But don't forget to count unborn babies, and a twinkle in daddies eye.
Small matter though- the Holocaust never happened in Russia, UK, Switzerland, Turkey, Ireland or Iberia.
And how many does that leave?
I'll wait.
Added: You might want to factor this in though:
The Soviet territories occupied by early 1942, including all of Belarus, Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, Ukraine, Moldova and most Russian territory west of the line Leningrad-Moscow-Rostov, contained about four million Jews, including hundreds of thousands who had fled Poland in 1939. Despite the chaos of the Soviet retreat, some effort was made to evacuate Jews, who were either employed in the military industries or were family members of servicemen. Of 4 million about a million succeeded in escaping further east.
Eurocentric apologists, of any manner, always appear to be quite shallow...
As is oft the case we have drifted from ADF doin' nasty shit in Afganistan to gasin' Jews. This fred has legs Sab. Here ya go guys. Super whataboutism list. Have at it.
Category:War crimes committed by country - Wikimedia Commons
Somewhat similar carried out by British SAS. Talk about overkill.
Inquest rules SAS '''justified''' in shooting dying IRA man - BBC NewsAn inquest jury has ruled that an SAS soldier was justified in shooting an IRA man as he lay dying on the ground.
Dessie Grew was shot dead alongside fellow IRA man Martin McCaughey in County Armagh in October 1990.
The pair, who were both armed with AK47 rifles, were shot more than 30 times when the SAS unit opened fire at isolated farm buildings near Loughgall.
The ruling is thought to be the first 'shoot to kill' verdict in Northern Ireland in 30 years.
The deaths caused controversy in Northern Ireland when it was revealed that neither of the IRA men had fired a shot during the incident, prompting claims that the SAS had opened fire on the men without making an attempt to arrest them.
Surveillance
The inquest, which opened in March, examined the cause of the men's deaths and the planning and control of the SAS operation - including claims that Mr Grew had been shot twice as he lay mortally wounded on the floor of a mushroom shed.
The County Armagh farm was believed to have been under surveillance on the night of 9 October 1990 and the SAS fired more than 70 rounds in the incident.
The Detail news website reported that Dessie Grew had been shot 22 times with wounds to his heart, lungs, liver, kidney, ribcage and diaphragm while Martin McCaughey was shot 10 times.
During the case, an SAS witness identified only as 'Soldier D' admitted opening fire on Mr Grew while he was on the ground.
However, he insisted his actions been justified, claiming the IRA man had made a noise as the SAS entered the shed and he believed the soldiers' lives were in danger.
Balaclavas
Reaching its verdict after hearing weeks of evidence, the jury ruled that that the SAS had used "reasonable force" during the operation and that the IRA men's own actions had contributed to their deaths.
"Mr Grew and Mr McCaughey put their lives in danger by being in the area of the sheds in the vicinity of a stolen car, which was expected to be used in terrorist activity," the verdict stated.
"They were both armed with guns, wearing gloves and balaclavas and were approaching soldiers who believed that their lives were in immediate danger."
The men's families had campaigned for an inquest to be held for more than 20 years.
During the case, their barrister said that the families accepted that that both men had been on what was described as 'active service' for the IRA and were therefore liable to arrest.
However they argued that the shooting of the two men as they lay dying on the ground was evidence of a shoot-to-kill policy.
Under attack
The Detail reported that the jury could not agree on whether the SAS had attempted to arrest the IRA men.
However, they ruled that the soldiers were justified in opening fire as they thought the IRA men had moved towards their positions and they believed they were under attack.
"We cannot be unanimous on the balance of probabilities whether or not there was an opportunity to attempt arrest in accordance with the Yellow Card (British Army rules on soldiers opening fire) prior to the soldiers feeling compromised.
"However, once the soldiers felt compromised we agree that there was no other reasonable course of action," the verdict said.
The coronor, Brian Sherrard, praised the Grew and McCaughey families for the dignity they had shown throughout the inquest.
Dessie Grew was 37 at time of his death. His older brother Seamus had been shot dead by the police in 1982.
Twenty-three-year-old Mr McCaughey was a former Sinn Fein councillor.
Ah magic moments.
"Why did you shoot (IRA terrorist) Sean Savage sixteen times?".
"Because I ran out of bullets".
