Eurasia Press & News
Australia has been rocked by the release of a heavily redacted report about the killing of 39 unarmed Afghan civilians or prisoners by some 25 elite Australian Special Air Services (SAS) soldiers. Any prosecutions will take years and will violate the scientific principle of truth and systemic change rather than knee-jerk blame and shame. There is already huge Australian government and media censorship and lying over these present war crimes, 2 centuries of war crimes, and continuing war crimes.
Years of media reports of war crimes being committed by Australian soldiers in Afghanistan finally lead to a formal, 4-year Inquiry run by the Inspector-General of the Australian Defence Force (IGADF) and chaired by Major General Paul Brereton. This inquiry had the power to demand answers from those being investigated. The Brereton Report was finally delivered to the Australian Defence Force (ADF) top brass and the Australian Coalition Government in mid-November 2020. The military and politicians privy to the unredacted Brereton Report confessed to being shocked and distressed by the findings. In short, the Brereton Report found that 25 Australian soldiers were involved in war crimes involving torture and the cold-blooded murder of 39 unarmed Afghan civilians or prisoners “not in the heat of battle”. It recommended that 19 of these soldiers be investigated for prosecution. However this war criminal conduct involving some Australian soldiers ranked at sergeant and below has resulted in whistleblowers being punished, journalists threatened, the Brereton Report being enormously redacted, and the military chain of command and Australian Governments escaping censure over crimes committed on their watch [1-3].
As set out below, these shocking events merely represent a tiny tip of a veritable mountain of 2 centuries of genocides in which racist White Australia has been complicit. While Australian soldiers involved in war crimes should be tried and suitably punished, so too should be the war criminal politicians who sent them off to fight in illegal wars for a serial war criminal United States that since WW2 has inflicted a devastating “democratic Nazism without gas chambers” on Humanity. Further, establishing the truth of these atrocities is vastly more important than punishing the on-the-ground military perpetrators. Truth- and science-based analysis followed by science-informed systemic change is vastly more useful than selective analysis followed by counterproductive “blame and shame” that cripples crucial reportage [4].
(A). My reportage on the ongoing Afghan Genocide and like genocidal atrocities has been utterly ignored in serial war criminal, US lackey Australia.
I have been reporting British and thence US, Australian, Apartheid Israeli and other war crimes over the last 25 years, variously in numerous articles, commentaries, broadcasts, chapters in books, and in 6 books [4-10]. My essential argument was that while violent deaths in war are hard to quantitate, avoidable deaths in war from deliberately imposed deprivation are readily assessed from demographic data, and especially that provided by the UN since 1950. Both active killing (violent killing) and passive killing (killing through imposed deprivation) have the same end result, and the perpetrators in each case are equally responsible. My personal impetus came from my lot as an anti-racist Jewish Australian scientist and humanitarian with a sole allegiance to my country, Australia. For anti-racist Jews and indeed all anti-racist humanitarians the core moral messages from the WW2 Jewish Holocaust (5-6 million dead from violence and deprivation) and from the more general WW2 European Holocaust (30 million Slav, Jewish and Gypsy dead) are “zero tolerance for racism”, “never again to anyone”, “bear witness” and “zero tolerance for lying”.
In 1995 I published a detailed account of the “forgotten” WW2 Bengali Holocaust (11, 12], an atrocity in which Britain with Australian complicity deliberately starved 6-7 million Indians to death for strategic reasons [13]. I sent a detailed precis to Australian MPs, media and scholars – the Silence was Deafening although Greens Senator Christabel Chamarette made a very good speech about my document in the Australian Senate [14]. In 1998 I published a huge book detailing this atrocity in the broad context of a post-Enlightenment world and entitled “Jane Austen and the Black Hole of British History” [5]. This damning critique of European colonialism and of shocking lying by omission of generations of academic historians over the horrendous consequences of imperialism, led inevitably to cogent critiques of the contemporary culture of Australian universities, notably “Crisis in our universities” (2001, [16]) and “Current academic censorship and self-censorship in Australian universities” (2001, [17]). In 2003, having published a huge pharmacological reference text as a scientific career pinnacle [6], I retired from my laboratory, a senior academic position at a big Australian university, and a 4 decade biochemical research career. I proceeded to research, write and publish numerous articles about avoidable civilian deaths from deprivation in wars, occupations and in particular the Iraq War (2003-2011) and the ongoing, 2001 onwards Afghan War. For detailed documentation of my 25 years of reportage on the human cost of inequity, war and subjugation see [4].
In 2004 I argued that the Occupiers were responsible for huge excess mortality and infant mortality in Occupied Iraq [18], and in 2005 I reiterated that argument and extended it to Occupied Afghanistan: “Time does not permit a detailed analysis here of avoidable global mortality. However I have written widely on this matter and a Google search for ‘Gideon Polya’ will allow ready access to this information. For example, the post-1950 infant mortality in Asian and Pacific countries in which Australia has been involved militarily in that period totals 34 million. Australia is involved militarily in Iraq and Afghanistan, and it is important to assess the human cost of the US-led intervention in these countries. However, when questioned at a recent Senate Estimates Committee hearing, both a minister and a top Intelligence chief denied knowledge of such information. The top ABC journalist, Tony Eastley, concluded: ‘The Australian Government has admitted it doesn’t know how many civilians have died in the Iraq war, and neither it, nor US authorities, are trying to find out” [19] (the text of this broadcast was republished as a chapter in a 2007 book published by the ABC [20]).
