We have laws for a reason (hint: it’s not “ignoring them”)

You may have heard there are some Australian soldiers facing charges for manslaughter. Odds are that if you have, thanks to the excellent state of Australian journalism, you’ve heard how appalling it is, a betrayal of their trust, even – in the words of our fine, entirely non-Machiavellian Opposition leader – that they’ve been “stabbed in the back” by the government.

Never let the truth get in the way of a good yarn, right?

The general nature of the case is that children were killed during a firefight in Afghanistan’s Oruzgan province, and three commandos are facing charges related to those deaths. The most serious charge from the Director of Military Prosecutions, levelled against one of the three, is manslaughter: this reflects that it is not considered to have been deliberate, at worst negligent. The DMP, Brigadier Lyn McDade, was appointed by the former Howard Government to provide an independent judiciary for the Defence Force.

So to kick things off, if any government is doing backstabbing, it’s the former Howard government who created the system that people (mostly conservatives) are now complaining about. Of course, Alan Jones doesn’t care about that, blaming McDade’s appointment on Kevin Rudd. Surprisingly, despite being present at the time, Tony Abbott forgot to correct him. And then reposted the misinformation on his website. Of course, Abbott also blamed the current government for… I’m not sure what. Not illegally interfering in an independent judicial process?

It shouldn’t be surprising by this stage that there are people willing to use the violent deaths of children for political point scoring, but somehow it still is.

However, the most concerning thing about the responses to this situation is what it reveals about people’s perception of the idea of accountability. To suggest that their being charged is wrong is to suggest that Australian military personnel should not be responsible for civilian casualties. In some instances, civilian casualties occur as a result of terrible accidents. In others, there is negligence, disregard for human life or even malice. These are not qualities we should be willing to ignore in anyone, let alone people we give deadly weapons to. We do not ignore them in civilian life; that’s why we have laws regarding assault, manslaughter and murder.

There are also laws outlining acceptable behaviour during armed conflict, along with our military’s own internal rules and regulations. These are designed to prevent and punish war crimes: rape, murder, pillaging, genocide. This case may ‘only’ be about manslaughter, but the rules are from the same book. If we bend or break the rules for “our boys” then we erode the ‘moral high ground’ we have when dealing with repressive regimes. We set a precedent for looser standards of behaviour for our troops.

We also give excellent propaganda to insurgents and terrorist organisations; the greatest recruiting and PR tool they have is us. Western hypocrisy is an idea that has been promoted throughout the Middle East for decades, if not centuries. It is a stereotype that fuels anger and resentment of the West, and if we abandon our principles for the sake of “our boys” then we only reinforce that perception. And in doing so we make the work our troops are doing even more difficult, even more dangerous.

Cynical individuals will already be using the death of these children as a propaganda tool. The best method to minimise the effectiveness of that propaganda is to enforce the law, follow the regulation put in place for cases just like this. The thoroughness of a court martial could help expose any shortcomings in existing procedures that could help prevent a similar tragedy in future. At the same time, prosecuting the commandos will show Afghanis – and the rest of the world – that we’re acting in good faith. If they are found guilty, then we provide an even clearer message.

If.

What a lot of people seem to be missing here – deliberately or not – is that these soldiers have only been charged. They have not been imprisoned without trial. They have not been tried without representation. They have not been denied any rights.

As a nation, we should not be afraid of these men being tried and found guilty or not guilty. Either outcome shows us to be a society with respect for the law, and a desire for the truth to hold sway. It is no outcome we should fear, the abandonment of this trial simply because they are “our boys”. That would have us sidle closer to the dictatorships of the world, where the people with guns are above the law.

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