Australian soldiers sent to commit war crimes by bloodthirsty Howard.

Australia linked to prisoner death

Defence Minister Stephen Smith.

THE United States refused to accept that Australia was not responsible for a man captured by the SAS in early 2003 who later died en route to a secret and possibly illegal prison, according to a US report on his death.

The new allegation comes on the back of claims by The Guardian that Australian and British special forces were an ''integral'' part of a covert detention facility at a captured Iraqi air base, codenamed H1, deep in Iraq's western desert. The Age has been unable to independently verify that claim, and yesterday Defence Minister Stephen Smith and the foreign minister in 2003, Alexander Downer, both said that the claim was incorrect.

However, The Age has been able to establish that contrary to eight years of denials by Defence, it may have been legally responsible for the death of an Iranian man captured by the SAS in April 2003, Tanik Mahmud. The information is found in a classified US memorandum written by officers from a US task force running special forces operations in Iraq's west, codenamed Task Force Dagger.

Task Force Dagger was a US-led array of American, British and Australian special forces operating under American tactical control in Iraq's west in 2003.

According to the book Special Operations Forces in Iraq by Leigh Neville, one of Dagger's roles was to ''provide both an intelligence-gathering and screening function in support of conventional forces, to build up an accurate picture of Iraqi force dispositions in the west of the country''.

Mahmud and the 63 other men - a busload of Fedayeen fighters, suspected Baath Party members and Iranians - were stopped by the SAS on April 11, 2003, west of the central Iraqi city of Ramadi.

They were then flown by British special forces to H1 in several helicopters. Mahmud died during transit, possibly after being beaten by a British soldier.

Last night Defence Minister Stephen Smith reiterated that, according to Defence advice, ''Australia was not the detaining authority''.

But according to the Task Force Dagger memo, the view taken by Defence and Mr Smith is not correct. ''Under the circumstances, some doubt exists as to which party is the detaining power for purposes of responsibilities under the Geneva Conventions,'' the memo states.

It goes on to say that an agreement between the US, Britain and Australia in March 2003 about detention in Iraq allowed that where all three countries were involved. ''All parties will be jointly responsible until the detaining power has by mutual arrangement been determined.''

The Public Interest Advocacy Centre, a Sydney-based human rights group that has been investigating illegal prisons in Iraq and Afghanistan, says that is in direct contradiction with Australian government statements.

''[The report's findings] contradict Australia's repeated statements that it was never a detaining power in Iraq, including in this particular incident,'' PIAC chief executive Edward Santow said yesterday. ''The report highlights that Australia had clear obligations under the Geneva Conventions and it deliberately sought to avoid them.''

That is a view supported by the head of the Australian Defence Association, Neil James.

''We said [in 2003] that was nonsense - you can't avoid your responsibilities under the Geneva Conventions that way and it would eventually backfire on us,'' he told ABC radio yesterday. ''And these latest allegations look like part of a backfire.''

http://www.theage.com.au/national/australia-linked-to-prisoner-death-20120209-1r...

Shhhh.....don't say things like that. You know what happened to Julian Assange when he exposed the truth.

They can't handle the truth.

You mean thanks to the illegal Iraq war?.   

And falah do you think the terrorists give a single thought
that not only might our soldiers have their arms and legs removed from them but also their own men women and children when they step on I.E.D.'s  on the road?

Who gives a toss what happens to these sh...heads when they are taken for interrogation?

What the hell do you think happens to our forces if they are captured. Do you think the terrorists comply with the Geneva Convention?

I am a returned serviceman and until you have been out there and done that I would zip it Falah. You can't get hurt sitting on your chair typing thoughts on the Net.

red baron wrote on Feb 10^th, 2012 at 7:12am:


Funny how you call people defending their own country against the Australian invasion "terrorist".

When China invades Australia, it would be ironic if they call you a terrorist.

Terrorism as male bonding

Some years ago, Columbia University Professor Richard Bulliet was engaged by several British police forces to review and write reports about allegedly jihadist materials seized during investigations in the cities of Leicester and Edinburgh ...

"The Leicestershire constabulary liked my report, recommended me to Edinburgh, Edinburgh obviously did not like my report and Edinburgh never paid me," the professor said in his lecture series, History of the Modern Middle East, "and since that time, no one has sought my expertise.

"I think it's because I said 'most of this literature is aimed at the overthrow of the Algerian government and I don't see anything wrong with that,'" Bulliet said to a hall full of laughing Columbia University students.

If you're new to Algeria, it might help to know that "official" (read, lowballed) unemployment figures in the country were put at 10.2 per cent last year, but unemployment among university graduates has hit 23.5 per cent, with 71,000 Algerian university graduates estimated to have moved overseas between 1994 and 2006.

(Imagine what the real figures are.)

