I've read through a fair bit of this report. Holy moley this is pretty sad stuff. I don't know what to think yet so dot points will have to do.
1. The SASR and commando units are going to go through some serious reform. It has to after this but i can’t help but feel the aftermath will be a pussified version of what it was before the rot was set in. Maybe the rot was always there bit i’d like to think it was not.
2. there is a big emphasis on the conduct of patrol commanders and rightly so. However how do we scrutinise Aussie involvement in all these useless wars? In my opinion the only war we needed to fight was the war in the pacific against the japs and Timor. All others involved diggers being the lapdog of more powerful countries. Afghanistan was an unwinnable war from the onset so why no enquiry into political conduct leading Australia to unsubstantiated wars?
3. The report suggests the overall power of the NCO. Dangerous stuff when left unattended. These nco’s were responsible for SAS selection How many good soldiers missed oit cause they did not meet some of the sicko unwritten prerequisites?
4. The term operator and other jargon seem to be used to put these lads on a pedestal. They are soldiers on government dime.
5. The process of so called “blooding” by killing a pow is actually a pussies way of getting their first kill. It must have damaged a lot of good blokes beyond repair.
6. 2 blokes as witnesses seems to have kicked this off. There is a lot of unsubstantiated tuff out there and some units have gone into secret squirrel mode.
7. One of the most recent VC recipients could be in the crap. He will likely have some of his awards withdrawn whether he was involved or not. Certain rotations will see all patrol commanders lose their distinguished service medals.
8. The report had a weird format. There was a big slab on historical context to Australian war crimes in the past. This tried to demonstrate or report on the cultural progression of war rules as well as how this stuff ADF began in the first place. I thought this part was really poorly constructed.
9. By doing this, some units were likely worse than the taliban in they eyes of the locals. It appears some Aussie units were the terrorists.
10. I learned a lot about rules of engagement and the whole sh!tload of rules and regs. We risked all our reputation on fighting a BS war against goat herders and mountain men. We lost. How the fark could anyone wage a real war with all that crap to consider?Oh hang on let's not go there in the first place, that would be a good start.
That’s all i got for now.