 Welcome to Consortium News. This is Cathy Vogan reporting on day two of the David McBride trial. The prosecution and defence continued to spar over the previous day's testimony, conflicting again over whether a soldier has a duty to the nation or only to his superior officers. McBride, who served two terms in Afghanistan as a lawyer with the Australian Defence Force, the ADF, has been charged in a five-count indictment for a trial that is expected to last three weeks. The prosecution argued on Monday that McBride broke laws of military discipline by leaking to the Australian media. McBride's lawyers conceded in court that he indeed broke such regulations but that he had a duty to the nation that superseded military discipline. His leaks to the Australian Broadcasting Corporation revealed murders of unarmed Afghans by Australian soldiers. Trish McDonald, the chief prosecutor, said the concept of duty in the law says it is not in the public interest to reveal classified information to the public. McBride's primary duty, she said, was to follow orders. The accused was a legal officer, she asserted. He was not appointed to inform the press. He contravened his official duty. In fact, there is a public interest in non-disclosure, the prosecutor argued. The defence agreed that McBride had indeed broken military regulations but that he had a duty to the nation to do so. On Tuesday, Stephen Hodgers, the chief defence council gave an example of two ships on a collision course with the captain under strict military orders not to reveal the location of his ship. The captain had to dissipate the order to avoid a collision. It would be a breach of a lawful order, he said, which would nevertheless be a matter for a military tribunal, not a civilian court. Hodgers also argued that an Australian soldier's duty is based on oath to serve the British sovereign whose duty is to care for the interest of the entire nation. The defence arguments go nowhere, Trish McDonald, the chief prosecutor, told the court on Tuesday. The first thing to notice about the oath is the wording and the wording is serve. In the context of McBride, it meant giving service to the Queen, she said. Serve here does not mean to act in the public interest. It means nothing more nor less than render service, said McDonald. She went on. Serve means to a commander to fight for or to obey in military actions, not in the context of interpreting an oath. To interpret serve to mean to act in the public interest is to turn on its head, the concept of service to King or Queen, she said. It's not for the soldier to do whatever he thinks is right. Nowhere in the oath does it refer to public interest or that a soldier must act in the public interest, she added. If it were, Parliament would have said so, she added. McDonald quoted a 19th century reference on military justice and statutory powers saying, there is nothing so dangerous to the civil establishment of the state as an undisciplined or reactionary army. For the defence, Hodgers counted that, quote, the duty to serve the sovereign does not require blind obedience to orders. He asked that the judge instruct the jury on the law that would allow it to decide on this. Hodgers said in the 21st century, for the crown to make the assertion that to obey unquestioningly orders of superiors is to ignore Nuremberg. The Nuremberg tribunal that tried Nazi war criminals established that a soldier had a duty to disobey orders. The defences requested that McBride's case be heard by a three judge panel in a court of appeal. Instead of the sole justice David Mossup. Mossup is expected to render his decision on this on Wednesday. A question remains after day two. Why was McBride not tried in a military court? Were the defence argues the case should properly reside? One possibility is the Australian government's motive in prosecuting McBride in a civilian court could be to satisfy US pressure on the government to crack down on leakers. A reluctance by the Australian government to investigate its alleged war criminals rather than just the alleged leaker could be based on the US Leahy Act, which prevents the US from selling military equipment to units of national armies convicted of war crimes. So far only one Australian soldier has been charged with murder in Afghanistan. The only other Australian on trial is McBride. See you tomorrow for day three. But as a man of the law and what is still for ready? Well, he knew that he was the whistle of honesty, truth and morality. Do it again. He knew that he was the whistle. Now our government so far have put him on strike for revealing hard truths to his nation. But the truth cannot die in the face of their lives and the truth will be his vindication. If you are a consumer of independent news in the first place you should be going to is Consortium News and please do try to support them when you can. It doesn't have its articles behind a paywall. It's free for everyone. It's one of the best news sites out there and it's been in the business of independent journalism and adversarial independent journalism for over two decades. I hope that with the public's continuing support of Consortium News it will continue for a very long time to come. Thank you so much.