Since then I have regularly written to Australian media and MPs about Australian and US Alliance war crimes in Occupied Iraq, Afghanistan and elsewhere, but the Silence has been Deafening (e.g. see [21]). In 2005, 2008 and 2010 I made successive complaints to the International Criminal Court (ICC) over Australian war crimes in Afghanistan [22-24]. However over the last dozen years I have been rendered “invisible” in my own country through continuing false defamation by Zionists and likely actions by US-beholden Australian Intelligence and UK-, US- and Zionist-subverted Mainstream media gatekeepers. Nevertheless I have resolutely persisted in trying to inform others about the ongoing Afghan Genocide and like atrocities through articles (see [4]), books [5-10] and circa fortnightly humane and well-documented letters to Australian MPs and to activists and media in Australia and worldwide. I have also created a multiplicity of information dense websites documenting the ongoing Afghan Genocide, the ongoing Iraqi Genocide, the ongoing Palestinian Genocide, the ongoing Muslim Holocaust, the ongoing Australian Aboriginal Genocide and other like atrocities [25-30]. I refuse to be intimidated or silenced by the repugnant genocide ignoring and holocaust ignoring of Mainstream journalist, editor, politician, academic and commentariat presstitutes in genocide-complicit, look-the-other-way Australia. Genocide ignoring and holocaust ignoring are far, far worse than repugnant genocide denial and holocaust denial because the latter at least permit public refutation and public debate.
(B). Australian war crimes in Afghanistan and elsewhere but whistleblowers punished, perpetrators unpunished, reports ignored, and military chain of command and Australian Governments escape censure.
The Brereton Report found that 25 elite Australian soldiers were involved in war crimes involving torture and the cold-blooded murder of 39 unarmed Afghan civilians or prisoners “not in the heat of battle”. It recommended that 19 of these soldiers be investigated for prosecution. The Brereton Report has shocked Australia but there are further major aspects of this overall story (mostly ignored by mendacious Mainstream media) that are very disturbing as set out below.
(1). Redaction of the Report. Swathes of the Brereton Report have been redacted. The reasons for this massive censorship given by the authorities are (i) that the Brereton investigation compelled answers from those being interrogated, (ii) reputations would be destroyed without proper trial, and (iii) publication of the Report unredacted would compromise any subsequent police investigations and trials of the alleged perpetrators. However sensible people are more concerned with the “what” rather than the “who” of Australian war crimes in Afghanistan. As amplified below, censorship and lying are inimical to rational risk management.
(2). Crimes ignored or denied yield war crimes repeated. Science-based rational risk management, that is crucial for societal safety, successively involves (a) accurate data, (b) scientific analysis, this involving the critical testing of potentially falsifiable hypotheses, and (c) informed systemic change to minimize risk. Unfortunately, this rational risk management protocol is typically perverted at the individual, family or local level, or at the level of the family of nations by (a) lying, self-deception, spin, obfuscation, intimidation and censorship, (b) anti-science spin, this involving the selective use of asserted facts to support a partisan position, and (c) blame and shame that is counterproductive because it blocks reportage crucial for rational risk management and in the worst cases leads to war and war crimes [4].
(3). Only 3 Australians ever convicted of “war crimes”. As far as I know, despite Australia’s long record of war-making as a lackey of the UK and thence of the US with over 100,000 Australian soldiers dying, only 3 Australians have ever been convicted of European-perceived war crimes, namely 3 soldiers of the Bushveldt Carbineers by the British for murdering Boer prisoners of war during the UK’s Boer War in South Africa. 2 were executed (including most famously Harry “Breaker” Morant) and one was reprieved by the British general Lord Kitchener. In stark contrast, of the 107,000 Boers incarcerated in concentration camps by the British in this Australia-complicit war, 27,927 Boer women and children died as well as more than 14,000 Black Africans, this constituting a huge war crime and indeed a Boer Genocide and Afrikaaner Genocide [31, 32].
(4). Only 8 Australians hanged for killing unarmed Indigenous Australians in the genocidal Australian Frontier Wars. In 1820 a convict John Kirby was executed for a deadly assault on an Aborigine. The 1838 Myall Creek massacre involved the killing of at least 28 unarmed Aborigines by 12 colonists on 10 June 1838 at the Myall Creek near the Gwydir River, in northern New South Wales. After two trials, seven of the twelve colonists were found guilty of murder and hanged [33]. The Indigenous Australian population decreased from about 1 million to 0.1 million in the first century after the British invasion of Australia in 1788. It is estimated that 2 million died in the over 230-year and continuing Australian Aboriginal Genocide with 0.1 million dying from violence and the remainder dying from dispossession, deprivation and introduced disease [30, 34, 35]. The last large-scale massacre of Indigenous Australians was in Central Australia in 1928 [36]. The war criminal Australian Coalition Government is committed to spending $50 million to celebrate Captain Cook “claiming” Australia for Britain in 1770 (and thus initiating the ongoing Australian Aboriginal Genocide) [37] and another $500 million for upgrading the national Australian War Memorial (that rightly remembers 100,000 Australian soldiers who died in foreign lands but steadfastly refuses to recognize circa 100,000 Australia Aborigines who died violently while defending their land from the genocidal British invaders [38)
(5). Australia has a long history of unpunished “conventional war crimes”. Australian soldiers were involved in violence, rape and killing of Egyptians in 1918 at the end of WW1 [39], the Surafend Massacre of about 100 Palestinian men and boys (1918)[39, 40], the shooting of surrendering Japanese soldiers in WW2 [39, 41], and the massacre of civilians in Vietnam [42]. In all conflicts Australian soldiers and their UK and/or US allies were involved in shooting wounded enemy in the field , from the Sudan War (1896-1898) to the present Afghan War (2001 onwards) [39, 41]. After the Vietnam War massacre of civilians at Nui Dat by Australian soldiers, an Australian officer (who later became a Coalition defence minister) suggested that weapons should have been placed on the bodies to make them seem to be Viet Cong combatants [42] (this practice was widespread and was also revealed in the Brereton Afghan war crimes report [1-3]).
