Letter to General Angus Campbell, AO, DSC, Chief of the Defence Force
4 June 2023
Introduction
Wiser individuals than I have been unable to identify any example from military history where a single unit has been more ruthlessly exploited by military and political leadership. The SAS has carried a grossly unfair burden.
Afghanistan Timeline (Sources include Wikipedia)
2001
11 September: Islamist terrorists attack New York City and Washington, killing nearly 3,000 people.
1 Squadron Group, SASR deployed to Afghanistan: (October 2001 – April 2002)
2002
16 February: Sergeant Andrew Russell (SASR) becomes the first Australian killed in Afghanistan after his patrol vehicle struck a land mine.
March: Australian and coalition forces conduct a major offensive to clear the Paktia region along the border with Pakistan in Operation Anaconda. More than 500 Taliban were reported killed.
3 Squadron Group, SASR: (April 2002 – August 2002)
2 Squadron Group, SASR: (August 2002 – November 2002)
2005
Deployment of Australian Special Forces Task Group consisted of elements from the SASR, 4th Battalion, Royal Australian Regiment (Commando), the Incident Response Regiment and logistic support personnel.
2006
July: During Operation Perth Australian special forces troops, working together with Netherlands Korps Commandotroepen, killed 150 Taliban and al-Qaeda fighters in nine days of fierce fighting in the Chora district, 40 kilometres (25 mi) north-east of Tarin Kowt in southern Afghanistan. The fighting was the heaviest experienced by Australian forces since the Vietnam War and saw six Australians wounded in action.
2007
15–19 June: Battle of Chora in and around the town of Chora (3,000 inhabitants), in Afghanistan’s Uruzgan Province, from June 15 to 19, 2007. According to some press reports, the fighting was the largest Taliban offensive of 2007 in Afghanistan, and resulted in the death of one American, two Dutch, and 16 Afghan soldiers, as well as approximately 58 civilians and 71 Taliban fighters
2008
2 September: Nine Australian Special Forces soldiers were wounded, including three seriously, during a major ambush by insurgents. Trooper Mark Donaldson (SASR) was awarded the Victoria Cross for Australia for gallantry under heavy enemy fire during this contact.
2009
March/April: Australian troops from the Special Operations Task Group and the Mentoring and Reconstruction Task Force killed at least 80 Taliban fighters in a major four-week operation in Helmand province. An Australian bomb disposal expert was killed and four others wounded.
12 April: Heavy fighting during Operation Shak Hawel in the Chora Valley north of Tarin Kowt resulted in the Battle of Kakarak during which a large Taliban force unsuccessfully attempted to ambush an Australian combined arms platoon from MRTF-1. Insurgent casualties were heavy and believed to include 20 killed and 20 wounded, while there were no Australian casualties.
Early May: Senior insurgent commander, Mullah Noorullah, was killed in a joint Australian operation after he and one other insurgent were tracked moving into a tunnel system by Special Forces in Oruzgan province. Noorullah was also understood to have been involved in the major battle with Afghan and Australian forces on 12 April.
October: Sabi, an Australian special forces explosives detection dog which was declared missing in action after 2 September 2008 ambush, is recovered safe and well.
2010
21–23 April: Australian Special Forces soldiers responding to a call for help from elders in Gizab in northern Uruzgan become involved in heavy fighting over several days, after local nationals staged an uprising against the shadow Taliban government. During the uprising residents of Gizab captured several Taliban fighters, and were then attacked by nearly a dozen insurgents in retaliation, with the town’s local defence force, supported by the Australians and coalition aircraft, repelling the attack. The operation resulted in the clearance of the town and a number of insurgent casualties.
10–14 June: Australian Special Forces and Afghan troops conduct an offensive in the Shah Wali Kot district of Kandahar province, resulting in very heavy insurgent casualties, including up to 100 killed in action. The operation occurred in preparation for the coalition clearance of Kandahar and significantly disrupted a major insurgent safe haven. One Australian soldier and one Afghan were wounded in the action. Corporal Ben Roberts-Smith of the Special Air Service Regiment was awarded the Victoria Cross for Australia for his actions during the offensive.
21 June: Three Australian soldiers of the 2nd Commando Regiment were killed when the US UH-60 Blackhawk helicopter carrying them crashed in northern Kandahar Province. The helicopter’s US pilot was also killed, while a US crewman and the other seven Australian commandos aboard were also injured.
