What sane Australian would want to join the military?
War hero Ben Roberts Smith VC was today dragged off an aircraft by Australian Federal Police at Sydney Airport and arrested on five counts of alleged war crimes.
Police State Australia was in full flight with quad cars and flashing lights, surrounding the aircraft on the tarmac allowing AFP officers onboard to apprehend Roberts Smith in front of his 15 year old twin daughters, partner and a plane full of startled passengers.
Roberts Smith mother, Sue said from Perth the first she knew about the arrest was when she got a phone call from Ben’s partner Sarah who told her she was in a police car heading for a destination unknown.
The AFP had tipped off the media which were in attendance, in particular shifty Channel Nine reporter Nick McKenzie who has been the media mouthpiece for the decade-long witch hunt against Roberts Smith and the SASR.
McKenzie’s reporting and testimony has been less than truthful and he was caught out reviewing emails about Roberts Smith’s legal strategy as he reveals in this article:
“No more than a week ago Ben told the AFP if they wanted to speak to him just give him a ring and he would come to see them,” Sue Roberts Smith told Cairns News.
“Then today the police were grandstanding at Sydney airport with his arrest.
“The police are going to hold him for seven days while he makes a bail application but if it fails they can hold him for two years without a court appearance.”
A statement from Dr Dan Mealey, former SAS member who served in Afghanistan:
To my fellow Australians,
There are moments in the life of a nation when the real test of character is not found on some distant battlefield, but here at home, in the comfort of our own safety, when one of our own has been marked out for public destruction and the crowd is invited to join in.
This is one of those moments.
Ben Roberts-Smith VC, MG, has been turned into a national effigy, not merely by accusation, but by years of cultivated hatred, insinuation, and our leaders’ moral cowardice. Before the criminal process has run its course, before the law has spoken with finality, vast parts of an obscenely wealthy media class have already behaved as though the verdict were theirs to give. That’s not justice, it’s a predatory appetite for the ancient thrill of seeing a man cast down.
And cast down he has been, with a zeal that should trouble every serious Australian.
We are told this is accountability and virtue. We are told this is proof that our institutions are healthy. But many Australians can see something darker at work: a vindictive national reflex that delights in the demolition of its own warriors, a media culture that has learned how to convert accusation into theatre, and a political class so morally timid that it would rather abandon a frontline soldier than risk displeasing the chattering classes.
There is a reason why Pauline Hanson and her One Nation Party have generated shockwaves through our cowardly political elite who have destroyed this country, and the things we most value.
A decent people should know the difference between justice and bloodlust.
That difference matters now.
There is a world of difference between saying that allegations should be properly tested, and saying that a man should be torn to pieces before that process has started. There is a world of difference between lawful scrutiny and the social ritual of reputational execution. To ask for due process is not to undermine justice. It is to defend it.
The task now for good Australians is to say, calmly but unflinchingly, that Australia owes its soldiers more than abandonment.
It is to say that men sent by their country into the most violent and morally disordered theatres on earth should not return home to find themselves abandoned to wealthy headline writers, reputational sadists, and institutional cowards.
It is to say that the presumption of innocence is not an inconvenience to be brushed aside whenever the accused is unfashionable, decorated, or inconvenient to elite opinion.
If Australia becomes a country that cannot distinguish allegation from proof, trial from theatre, and justice from envy, then no soldier sent into future wars will ever again trust the nation that sent him.
That is why this moment matters far beyond one name.
Many Australians have already reacted with disgust at the spectacle of his arrest and with alarm at the eagerness of public figures to either join the pile-on or fall silent in cowardice. Publicly documented support has stressed loyalty, presumption of innocence, concern about the humiliation of the arrest, and revulsion at the readiness of others to wash their hands of him. These reactions of good Australians reflect a deep and valid unease at seeing decorated service answered with a town square lynching.
Australians should now do three things.
First, refuse to be bullied into abandoning him. Too many Australians have been conditioned to think that once the media has marked a man for destruction, silence becomes wisdom and loyalty becomes scandal. That is a lie. This is the moment to hold fast to the principles that matter most: that allegations must be proven, that trial by headline is not justice, and that a soldier does not forfeit his right to fairness because he has become the chosen target of public hatred. The easy path is to step back and say nothing. The honourable path is to stand firm.
Second, speak plainly. Speak in homes, workplaces, veterans’ circles, churches, pubs, and communities. Say that our soldiers are not disposable. Say that accusation is not conviction. Say that media frenzy is not morality. Say that a nation which devours its fighting men while congratulating itself on its virtue is already in moral decline.
Third, stand by the broader class of men who bore the burden of war on our behalf. Not with blind idol-worship, not with excuses for every act, and not with tribal fanaticism, but with the simple conviction that those who served in our name deserve fairness, dignity, and loyalty from the country they served.
This is not a plea for special treatment. It is a plea for equal justice, and for the recovery of our nation’s conscience.
For too long, too many in this country have confused moral posturing with moral seriousness. They have mistaken the destruction of a soldier for the cleansing of a nation. They have treated contempt as sophistication, betrayal as prudence, and silence as statesmanship.
Enough.
A country that asks men to kill and die in its name cannot then affect moral innocence when war proves ugly. A country that pins medals on a man in one year and helps crucify him in the next has not become more righteous. It has become more cowardly.
Australians must decide now what kind of people we are.
Are we a people who wait patiently for justice, or a people who join the howl?
Are we a people who honour service even when it becomes politically inconvenient, or a people who abandon our own at the first sign of elite disapproval?
Are we a people capable of moral seriousness, or merely of moral fashion?
I say this plainly: do not surrender your conscience to the mob. Do not mistake volume for truth. Do not let envy, malice, cowardice, and spectacle have the final word over honour, bravery, loyalty, and justice.
Stand firm. And do not abandon the soldier while the wolves are still circling.
My sincere thoughts and prayers to the Roberts-Smith family, and to all our soldiers presently wondering if they’re next.
