The peril of excusing war crimes

In the lead-up to the third US presidential debate, Australian media were firmly focused overseas—presumably awaiting the next controversial piece of outrage from then candidate Trump. Would it be comments about sex or race? Would he again criticise the military strategy against ISIS? Perhaps he would again call for waterboarding, torture and the targeting of the innocent families of known terrorists.¹

Had they kept an eye closer to home, more might have noticed our own Senator Jacqui Lambie making some Trump-esque proposals of her own. Lambie, a former soldier, asked Senate Estimates to consider offering ‘pre-emptive pardons’ to Australian soldiers accused of breaching the Geneva Conventions or committing war crimes. The measure would, as Buzzfeed’s Mark di Stefano reported, show an ‘extraordinary debt of gratitude’ to Australian soldiers.² To the senator’s chagrin, her proposal was rejected. In a media release, she said: