Robbo in Trouble

Yo, troops! Today we need to talk about former Australian SAS soldier Ben Roberts-Smith, or as the Aussies call him, “Robbo.” He’s been on the front page of every paper lately, and not for anything good. Robbo was Australia’s most decorated living soldier, a true-blue war hero. But now, the insider talk is that this bloke might have committed some heinous acts in Afghanistan.

Earlier this month, he lost his defamation case against some major newspapers. The judge, Anthony Besanko, found substantial truth to allegations that Robbo murdered unarmed Afghan civilians in Darwan in 2012. And it gets worse – Besanko ruled that our boy kicked a handcuffed prisoner off a cliff before ordering his squad to shoot a man named Ali Jan.

“Australia has a reputation for being very plaintiff-friendly,” said David Rolph, a media law professor at the University of Sydney. “Here we’ve got a comprehensive victory for the newspapers — that’s not something you see in every defamation case in Australia.”

Now, Robbo’s reputation is in tatters. He’s been stripped of his war medals and faces possible criminal charges. But this is where we need to dig deeper, team. What really went on in Afghanistan? What led a decorated war hero like Robbo to (allegedly) commit such atrocious acts?

Understanding the Case

Ben Roberts-Smith is an Australian soldier who served in Afghanistan and Iraq for over a decade, earning him numerous awards, including the Victoria Cross – Australia’s highest award for valor in combat. However, he now faces allegations of war crimes committed during his service in Afghanistan. These include two murders at a compound known as ‘the village,’ as well as other incidents involving the mistreatment of prisoners and civilians. The allegations have been investigated by both the Australian Federal Police and the Inspector-General of the Australian Defence Force (IGADF).

Once hailed as the epitome of Australia’s valiant efforts to bring stability to Afghanistan, this top-tier operator enjoyed a rock-solid rep and was even dubbed Father of the Year. He was the poster boy for the Anzac legend, embodying the spirit of the nation’s most famous soldiers.

Bombshell Allegations

However, in 2018, things took a hard left turn. The Age, the Sydney Morning Herald, and the Canberra Times dropped a series of bombshell articles, accusing him of crossing the line into war crimes territory. Allegations included offing civilians and giving his troops the green light for “blooding” ops, ordering them to take out non-combatants.

The trial revealed that multiple imputation techniques were used to fill in missing data, such as the identity of the Afghan man and the details of his death. Multiple imputation is a method for replacing missing data with substitute values to retain most of the data/information of the dataset.

It’s no secret that war can be a murky business, and this case was no exception. The court heard testimony from both sides and used multiple imputation methods to fill in gaps to make a fair judgment. At the end of it all, Roberts-Smith was found guilty of these war crimes. 

Standing his ground, Roberts-Smith still wouldn’t apologize, claiming their exposés painted him as a rogue soldier who trampled on the moral and legal codes of warfare – a disgrace to both his country and its military.

“I’m devastated… It’s a terrible outcome, and it’s the incorrect outcome,” he said last Wednesday. “We haven’t done anything wrong, so we won’t be making any apologies.”

The public outcry surrounding Ben’s case has been immense, with many fellow soldiers expressing their shock and disappointment at these accusations against one of their own. In military terms, this situation is known as “a black eye” – a stain on an otherwise exemplary record that can never be erased or forgotten. It also raises questions about whether or not Ben was given proper training to prevent such atrocities from occurring in the first place.

“Roberts-Smith’s public image accords with the very ingrained image of the understated Aussie hero and this gentle giant mythology,” Kit Messham-Muir, a professor in art at Curtin University’s School of Media, Creative Arts and Social Inquiry and an expert in the art and visual culture of war and conflict told Al Jazeera.

“It says a lot about Aussie bloke masculinity and the idea of the ‘soft heart and hard fist.’ This made him seem very palatable as the public face of the Australian soldier, and he was seen as beyond reproach.”

The implications of Ben’s case are far-reaching; it has spotlighted Australia’s military justice system and its reputation abroad. This case could have serious ramifications for how other countries view Australia’s ability to handle similar cases in the future, particularly regarding international law enforcement operations. It also raises questions about whether or not there should be more stringent measures taken to ensure that all soldiers are properly trained before they are sent into combat zones.

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** To learn more about how Australian SAS soldiers are made, click here.