24 August: Australian forces from 1st Mentoring Task Force and Afghan National Army soldiers are involved in intense fighting during a three-hour close quarters battle with Taliban forces in Deh Rahwood, in western Uruzgan during the Battle of Derapet. AH-64 Apache attack helicopters provided close air support before the combined Australian and Afghan patrol broke contact after inflicting heavy casualties on the Taliban who were forced to retreat into the mountains. One Australian was killed in the fighting, while a large number of insurgents were known to have been killed. Corporal Daniel Keighran of the 6th Battalion, Royal Australian Regiment was awarded the Victoria Cross for Australia on 1 November 2012 for actions in the Battle of Derapet
2011
30 May: An Australian Army CH-47D Chinook helicopter crashed during a resupply operation in Zabul Province, killing one Australian and injuring five others. The Chinook was unable to be recovered, and was subsequently destroyed in place.
9 September: Australian forces from MTF-3 were heavily engaged during the Battle of Doan.
30 October: incident in which three Australians were killed as well as an Afghan interpreter and seven injured after an ANA soldier turned his gun against the Australians.
2013
At the end of October 2013, Prime Minister Tony Abbott traveled to Afghanistan with Opposition Leader Bill Shorten for a special ceremony at the Australian base in Tarin Kowt in Uruzgan.
15 December. The last combat troops were withdrawn. Approximately 400 personnel remained in Afghanistan as trainers and advisers, in Kandahar and Kabul.
2014
13 February: On 13 February 2014, Prime Minister Tony Abbott announced that Corporal Cameron Baird of the 2nd Commando Regiment would be awarded a posthumous Victoria Cross. Corporal Baird had been awarded the Medal for Gallantry in 2007 and was killed in Afghanistan in 2013
31 December: Operation Slipper concluded with Australia’s “train, advise and assist” mission in Afghanistan as part of the NATO-led Resolute Support Mission being conducted under the code-name Operation Highroad after this date. Approximately 400 Australian personnel are deployed as part of the new mission, including personnel in mentoring and advisory roles, as well as medical personnel, force protection and logistic support. Over 26,000 Australian personnel have served in Afghanistan.
2021
August 31, Evacuation of US and allied troops complete.
The above reference to over 26,000 Australian personnel having served in Afghanistan is potentially misleading. The 26,000 figure almost certainly relates to individual deployments. Taking into account the undisclosed multiple deployments of SAS personnel, it is possible that the number of Australian service personnel who served in harm’s way in Afghanistan may have been as low as 8,000. The Defence Department should come clean and list all the individuals who served, showing the number of deployments for each.
The author of the epic letter
Captain Daniel Mealey, photographed by Cpl Janine Fabre, Kabul, December 2014
Dr Daniel Mealey to the Chief of the Defence Force
Tuesday, 30 May 2023
Dear General Angus Campbell AO, DSC,
I drank alcohol while on deployment in Afghanistan. There, I’ve got it off my chest.
I note you’ve come down heavily on your troops, with a new directive stating “deployed ADF personnel are banned from drinking alcohol,” reiterating previous advice that was “flouted by the nation’s most elite troops.” May I remind you, Sir, that all alcohol consumed by the troops was provided to us by ADF Senior Officers, to be consumed on days of Western cultural significance?
In hindsight, this was in spite of Middle Eastern cultural sensitivities likely offended by the ADF. In hindsight, I am sorry for my own insensitivity.
I drank my beer on Christmas Day 2014, Remembrance Day, and numerous other days, sitting next to two Major Generals (each decorated with an AM, CSC, and DSM) who drank theirs. Are you and your top ADF leaders now to be reprimanded for providing that alcohol, and drinking it with your troops in Afghanistan? Are you all to lose your service medals, and your coveted DSCs, AMs and CSCs?
Or are we going to continue this internationally-embarrassing facade, that you and your Senior Officers are too important to be held to account for mounting leadership failures? Your public position of a retrospective alcohol policy is a clear example of what you and your officers consistently do: you weaponise your rank and your media access, re-inventing a narrative that paints your own soldiers as character-flawed (criminals even) insisting that your heavy-handed reproach of your own soldiers makes you somehow disciplined (a leader even).
