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Speaker 1: New Jersey and Amanda jam Nation. We've got Chris Masters

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Speaker 1: joining us on the show.

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Speaker 2: Chris Smith, Award winning journey.

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Speaker 1: He is a pretty good journalist and Australia's best, one

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Speaker 1: of Australia's best in journalists. Absolutely fantastic And this is

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Speaker 1: one of these stories that I was just hoping would

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Speaker 1: go away. And we're talking about Ben Robert Smith. And

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Speaker 1: for a time there I thought we couldn't talk about

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Speaker 1: it because it was all under the defamation case and

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Speaker 1: we didn't want to get in trouble. But it's just

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Speaker 1: easier for us not to talk about it.

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Speaker 2: I'll give you the background to the story. We're going

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Speaker 2: to be talking to Chris who has written a book

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Speaker 2: called Flawed hero Truth, Lies and War Crimes. This was

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Speaker 2: a defamation case that was brought by Ben Robert Smith

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Speaker 2: because a couple of journalists Chris Masters, Nick Mackenzie and

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Speaker 2: a third journal as well whose name escapes me right now,

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Speaker 2: Oh here is he. Let's named them all because they're

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Speaker 2: heroes I think is David rot And it is, as

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Speaker 2: you say, it's an uncomfortable subject. These guys unearthed information

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Speaker 2: about Ben Robert Smith, our Victoria Cross recipient and some

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Speaker 2: of his actions in Afghanistan, and those actions included war crimes,

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Speaker 2: killing unarmed civilians, ordering subordinates to execute prisoners, planning weapons

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Speaker 2: on dead bodies, to fake combat deaths. And they wrote

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Speaker 2: a series of articles about this, and Ben Robert Smith

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Speaker 2: sued them in a defamation trial that went on for

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Speaker 2: eighteen months or something a long time and only recently

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Speaker 2: just a couple of months ago, even less than that,

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Speaker 2: maybe a month ago. The results came out and the

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Speaker 2: judge said that yes, are these allegations. They've proven that

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Speaker 2: they are true. So he is now known as a

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Speaker 2: war criminal. He's thinking of countersuing, etc.

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Speaker 1: Etc.

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Speaker 2: But he brought this case saying I want to prove

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Speaker 2: that this didn't happen, and the justice has said no,

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Speaker 2: those journalists have proved their case.

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Speaker 1: He steadfastly believes that he didn't do anything wrong and

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Speaker 1: will happened in the theater of war. And we spoke

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Speaker 1: to Ben Robert Smith back remember when he got the

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Speaker 1: VC all those years ago, what a charming guy was

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Speaker 1: and for men in particular. And I think my wife

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Speaker 1: and I having this chat, we're aving Berlin and you

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Speaker 1: get like a real over in Germany. You just everything

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Speaker 1: makes sense because you see a country that was ravaged

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Speaker 1: by war and then communism and everything that we have here.

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Speaker 1: But you just appreciate how lucky we are. And we

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Speaker 1: were just talking and Helen had a few wines and

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Speaker 1: she was saying, well, why don't just leave it alone,

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Speaker 1: Why don't they just leave it alone. I said, I

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Speaker 1: wish we could just leave it alone. But if you

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Speaker 1: read more about it, you think, oh, you know.

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Speaker 2: There are rules, you know, And that's what's hard for

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Speaker 2: us to understand. There are rules of engagement.

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Speaker 1: When we spoke to Aunt Middleton from SAS and we

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Speaker 1: asked his opinion about it, and said, he said, what

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Speaker 1: happens on the field of war. And I was happy

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Speaker 1: with that because I find if you're a soldier and

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Speaker 1: you go into battle to do the job that no

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Speaker 1: one else will do, then I have the utmost respect

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Speaker 1: for you.

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Speaker 2: I say, good on you, sure, but your job involves rules.

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Speaker 1: And then sitting in Berlin watching war ravage Berlin and

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Speaker 1: you read the stories about the Holocaust and all that

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Speaker 1: sort of stuf, there were soldiers. There were Nazi soldiers

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Speaker 1: in Dakau who would get paid extra money if they

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Speaker 1: shot a straggling prisoner and this prisoners start in starvation,

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Speaker 1: starving to death. But these Nazi soldiers would get extra

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Speaker 1: money from the Nazis for because they thought the prisoner

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Speaker 1: was escaping prison is an eight year old woman that

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Speaker 1: hasn't meant fed. You know. That's where is where does

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Speaker 1: the line?

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Speaker 2: Well, there is a very clear line. There's no blod

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Speaker 2: lines our rules.

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Speaker 1: But we love the antaks, we love the heroes, we

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Speaker 1: love all that sort of stuff. And when you saw

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Speaker 1: and Bed Robert Smith, just meet him. He's like a superhero.

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Speaker 1: He's seven foot tall, you know, and he was a

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Speaker 1: very articulate, charming guy.

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Speaker 2: And some of his other co soldiers, if that's the word,

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Speaker 2: spoke out against him and said this is what I

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Speaker 2: saw and it made me uncomfortable. So we like to

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Speaker 2: think that you're right, that our soldiers go and whatever

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Speaker 2: happens happens. But there is a very strict code of engagement,

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Speaker 2: and there has to be for us to remember in

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Speaker 2: post September eleven when he said, how come they can

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Speaker 2: blow us up and we can't just go and do

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Speaker 2: the same, because we want to be better than that,

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Speaker 2: and we have a very strong rules of what our

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Speaker 2: engagement is you cannot kill unarmed civilians. There's special names

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Speaker 2: for a civilian that has been captured that is shown

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Speaker 2: to not be an insurgent, etcetera, etcetera. There are thing checklists,

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Speaker 2: and the other soldiers knew it. They knew it, they behave,

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Speaker 2: they knew what their job was.

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Speaker 1: This you can well appreciate as well. Over there the

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Speaker 1: soldiers don't wear uniforms, and this is what the opposition. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: this opposition doesn't wear uniforms. So this is what Ben

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Speaker 1: Robert Smith was saying. Wheat of the kids being a

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Speaker 1: translator helping you out. Next minut he's blowing up with you.

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Speaker 2: Of course, it's not easy.

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Speaker 1: Absolutely, and that's what we're going to talk to Chris

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Speaker 1: Masters about because he has researched this, he's put everything

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Speaker 1: on there, so it'll be an interesting chat, that's for sure,