UK 

SAS WAR CRIMES

We can’t stand up to Russia if we don’t confront ugly truths about Afghanistan: Hastie

By Latika Bourke
July 13, 2022 — 

London: Opposition defence spokesman Andrew Hastie has told a British audience that if the West is to stand up to Russian barbarianism in Ukraine and defend the Indo-Pacific from Chinese aggression, it must account for its own wrongdoings, including in Afghanistan.

Hastie made the comments in London shortly after the BBC’s Panorama aired allegations the UK’s SAS repeatedly killed detainees and unarmed men in suspicious circumstances.

Opposition defence spokesman Andrew Hastie, a former SAS soldier, has consistently supported the inquiry into allegations of war crimes in Afghanistan.

CREDIT:JAMES BRICKWOOD

The BBC cited one newly unearthed military report that said one unit may have killed 54 people in one six-month tour.

Hastie said democracies must confront ugly truths head-on.

“In Australia, we have been through a tough public accounting for our time in Afghanistan –specifically, the alleged unlawful actions of a small number of our special forces over the course of the war,” he told a conference hosted by think tank Henry Jackson Society.

The opposition’s defence spokesman Andrew Hastie at the In and Out Naval Club, St James, London speaking at a conference for the Henry Jackson Society.

“The Brereton Inquiry, as it is known, has been very tough but it has been necessary. For if we cannot hold ourselves to account for unlawful battlefield conduct in Afghanistan, by what standard do we condemn Russian acts of barbarity in Ukraine?”

The UK’s Minister for Armed Forces said alleged war crimes in Afghanistan had already been twice investigated but if the program aired any new allegations that met the “evidential threshold”, then “we will absolutely investigate it”.

“Nobody in our organisation no matter how special, gets a bye on the law and that’s that,” he said.

The US invaded Afghanistan a month after the September 11 terror attacks in 2001, seeking to hunt down Osama bin Laden and punish the Taliban for providing safe haven to al-Qaida leaders. Operation Enduring Freedom was supported by Australia, Canada, France and Germany.

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It all ended in August last year when the Biden administration withdrew the last US forces in chaotic fashion and the Taliban swiftly reclaimed power.

Hastie, a former SAS Captain, served in Afghanistan for five years from 2013.

He has consistently supported the four-year inquiry into allegations of war crimes in Afghanistan. The report handed down in November 2020 found Australian special forces soldiers allegedly committed 39 murders in Afghanistan.

A focus of the inquiry was Victoria Cross recipient Ben Roberts-Smith, who is suing The Age, The Sydney Morning Herald and The Canberra Times over a series of articles in 2018, which he says accuse him of wrongdoing including six murders and other war crimes.

Roberts-Smith denies wrongdoing.

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Hastie said his own experience of “nation-building at gunpoint” in Afghanistan had made him “very circumspect about going to another people and trying to impose on them your view of the world”.

Hastie is on his first overseas trip as the opposition’s defence spokesman following the Coalition’s election loss in May.

He used his speech to urge European nations to match the ambition of the AUKUS agreement, saying that fighting for freedom required the preparedness to use lethal force, as the Ukrainians were showing.

“We cannot pretend that peace is secured by words alone. We must be prepared to defend it with hard power.

“What sort of hard power do I mean? Military power, guns, ammunition, troops, fighter aircraft, warships, lethal force and the preparedness to deploy it, all necessary means,” he said.

He added that hard power also served as a deterrent.