Where did all of this start?
Lest we forget that in June 2019 the Federal Police stormed the ABC studios in Ultimo in search of the Afghan Files. Australian media began an immediate rebellion against the Coalition government by way of weekly emotional media stories about deceased veterans and their mothers. The consequent national support for veterans was palpable. Your own public image was annihilated (as was the Coalition government’s political potency consequent to the LNP’s decade-long allegiance with your opposition to a Royal Commission to investigate your failures).
With the most expensive, tax-payer-funded PR and media executives at your fingertips, what would be the best way for you to reframe these nationally-lauded suicidal veterans as contemptuous?
The invention of a “war crimes” story would do the trick. And it did do the trick, didn’t it Sir?
My infantry colonel Dad went to Vietnam only once. All my WWI, WWII ancestors went to war only once. You are responsible for sending your own soldiers to Afghanistan up to 13 (thirteen) deployments in a row. You have consistently ignored the impact this has had on their lives, livelihoods and families, painting any of their real or perceived failures in war as just that: THEIR failures.
Every one of the accusations you have made about your troops are YOUR failures.
It’s time, Sir, that you sink with your ship.
You and your Senior Officers are all decorated with DSCs, AMs and CSCs, but you’re fooling no one with your decorations. All of you have succumbed to pressures from the very politicians who dictate which of you will become Governor General. Your career ambitions have blinded you to your primary responsibility: to ensure the welfare of the young men and young women that Australian parents have entrusted into your care for the defence of our nation.
1,200 of them are dead.
The human toll of 1,200 deceased veterans is your legacy. Truth and justice are unstoppable – your name and those of your cowardly silent Senior Officers will go down in history as the most despised military leaders of all time.
This Thursday, news will reverberate around the world that will shake the ADF to its foundations. Either way – you ought to brace yourself for a fight to defend the most noble military family this nation has ever known.
I hope, and pray that you will adopt a humble and responsible approach to the issues raised above. And I hope, and pray that the 1,200 families affected by your defective leadership will find in their hearts to forgive you.
In continued service to my ADF patients,
Dr Daniel Mealey
Dr Daniel Mealey now practices at the Queen Street Medical Centre, Moruya NSW and is a proud advocate for the More Doctors for Rural Australia Program. We need more like him.
The British Experience
Here is a link to a splendid satirical article in Quadrant Online of 11 April 2017. The author of My Agenda: Destroy Australia is Frank Pledge, a pseudonym of Lt Col Alistair Pope (Ret’d) psc, a prolific writer of military wisdom, who provides this valuable link to Strategy Page of 10 May 2021. Extract follows:
The new British Special Operations Brigade is intended to support the SAS (Special Air Service), one of the British World War II commando units that established the standards for current elite special operations troops. Under the new reorganization SAS will spend more time working with MI6 operatives in covert operations worldwide. These this will make possible a new campaign to disrupt Russian, Iranian, North Korean and Chinese use of special operations forces, often not wearing uniforms, to carry out disruptive operations.
Some of these operations will be in Britain itself, where, since the 1990s, Russian special operations agents were found to be carrying out recent espionage and assassination operations against targets inside Britain. Iran has been doing the same thing in Europe and other parts of the world. This is a capability showing up with more frequency and using SAS/MI6 teams to detect and thwart such attacks is seen as a solution. This approach had already been adopted by the Americans several decades ago when they successfully used army Special Forces troops in plain clothes to augment overseas CIA operations.
One reason for assigning SAS to MI6 is to keep their work secret and immune from lawsuits. After 2003 British special operations troops were often accused of war crimes and sued in British courts. An extensive investigation, costing $40 million and taking years, discovered that all these lawsuits were scams by Iraqis and Afghans trying to con foreign troops out of more “compensation” for false claims. This often worked in Afghanistan until the Americans investigated and confirmed local rumors that these were all scams often exploited by the locals because they could.
[END OF EXTRACT]
Voice of the Veteran: Heston Russell, 8th December 2020:
https://voiceofaveteran.ac-page.com/Statement-HestonRussell
I am not an alarmist by nature; but I am a proud Australian Veteran with 16 years of service including combat in Afghanistan. It was insulting enough to suffer the Chief of the Defence Force threatening to write to the Governor General to remove the Meritorious Unit Citation from every Special Operations soldier who had served in Afghanistan between April 2007 & December 2013. This threat has done untold psychological and emotional damage to veterans and their families, those living and deceased. It has inevitably led to a heightened instance of suicide or the contemplation of such a final act within our Veteran community.
