David McBride, the man who revealed that Australia’s special forces in Afghanistan had committed atrocities and faced a compromised chain of command, was condemned on May 14 to a prison term of five years and eight months.

Without McBride’s feats, there would have been no Afghan Files published by the ABC. The Brereton Inquiry, established to investigate alleged war crimes, also validated McBride’s efforts.

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(That document subsequently identified 39 instances of alleged unlawful killings of Afghan civilians by members of the special forces.)

In an affidavit, McBride explained how he wished Australians to realise that “Afghan civilians were being murdered and that Australian military leaders were at the very least turning the other way and at worst tacitly approving this behaviour”.

Furthermore, he said, “soldiers were being improperly prosecuted as a smokescreen to cover [the leadership’s] inaction and failure to hold reprehensible conduct to account”.

For taking and disclosing 235 documents from defence offices, mainly located in the Australian Capital Territory (ACT), the former military lawyer was charged with five national security offences.

He also found that Australia’s whistleblowing laws are fundamentally........

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