Defence News.

Pony · **Posted:** Fri Nov 29, 2024 11:35 am

John 11:35

Stroppy Chippie · **Posted:** Fri Nov 29, 2024 9:01 pm

Arafura project in context:

Original Government intent was to build OPVs in a program with Malaysia (circa mid 1990s). Government moved to purchase the mothballed Kaman Super Sea Sprite helicopter instead of the continuing build Westland Lynx helicopter. Malaysia decided to "go it alone" and went for https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kedah-cla ... rol_vessel and Australia was left with a $1 billion Kaman Super Sea Sprite lemon and no OPV (the Armidale class being the replacement instead). Note that the Malaysian vessel ONLY has a 76mm gun forward and a 30mm gun aft (ohhh, and a Lynx helicopter). 25 years later and the "new" OPV for Australia has no gun, no helicopter and only half the original build intended (and still none in service). Still cannot understand how they could have an issue with firefighting systems as all platforms tend to built under Lloyds or some other ship classification. Maybe because it is to commercial rather than true warship design?

Stroppy Chippie · **Posted:** Sun Dec 01, 2024 12:02 pm

I see the interim report on the sinking of the RNZ ship Mannysomething has been put down to the failure of "someone" to turn the auto pilot off. Explains why the operation of the bow thrusters was not successful in thrusting the bow away from the reef. There will be other factors offered on the completion of the report.

Pony · **Posted:** Sun Dec 01, 2024 12:53 pm

About time this witch hunt was shut down.

ABC wins Gold Walkley for Four Corners' Killing Field exposé
abc.net.au
Weasel ABC hipster Mark Willacy has been disgraced over his failures and lies with the Heston Russel story.

Remember, the ABC and Willacy won so-called journalism’s highest award, a Gold Walkley for their slander.

This was the ABC crowing about it a few year ago:

" The ABC's Four Corners has taken home the biggest award in journalism at the 2020 Walkley Awards, with Mark Willacy and the ABC Investigations Team winning the Gold Walkley for its program Killing Field.

"The story uncovered suspected war crimes by the Australia Defence Force in Afghanistan, revelations that prompted the recent Brereton inquiry.'

What does the ABC have to say now????
Have another bottle of Chardonnay old boy …

From The Age's Nick Mackenzie, Saturday 30 November 2024

The ex-soldier suspected of committing one of the most notorious alleged war crimes involving Australian special forces in Afghanistan will never face justice after an elite investigative agency concluded its case was too weak to put before a jury.

The Office of the Special Investigator (OSI) has told witnesses it will not charge the former Special Air Service Regiment sergeant suspected of brutally murdering an injured and unarmed Afghan farmer.

It is a decision that has shattered the Australian army medic who exposed the alleged crime and agreed to testify against the accused man.
It also highlights the failure of the OSI to achieve results almost four years after it was created by the Morrison government to investigate the Brereton inquiry’s findings that at least 39 Afghans may have been executed by about two dozen special forces soldiers.

Since its formation in early 2021, the OSI has charged only one ex-SAS soldier.

In November, the OSI advised witnesses assisting it in two separate major war crimes investigations that neither would proceed to prosecution based on internal legal advice. Witnesses had agreed to participate in the process often at great personal and professional cost.
The highest profile of the cases involves a suspected execution first revealed in 2019 by former SAS medic and decorated soldier Dusty Miller, who blew the whistle in a series of interviews with this masthead and 60 Minutes.

Miller detailed how an injured Afghan man, Haji Sardar Khan, was in his care before being taken away by a senior SAS soldier and allegedly summarily executed during an operation in southern Afghanistan in March 2012.

“The decision not to prosecute has absolutely gutted me. I think about the death every day of my life. The OSI has taken too long to do nothing and the soldiers who have stood against war crimes and the Afghan families who are still grieving deserve justice,” Miller said.

“Over the last few years, I have spent endless hours with the OSI poring over maps and giving them information about what happened. I don’t doubt the OSI’s integrity and thoroughness, but justice delayed is justice denied and no charges is no justice at all.”

The second alleged execution case that the OSI has decided not to prosecute is against another former soldier. It was exposed by the ABC and is known within special forces ranks as the “village idiot” killing.

Miller was also one of two witnesses to this alleged war crime, which involved the suspected shooting of an unarmed disabled man as he was trying to limp away from Australian soldiers.

Despite the OSI deciding not to lay charges over the Sardar and “village idiot” killings, its investigation into Australia’s most significant war crimes matters – those involving disgraced war hero Ben Roberts-Smith – is ongoing.

While OSI investigators have privately disclosed to witnesses that they are frustrated with the delays in finalising the Roberts-Smith case, they have also signalled their intention is to charge him pending final internal and external legal advice.