It's not really drift is it? We have the impression that our troops are whiter than white, but the fact is that nasty shit happens during wars, especially in ones like this where the opposition have no compunction about who they kill and who considering dying in combat something that gets them the 72 virgins.
Unlike Iraq, where mates of mine had hundreds of Iraqi conscripts, still in civilian clothes, begging to be taken prisoner, the talitubbies and Al Qaeda would pretend that shit just to get close enough to cut a Western throat, so you have to wonder if the ADF actions had that in mind on some occasions.
In other cases, perhaps they'd just seen their mates die and wanted payback.
I doubt most people know just how many war crimes were committed by the Allies in WWII that were essentially just left to be forgotten.
Allied war crimes during World War II - Wikipedia
scotty from marketing will try and keep this in the news cycle as more revelations come to light about his sacking from tourism NZ and then tourism australia
One of, if not the, original whistleblowers is still being charged with serious offences. We treat our whistleblowers well in Australia- just ask Julian Assange, who has received absolutely no assistance from the aussie government.
I wonder if they will be embarassed into dropping the prosecution?
If moral courage matters, this whistleblower needs defending
Dear General Campbell, we’ve met a few times. At briefings at Parliament House when you ran Operation Sovereign Borders, and in the robust forum of Senate estimates. I was always impressed by your palpable decency, competence and forthright manner.
So, I hope you won’t take issue with me writing this open letter to you about our firm’s client, David McBride, a proud veteran, a former army major who now faces life imprisonment for, basically, telling the truth about what was happening in Afghanistan.
Just a few days ago, you were handed the Brereton report – four years in the making – about alleged war crimes by Australian troops in Afghanistan.
You said, on receiving the report, you would “speak out” about Justice Brereton’s key findings once you had “read and reflected” on the report. Not only do we now know you will do so this Thursday, but the PM has warned Australians to brace themselves over the shattering revelations in that report.
Given our client was warning – years before – of the very culture of cover-ups that the Brereton inquiry investigated, I urge you to read and reflect on what is happening to McBride before you speak out, because the two are inextricably linked.
Major David McBride was an army lawyer, with an exemplary record who served in Afghanistan on two tours of duty. McBride became deeply concerned about battlefield behaviours that were being ignored or not reported. He was particularly concerned by the culture of impunity and cover-up that was being set by defence leadership.
As both an army officer, sworn to uphold the integrity of the Defence Force, and a practising lawyer, McBride had a duty to report what he observed. He did so by lodging complaints up the chain of command and through every possible avenue of internal disclosure. He was ignored.
As a last resort, because the information demanded disclosure, he finally "blew the whistle" by going to the media. The ABC published the “Afghan Files” in July 2017, setting out shocking details of war crimes and cover-ups – from material that McBride provided. The “Afghan Files” were a breakthrough revelation for Australians, including many of its parliamentarians (including me at the time), but for McBride it was the beginning of his torment. He was arrested soon after and now faces a possible life sentence at his trial next year.
The charges against ABC journalist Dan Oakes, who received the documents, were recently (and quite rightly) dropped by the Commonwealth Director of Public Prosecutions. But without the source, the journalist had no story and the public would still be none the wiser.
So, what’s this got to do with you? Both nothing and everything. Nothing, as there is no suggestion of any culpability on your part; on the contrary, it was you, as Chief of the Army in 2015, who commissioned the report by Samantha Crompvoets that was seen as a catalyst for the Brereton inquiry. Crompvoets’ cataloguing of the “blood lust” and “cover-ups of unlawful killing” only saw the light of day on the pages of this newspaper last month.
But in a sense, the continuing prosecution of McBride has everything to do with you. McBride was arrested by the AFP in 2017 at the instigation of Defence. Now in 2020, the Commander of Special Operations, Major-General Adam Findlay, acknowledges that “poor moral leadership” was to blame for atrocities that occurred in Afghanistan. What a difference three years has made. But nothing has changed for McBride.
Findlay praises the “moral courage” of whistleblowers and I suspect there may be more such comments in the wake of the Brereton report. Yet the parallel treatment of McBride remains a chilling warning to every serving ADF member to turn a blind eye, to shut up if they know what is good for them.