I have expressed publicly, on the behalf of Veterans, my anger and anguish at such a callous response to the Brereton report which the Prime Minister acknowledged he had not read. This threat has opened old wounds in a way that Politicians, Defence hierarchy & civilians may not understand. However, it is now clear that this threat had been contemplated months before the release of the Brereton Report. The Letters Patent providing for the award of the Meritorious Unit Citation, not to individuals but to a Unit, were issued by Her Majesty the Queen on the 15th of January 1991, they were countersigned by Prime Minister Hawke.
Those Letters Patent did not provide any powers to revoke the Citation from a Unit – namely any Special Operations Task Group, or Task Force 66. That will be transparent in the documents attached to this release.
It now transpires that the response by General Campbell to the Report via the threat to write the Governor General was not spontaneous. Sadly, the Prime Minister appears complicit in all of this because, well before the release of the report, and presumably anyone’s ability to read it, changes were made to the Letters Patent, dated July 13, 2020. The Brereton Report was released on November 19, 2020. That is five months after the Prime Minister’s changes to the Letters Patent giving powers to the Governor General to revoke the Citation from an entire Unit, not the revoking of the right to wear, but the total revocation of the Citation, innocent and guilty alike. And this extreme change, without any public announcement, without any public debate, without any public scrutiny, and I presume without any endorsement from the parliament of Australia has been countersigned by the Australian Prime Minister Scott Morrision – five months before the release of the Report. In other words, the psychological, emotional and traumatic damage to Australia’s service men and women had been planned months in advance of the Report’s release, a report that is now still to be investigated and tested. I have said before, that this goes to the very heart of our Constitutional and Democratic rights – the Constitutional obligation to the proper defence of the nation has been seriously compromised by the threat to the morale of those serving, those who have served, and those a government would hope to recruit to serve.
The simple threat to our Democratic fabric derives from the denial of the presumption of innocence by so called credible information that has not been tested in a court of law.
I hereby call upon the Prime Minister to explain his actions to change the Letters Patent months prior to the release of the Brereton Report.
To explain what recommendations were provided to him and by whom, and to produce these documents for review. I call upon all parliamentarians, as our elected representatives, to challenge why these actions were allowed to occur. How and without any accompanying plans or actions to support our Veterans and their families who have been gravely impacted by the actions of our Prime Minister and his senior Defence leaders.
I further demand, on behalf of all Veterans, an apology from the Prime Minister, the Minister for Defence, the Minister for Veterans’ Affairs, the Chief of the Defence Force, and the Chief of Army, for the reckless and calculated damage that has been done.
The over 65,000 Australians that have joined our petition to “Maintain the Memory of the Meritorious Many” at voiceofaveteran.org deserve a response. I suspect that millions others, if they knew of the background to all of this, would feel similarly.”
Alan Jones AO Radio Program:
Long before the Brereton report was released on November 19, men who served in Afghanistan were being collared, interrogated, humiliated and mentally destroyed by Defence heavyweights from Brereton down.
“It started as early as March last year, and I have spent time with one of these families.”
Alan Jones spoke with the wife of one those veterans, who detailed the “immoral” treatment of her husband and the difficult effects it has had on their family.
“I’m devastated that a man who has given over 22 years of his life for a country that he absolutely adores can have their back turned on them like this,” she said.
[END OF EXTRACT FROM HESTON RUSSELL]
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Comment by Nelle-finally these un Australian so called veterans called to task- with General Angus Campbell leading the charge -a name since the Glencoe massacre synonymous with treachery- these ADF members are a disgrace and they should be stripped of medals and kicked out of the service -we support and are proud of our SAS and appalled at how they have been treated by superior officers -their recent target Ben Roberts – Smith is typical of their shameful behaviour -Ben’s sterling career and his courage under fire can never be disputed but it has been smeared by these false allegations -Undermining these young men is an act of treason and with govt and media joining the witch hunt they, too, need to be held to account but in this society of Woke we live in we will not hold our breath
Nelle's journey 