He seemed too good to be true. With his chiselled jaw, muscled physique and courageous derring-do under fire, it felt like Ben Roberts-Smith had burst into this world not from the womb but the pages of a superhero comic book.

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We prefer our heroes to be uncomplicated and Roberts-Smith, recipient of the Victoria Cross and the Medal for Gallantry, fitted the mould perfectly. He was brave, laconic and modest; the living epitome of the Anzac ideal. Each retelling of his battlefield exploits - his coolness in combat, his fierce leadership - burnished the legend until man and myth became inseparable.

But reality, like war, is complicated and messy. The five charges Roberts-Smith now faces of the war crime of murder - accusations he again denied this week - are grave. They are not about the impossible moral choice soldiers frequently face in the chaos of battle but relate to the killing of unarmed civilians in Afghanistan.

Yet powerful and influential figures in this country would have you believe otherwise. Those two dedicated Donald Trump fangirls, Gina Rinehart and Pauline Hanson, echoed by an enthusiastic pack of conservative politicians and News Ltd commentators, are working diligently to drape the case of Roberts-Smith in the national flag.

Their argument challenges every Australian. The Roberts-Smith charges, they suggest, are not so much a test of law but a test of loyalty for us all.

Rinehart says she does "not understand" the justification for prosecuting Roberts-Smith. Hanson describes Roberts-Smith's arrest as "disgraceful". Former PM Tony Abbott observes that it is wrong "to judge the actions of men in mortal combat by the standards of ordinary civilian life."

It's a seductive argument, guaranteed to win the hearts of those who believe patriotism is sporting a blue singlet and a southern cross tattoo and that legion of Trump aficionados dedicated to importing America's cultural civil wars to our shores.

But if you accept the essential logic of their argument - that what happens on the battlefield should stay on the battlefield - then the investigation of the 1968 My Lai massacre in South Vietnam, in which US soldiers slaughtered hundreds of women, children and elderly men, should never have taken place.

At its most extreme does it also mean those complicit in the Holocaust should also have been excused for their genocidal actions?

War is not a moral vacuum. It is governed, often imperfectly, by conventions designed to limit cruelty, protect civilians and preserve a shred of humanity in the most inhuman endeavour known to........

© Canberra Times