Australia Defence Association

Neil James: "Noise around Afghanistan inquiry risks distracting from need to prevent future war crimes". #ausdef #auspol #CivilControlOfTheMilitary #WarCrimes #ADF aspistrategist.org.au/noise-around-a… via @aspi_org

A smoking bucket? Not even a genuine camp-fire?

As time now flies & Anzac Day is a month away on Saturday, April 25th ... this useful guide may help some of you or those who you have observed in previous years who need help. Standard you walk past is the standard you accept, etc. Carry on.

I will summarise advice obtained from a legally eminent friend: The use of armed force by US/Israeli against Iran is lawful under the terms of UN Security Council Resolution 2817, and was lawful before that Resolution was passed under UN Charter Article 51 (self defence). It is arguably lawful for a state to declare that: · a terrorist attack comprises and armed attack which triggers Article 51, · another state is developing a nuclear weapon, there is a real risk that it would use it and negotiation has not been able to stop development. In the context of modern weaponry that would be sufficient to trigger Article 51even if the development of nuclear weapons is not complete. · a state sponsoring terrorism on a large scale around the world is a party to an armed attack and that is sufficient to trigger Article 51 so that the victim states may use force in self defence against that sponsor. Iran is a rogue state which has exported terrorism around the world. In particular it has sponsored Hamas, Hezbollah and the Houthis in their aim to destroy Israel. It preaches hatred against Israel, the USA and western liberal democracies and is a constant threat to peace and security. If it were to obtain a nuclear weapon there is no doubt that it would use it, or threaten to use it, for its own malign purposes, or export terror and extrem violence under the umbrella afforded by its nuclear weapons. The US and Israel’s action to destroy Iran’s ability to continue their policy against the west was and is lawful initially in self defence under UN Article 51 and now under UNSCR 2817.

📍Tehran, Iran — In a final interview before his 1979 overthrow, Mohammad Reza Shah Pahlavi warned the West was dangerously naive about extremist movements. He argued you can’t reason with groups willing to massacre opponents, and that trying to apply Western logic or empathy to them is a fatal misread of reality.

In my country, Hatzollah operates largely in Bondi, and is a 'designated first responder'. This means that I could be a raging antisemite, but if I was drowning (on Shabbat), and 000 operators told Hatzollah to attend the emergency, Shlomo, Moshe, and Solomon would have no choice but to attend as quickly as they could, and diligently use their skills and training to save my life. They could not refuse to go. And they could not choose to provide me with a lower standard of care than they would give to their most respected Rabbi, for example. And if the nearest hospital is a Jewish hospital, they must take me there, and the Jewish doctors cannot refuse to treat me. Now, if you'd like to start a Catholic or Protestant ambulance service, and you're willing to abide by the same rules, then knock yourself out* - otherwise, sit down. *Hatzollah would have to treat your concussion too if you did in fact knock yourself out, even though you're a wanker.

I took the floor again to address Francesca Albanese's report, which was endorsed by Iran, Cuba, and others. The PLO ambassador kept banging on the table to interrupt me. They gave him the floor when I concluded—see below. Mr. Chair, Everything we just heard from the world’s worst abusers of human rights is absolutely false. Now, we have before us a report that claims to apply international law. In reality, Ms. Albanese’s report abandons it. From the very first page, her conclusion is already written: Israel is accused of genocide, and everything that follows is constructed to support that claim. This is not legal analysis. It is advocacy. Her report radically redefines torture — no longer as the specific, intentional abuse of a detainee, but as virtually everything: war, displacement, fear, even the existence of conflict itself. If everything is torture, then nothing is. She goes further, collapsing the distinction between torture and genocide, inventing a theory that has no grounding in international law and jurisprudence. At the same time, she omits the most basic context: Why is there is no accounting of the October 7 massacre? Why no accounting of Hamas embedding its forces among civilians? Why no accounting of hostages held underground and tortured? Mr. Chair, Israel is mentioned 173 times. Hamas? Not even once. Instead, we are given a narrative built largely on unverified submissions, partisan sources, and selective quotations — elevated into sweeping legal conclusions. Distinguished Delegates, International law demands rigor. It demands objectivity. It demands that we test claims against evidence — not the other way around. Ms. Albanese’s report does the opposite. It stretches definitions, ignores context, and reaches conclusions first. And in doing so, it does not strengthen human rights. It undermines them. I urge this Council to reject this report. Thank you. (The Chair then gave the floor to the PLO rep, who had been repeatedly banging on his desk. He objected that I was referencing Albanese's report after the special debate on that had already concluded. But this was an absurd objection because we were in the Item 7 General Debate, which includes everything, including her report. The Spanish ambassador chairing the debate, VP of the UNHRC, failed to recognize this, and instead indicated his agreement with the PLO rep.)

⚓🌊 Commuting in through five-metre swells, 4️⃣0️⃣-knot Arctic blasts and near-zero visibility fog might cause some concern for those on their way to work. But for officer of the watch Lieutenant Amie Harris, despite the near-freezing conditions outside, the coolest place to be is driving on the bridge of HMAS Toowoomba. Read more ➡️ spr.ly/6018B6bJUn #YourADF #AusNavy

And yet, from the mid 1980s onwards, the new generation of leaders running Australia's resource-industry exporters no longer understood the fundamental connection with exporting over secure sealanes. Unlike those with WW2 experience (even as boys, not war veterans) they replaced. By the early 2000s it was even worse. With little or no interest in defence and wider national-security issues at all. Now the (strategic) chickens have come to roost. But often can't land because our farmlands, minesites and "community gardens" are so full of sacred cows.