It was whistleblowers like McBride and a handful of others who made the Brereton report possible by refusing to be intimidated into silence. In my view, they have redeemed the reputation of our nation. They do not deserve jail cells. I respectfully ask you, indeed I implore you, when speaking out on the Brereton report this Thursday, that you also speak out for McBride: a man who acted at great personal sacrifice to uphold the honour and integrity of the Defence Force you lead.
Nick Xenophon is a partner in law firm Xenophon Davis, which is acting for David McBride. As a senator (2008 to 2017) he instigated a Senate inquiry into whistleblower protections
Watching a doco on Nat Geo about the Yamato, Japan's enormous battlecruiser.
Japanese battleship Yamato - WikipediaYamato was not hit for four minutes, but at 12:41 two bombs obliterated two of her triple 25 mm anti-aircraft mounts and blew a hole in the deck. A third bomb then destroyed her radar room and the starboard aft 127 mm mount. At 12:45 a single torpedo struck Yamato far forward on her port side, sending shock waves throughout the ship. At 12:46, another two bombs struck the battleship's port side, one slightly ahead of the aft 155 mm centreline turret and the other right on top of the gun. These caused a great deal of damage to the turret and its magazines; only one man survived. Because many of the ship's crew who did not go down with the vessel were killed by strafing aircraft as they swam in the oily water, the details are uncertain, but authors Garzke and Dulin record that little damage was caused.
The Exposure of Australian War Crimes in Afghanistan Raises Questions the Politicians are Still Reluctant to Face
25.11.2020 Author: James ONeill
"A report issued this week after a four-year investigation into alleged war crimes by Australian soldiers in Afghanistan has promoted a degree of outrage previously unknown with regard to the alleged conduct of Australian army personnel. While the public outrage is welcomed, it has completely avoided more fundamental questions about the long-running war.
The media have repeated ad nauseam that this war is 19 years old, and constitutes both the United States and Australia’s longest war time commitment. That is only part of the story. United States involvement in Afghanistan began no later than 1980 when the Western world reacted with mock outrage to the invasion into Afghanistan of Soviet troops. That invasion provided a perfect excuse to cancel Western participation in the 1980 Moscow Olympics.
The Soviet troops were not the first to enter Afghanistan. The British had fought at least three wars during the 19th century for control of that country. Maintaining control of the opium crop and the export of its principal commodity, heroin, was then, as now, one of the principal reasons for the British invasion.
The Afghanistan heroin trade was one of the principal means by which the British sought to control China. In 1900 it was estimated that one in seven Chinese adults was addicted to heroin, nearly all of it supplied by the British for whom it was not only a lucrative trade, but also a principal means of maintaining its neo-colonial control of China.
The American involvement came much later as the United States asserted ever widening power over Asia. The Soviet entry into Afghanistan gave the Americans the perfect excuse to commence activities within that country. They have never left since then and are highly unlikely to voluntarily leave in the foreseeable future.The Taliban came to power in Afghanistan in late 1996 and one of the first things they did was to move against the poppy growers. That was intolerable to a number of groups with vested interests in the maintenance of Afghanistan as the world’s principal source of heroin. The events of 11th September 2001 gave the Americans and their Western allies, including Australia, the perfect excuse to invade the country.
One of the first consequences of the United States led invasion of Afghanistan in October 2001 was a restitution of the poppy fields closed down by the Taliban government. The crop had not been completely eliminated because at no stage did the Taliban ever exercise control over the whole country. Those areas of the country that the Taliban had controlled, and from where poppies production had been hugely reduced, sprang back into life.
Over the following 19 years the poppy crop has increased with fluctuations in some years attributable to climate conditions. According to the United Nations Drug Agency, about 75% of Afghanistan’s annual crop is exported by the United States, with local war lords retaining control of approximately 20% and the balance of 5% being used by the Taliban for local financing of their operations.
United States President Donald Trump has announced that he intends to withdraw United States troops from Afghanistan. This has been opposed by the presumed next president of the United States, Joe Biden, although he has studiously ignored the role that heroin sales make to the financing of the CIA. But again, irrespective of which of Trump or Biden you choose to believe, neither man tells the truth about what is actually going on with the troop movements.
As Deborah Avant pointed out in an article published in the Washington Post, it is far from clear what will happen to United States forces, of whom actual soldiers make up a minority. As Ms Avant points out, contractors have provided the lions share of United States military staffing in America’s post 9/11 wars, of which Afghanistan is only one.
According to the Washington Post estimates, the United States has had killed approximately 2300 military personnel since the 2001 invasion, compare to 3814 “contractors”. The latter group never receive the attention given to the significantly smaller regular military personnel killed on duty in Afghanistan. Again, according to figures provided by Ms Avant, the use of private contractors increased by more than 65% during the first three years of the Trump administration. There is no evidence to suggest that these numbers have diminished in more recent months, either absolutely or relatively.
The fatalities of western military forces also receive substantial coverage in the western media. The same is not true of Afghanistan fatalities. According to an article by Paul Shrinkman there were 40 Afghanistan soldiers dying per day. Basic arithmetic shows that Afghanistan lost more troops every 60 days then the United States has lost in 19 years. It is indicative of the relative indifference of the Western media to the appalling death toll of the Afghanis that their death rates receive such minimal coverage.
The extensive media coverage in Australia to the 39 non-combatant civilian deaths at the hands of Australian SAS soldiers emphasises that point. Completely missing from the mainstream media narrative is any mention of the appalling price that the Afghanistan people are paying for Western military intervention.The major Australian political parties have no interest in ceasing this carnage. Joint statement released by the two official spokesmen, for foreign affairs and defence, carried not a hint of Australian troops being withdrawn from Afghanistan. The punitive nature of Australia to its whistle blowers is seen very clearly in the prosecution of military whistle blower David McBride who faces charges arising from his leaking of documents to the media about the unlawful killing of unarmed civilians in Afghanistan. These are precisely the matters which the report of Justice Brereton found proven.
The absence of any statement from either the government or the opposition about withdrawing Australian troops from its longest ever and illegal war in Afghanistan is also highly revealing. It should not have taken the exposing of blatant war crimes by Australian military personnel in Afghanistan to prompt a fundamental rethinking of Australia’s commitment to fighting illegal wars on behalf of the Americans. The absence of any political commitment to ending that participation is proof yet again that Australia does not make its own decisions about where and whom to fight."
The Exposure of Australian War Crimes in Afghanistan Raises Questions the Politicians are Still Reluctant to Face | New Eastern Outlook
A tray full of GOLD is not worth a moment in time.
China doesn't need special forces to kill innocent civlians
You see, WaahWaah . . . the difference is that the Australian forces are being held to account.
Chinese?
They receive commendations
Chinese?
They receive commendations
Ben Roberts-Smith
Corporal Ben Roberts-SmithMG of the Special Air Service Regiment was awarded the second Victoria Cross for Australia on 23 January 2011.[39] Corporal Roberts-Smith was awarded the medal for single-handedly charging and destroying two Taliban machine gun positions during the Shah Wali Kot Offensive in Afghanistan on 11 June 2010.[39] This act has been described as similar to that of Edward Kenna VC.[40] Corporal Roberts-Smith had previously been awarded a Medal for Gallantry in 2006, and upon receiving the VC became the most highly decorated serving member of the Australian Defence Force.[39]
He is under investigation also.
You think that isn't true?
It happened several times.
There is another series about submarines. I watched an episode about one particular German sub that had sunk several ships. It was surrounded and bombarded. The crew that abandoned ship were also strafed from the air.
Australian PM demands Chinese government apologize over doctored photo of soldier and child
Australian Prime Minister Scott Morrison has demanded an apology from the Chinese government after a doctored image of an Australian soldier holding a knife to a child’s throat was posted by a senior official.
The altered photo was posted on Twitter by Lijiaj Zhao, a spokesperson and deputy director general at the Chinese foreign ministry, with the caption: “Shocked by murder of Afghan civilians & prisoners by Australian soldiers. We strongly condemn such acts, &call for holding them accountable.”
Tensions between China and Australia have been rising, and Australia viewed the tweet as a clear provocation coming from a government that has been accused of paying little attention to criticism of its own human rights record. China has come under intense criticism from Australia and other countries for its actions cracking down o demonstrators in Hpng Kong, and for its treatment of the Uighur minority.
MORE Australian PM demands Chinese government apologize over doctored photo of soldier and child | TheHill
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