(6). Australians were involved in the aerial bombing of German and Iraqi cities with consequent mass civilian mass mortality. Australians were heroic participants in the air war against Germany in WW2. Around 600,000 German civilians died during the allies’ wartime raids on Germany, including 76,000 German children [43-45]. The Royal Australian Air Force (RAAF) was involved in the genocidal, 106-year UK and thence US-UK Iraq War (1914 – present; 9 million deaths from violence and war- and occupation-imposed deprivation [26, 28] ). One bomb from an RAAF jet killed 18 civilians in Mosul in 2017 but the Australian Government rejected any action against the crew [46, 47]. Aerial bombardment reduced most of the western part of Mosul to rubble, and it is estimated the 40,000 Iraqi were killed [48, 49]. The RAAF was involved in support of the US in the genocidal Korean War in which 28% of the North Korean population was killed by US bombing [50].
(7). As UK or US lackeys Australians have invaded 85 countries including Afghanistan. The worst state crime of all (short of genocide) is invasion of another country. However International Law as enshrined in the UN Charter only permits this in certain circumstances (and then only after serious negotiations): (i) if there is UN Security Council permission; (ii) if the invading country has been invaded; ( iii) if the invading country has been invited to enter a country by the government of that country [51]. Variously as UK or US lackeys Australians have invaded 85 countries. By way of comparison the British have invaded 193 countries, France 82, the US 72 (52 after WW2), Germany 39, Japan 30, Russia 25, Canada 25, Apartheid Israel 12, China 2, North Korea arguably 0, Palestine 0, and Iran zero (0) in the 1,300 years since the Sassanian Empire [7, 9, 10, 52-61]. The only “excuse” craven, cowardly, US lackey and racist White Australia had for post-WW2 invasions of other countries was obedience to US demands.
(8). Serial war criminal Australia violates the UN Charter and the UN Genocide Convention by participating in genocidal US wars such as the Afghan War. While holocaust means a huge number of deaths, genocide is defined by Article 2 of the UN Genocide Convention as “acts committed with intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnic, racial or religious group” [62]. Articles 55 and 56 of the Geneva Convention relative to the Protection of Civilian Persons in Time of War demand that an Occupier must supply life-sustaining food and medical services to its Conquered Subjects “to the fullest extent of the means available to it” [63]. The existence of some form of UN “permission” for US Alliance imposition of deadly Sanctions on Iraq (1990-2003; 1.5 million excess deaths from deprivation [26, 28]), and action against Afghanistan (2001 onwards, 7 million deaths from violence or imposed deprivation [26, 27]) does not excuse US Alliance imposition of horrendous mass mortality that grossly violates both the Genocide Convention and the Fourth Geneva Convention. Intent to ”destroy the Taliban” has been frequently articulated by members of the US Alliance, and constitutes key evidence for violation of the UN Genocide Convention – the Taliban is a national, ethnic, racial and religious group.
(9). Serial war criminal Australia and the US Alliance grossly violate the Fourth Geneva Convention in Occupied Afghanistan. Annual avoidable deaths from deprivation are huge in impoverished Occupied Afghanistan (84,300) and Occupied Palestine (4,200) but are zero (0) for the rich and war criminal Occupiers. Those responsible for the continuing and deadly 19-year Occupation of Afghanistan and the 53-year Occupation of the Occupied Palestinian Territories are genocidally racist war criminals who continue to remorselessly commit active and passive mass murder in gross violation of Articles 55 and 56 of the Fourth Geneva Convention. Annual per capita GDP (nominal) is a deadly $521 for Occupied Afghanistan and a deadly $3,199 for the Occupied Palestinian Territories (the West Bank and the Apartheid Israel-blockaded Gaza Concentration Camp) as compared to $62,795 for Occupier America, $57,374 for Occupier Australia and $41,715 for US- and Australia-backed Occupier Apartheid Israel (World Bank, 2018) [64]. Similarly, the most fundamental human right is the right to life. While legitimately criticized (notably by serial war criminal, US lackey Australia) for the one party state, the death penalty, censorship, urban air pollution, mass imprisonment of Uyghurs for “re-education” , and harsh treatment of dissidents, China has been hugely successful in radically reducing infant mortality and maternal mortality in Tibet and in China as a whole. In stark contrast, the war criminal US Alliance occupation of neighbouring Afghanistan continues to be associated with an under-1 infant mortality and maternal mortality incidence that is 7 times higher and 4-12 times higher, respectively, than that in Tibet – evidence of gross violation of the Fourth Geneva Convention and the UN Genocide Convention by the mother- and child-killing US Alliance [65].
(10). The serial war criminal US Alliance does not know why it is occupying war-devastated Afghanistan. The original invasion of Afghanistan in 2001 was ostensibly because the ruling Pashtun Taliban responded to US demands that it hand over Osama bin Laden by agreeing to hand him over to a third country. Conservative Australian commentator Tom Switzer (2010): “Yet neither leader [Australian PM Julia Gillard and Coalition Opposition leader Tony Abbott] has explained satisfactorily the rationale behind Australia’s 1,500-strong troop and personnel presence in Afghanistan. What’s the compelling reason for the war? Who are the obvious bad guys to defeat, and good guys to support? Why have western casualties dramatically risen in recent months? The British statesman Lord Salisbury once warned: “The commonest error in politics is sticking to the carcass of dead policies.” Today, after nearly nine years of fighting and no end in sight, we are witnessing a striking and dangerous example of this error in Afghanistan. Indeed, the war to destroy the Taliban is “unwinnable”” [66]. War is the penultimate in racism and genocidal war is the ultimate in racism. The most plausible suggestions for why the US is occupying Afghanistan relate to a possible gas pipeline from Central Asia to the Indian Ocean, and the encircling of Russia, Iran and China with a ring of US military bases.
