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naraburns  nihil supernum  1yr ago (text post)   2912 thread views

Friday Fun Thread for January 20, 2023

Be advised: this thread is not for serious in-depth discussion of weighty topics (we have a link for that), this thread is not for anything Culture War related. This thread is for Fun. You got jokes? Share 'em. You got silly questions? Ask 'em.

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Australia has a minor scandal involving some SAS troopers, who are accused of 'war crimes' over shooting some 'civilians' during the Afghanistan war.

The media is all over it, and one of the bigger figures in it - a former SAS corporal Ben Roberts-Smith turned media exec, one of the real life closest approximations of gigachad meme I've seen - has seen fit to file a defamation suit against a bunch of journalists over the 'war crimes' allegations in media. (see attached picture to get a sense of dude's sheer size)

Now, Ben Roberts-Smith is a fairly impressive guy with some notable flaws. From what I gather, he's a brave and competent warrior, a demanding boss, perhaps a bit of a glory hound and about as rough as you'd expect from reputation of SAS.

Some dark triad traits, but that's nothing unexpected in special forces. Probably 'guilty' of what he's accused of - he's going to be on trial for that any year now. The big deal is that his patrol is alleged to have shot a captive during clearing of a compound, and also extrajudicially executed some other captives (up to 30 allegedly) during its deployment.

Now, special forces are .. special kinds of people. Aggressive guys who just won't quit despite punishing training, expected to go into the hairiest situations in small groups, typically against far more numerous opposition, without much support.

Anyway, during the defamation suit, the attorney for the journalists saw fit to read a social media post liked by the plaintiff in court. [audio unsafe for work, small children and delicate old ladies]

I can't decide whether Roberts-Smith 'liking' a post written by one of his army buddies to provoke the attorney for the opposition was a genius or bad move , but the whole bit of situational comedy nevertheless made me day when it crossed my twitter timeline.

I'm quite sure it was some army guy - when I was reading various allegations about Roberts-Smith the eloquence, profanity and threatening nature of SAS communicationg among each other was of exactly the same tone and style as the post in question.

/images/16742842263645465.webp

Hilarious video, reminds me slightly of this: teen insulting media after being arrested for a robbery https://twitter.com/i/status/1565960655626199040

On a serious note - this is a tiny war crime. The real crime is going to Afghanistan and staying to pointlessly fight as long as we did. Australian troops were only there to improve relations with the US. Australia has no strategic interests in Afghanistan whatsoever. Him deciding to kill a few people for fun or morale reasons is just the micro version of Australia going to Afghanistan to look good in the eyes of our big and powerful friend. And the macro version is US generals lying to the world because they were too embarrassed to admit defeat back in the late 2000s, dragging out this utter farce for another decade.

At least Roberts-Smith had some skin in the game, more than can be said for the politicians and generals who accepted all the rewards and none of the costs of that stupid war.

Him deciding to kill a few people for fun or morale reasons is

Journos alleged it was a unit ritual, - 'blooding' where a new guy gets to shoot a captured enemy. Dunno.

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