With @UKLFI clarifying the applicable international law on cluster munitions and regarding strikes on oil fields, because the media appear consistently uninclined to address either.

Fraser was still shouting orders after the blast. Stay back. More mines. Stay back. Second Lieutenant John Fraser, 23, from Surfers Paradise, was lying in a minefield in the Long Hai Hills with wounds that would kill him. His men were running toward him. He told them to stop. Hours earlier, on 24 March 1968, Fraser had been leading 9 Platoon, C Company, 3RAR, through the Hon Vung feature. The jungle ridge was seeded with mines. The Viet Cong had buried M16 bounding mines along every approach. When triggered, the device launched one metre into the air and detonated at waist height, spraying steel in every direction. Fraser stepped on one. He heard the fuze arm. Standard doctrine said drop flat. But his men were too close. A bounding blast would cut through them at chest height. Fraser forced both feet together on top of the mine and drove his weight down. The explosion tore through him. It knocked the men of 9 Platoon off their feet. But the mine never bounced. Fraser's body absorbed the force that was meant to kill at range. Three soldiers nearby were wounded. All three survived. Before he was a platoon commander, Johnny Fraser was a Gold Coast kid with a gap-toothed grin. He grew up on the Gold Coast Highway in Surfers Paradise, played First XV rugby at both Nudgee and The Southport School, and was selected for the Combined GPS First XV. He started medicine at the University of Queensland. Lasted one term. Switched to a cadet role with an agricultural company. When his birthday was drawn in the national service ballot, Fraser trained at Scheyville. Instructors noted his calm under pressure and natural authority. His two-year obligation was nearly finished when 3RAR began preparing for Vietnam. He could have gone home. Instead, he applied to extend his service and deploy. He sailed with the battalion to Vung Tau in December 1967, took command of 9 Platoon, and led his men in the 3RAR ballad, "There Won't be Many Coming Back." Gallows humour from men who knew the odds. On 24 March, Fraser didn't come back. He was evacuated by helicopter. He died before it reached Vung Tau. The radio message to battalion headquarters was short. Johnny Fraser was dead. He is buried at Allambe Memorial Park in Nerang. A park 280 metres from his childhood home carries his name. At The Southport School, the most respected rugby trophy is not awarded for tries scored. It goes to the best tackler, the player who puts his body on the line for the team. It is called the Lieutenant John Fraser Memorial Trophy. His name is inscribed on Panel 5 of the Roll of Honour at the Australian War Memorial. Lest we forget Rod Hutchings Director Virtual War Memorial Australia Share to keep his story alive 👇🏽

@MaryKostakidis Yes it does. And free of Hezbollah - the cause of the problem.

20% of Lebanon’s population displaced. Does Lebanon have a right to exist?

🧵An IDF airstrike on Ismail Haniyeh’s home in Gaza on June 25, 2024 reportedly killed his sister, husband and 8 children per Hamas spokesperson Mahmoud Basal. BUT HE LIED. It killed 5 adult men, including a confirmed Qassam fighter. Combatants were targeted. Full details: 1/

2024: UNESCO Director-General condemns killing of “journalist” Mohamed Naser Abu Huwaidi. 2026: Palestinian Islamic Jihad claims Abu Huwaidi as a “martyred” commander of their “media war unit.”

Taiwan remains the third most democratic country in the Asia-Pacific after Australia and New Zealand.

Temporarily of course. With temporary being nowhere near as long as 48 years. The length of UNIFIL's failure, since 1978, to enforce UN Security Council Resolutions requiring Hezbollah demilitarisation in the area from the Israel-Lebanon border to the Litani River. And the return of effective, not nominal, Lebanese sovereignty over this area. Including stopping decades of Hezbollah rocket, missile and other attacks on civilians in northern, and now central, Israel.

Yes, a Chinese blockade of Taiwan is SO remote that Beijing only produces thousands of state-sponsored videos, exercises, and propaganda pieces about it annually. Totally just a coincidence. Nothing to see here. 🙄

GOOD: U.N. Human Rights Council decides to hold urgent debate “to discuss the recent military aggression launched by the Islamic Republic of Iran” against Bahrain, Jordan, Kuwait, Oman, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, and UAE. BAD: They forgot to mention Iran's deadly attacks on Israelis.

Always worth reading @ksadjadpour. His latest reflects on the history of American public opinion and wars in the Middle East. The Iranian regime knew exactly the playbook to reach for. The North Vietnamese had written it.

A great Navy day on Saturday attending the Exercise Kakadu Fleet Review in Sydney, a long-standing naval tradition of reviewing an assembled fleet. Thirty-one ships, 19 nations, the largest gathering of foreign warships in Sydney Harbour in more than a decade.

False. Assessing #LOAC proportionality rule requires evidence of incidental harm and concrete & direct mil advantage EXPECTED from EACH ATTACK. Anyone claiming otherwise is either ignorant or trying to mislead you. Considering the track record of this source, it's likely both.⤵️