(11). US Alliance mendacity over the US Government’s 9-11 false flag atrocity and the US-imposed post 9/11 Muslim Holocaust & Muslim Genocide. Going back to 1776 the US always needed a false but believable excuse for war. I.F. Stone: “Government lie” and Gore Vidal: “Unlike most Americans who lie all the time, I hate lying” [67, 68]. The Bush Administration told 935 lies about Iraq between 9/11 and the war criminal US, UK and Australian invasion of Iraq in 2003 [69]. Trump has outdone his predecessors with over 20,000 false or misleading statements in his 4-year administration [70]. Numerous science, engineering, architecture, aviation, military and intelligence experts reject the “lying Bush official version of 9/11” and conclude that the US Government was responsible for the atrocity, with some asserting Israeli and Saudi involvement. Indeed there is compelling, expert scientific evidence for the explosive demolition of the Twin Towers and the third skyscraper WTC7 [71-82]. Mainstream Australians profess to be “shocked” and distressed” over the Brereton Report on Australian war crimes in Afghanistan in which 39 Afghan subjects were killed but utterly ignore the horrendous dimensions of the ongoing US-imposed post-9/11 Muslim Holocaust and Muslim Genocide in which Australia is deeply complicit [26]. US-installed President Hamid Karzai (2015): “I don’t know if al-Qaeda existed and I don’t know if they exist. I have not seen them and I’ve not had any report about them, any report that would indicate that al-Qaeda is operating in Afghanistan… [re Osama bin Laden and 9/11] That is what I have heard from our Western friends. That’s what the Western media says. There is no doubt that an operation, a terrorist operation was conducted in New York and in Washington… [re the US “official story” about 9/11] I neither believe nor disbelieve something that I don’t know about. I can tell you that Afghanistan was as much a victim of terrorism as was America, as were the people who were killed in the September 11th terrorist attacks” [84].
(12). Punishment of whistleblowers who exposed war crimes while perpetrators, insufficiently diligent senior officers and complicit politicians are likely to escape justice. Since no Australian soldiers or their officers and commanders have been convicted of war crimes by Australian authorities in 120 years, it seems likely that all but possibly a few soldiers will escape justice. Whistleblowers and journalists have been reporting on Australian military war crimes over 2 decades. However Australian military leadership and the Australian Government went down the route of ignoring, censorship and punishing the whistleblowers. Thus David McBride, Australian Defence Force (ADF) defence lawyer and former British Army soldier, attempted to get action on war crimes evidence from the Australian Federal Police (AFP) and the ADF through official channels. When that failed he leaked war crimes evidence to the journalists Dan Oakes and Sam Cook of the taxpayer-funded Australian Broadcasting Corporation (ABC). The shocking video and text evidence was published by the ABC as “The Afghan Files” [86]. The serial war criminal Australian Government reacted by getting the AFP to raid the offices of the ABC (re the Afghan war crimes leak) and the home of News Corp journalist Annika Smethurst (over leaked reports of more Australian Government spying on Australians) [87, 88], noting that the US- and Zionist-subverted Australian Government permits the US to pass on a huge volume of such intelligence to Apartheid Israel) [88]. These raids caused a massive outcry from Australian Mainstream media including the redaction of page 1 of major newspapers [89]. However the Australian Government with craven Labor Opposition support has now made reporting of secret ASIO (Australian Security and Intelligence Organization) operations, criminal or otherwise, subject to up to 10 years in prison [90]. In 2020 the AFP finally decided not to prosecute Dan Oakes and Annika Smethurst [87]. Australia is now a pre-police state under a plethora of terrorism-related laws. Thus Witness K and his eminent lawyer, former ACT Attorney-General, Bernard Collaery, have been subject to damaging prosecutions connected with revelation of Australian spying on the Cabinet of the Timor L’Este Government to the benefit of Australia and a major oil and gas corporation [91]. Witness J, a former Australian intelligence officer, has been subject to secret trial and secret imprisonment over reporting intelligence malfeasance [92]. How many other Australian whistleblowers are subject to such secret abuse?
(13) Australia, like the US and Apartheid Israel, rejects ICC prosecutions of it citizens for war crimes. Serial war criminal Australia is second only to the serial war criminal US as a supporter of serial war criminal Apartheid Israel. The Australian Government declares that Australians involved in war crimes will not be tried by the International Criminal Court (ICC) [93]. In similar examples of racist exceptionalism, the serial war criminal US and serial war criminal Apartheid Israel reject the authority of the ICC.
(14). The Australian Government has compromised Australian Federal Police (AFP) processes and autonomy by setting up a “special” investigatory apparatus. Australian PM Scott “Scomo” Morrison (aka Scum-o, Skim-o, Scam-o and Scheme-o) has justified interfering with AFP investigation into Australian war crimes thus: “This process would significantly overwhelm the AFP and their many other very important works that they have to do. So it is necessary to build that capability. It sits under the AFP as commission and continues that process” [93]. Justice should be delivered in a timely fashion and be independent of political interference. The Coalition that presently grossly mis-rules Australia has involved Australian military in all post-1950 US Asian wars, genocidal atrocities associated with 40 million Asian deaths from violence or war-imposed deprivation [7, 9, 10, 52, 60, 61]. Former Human Rights Commissioner Professor Gillian Triggs has commented on current Australian social regression thus: “I think it’s partly because we have a [Coalition] government that is ideologically opposed to human rights” [94].