As part of his work for the police, Bulliet said he watched 20 to 30 video tapes put out by various unidentified Islamic groups, advertising their militant activities and looking for recruits.

He also listened to audio tapes and reckoned, "There's a special genre of Jihadist music. I don't think anyone has really studied it, but it's rather interesting.

"It has to be unaccompanied male voices ... it'll start out with a baby crying, gunfire, bombs in the background, then this really jaunty melody will come along."

Aside from the tapes opening the professor's eyes to the musical abilities of jihadists, he had something of an epiphany about what the attraction was to young men for the work done by militant Islamic groups.

The tape he found most "suggestive" was a video made in Algeria, of which he saw more than a dozen different copies, some edited slightly for length.

"It was called The Ambush, one of the few that had a title. You start out tracking a handful of college-age men, and they're going up into the mountains ... They get up into the camp, and most of the film is related to life in the camp. You see them baking bread and sewing equipment and having a good time. It's basically like Outward Bound, combined with a US Army ad.

"The whole idea is you're with the other guys ... you're there, it's male solidarity and finally you load up, you go down the mountain and you blow up an Algerian army convoy, then you zoom in on all the weapons you've captured and then, finally, you show the martyrs.

"And there you see, in split screen, the guys on your side who were killed, lying on their backs, faces up, pieces of white cloth tying the head, and then, on the other split of the screen, you see them back at the camp, joking and singing and baking bread.

"It's really a notion of male solidarity, that you are with the youth and you were together, you camped together, you got to shoot guns together and some guys died and that's sad and maybe it's my turn next but there isn't a mention of Islam, at least not a strong mention of Islam, anywhere in the tape," Bulliet said.

As with my post last week about the Muslim Brotherhood, I guess what I'm trying to illustrate is how little separates your average Aussie bloke from your average Muslim - even a so-called terrorist.

Imagine if Australia had a crappy, violent, corrupt, repressive government and you couldn't find work, let alone go out on the piss and get silly - and it had long been this way.

The you hear about a group which says, "Hey, let's change this. Let's go blow up some of the people who repress us, shoot some guns, but most of all, hang with all your mates doing cool poo!"

You can't tell me there wouldn't be plenty of takers in Australia: you could fill a bus at most pubs, I reckon.

Now imagine that's all you know; you're unemployed, you're no one, Islam isn't some weird foreign thing, it's the very crucible of your life, it's the thing you respect more than anything, that gives you some structure and direction in the world.

And then there's this group of dudes who are heavy, serious, respected and they respect you, they give you juice, they give you gravitas and they let you blow up poo.

Tempted?...

...Up until a year ago, the dudes in the mountains blowing up the army convoys of any of these governments were called "terrorists" - so you be the judge of how porous that definition is.

And then think about how different you, me and them really are.

http://www.theage.com.au/executive-style/culture/blogs/all-men-are-liars/terrorism-as-male-bonding-20120207-1r32i.html

Fallah, did you think for one second that those Australia soldiers WANT to be in that fly blown sh....ole called Afghanistan? Because that's what our troops do they go where the Federal Government tell them to go.

I totally disagree with their presence in Afghanistan. the same as I did with them being in Iraq. They have an ice cube's hope in hell of turning things around there although there is no question as to their professionalism and application to duty. It reminds me very much of the Vietnam War in which In was involved.

I have seen this country change.  Following military service I was a Cop for many years. The drive by shootings in Sydney are directly related to Muslim and it is more than 90% Muslim generated.

You see Muslim bring their crappy violent habits  with them from the old Countries.

I have seen Sydney go down the plug hole as Muslim infiltrate or start bikie gangs and all the violence, drug dealing and crime that goes hand in glove with them.

The greatest mistake this Country has ever made is to import all you Muslims into it. You do not take on the Australian way of life like the great majority of other immigrants. You live in enclaves and live life like you were still in Beirut.

Your women are treat like goods and chattels and your men are only good in a fight, if they run like a pack of dogs together.

The first thing any cop will do if he has a traffic stop, is relieve a Muslim of his mobile phone, otherwise he will be onto Fallah and all the boys to come and surround the Police vehicle. Don't talk to me about how great you are, you are the antithesis of what Australians want their country to be.
If you don't like it here, pack up your prayer roll and go back to the Middle East we would cheer your departure.

corporate_whitey wrote on Feb 10^th, 2012 at 1:11am:



What exactly do you want explained to you? What exactly is the issue here? That the guy died in British custody. the US, Britain and AUstralia have special forces that work together.

Galah, in what way does this incident mean that "Aussie soldiers are involved in war crimes"? Is there no limit to your endless, mindless hyperbole? WTF is wrong with you?  Is this all just because you have converted to Islam or were you this kind of moron before?

Quote:



What?