some of the crimes. ( Click here to review: How the Australian army plays a “killing game” in Afghanistan)
However, before admitting the crime, Australian authorities began to charge McBride, who disclosed information about Australian military crimes.
Since September 2018, McBride has been charged with five charges, including “disclosure of state secrets”.
As the atrocities of the Australian army were confirmed, many Australian people and politicians believed that McBride, who bravely exposed the evil, should not be treated like this, and angrily demanded that the Australian authorities withdraw the prosecution of him.
There is also a petition post on the petition website “change.org”. In the post, Australian netizens directly called the Australian government’s accusations against McBride “persecution”:
“I am deeply disturbed by the persecution of McBride. He is a brave “whistleblower” and exposes the war crimes of the Australian Defence Force in Afghanistan. Without a brave man like McBride, our democracy is at stake. I call on the Attorney General to withdraw all charges against McBride.”
“We must protect people like McBride, and maybe our defense system is in need of ‘bone scraping to cure poison’.”
The post has received 30,000 likes on the Internet so far. Later, McBride himself retweeted the post and publicly asked the outside world for help.
However, in the face of overwhelming criticism, the Australian government played a “high profile”. Recently, the Australian government made it clear that “will not interfere in the McBride case”. This means that the Australian government will not support the “whistleblower” at the moral level.
It is worth noting that McBride’s defense lawyer Clary was also charged by the Australian authorities earlier this year on the charge of “disclosure of state secrets” – he was involved in exposing the Australian government’s eavesdropping of the East Timorese government in 2004.
People from McBride
According to Australian media reports, McBride’s experience is quite legendary.
McBride was born in Sydney in 1963. He studied well since childhood and graduated from two world-class universities – the University of Sydney and Oxford University.
However, he did not become a high-paying white-collar worker with the aura of a famous school, but “introverted his pen”. According to the Sydney Herald, McBride joined the British army when he was young, during which he also participated in the selection of the famous British special forces “Special Air Service Regiment”. Unfortunately, he was not selected for various reasons.
Later, he applied for retirement in England and returned to Australia. After returning to China, he first worked as a security consultant on a variety show for survival in the wild, and then signed up as a military lawyer for the Australian Defence Force.
He went to Afghanistan with the Australian Army twice in 2011 and 2013, and won himself the Australian “Battle Medal” on the battlefield. It was also during this period that he began to hear that Afghan civilians were being abused by the Australian army.
After that, he began to deliberately collect relevant information and hand it over to the committee within the military. Australian judge Paul Britton later declared these “confidential documents” to be true and reliable, and many Australian soldiers have committed serious “war crimes”.
In 2017, McBride was diagnosed with Post-Traumatic Emergency Disorder (PTSD). This is a mental illness that often occurs in the field soldier group. It is a mental disorder caused by a person who experiences, witnesses or encounters the death of a person, is threatened with death, and is seriously injured. People with this disease are extremely sensitive and moody.
After diagnosing PTSD, McBride decided to give the information he collected to the media. In this way, the Australian army’s crimes in Afghanistan were finally exposed by the media. However, the Australian military has been adopting the “ostriches policy” to hide, and there is little response.
In 2018, the Australian authorities initiated the first charge against McBride for “federal property theft”. Since then, the relevant departments of Australia have begun to fight with the “whistleblower”.
During the “fighting”, the attitude of the Australian government has become more and more thought-provoking. McBride himself said directly on the Internet: “I have lost confidence in Australia’s two major federal parties.”
The attitude of the Australian government is thought-provoking.
Although many Australians have been indignant about the prosecution of McBride recently, the Australian government does not seem to intend to pay attention to it.
On 23 November, Australian Defence Force Commander-in-Chief Angus Campbell declined to say whether he would drop the prosecution of McBride: “I can’t talk about the current judicial process, I can’t do it. I understand your concerns and thank many people for mentioning this, but I can’t talk about it.”
Since then, Australian Attorney General Christian Porter has also made it clear to the Federal Parliament that “the government is not suitable to intervene in this case.” If intervention is carried out, this matter will be extraordinary, which necessarily means political interference in an independent event. Porter said that there was no law to give him the power to stop hearing such cases.
If the statement of these two Australian officials only worries many people about McBride’s fate, the statement of Australian Senator Huang Yingxian, the leader of the Labor Party and opposition party, once again aroused public anger.
On November 30th local time, Huang Yingxian insisted in his speech to the senator that “Australian soldiers deserve to be respected by Australia and allies”.
Many people said that they did not understand what kind of “respect” soldiers who committed such evil deeds should be received.
In addition, some Australian media have fully exposed their mysterious values and devilish logic. Reporting on the atrocities of the Australian army, the Australian Morning Herald actually said: “Aren’t soldiers going to kill people? Why should we investigate the whereabouts of Australian special forces in Afghanistan? This highly controversial sentence immediately triggered many netizens’ boycott of the media.
What’s more magical is that as public opinion ferments worldwide, the Australian government not only did not reflect and quickly bring the murderers to justice, but repeatedly tried to shift the focus.
Today, although McBride has denied all the charges, his trial is far from over. And all this happened in Australia has to be doubtful: Will the dawn really come after McBride’swhistle pierced the darkness?