(15). The Australian Government will disband a SAS unit and remove a unit citation from thousands of soldiers. The Australian Defence Force (ADF) has quickly moved to disband the SAS 2 Squadron, one of four SAS squadrons. Thousands of SAS soldiers who served in the Afghan War “ in harm’s way” will lose their meritorious unit citation awards, this being seen as collective punishment of the many for the crimes of (hopefully) a few [95].
(16). The ADF has started issuing termination notices to soldiers variously connected to war crimes in Afghanistan. Notwithstanding the likelihood that prosecutions of Australian soldiers for war crimes in Afghanistan may take years and even a decade, the Australia Defence Force (ADF) has already started giving termination notices to soldiers variously connected to Australian war crimes in Afghanistan. These soldiers have the right to appeal [96].
(17). Wars are always associated with war crimes – but only sergeants and below have been secretly identified in the redacted Brereton Report but silent witnesses to war crimes, officers, high command, politicians and pro-war presstitutes evade any censure. The heavily redacted Brereton Report has identified 25 Australian soldiers from Sergeant or below as linked to the war crimes in Afghanistan but has recommended that only 19 be investigated for prosecution. If the 6 not to be investigated were not actual whistle blowers (the public doesn’t know) then the Report itself is involved in a massive failure of responsibility. Notwithstanding reports of US, UK and Canadian and other war crimes in Afghanistan and associated egregious cover-ups [97-101], there has been an astonishing lack of curiosity by non-commissioned officers (sergeants, corporals, lance corporals) and their superiors right up to the top brass, politicians and media about inevitable war crimes by Australian soldiers in Afghanistan. Famed ethicist Professor Peter Singer has stated that “We are responsible not only for what we do but also for what we could have prevented…We should consider the consequences of what we do and what we decide not to do” [102]. Indeed in an Australia with compulsory and preferential voting a large proportion of Australian voters (especially those supporting the pro-war Coalition) have some complicity in Australian war crimes in Afghanistan and elsewhere.
(18). War is the penultimate in racism and genocidal war is the ultimate in racism, this leading to the inevitability of war crimes. Racist White Australian xenophobia has been directed at various groups over the years e.g. Indigenous Australians (from 1788 onwards and ongoing), Chinese (from the mid-19th century onwards and presently at a new peak due to US-led Sinophobia), Communist countries (“Reds under the bed” hatred that subsided somewhat after the fall of communism and the collapse of the USSR), and Muslims (1990 onwards). With intense US- and Zionist-driven Islamophobia and a genocidal official policy of “destruction” of the Taliban it is hardly surprising that some Australian soldiers would commit war crimes against Afghans.
(19). Australia has been involved in 30 specific genocidal invasions of other countries – a massive record of war criminality. I have listed over 60 genocidal atrocities that have mostly occurred over the last century. As a UK or US lackey Australia has been complicit in about half of these atrocities ranging from the post-1788 and ongoing Australian Aboriginal Genocide to the ongoing and worsening Climate Genocide [9, 57, 60, 61]. A notable part of Australia’s history of war legends is the Beersheba charge of the Australian Light Horse in 1917 that led to eventual British conquest of Palestine and a 100 year and ongoing Palestinian Genocide [29]. The Australian and New Zealand Army Corps (ANZAC) initiated the violent killing of Indigenous Palestinians in the Surafend Massacre of about 100 Palestinian men and boys in December 1918. Yet a Search of the ABC (Australia’s taxpayer-funded equivalent of the UK BBC) for “Palestinian Genocide “ yields zero (0) results. The sacred “Lest we forget “ has become “Lest we find out”.
(20). The ultimate war crimes – War on Terra, nuclear terrorism, existential threat, and come 22 January 2021 US lackey Australia will be in violation of the Treaty for the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons (TPNW). The 24 October ratification by a 50th state, Honduras, of the UN Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons (TPNW) means that it will take effect from 22 January 2021, from which time the 9 nuclear terrorist states and 32 complicit states will be grossly violating International Law. The key TPNW prohibitions are set out thus: “Article 1 Prohibitions. 1.Each State Party undertakes never under any circumstances to: (a). Develop, test, produce, manufacture, otherwise acquire, possess or stockpile nuclear weapons or other nuclear explosive devices… (e). Assist, encourage or induce, in any way, anyone to engage in any activity prohibited to a State Party under this Treaty” [103]. The US lackey, fervently pro-Apartheid Israel and pro-nuclear terrorism Coalition Government of Australia intends to grossly violate the TPNW, and will thus invite global Boycotts, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) [104]. Humanity and the Biosphere are existentially threatened by nuclear weapons and climate change in an ongoing War on Terra [105]. Eminent physicist and cosmologist Stephen Hawking: “We see great peril if governments and societies do not take action now to render nuclear weapons obsolete and to prevent further climate change” [106]. The key actions that need to be taken urgently by the world are an enforced nuclear weapons ban, an end to deadly inequity , and a reversal of man-made climate change [105] , but US lackey Australia is deeply complicit in UK nuclear terrorism, plays a key role in US nuclear war strategy [104, 105], and is among world leaders in 16 areas of climate criminality [107, 108]. The ultimate war crimes will be the near-total destruction of Humanity and the Biosphere by nuclear war and/or man-made climate change [105].
(21). The Australian Government violates International Law by not permitting trial of Australian war criminals in Afghanistan. The Coalition Australian Government will only permit prosecutions of Australian war crimes in Afghanistan to be carried out in Australia. This is a clear violation of International Law which demands that trials are conducted in the country in which the offence occurred or otherwise before the International Criminal Court. The serial war criminal Australian Government is an accessory after the fact of violent Australian war crimes in Afghanistan by rejecting both options while still hypocritically pontificating about getting the world to follow “the rules-based order”.