One witness, who spoke to this masthead on the condition of anonymity, said the OSI had told them the agency expected the Roberts-Smith case to drag through the criminal court system for years.

The approach adopted by OSI detectives, largely secondees from the federal police and state police homicide squads, suggests it is seeking to not only charge Roberts-Smith with war crimes but also ancillary offences surrounding his cover-up attempts.

After bringing defamation proceedings against this masthead, Roberts-Smith was found by a federal court judge in 2023 to have been involved in four executions.

He has appealed that judgment and a ruling by a panel of appeal judges is imminent. Roberts-Smith has kept a mostly low profile since his devastating defamation loss and recently told friends in Perth that he was moving back to Brisbane after securing a senior role for a company that manufactures outdoor equipment.

The ex-soldier implicated in the death of Sardar served in a different squadron to Roberts-Smith and their alleged criminality is not related.

In media interviews and testimony to the OSI, Miller described how just before his death, Sardar was in his care suffering a non-fatal gunshot wound. He had been shot through the thigh by the SAS when they first landed in his village.

Miller did not witness Sardar’s death but believes the circumstantial evidence warranted a prosecution. Miller said the gunshot injury Sardar sustained was relatively minor, and the injuries later found on Sardar’s body occurred after the Afghan was removed from Miller’s care by his fellow Australian soldier.

Evidence uncovered by the Afghan Human Rights Commission included injury marks suggesting the injured Sardar may have had his chest stomped on before his death but after he was taken from Miller.

Miller was so haunted by his failure to protect Sardar that he contacted his children in Afghanistan in 2020 to apologise.

“I wanted to tell them that I was sorry for what happened to their father and that I should have done more,” Miller said at the time.

The OSI told Miller that proving that Sardar’s death was caused by his treatment at the hands of the soldier they suspected of murdering him, and was not caused by the original gun shot, was difficult without Sardar’s body being forensically examined.

In a statement, the OSI said it did “not comment on individuals, allegations or whether they are the subject of investigation”.

Australian National University international law expert, Professor Don Rothwell, said the OSI’s ability to gain key evidence and testimony in Afghanistan was greatly reduced after the Taliban regained power.

Rothwell said the OSI was undertaking an unprecedented investigation effort in a nation with no contemporary experience probing and prosecuting war crimes.

“Given the significance of the OSI’s work, it is inevitable they will be adopting a conservative position as to whether they will proceed with charges given the reputational damage that would be sustained if a prosecution failed because of evidentiary weaknesses,” he said.

But Rothwell also said the OSI was “proceeding very slowly” and the public rightly expected further charges.

“If the work of the OSI is to ultimately encompass just one charge, that would have to be a failure,” he said.

Rawan Arraf, executive director of the Australian Centre for International Justice, said the decision not to prosecute the cases raised “questions and concerns” about the examination of war crimes allegations.

“The OSI must provide comprehensive reasons to the public and furnish those reasons to the courageous individuals (or their families) within the special forces who spoke up (some giving their lives in that pursuit) and Afghan victims and their communities affected by these allegations,” she said.
“Insufficient evidence can be a valid reason not to pursue prosecutions but without knowledge of the reasons behind the decisions we cannot scrutinise whether the OSI exhausted all available means to bring these cases before a court and a jury to make those determinations.”

Arraf also said that affected Afghan communities and victims’ families had not received adequate justice or support from Australia.

“Perhaps these communities seek meaningful apologies, memorialisation of commemorations as other forms of symbolic reparations, but without effective outreach and engagement, Afghan victims continue to be denied truth, justice and accountability,” she said.

Hippy Chippy · **Posted:** Mon Dec 02, 2024 5:35 pm

The latest fortnightly edition of :salute1:

NAVY News :captain:

is now available in the post below :down:

for your reading pleasure... :news:

Hippy Chippy · **Posted:** Mon Dec 02, 2024 5:36 pm

The latest fortnightly edition of :salute1:

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is now available below :down:

for your reading pleasure... :news:

Click on the image of 'The Steel Cat' :cat1:

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or the cover of the current edition below, :down:

to access...

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Items of interest in this edition include:

.................................... • THANKS TO ALL: End-of-year messages from senior leaders – Page 2

.................................... • BIG PLAYERS: AUKUS partners level up Autonomous Warrior – Page 3

.................................... • WHAT A BLAST: 2024’s defining moments – Pages 10-11

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Stroppy Chippie · **Posted:** Wed Dec 04, 2024 1:37 am

Happened (by chance) to come across an article on the proposed RAN OPV back in 1994 (https://navyleague.org.au/wp-content/up ... y-Sept.pdf). Actually had guns and missiles back then and the billion dollar Super Sea Sprite pick was not even considered at the time (noting the Lynx that continues in service).

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