A Labor/Fairfax smear for the Canning by-election. No substance, no relevance - just a dirty smear.

Saturday, 22 August 2015

(HOPEFULLY!) THE FINAL UPDATE

Here's a video of this very impressive young man's speech today at the WA Liberal Party Conference. Thanks to Jill Jacks for posting.

UPDATE

(photo Facebook)

This from the Prime Minister who's at the Liberal Party's WA state conference where Andrew Hastie has just delivered a speech, high praise indeed.

What an extraordinary speech by Andrew Hastie. I am so pleased and proud that he is our candidate in Canning
— Tony Abbott (@TonyAbbottMHR) August 22, 2015

Here's a little of Captain Hastie's speech today in this AAP report:

THE Liberal candidate for the federal seat of Canning has defended his actions commanding a unit that was investigated for chopping the hands off dead Taliban fighters.

THE 2013 incident in Afghanistan was carried out by troops under the command of then captain Andrew Hastie, who addressed the West Australian Liberal state conference on Saturday.

"Everyone I served with conducted themselves with honour and integrity," he said.

"Secondly, not everything goes to plan in any aspect of life, let alone in a high pressure war zone where people are trying to kill you."

Mr Hastie said he wasn't at the scene when it happened and when he found out about the incident, he did what was required - promptly reporting it up the chain of command.

"I was above and away in a helicopter, orbiting overhead.

"I can say with great confidence that those soldiers involved directly with the incident were acting in what they believed to be the appropriate process laid out by Defence.

"We were engaged in a high intensity, complex and dangerous battle.

"It is critical when you are fighting the Taliban that you gather evidence and do what you can to investigate the precise identification of your enemy."

He said the matter had been dealt with by an inquiry and all but one of the troops were cleared.

That man's case had not yet been finalised, but that should happen quickly, Mr Hastie said.

"Out of concern for the soldier involved, I am disappointed that my candidacy has brought this issue to the forefront of media attention," he said.

"My actions at the time were appropriate.

"As reporters, there are differing views as to whether what happened constituted a breach to the rules of war.

"I have now left the defence force with a clean slate.

"I've not lived my life behind a desk pushing paper. I've acted."

UPDATE ENDS

The Liberal Party has chosen former Special Air Service Regiment soldier Captain Andrew Hastie to stand in Canning for the upcoming by-election after the untimely death of Don Randall.

Here's a little from his Facebook page:

Andrew Hastie

Yesterday at 7:55am ·

I’ve been selected as the Liberal Party of Australia's candidate at the Canning by-election.

I want to follow in the late Don Randall’s footsteps and serve the hard working people of Canning.

I’m a 32 year old husband and father. I’m also an Army Captain with the Special Air Service Regiment. With my wife Ruth, we volunteer when we can in our community.

I have a plan to get started straight away to deliver for the people of Canning and I look forward to getting out in the community over the next few weeks to get your input.

Captain Hastie joined the Australian Defence Force after the September 11, 2001, attacks. He served three tours of Afghanistan, advised the Abbott government on Operation Sovereign Borders and deployed on operations against the Islamic State terror group in the Middle East.

By all accounts he was an accomplished soldier who's packed a lot of living into his 32 years.

So how is Fairfax's form leading a story about him with this:

Andrew Hastie, Liberal byelection candidate, was in charge of troop probed for chopping hands off Taliban

The former SAS soldier standing as the Liberal Party's prize recruit in a key federal by-election was the officer in command of a troop being investigated for chopping the hands off dead Taliban fighters in Afghanistan.

Fairfax Media has learnt that the 2013 incident was carried out by one or more soldiers who were under the command of Captain Andrew Hastie, 32, who has been pre-selected as the Liberal candidate for the byelection in the West Australian seat of Canning.

The hands of three Taliban fighters who had been killed in combat by the SAS soldiers were believed to have been removed for the purposes of identifying them by fingerprinting, sparking a defence investigation that has lasted more than two years and is still going on.

You can read the story online at Fairfax's websites here:

Tt's hard to see how this story is newsworthy to anyone other than Labor sympathisers.

If you read down far enough into the story you'll find this:

Several well-informed sources have confirmed to Fairfax Media that the incident took place within the troop of about 30 soldiers whom Captain Hastie commanded. However, it is understood he was not present at the time of the incident but was rather elsewhere on the battlefield.

So Captain Hastie wasn't there and had no role in the incident and couldn't have influenced his men either way in what they did.

Then there's this:

The ABC reported in 2013 that the SAS soldiers had in fact been given advice by an investigator from the Australian Defence Force Investigative Service that they could cut the hands off Taliban corpses if that was the only way to identify them – if for instance they were in a firefight and could not take fingerprints at the scene.

A statement by then chief of the defence force David Hurley said the Australians had been engaged in a "high intensity, complex and dangerous battle" at the time of the incident.

So Captain Hastie wasn't there, took no part in the incident and the "incident" itself relates to troops doing what they were told to do for the purposes of identifying killed Taliban. There's no apparent allegation of misconduct.

Here's Neil James of the Australia Defence Association quoted at the tail-end of the story:

Neil James, executive director of the Australia Defence Association, said the hand-chopping did not constitute a war crime because the soldiers were doing it out of military necessity.

"The action, although shocking to some, was justified by the principle of military necessity and did not constitute any type of breach of the laws of war," he said.

Mr James said he understood Captain Hastie was elsewhere on the battlefield when the incident happened and therefore was not responsible.

"He was not the commander who made the decisions.

"Nor could he have influenced those decisions, because the rest of the unit was deployed somewhere else."

Mr James added: "At least he has done something important with his life before he runs for Parliament."

Thank you for your service Captain Hastie - after dealing with the Taliban and ISIS I'm sure that you're more than a match for Labor, Fairfax and their dirty tricks.

PS - in researching this story I visited the Liberal Party of WA's webpage looking for biographical details on Captain Hastie. The Party should fix its website post haste, the late Don Randall is still listed as the sitting member.

https://www.wa.liberal.org.au/federal/representatives

And good luck to Captain Hastie who has indeed done something with his life!

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