(22). Compensation to affected Afghan families will be insultingly minimal and grossly delayed. The New York Tines in reporting the “stalling” of compensation payments stated (2020): “Under the compensation program, which remains heavily funded by international donors, the Afghan government pays roughly $1,300 for every civilian killed in action by Afghan, American or insurgent forces, and $650 per wounded” [109]. The Value of a Statistical Life (VSL) is about $9.6 million for the US (2016) [110] and hence the racist and serial war criminal Americans are grossly devaluing Afghan lives by a factor of about 7,000. No doubt racist White Australia will exhibit the same racist parsimony.
(23) Silence over the torture and subsequent fate of prisoners of war (POWs) in Australian custody. I still remember an ABC TV report from the 1970s about a Vietnamese woman subject to water torture by Australians. I have always wondered about her ultimate fate – was she further violated and killed by the Australian soldiers or handed over to the Vietnamese Army to suffer a similar fate? I have always believed that all those involved in such events from the participant soldiers to high command and the Australian Government should be identified. The World needs to know what happened to all POWs held by Australian and US Alliance forces in Afghanistan (and indeed in all wars involving Australians and the US Alliance). Indeed an Australian non-combatant was arrested by US-collaborating Afghan forces and handed over to the Americans – David Hicks was subsequently grossly abused and tortured by the Americans and their surrogates for 5 years (2002-2007), mostly in the US torture facility in Guantanamo, US-occupied Cuba, and in the full knowledge of war criminal Australian Coalition Governments [111, 112].
(24). War criminal politicians and warmongering presstitutes don’t experience the Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) and suicide of Australian and US Alliance veterans. Many veterans of US wars and suffer from PTSD from witnessing horrible events, with this resulting in serious behavioural pathologies including suicide. In the US about 20 veterans have suicided each day over the last few decades, this corresponding to 20 per day x 365.25 days per year x 30 years (since the start of the US war on Muslims in 1990) = 219,000 suicides since 1990 and 139,000 since 9-11 [113]. We honor all those who risk their lives in serving their country. However we must condemn immoral and war criminal politicians who commit their countries to immoral and illegal wars. Mainstream journalist, politician and commentariat presstitutes ensure that the politicians get away with their criminal warmongering, jingoistic political exploitation of their servicemen both living and dead, and deadly betrayal of their traumatized veterans of whom about 80 and 8,000 suicide annually in Australia and the USA, respectively [114].
(25). The torture and 8-year imprisonment of truth-teller Julian Assange versus the impunity of the war criminal politician, journalist, academic and commentariat presstitutes. Through Wikileaks releases World and Australian hero, Julian Assange, revealed the war crimes of the US Alliance. The warmongering and war criminal politicians and media presstitutes have avoided Nuremberg-style war crimes trials but it has been outstanding Australian journalist Julian Assange who has been egregiously punished for exposing the war criminal evil of the US Alliance. The “British justice” that pompously backed centuries of genocidal British imperialism and gross human rights abuse will quite likely deliver this world hero to life imprisonment in the US for telling the truth about US Alliance war crimes [115].
(26). No Australian First Nations-Invader Treaty, Aboriginal deaths in custody total 434 since 1991, and no punishment of the perpetrators. The British invaded Australia in1788 and about 1 million Indigenous Australians died from violence, deprivation and disease in the following century. Indigenous cultures that had developed in Australia over 65,000 years and involved 350-750 distinct languages and dialects was devastated with only 150 such languages surviving and all but 20 endangered. A genocidal policy of forced child removal that started immediately after the invasion continues today at record levels . No Treaty has been signed between the Indigenous First Nations People and the Invaders. An ongoing Aboriginal Genocide has been associated with 2 million deaths from violence, dispossession, deprivation and disease, with violent deaths totalling about 0.1 million [30]. The avoidable death rate as a percentage of population is 0.6% for Indigenous Australians as compared to 0% for non-Indigenous Australians, 0.2% for Afghanistan, 0.4% for South Asians and 1.0% for non-Arab Africans [7]. Genocide involves “intent” which is exhibited by racist White Australian inaction and toleration of a continuing 10 year life expectancy gap between Indigenous and non-Indigenous Australians. Indigenous Australians are 3% of the Australian population but about 30% of those in prison. Since 2008 over 50% of Aborigines dying in custody had not been convicted of a crime [116]. As of June 2020 Aboriginal deaths in custody totalled 434 since 1991, but no perpetrators have been punished just as no Australians or US Alliance soldiers have so far been convicted for crimes against Indigenous Afghans [117].
(27). Mendacious, look-the-other-way, racist White Australia is presently involved in 7 illegal US wars. Australia has been involved since 1914 in the continuing Iraqi Holocaust and Iraqi Genocide that has been associated with 9 million Iraqi deaths from violence and imposed deprivation [26, 28]. Similarly, Australia has been involved since 2001 in the continuing Afghan Holocaust and Afghan Genocide that has been associated with 7 million Afghan deaths from violence and imposed deprivation [26, 27]. Australia, the UK and the US refused to withdraw their forces from Iraq when asked to do so in 2019 by the Iraqi Parliament. Australia through the joint US-Australian electronic spying base at Pine Gap, Central Australia, is involved in the targetting of illegal drone strikes on 7 countries, namely Libya, Somalia, Yemen, Syria, Iraq, Afghanistan and Pakistan [118].
