Media: The Australian
Byline: n/a
Date: 17 September 2006

THE Australian Defence Force is investigating videos taken in Iraq that
reportedly show Australian soldiers allegedly mishandling weapons and
fraternising with Iraqis.

Details of the 14 video clips were revealed in an article on the Time
magazine website.

One, Time said, shows a soldier pointing a handgun at the head of a kneeling
man, possibly another Australian soldier dressed in Arab robes. Another
shows charred corpses, the victims of terror bombings.

The actual video clips - credited to a person with the internet nickname
pornstar - were posted on the YouTube internet website but have now been
removed.

A defence force spokeswoman said it viewed any material of this nature
seriously.

"Defence is investigating the origin of the imagery," she said.

The Time item said the 14 videos were prepared by Australian members of the
security detachment in Baghdad as what it said appeared to be an unofficial
video-making contest.

The longest video is just under five minutes.

Time said they were a compilation of images of US and Australian operations
and Australian soldiers in their barrack accommodation.

One shows a soldier practising quick-drawing his handgun.

Another shows Australians socialising with Iraqis inside the barracks. Time
said that could make the Iraqis targets of insurgent forces.

It cited an unnamed former military police officer saying the videos
breached security procedures.

"To post that kind of stuff on the internet is quite derogatory to the
uniform," he said.

Defence commentator John Hunter Farrell, publisher of the Australian and NZ
Defender Magazine, said he had seen the video clips and described them as
overwhelmingly innocuous.

Mr Farrell said they did not depict Australian troops firing any shots,
while imagery of corpses had been taken from internet news reports unrelated
to any Australian operations.

"In my view this is the mother of all beat-ups," he said.

"It appals me the sanctimonious assaults directed at young Australians
serving in the nightmare that is September 2006 Iraq."

I just saw this. I've got the DVD with these videos on it. It was given to me by my mate from 2 Cav who was part of SECDET back when these were made. He gave a copy to all his mates when he got back. All it shows it what life was like, and some funny pictures thrown in of Aussie Diggers being Aussie Diggers... just mucking about and having a laugh. It's the biggest load of crap I've ever seen from the media so far. I mean I've got photos of me posing with my personal weapons, see my sig pic below for an example.

It pisses me off that the media can jump on something like this, what more from photos from 2004, and come up with this BS. I'd like to be able to show everyone the videos I've got, so you can see that it is just general soldierly fun and games, nothing dangerous or stupid.

He said soldiers needed to 'let off a bit of steam' when working in stressful environments.
"I don't think we should overreact to this," Mr Howard said today.
"I think we have to understand that soldiers work ... in very stressful environments and soldiers throughout the ages have let off a bit of steam when they're working in stressful environments."
Mr Howard said it was up to the military to decide what action to take in response to the matter.
"I will leave it to the military," Mr Howard said.
"I am not going to tell the military and I don't think anybody else should tell the military how to handle this."

From the advertiser newspaper.
Thank god are Prime Minister sees it for what it is.