(28). Serial war criminal, democratic fascoid, political correct racist (PC racist) Australia needs de-Nazification. Australia was one of the first countries to have compulsory secular education, free trade unions, one-person-one-vote democracy and female suffrage. However the dominant position of the presently ruling Liberal Party-National Party Coalition and of 70% of the Labor Party Opposition involves endlessly greedy neoliberal capitalism, protection of corporate interests, ruthless exploitation at the expense of Humanity and the Biosphere, entrenched racism (albeit these days politically correct racism or PC racism), routine invasion of other countries (war crimes) at the behest of America, and absurd, dangerous, jingoistic and Trumpist nationalism. Australia is similar to other Western countries of the US Alliance (notably the nuclear terrorist states of the US, UK, and France) in hiding this deadly moral insufficiency with the cloak of “democracy”. However Australia, like its Western US Alliance allies, is a profoundly corrupt Kleptocracy, Plutocracy, Murdochracy, Corporatocracy, Lobbyocracy and Dollarocracy in which Big Money purchases people, politicians, parties, policies, public perception of reality, votes, more political power and more private profit. This “violent greed in a velvet glove” is a latter day version of the “alliance of capital and the mob” described by Hannah Arendt in relation to genocidal European colonialism, fascism and Nazism [119-121]. Thomas Piketty has described how corporate wealth has captured the support of many of the poor and ill-educated against traditional social humanists and high education globalists [122, 123]. Vile Trumpism has removed the polite veneer of mercilessly neoliberal America, taken the gloves off, and created a huge new, populist, racist and nationalist union of the neoliberal rich and the ill-educated poor in the US and in some other countries. Many analogies exist between Trumpism and fascism, notably extreme nationalism and extreme capitalism in a new “alliance of capital and the mob” [121, 123]. However the deadly expression of Nazism and fascism was genocidal invasion of other countries but Western democracies have also been doing this from the 18th century to the present. Accordingly it is fair to describe deadly, US-led Wester Corporatocracy as “fascoid’ (fascist-like). However in view of the huge mass mortality associated with post-WW2 Western imperialism it would be fair to describe Western Corporatocracy as “genocidal racism and pseudo- democratic Nazism without gas chambers”. 32 million Muslims have died from violence (5 million) or from imposed deprivation (27 million) in 20 countries invaded by the US Alliance since the US Government’s 9/11 false flag atrocity [71, 83]. In response to these ongoing atrocities I have long held that serial war criminal America needs de-Nazification after the fashion of post-WW2 Germany. In view of Australia’s 2 century and continuing involvement in genocidal violence, racist White Australia also urgently needs de-Nazification.
(29). The International Criminal Court (ICC) must hold war crimes trials of Australian and US Alliance top brass military and politicians. The ICC does not waste its precious time on the military lower ranks who obey orders and pull the trigger to massacre unarmed men, women and children, Rather it prosecutes the leaders who gave the orders. That said, the ICC must be censured for a de facto racist practice of only regarding prosecutable war crimes as those carried out by non-European countries the US does not like plus Serbs. Further, the serial war criminal US, Apartheid Israel and Australia have rejected any ICC war crime trials for their citizens. It should be noted here that Australia is second only to America as a supporter of nuclear terrorist and serial war criminal Apartheid Israel. Notwithstanding that mendacious America has continually invented excuses for violating International Law and invading other countries, the 2003-2011 Iraq War is unambiguously a war crime of holocaust proportions in being associated with 2.7 million Iraqi deaths from violence, 1.5 million, or from imposed deprivation, 1.2 million [26, 28]. Former national president of the conservative Australian Liberal Party, John Valder, on war crimes prosecutions for involvement in the illegal Iraq war (2004): “Bush, Blair, and Howard, as leaders of the three members of the coalition of the willing, inflicted enormous suffering on the people of Iraq. And, as such, they are criminals. I believe the only deterrent to a repetition of the Iraq situation is punishment in some form as war criminals” [124]. Anti-racist Jewish British writer, Harold Pinter, in his 2005 Literature Nobel Prize Acceptance Speech (2005): “The invasion of Iraq was a bandit act, an act of blatant state terrorism, demonstrating absolute contempt for the concept of international law… We have brought torture, cluster bombs, depleted uranium, innumerable acts of random murder, misery, degradation and death to the Iraqi people and call it ‘bringing freedom and democracy to the Middle East’. How many people do you have to kill before you qualify to be described as a mass murderer and a war criminal? One hundred thousand? More than enough, I would have thought. Therefore it is just that Bush and Blair be arraigned before the International Criminal Court of Justice” [125]. My comment re the Iraq War alone: “2.7 million? More than enough I would have thought”.
(30). Australia must cease any military alliance with serial invader, serial war criminal and nuclear terrorist America. Australia has participated in all post-1950 US Asian wars, atrocities associated with 40 million Asian deaths from violence and deprivation [7]. The conservative Liberal Party-National Party Coalition has supported all these wars and the Labor Party has disgracefully supported all except for the Vietnam War and the Iraq War [7]. Australia’s cowardly, craven and subservient military alliance with the serial invader and serial war criminal US has made Australia complicit in horrendous US war crimes, has robbed Australia of its self-respect and independence [126], makes Australia party to terracidal US nuclear terrorism, and makes Australian cities and towns nuclear targets. Indeed continuing alliance of Australia with nuclear terrorist America will put Australia in gross violation of International Law after 22 January 2021 when the UN Treaty for Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons (TPNW) comes into effect [103-106].
(31). Parliament must decide on war participation and provide oversight that top brass and war criminal politicians patently do not presently provide. The Australian Parliament does not decide on Australian participation in wars – those decisions are made by the US, and when the US says jump US lackey Australia says “How high?” Such decisions are considered to be “top secret national security” matters i.e. decision to be made by the US and meekly adopted by mendacious, cowardly and intrinsically traitorous pliant Australian Governments. The national reputation and hundreds of military lives have been sacrificed to craven obedience to a serial war criminal nuclear power. Great reformist Labor PM Gough Whitlam wanted greater control over the nuclear terrorism-connected Pine Gap spying base but was sacked in a US-, UK- and CIA-complicit coup [126]. Labor Opposition leader Mark Latham raised US ire in the 2004 elections after vowing to bring Australian soldiers back to from Iraq by Christmas – he was publicly vetoed by the US, lost the election, and has been vilified by Australia’s US-dominated Mainstream media ever since. Popular, smart and thoughtful Labor PM Kevin Rudd raised the ire of US and other mining companies by demanding greater mining royalties, angered Zionist-subverted America by suggesting destruction of US-protected, Australian-killing opium crops in Afghanistan, and fatally upset traitorous racist Zionists by objecting to criminal Apartheid Israeli actions against Australia and Australians (terrorism-linked large-scale passport fraud and the violent kidnapping of Australian citizens in international waters) – he was removed in a mining company-backed, pro-Zionist-led and US-approved Coup (Wikileaks revealed that US “assets” within the Labor Parliamentary Caucus , including a key Coup plotter, reported to the US Embassy) [127]. War crimes are an inevitable accompaniment to war but in forty (40) areas from the ongoing Aboriginal Genocide to the ongoing, Australia-led War on Terra, Australia has been involved in genocidal mass mortality of other human beings (for detailed and damning analysis see [60] ). In these horrendous matters and in the Afghan War crimes, the chain of command people from officers to prime ministers have utterly failed to exercise minimal due diligence but have escaped censure or even exposure for complicity in war crimes through depraved difference. These degenerate Establishment war criminals hide behind the noble and sacred mantra of “Lest we forget” that in appalling political reality translates to a despicable and war criminal “Lest we fail to cover up”.
(32). The Australian Parliament must legislate to make International Law – e.g. the UN Genocide Convention, the Geneva Conventions, Human Rights Laws and the TPNW – legally apply in Australia. A significant case has been reported by the ABC (1999): “’ Mark Colvin [ABC journalist]: The Full Bench of the Federal Court has found that genocide is not a crime under Australian law. The judgment was handed down in response to an appeal from more than 20 Aboriginal plaintiffs. Lawyers for the plaintiffs say the judgment means Australia is in breach of the International Convention on Genocide… Len Lindon [Indigenous barrister]: It’s a fairly simple case in the world court because you have a superior court ruling, three Judges of the Federal Court have ruled – or two of them, at least – have ruled that Australia hasn’t passed the legislation that’s necessary and 50 years ago Australia promised it would and it still hasn’t, although it has contributed to the International Criminal Court that’s being set up. So, there’s a real contradiction in Australia’s position internationally where it doesn’t like genocide in places like East Timor and Kosovo, but it allows it to continue against the indigenous people here” [128].
(33). The “what” is vastly more important than the “who” – ergo offer immunity for truth-telling by all connected with war crimes from privates to prime ministers. Truth- and science-based analysis followed by science-informed systemic change to minimize the probability of recurrence of bad events is vastly more useful than selective analysis followed by counterproductive “blame and shame” that cripples crucial reportage [4]. There is a total absence of any Australian war crimes trials from a century of warfare, and complete absence of any judicial censure of the chain of command from officers to prime ministers. Indeed the principal perpetrators of the illegal and genocidal Iraq War are free to spend their days in luxury giving exclusive lectures for 6-figure sums each time. Accordingly there would be merit in offering immunity from prosecution (but not immunity from public exposure) to everyone variously connected with Australian war crimes in Afghanistan and elsewhere in return for honest public testimony by witnesses compelled to respond truthfully in judicial proceedings.
Final comments.
Silence is complicity. Out of over 60 genocidal atrocities in recent centuries Australia has been complicit in 30 [9, 57, 60, 61]. From 1945 onwards many Germans could assert that “they didn’t know” or “they were just following orders”. Whatever the truth of these assertions, Germans adopted a post-war CAAAA (C4A) protocol involving Cessation of the atrocities, Admission of the horrors, Apology, Amends and Assertion “never again to anyone”. Unfortunately notwithstanding massive de-Nazification and commendable public education about the war-time Nazi German atrocities, Germany became complicit in the US-led Afghan Holocaust and Afghan Genocide, and provided nuclear terrorist, genocidally racist and serial war criminal Apartheid Israel with 6 state-of-the art submarines to carry cruise missiles bearing nuclear warheads aimed at nuclear weapons-free Iran that has not invaded any other country since the time of Sassanian Empire 1,300 years ago [129]. Australia has yet to Cease war crimes and participation in genocidal atrocities, let alone Admission, Apology, Amends or Assertion “never again to anyone”.
Australia and the other war criminal, US Alliance Western “democracies ”will continue to commit war crimes against vulnerable Developing World nations until an indignant world tells them to stop. A major step forward will be the UN Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons (TPNW) that comes into force on 22 January 2021and which makes possession of nuclear weapons and support for such possession illegal in International Law. Serial war criminal and craven US lackey Australia under an effective climate change denialist , climate criminal and pro-nuclear terrorism Coalition Government will no doubt continue to actively support US nuclear terrorism and thus grossly violate International Law. The Australian Labor Opposition and the Australian Greens support the TPNW and variously support strong action of climate change (the Greens being much stronger than Labor). Since Australia is a one-person-one vote democracy with compulsory voting, the fervent Coalition support for the serial war criminal US and for the unspeakable obscenity of US nuclear terrorism turns half the Australian adult population not just into war criminals but into potentially genocidal and indeed terracidal war criminals.
What can decent people do? Decent people will (a) inform everyone they can, and (b) urge and apply Boycotts, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) against all nuclear terrorist states and those states supporting them. Decent Australians will reject alliance with the serial war criminal United States, utterly reject the serial war criminal Coalition, vote 1 Green and put the Coalition last.
